Pyramids (22 page)

These two seem harmless, he thought, and almost believed it.

He whistled. On cue, Ptraci came around the dune, leading You Bastard. Teppic doubted the capability of her costume to hold any pockets whatsoever, but she seemed to have been able to repair her make-up, re-kohl her eyes and put up her hair. She undulated toward the group like a snake in a skid, determined to hit the strangers with the full force of her personality. She was also holding something in her other hand.

“She’s found the tortoise!” said Xeno. “Well done!”

The reptile shot back into its shell. Ptraci glared. She didn’t have much in the world except herself, and didn’t like to be hailed as a mere holder of testudinoids.

The tall man sighed. “You know, Xeno,” he said, “I can’t help thinking you’ve got the wrong end of the stick with this whole tortoise-and-arrow business.”

The little man glared at him.

“The trouble with you, Ibid,” he said, “is that you think you’re the biggest bloody authority on everything.”

The Gods of the Old Kingdom were awakening.

Belief is a force. It’s a weak force, by comparison with gravity; when it comes to moving mountains, gravity wins every time. But it still exists, and now that the Old Kingdom was enclosed upon itself, floating free of the rest of the universe, drifting away from the general consensus that is dignified by the name of reality, the power of belief was making itself felt.

For seven thousand years the people of Djelibeybi had believed in their gods.

Now their gods existed. They had, as it were, the complete Set.

And the people of the Old Kingdom were learning that, for example, Vut the Dog-Headed God of the Evening looks a lot better painted on a pot than he does when all seventy feet of him, growling and stinking, is lurching down the street outside.

Dios sat in the throne room, the gold mask of the king on his knees, staring out across the somber air. The cluster of lesser priests around the door finally plucked up the courage to approach him, in the same general frame of mind as you would approach a growling lion. No one is more worried by the actual physical manifestation of a god than his priests; it’s like having the auditors in unexpectedly.

Only Koomi stood a little aside from the others. He was thinking hard. Strange and original thoughts were crowding along rarely-trodden neural pathways, heading in unthinkable directions. He wanted to see where they led.

“O Dios,” murmured the high priest of Ket, the Ibis-Headed God of Justice. “What is the king’s command? The gods are striding the land, and they are fighting and breaking houses, O Dios. Where is the king? What would he have us do?”

“Yea,” said the high priest of Scrab, the Pusher of the Ball of the Sun. He felt something more was expected of him. “And verily,” he added, “Your lordship will have noticed that the sun is wobbling, because all the Gods of the Sun are fighting for it and—” he shuffled his feet—“the blessed Scrab made a strategic withdrawal and has, er, made an unscheduled landing on the town of Hort. A number of buildings broke his fall.”

“And rightly so,” said the high priest of Thrrp, the Charioteer of the Sun. “For, as all know, my master is the true god of the—”

His words tailed off.

Dios was trembling, his body rocking slowly back and forth. His eyes stared at nothing. His hands gripped the mask almost hard enough to leave fingerprints in the gold, and his lips soundlessly shaped the words of the Ritual of the Second Hour, which had been said at this time for thousands of years.

“I think it’s the shock,” said one of the priests. “You know, he’s always been so set in his ways.”

The others hastened to show that there was at least
something
they could advise on.

“Fetch him a glass of water.”

“Put a paper bag over his head.”

“Sacrifice a chicken under his nose.”

There was a high-pitched whistling noise, the distant crump of an explosion, and a long hissing. A few tendrils of steam curled into the room.

The priests rushed to the balcony, leaving Dios in his unnerving pool of trauma, and found that the crowds around the palace were staring at the sky.

“It would appear,” said the high priest of Cephut, God of Cutlery, who felt that he could take a more relaxed view of the immediate situation, “that Thrrp has fumbled it and has fallen to a surprise tackle from Jeht, Boatman of the Solar Orb.”

There was a distant buzzing, as of several billion blue-bottles taking off in a panic, and a huge dark shape passed over the palace.

