Pyramids

she spoke to him, but now it was because she was thinking about something else.

He found he kept wanting to say, politely, without stressing it in any way, just as a very gentle reminder, that he was king. But he had a feeling that she'd say she hadn't heard, and would he please repeat it, and if she looked at him he'd never be able to say it twice.

'You could go,' he said. 'You'd get on well. I could give you a few names and addresses.'

'And what would you do?'

'I dread to think what's going on back home,' said Teppic. 'I ought to do something.'

'You can't. Why ptry? Even if you didn't want to be an assassin there's lots of pthings you could do. And you said the man said it's not a place people could get into any more. I hate pyramids.'

'Surely there's people there you care about?'

Ptraci shrugged. 'If they're dead there's nothing I can do about it,' she said. 'And if they're alive, there's nothing I 'can do about it. So I shan't.'

Teppic stared at her in a species of horrified admiration. It was a beautiful summary of things as they were. He just couldn't bring himself to think that way. His body had been away for seven years but his blood had been in the kingdom for a thousand times longer. Certainly he'd wanted to leave it behind, but that was the whole point. It would have been there. Even if he'd avoided it for the rest of his life, it would have still been a sort of anchor.

'I feel so wretched about it,' he repeated. 'I'm sorry. That's all there is to it. Even to go back for five minutes, just to say, well, that I'm not coming back. That'd be enough. It's probably all my fault.'

'But there isn't a way back! You'll just hang around sadly, like those deposed kings you ptold me about. You know, with pthreadbare cloaks and always begging for their food in a high— class way. There's nothing more useless than a king without a kingdom, you said. Just think about it.'

They wandered through the sunset streets of the city, and towards the harbour. All streets in the city led towards the harbour.

Someone was just putting a torch to the lighthouse, which was one of the More Than Seven Wonders of the World and had been built to a design by Pthagonal using the Golden Rule and the Five Aesthetic Principles. Unfortunately it had then been built in the wrong place because putting it in the right place would have spoiled the look of the harbour, but it was generally agreed by mariners to be a very beautiful lighthouse and something to look at while they were waiting to be towed off the rocks.

The harbour below it was thronged with ships. Teppic and Ptraci picked their way past crates and bundles until they reached the long curved guard wall, harbour calm on one side, choppy with waves on the other. Above them the lighthouse flared and sparked.

Those boats would be going to places he'd only ever heard of, he knew. The Ephebians were great traders. He could go back to Ankh and get his diploma, and then the world would indeed be the mollusc of his choice and he had any amount of knives to open it with.

Ptraci put her hand in his.

And there'd be none of this marrying relatives business. The months in Djelibeybi already seemed like a dream, one of those circular dreams that you never quite seem able to shake off and which make insomnia an attractive prospect. Whereas here was a future, unrolling in front of him like a carpet.

What a chap needed at a time like this was a sign, some sort of book of instructions. The trouble with life was that you didn't get a chance to practise before doing it for real. You only— 'Good grief? It's Teppic, isn't it?' The voice was addressing him from ankle height. A head appeared over the stone of the jetty, quickly followed by its body. An extremely richly dressed body, one on which no expense had been spared in the way of gems, furs, silks and laces, provided that all of them, every single one, was black.

It was Chidder.

'What's it doing now?' said Ptaclusp.

His son poked his head cautiously over the ruins of a pillar and watched Hat, the Vulture-Headed God.

'It's sniffing around,' he said. 'I think it likes the statue. Honestly, dad, why did you have to go and buy a thing like that?'

'It was in a job lot,' said Ptaclusp. 'Anyway, I thought it would be a popular line.'

'With who?'

'Well, he likes it.'

Ptaclusp IIb risked another squint at the angular monstrosity that was still hopping around the ruins.

'Tell him he can have it if he goes away,' he suggested.

'Tell him he can have it at cost.'

Ptaclusp winced. 'At a discount,' he said. 'A special cut rate for our supernatural customers.

He stared up at the sky. From their hiding place in the ruins of the construction camp, with the Great Pyramid still humming like a powerhouse behind them, they'd had an excellent view of the arrival of the gods. At first he'd viewed them with a certain amount of equanimity. Gods would be good customers, they always wanted temples and statues, he could deal directly, cut out the middle man.

And then it had occurred to him that a god, when he was unhappy about the product, as it might be, maybe the plasterwork wasn't exactly as per spec, or perhaps a corner of the temple was a bit low on account of unexpected quicksand, a god didn't just come around demanding in a loud voice to see the manager. No. A god knew exactly where you were, and got to the point. Also, gods were notoriously bad payers. So were humans, of course, but they didn't actually expect you to die before they settled the account.

His gaze turned to his other son, a painted silhouette against the statue, his mouth a frozen O of astonishment, and Ptaclusp reached a decision.

'I've just about had it with pyramids,' he said. 'Remind me, lad. If we ever get out of here, no more pyramids. We've got set in our ways. Time to branch out, I reckon.'

'That's what I've been telling you for ages, dad!' said IIb. 'I've told you, a couple of decent aqueducts will make a tremendous-'

'Yes, yes, I remember,' said Ptaclusp. 'Yes. Aqueducts. All those arches and things. Fine. Only I can't remember where you said you have to put the coffin in.'

'Dad!'

'Don't mind me, lad. I think I'm going mad.'

I couldn't have seen a mummy and two men over there, carrying sledgehammers.

It was, indeed, Chidder.

And Chidder had a boat.

Teppic knew that further along the coast the Seriph of Al— Khali lived in the fabulous palace of the Rhoxie, which was said to have been built in one night by a genie and was famed in myth and legend for its splendour26. The Unnamed was the Rhoxie afloat, but more so. Its designer had a gilt complex, and had tried every trick with gold paint, curly pillars and expensive drapes to make it look less like a ship and more like a boudoir that had collided with a highly suspicious type of theatre.

In fact, you needed an assassin's eyes for hidden detail to notice how innocently the gaudiness concealed the sleekness of the hull and the fact, even when you added the cabin space and the holds together, that there still seemed to be a lot of capacity unaccounted for. The water around what Ptraci called the pointed end was strangely rippled, but it would be totally ridiculous to suspect such an obvious merchantman of having a concealed ramming spike underwater, or that a mere five minutes' work with an axe would turn this wallowing Alcdzar into something that could run away from nearly everything else afloat and make the few that could catch up seriously regret it.

'Very impressive,' said Teppic.

'It's all show, really,' said Chidder.

'Yes. I can see that.'

'I mean, we're poor traders.'

Teppic nodded. 'The usual phrase is «poor but honest traders»,' he said.

Chidder smiled a merchant's smile. 'Oh, I think we'll stick on «poor» at the moment. How the hell are you, anyway? Last we heard you were going off to be king of some place no-one's ever heard of. And who is this lovely young lady?'

'Her name' Teppic began.

'Ptraci,' said Ptraci.