that would be a really good idea?'
Dios's staff kicked, and the priests felt the cold bands of restraint freeze their limbs.
'I gave my life for the kingdom,' said the high priest. 'I gave it over and over again. Everything it is, I created. I cannot fail it now.'
And then he saw the gods.
Teppic eased himself up another couple of feet and then gently reached down to pull a knife out of the marble. It wasn't going to work, though. Knife climbing was for those short and awkward passages, and frowned on anyway because it suggested you'd chosen a wrong route. It wasn't for this sort of thing, unless you had unlimited knives.
He glanced over his shoulder again as strange barred shadows flickered across the face of the pyramid.
From out of the sunset, where they had been engaged in their eternal squabbling, the gods were returning.
They staggered and lurched across the fields and reed beds, heading for the pyramid. Near-brainless though they were, they understood what it was. Perhaps they even understood what Teppic was trying to do. Their assorted animal faces made it hard to be certain, but it looked as though they were very angry.
'Are you going to control them, Dios?' said the king. 'Are you going to tell them that the world should be changeless?'
Dios stared up at the creatures jostling one another as they waded the river. There were too many teeth, too many lolling tongues. The bits of them that were human were sloughing away. A lion-headed god of justice — Put, Dios recalled the name — was using its scales as a flail to beat one of the river gods. Chefet, the Dog-Headed God of metalwork, was growling and attacking his fellows at random with his hammer; this was Chefet, Dios thought, the god that he had created to be an example to men in the art of wire and filigree and small beauty.
Yet it had worked. He'd taken a desert rabble and shown them all he could remember of the arts of civilisation and the secrets of the pyramids. He'd needed gods then.
The trouble with gods is that after enough people start believing in them, they begin to exist. And what begins to exist isn't what was originally intended.
Chefet, Chefet, thought Dios. Maker of rings, weaver of metal. Now he's out of our heads, and see how his nails grow into claws . . .
This is not how I imagined him.
'Stop,' he instructed. 'I order you to stop! You will obey me. I made you!'
They also lack gratitude.
King Teppicymon felt the power around him weaken as Dios turned all his attention to ecclesiastical matters. He saw the tiny shape halfway up the wall of the pyramid, saw it falter.
The rest of the ancestors saw it, too, and as one corpse they knew what to do. Dios could wait.
This was family.
Teppic heard the snap of the handle under his foot, slid a little, and hung by one hand. He'd got another knife in above him but . . . no, no good. He hadn't got the reach. For practical purposes his arms felt like short lengths of wet rope. Now, if he spreadeagled himself as he slid, he might be able to slow enough .
He looked down and saw the climbers coming towards him, in a tide that was tumbling upwards.
The ancestors rose up the face of the pyramid silently, like creepers, each new row settling into position on the shoulders of the generation beneath, while the younger ones climbed on over them. Bony hands grabbed Teppic as the wave of edificeers broke around him, and he was half-pushed, half-pulled up the sloping wall. Voices like the creak of sarcophagi filled his ears, moaning encouragement.
'Well done, boy,' groaned a crumbling mummy, hauling him bodily on to its shoulder. 'You remind me of me when I was alive. To you, son.'
'Got him,' said the corpse above, lifting Teppic easily on one outstretched arm. 'That's a fine family spirit, lad. Best wishes from your great-great-great-great uncle, although I don't suppose you remember me. Coming up.
Other ancestors were climbing on past Teppic as he rose from hand to hand. Ancient fingers with a grip like steel clutched at him, hoisting him onwards.
The pyramid grew narrower.
Down below, Ptaclusp watched thoughtfully.
'What a workforce,' he said. 'I mean, the ones at the bottom are supporting the whole weight!'
'Dad,' said IIb. 'I think we'd better run. Those gods are getting closer.'
'Do you think we could employ them?' said Ptaclusp, ignoring him. 'They're dead, they probably won't want high wages, and-'
'Dad!'
'Sort of self-build-'
'You said no more pyramids, dad. Never again, you said. Now come on!'
Teppic scrambled to the top of the pyramid, supported by the last two ancestors. One of them was his father.
'I don't think you've met your great-grandma,' he said, indicating the shorter bandaged figure, who nodded gently at Teppic. He opened his mouth.
'There's no time,' she said. 'You're doing fine.'
He glanced at the sun which, old professional that it was, chose that moment to drop below the horizon. The gods had crossed the river, their progress slowed only by their tendency to push and shove among themselves, and were lurching through the buildings of the necropolis. Several were clustered around the spot where Dios had been.
The ancestors dropped away, sliding back down the pyramid as fast as they had climbed it, leaving Teppic alone on a few square feet of rock.
A couple of stars came out.
He saw white shapes below as the ancestors hurried away on some private errand of their own, lurching at a surprising speed towards the broad band of the river.
The gods abandoned their interest in Dios, this strange little human with the stick and the cracked voice. The nearest god, a crocodile-headed thing, jerked on to the plaza before the pyramid, squinted up at Teppic, and reached out towards him. Teppic fumbled for a knife, wondering what sort was appropriate for gods .
And, along the Djel, the pyramids began to flare their meagre store of hoarded time.
Priests and ancestors fled as the ground began to shake. Even the gods looked bewildered.
IIb snatched his father's arm and dragged him away.
'Come on!' he yelled into his ear. 'We can't be around here when it goes off! Otherwise you'll be put to bed on a coathanger!'
Around them several other pyramids struck their flares, thin and reedy affairs that were barely visible in the afterglow.
'Dad! I said we've got to go!'
Ptaclusp was dragged backwards across the flagstones, still staring at the hulking outline of the Great Pyramid.
'There's someone still there, look,' he said, and pointed to a figure alone on the plaza.
IIb peered into the gloom.
'It's only Dios, the high priest,' he said. 'I expect he's got some plan in mind, best not to meddle in the affairs of priests, now will you come on.'
The crocodile-headed god turned its snout back and forth, trying to focus on Teppic without the advantage of binocular vision. This close, its body was slightly transparent, as though someone had sketched in all the lines and got bored before it was time to do the shading. It trod on a small tomb, crushing it to powder.
A hand like a cluster of canoes with claws on hovered over Teppic. The pyramid trembled and the stone under his feet felt warm, but it resolutely forbore from any signs of wanting to flare.
The hand descended. Teppic sank on one knee and, out of desperation, raised the knife over his head in both hands.
The light glinted for a moment off the tip of the blade and then the Great Pyramid flared.