“But,” said the high priest of Cephut, “here comes Scrab again…yes, he’s gaining height…Jeht hasn’t seen him yet, he’s progressing confidently toward the meridian…and here comes Sessifet, Goddess of the Afternoon! This is a surprise! What a surprise this is! A young goddess, yet to make her mark, but my word, what a lot of promise there, this is an astonishing bid, eunuchs and gentlemen, and…yes…Scrab has fumbled it! He’s fumbled it!…”

The shadows danced and spun on the stones of the balcony.

“…and…what’s this? The elder gods are, there’s no other word for it, they’re cooperating against these brash newcomers! But plucky young Sessifet is hanging in there, she’s exploiting the weakness…she’s in!…and pulling away now, pulling away, Gil and Scrab appear to be fighting, she’s got a clear sky and, yes, yes…yes!…it’s noon! It’s noon! It’s
noon
!”

Silence. The priest was aware that everyone was staring at him.

Then someone said, “Why are you shouting into that bulrush?”

“Sorry. Don’t know what came over me there.”

The priestess of Sarduk, Goddess of Caves, snorted at him.

“Suppose one of them had dropped it?” she snapped.

“But…but…” He swallowed. “It’s not possible, is it? Not really? We all must have eaten something, or been out in the sun too long, or something. Because, I mean, everyone
knows
that the gods aren’t…I mean, the sun is a big flaming ball of gas, isn’t it, that goes around the whole world every day, and, and, and the gods…well, you know, there’s a very real need in people to
believe
, don’t get me wrong here—”

Koomi, even with his head buzzing with thoughts of perfidy, was quicker on the uptake than his colleagues.

“Get him, lads!” he shouted.

Four priests grabbed the luckless cutlery worshipper by his arms and legs and gave him a high-speed run across the stones to the edge of the balcony, over the parapet and into the mud-colored waters of the Djel.

He surfaced, spluttering.

“What did you go and do that for?” he demanded. “You all
know
I’m right. None of you really—”

The waters of the Djel opened a lazy jaw, and he vanished, just as the huge winged shape of Scrab buzzed threateningly over the palace and whirred off toward the mountains.

Koomi mopped his forehead.

“Bit of a close shave there,” he said. His colleagues nodded, staring at the fading ripples. Suddenly, Djelibeybi was no place for honest doubt. Honest doubt could get you seriously picked up and your arms and legs torn off.

“Er,” said one of them. “Cephut’s going to be a bit upset, though, isn’t he?”

“All hail Cephut,” they chorused. Just in case.

“Don’t see why,” grumbled an elderly priest at the back of the crowd. “Bloody knife and fork artist.”

They grabbed him, still protesting, and hurled him into the river.

“All hail—” They paused. “Who was he high priest of, anyway?”

“Bunu, the Goat-headed God of Goats? Wasn’t he?”

“All hail Bunu, probably,” they chorused, as the sacred crocodiles homed in like submarines.

Koomi raised his hands, imploring. It is said that the hour brings forth the man. He was the kind of man that is brought forth by devious and unpleasant hours, and underneath his bald head certain conclusions were beginning to unfold, like things imprisoned for years inside stones. He wasn’t yet sure what they were, but they were broadly on the subject of gods, the new age, the need for a firm hand on the helm, and possibly the inserting of Dios into the nearest crocodile. The mere thought filled him with forbidden delight.

“Brethren!” he cried.

“Excuse
me
,” said the priestess of Sarduk.

“And sistren—”

“Thank
you
.”

“—let us rejoice!” The assembled priests stood in total silence. This was a radical approach which had not hitherto occurred to them. And Koomi looked at their upturned faces and felt a thrill the like of which he had never experienced before. They were frightened out of their wits, and they were expecting him—
him
—to tell them what to do.

“Yea!” he said. “And, indeed, verily, the hour of the gods—”

“—
and
goddesses—”

“—yes, and goddesses, is at hand. Er.”

What next? What, when you got right down to it,
was
he going to tell them to do? And then he thought: it doesn’t matter. Provided I sound confident enough. Old Dios always drove them, he never tried to lead them. Without him they’re wandering around like sheep.

“And, brethren—and sistren, of course—we must ask ourselves, we must ask ourselves, we, er, yes.” His voice waxed again with new confidence. “Yes, we must ask ourselves
why
the gods are at hand. And without doubt it is because we have not been assiduous enough in our worship, we have, er, we have lusted after graven idols.”

