Pyramids (Discworld 7)

'All cats are cats,' said Dios, vaguely, and added, 'If we would be so gracious as to follow us.' He motioned Teppic towards a distant arch.

Teppic followed slowly. He'd been back home for what seemed like ages, and it still didn't feel right. The air was too dry. The clothes felt wrong. It was too hot. Even the buildings seemed wrong. The pillars, for one thing. Back home, back at the Guild, pillars were gracefull fluted things with little bunches of stone grapes and things around the top. Here they were massive pear-shaped lumps, where all the stone had run to the bottom.

Half a dozen servants trailed behind him, carrying the various items of regalia.

He tried to imitate Dios's walk, and found the movements coming back to him. You turned your torso this way, then you turned your head this way, and extended your arms at forty-five degrees to your body with the palms down, and then you attempted to move.

The high priest's staff raised echoes as it touched the flagstones. A blind man could have walked barefoot through the palace by tracing the time-worn dimples it had created over the years.

'I am afraid that we will find that our father has changed somewhat since we last saw him,' said Dios conversationally, as they undulated by the fresco of Queen Khaphut accepting Tribute from the Kingdoms of the World.

'Well, yes,' said Teppic, bewildered by the tone. 'He's dead, isn't he?'

'There's that, too,' said Dios, and Teppic realised that he hadn't been referring to something as trivial as the king's current physical condition.

He was lost in a horrified admiration. It wasn't that Dios was particularly cruel or uncaring, it was simply that death was a mere irritating transition in the eternal business of existence. The fact that people died was just an inconvenience, like them being out when you called.

It's a strange world, he thought. It's all busy shadows, and it never changes. And I'm part of it.

'Who's he?' he said, pointing to a particularly big fresco showing a tall man with a hat like a chimney and a beard like a rope riding a chariot over a lot of other, much smaller, people.

'His name is in the cartouche below,' said Dios primly.

'What?'

'The small oval, sire,' said Dios.

Teppic peered closely at the dense hieroglyphics.

'“Thin eagle, eye, wiggly line, man with a stick, bird sitting down, wiggly line”,' he read. Dios winced.

'I believe we must apply ourselves more to the study of modem languages,' he said, recovering a bit. 'His name is Pta-ka-ba. He is king when the Djel Empire extends from the Circle Sea to the Rim Ocean, when almost half the continent pays tribute to us.'

Teppic realised what it was about the man's speech that was strange. Dios would bend any sentence to breaking point if it meant avoiding a past tense. He pointed to another fresco.

'And her?' he said.

'She is Queen Khat-leon-ra-pta,' said Dios. 'She wins the kingdom of Howandaland by stealth. This is the time of the Second Empire.'

'But she is dead?' said Teppic.

'I understand so,' said the high priest, after the slightest of pauses. Yes. The past tense definitely bothered Dios.

'I have learned seven languages,' said Teppic, secure in the knowledge that the actual marks he had achieved in three of them would remain concealed in the ledgers of the Guild.

'Indeed, sire?'

'Oh, yes. Morporkian, Vanglemesht, Ephebe, Laotation and several others . . .' said Teppic.

'Ah.' Dios nodded, smiled, and continued to proceed down the corridor, limping slightly but still measuring his pace like the ticking of centuries. 'The barbarian lands.'

Teppic looked at his father. The embalmers had done a good job. They were waiting for him to tell them so.

Part of him, which still lived in Ankh-Morpork, said: this is a dead body, wrapped up in bandages, surely they can't think that this will help him get better? In Ankh, you die and they bury you or burn you or throw you to the ravens. Here, it just means you slow down a bit and get given all the best food. It's ridiculous, how can you run a kingdom like this? They seem to think that being dead is like being deaf, you just have to speak up a bit.

But a second, older voice said: We've run a kingdom like this for seven thousand years. The humblest melon farmer has a lineage that makes kings elsewhere look like mayflies. We used to own the continent, before we sold it again to pay for pyramids. We don't even think about other countries less than three thousand years old. It all seems to work.

'Hallo, father,' he said.