The priests exchanged glances. Had they? How did you do it, actually?

“And, yes, and what about sacrifices? Time was when a sacrifice was a sacrifice, not some messing around with a chicken and flowers.”

This caused some coughing in the audience.

“Are we talking maidens here?” said one of the priests uncertainly.

“
Ahem
.”

“And inexperienced young men too, certainly,” he said quickly. Sarduk was one of the older goddesses, whose female worshippers got up to no good in sacred groves; the thought of her wandering around the landscape somewhere, bloody to the elbows, made the eyes water.

Koomi’s heart thumped. “Well, why not?” he said. “Things were better then, weren’t they?”

“But, er, I thought we stopped all that sort of thing. Population decline and so forth.”

There was a monstrous splash out in the river. Tzut, the Snake-Headed God of the Upper Djel, surfaced and regarded the assembled priesthood solemnly. Then Fhez, the Crocodile-Headed God of the Lower Djel, erupted beside him and made a spirited attempt at biting his head off. The two submerged in a column of spray and a minor tidal wave which slopped over the balcony.

“Ah, but maybe the population declined because we
stopped
sacrificing virgins—of both sexes, of course,” said Koomi, hurriedly. “Have you ever thought of it like that?”

They thought of it. Then they thought of it again.

“I don’t think the king would approve—” said one of the priests cautiously.

“The king?” shouted Koomi. “Where is the king? Show me the king! Ask Dios where the king is!”

There was a thud by his feet. He looked down in horror as the gold mask bounced, and rolled toward the priests. They scattered hurriedly, like skittles.

Dios strode out into the light of the disputed sun, his face gray with fury.

“The king is dead,” he said.

Koomi swayed under the sheer pressure of anger, but rallied magnificently.

“Then his successor—” he began.

“There is
no
successor,” said Dios. He stared up at the sky. Few people can look directly at the sun, but under the venom of Dios’s gaze the sun itself might have flinched and looked away. Dios’s eyes sighted down that fearsome nose like twin range finders.

To the air in general he said: “Coming here as if they own the place.
How dare they
?”

Koomi’s mouth dropped open. He started to protest, and a kilowatt stare silenced him.

Koomi sought support from the crowd of priests, who were busily inspecting their nails or staring intently into the middle distance. The message was clear. He was on his own. Although, if by some chance he won the battle of wills, he’d be surrounded by people assuring him that they had been behind him all along.

“Anyway, they do own the place,” he mumbled.

“
What
?”

“They, er, they
do
own the place, Dios,” Koomi repeated. His temper gave out. “They’re the sodding
gods
, Dios!”

“They’re
our
gods,” Dios hissed. “We’re not their people. They’re
my
gods and they will learn to do as they are instructed!”

Koomi gave up the frontal assault. You couldn’t outstare that sapphire stare, you couldn’t stand the war-axe nose and, most of all, no man could be expected to dent the surface of Dios’s terrifying righteousness.

“But—-” he managed.

Dios waved him into silence with a trembling hand.

“They’ve no right!” he said. “I did not give any orders!
They have no right
!”

“Then what are you going to
do
? said Koomi.

Dios’s hands opened and closed fitfully. He felt like a royalist might feel—a good royalist, a royalist who cut out pictures of all the Royals and stuck them in a scrapbook, a royalist who wouldn’t hear a word said about them, they did such a good job and they can’t answer back—if suddenly all the Royals turned up in his living room and started rearranging the furniture. He longed for the necropolis, and the cool silence among his old friends, and a quick sleep after which he’d be able to think so much more clearly…

Koomi’s heart leapt. Dios’s discomfort was a crack which, with due care and attention, could take a wedge. But you couldn’t use a hammer. Head on, Dios could outfight the world.

The old man was shaking again. “I do not presume to tell them how to run affairs in the Hereunder,” he said. “They shall not presume to instruct me in how to run my kingdom.”

Koomi salted this treasonable statement away for further study and patted him gently on the back.

“You’re right, of course,” he said. Dios’s eyes swiveled.