‘How can you believe the Vagars will be allowed to rule their own cities? If the Avatars fall then the Erek-jhip-zhonad or the Patiakes will conquer them, and they will have merely exchanged masters. Stay out of politics, Pendar. It will destroy you.’
‘Their own cities?’ countered Pendar. ‘Do you not mean our own cities? Or is your Avatar blood taking hold? You are like me, a half-breed, caught between two races. If the truth was discovered even now we would both be crystal-drawn. The Avatars will never accept us. I will not give my loyalty and my life to people who would wish me dead if they knew of my blood. They are the enemy, Methras. One day you will see it too.’
‘They are not all enemies. There is Talaban.’
‘Ah yes,’ said Pendar, with a mischievous smile, ‘the beautiful Talaban. Do not be deceived, my dear. He is still a member of the god-race, and his long life is maintained by the deaths of Vagars, crystal-drawn against their will.’
‘You must go now,’ said Methras.
Pendar nodded, and gathered up his heavy black cloak. ‘I think of you often,’ he said. Methras walked past him and out into the late afternoon sunshine.
He stood there for some time, until he heard the two horsemen ride away. His mother joined him, linking her arm through his.
‘Did he want you to work with him?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Will you?’
‘I don’t believe that I will.’
‘You could be making a mistake,’ she said.
‘One of us is,’ he agreed.
The problems facing Anu were many. His 600 workers had begun work on the pyramid in good spirits, making jokes about the seemingly perpetual sunshine. After ten days, with the sun having inched its way to its first noon, the mood among the Vagars had changed. Anu felt the tension. It was bizarre to work for hours with the sun almost frozen in the sky, to sleep for five hours, and to awake with the sun still high. It jangled the nerves. Many men reported sick, others found difficulty in sleeping. Tempers flared, and on the fourth day one man slammed a hammer into the skull of a co-worker. One of the Avatar guards slew the murderer. Separated from the holding magic of the chest the two bodies rotted instantly, becoming covered in maggots. A hundred workers saw the scene, and it frightened them. Accelerating time, as Anu was discovering, produced a host of allied problems.
Bread became stale within minutes, fruit rotted even before it could be removed from the barrels. Grass grew at twenty times the speed. A man could sit and watch it grow. Anu eventually solved the food problem by adjusting the power of the chest to encompass the supplies. The same method was used on the plants and grasses that grew in the valley. But even so the mood among the hired men was deteriorating. Thirty had so far asked to be relieved, and this request was granted. They trooped home on the next occasion that Anu slowed the Dance to allow supplies into the valley.
At Shevan’s suggestion he sent a request for fifty whores to be brought in, and built a series of huts for them on the edge of the valley. The service provided by the whores was free. The men were given special coins of baked clay, which the women collected against payment from the Treasury at the end of their allotted service. This mollified the workforce for a while. Then came the interminable twenty-day night. Now the men grew more fractious, and several fights broke out. One of the workers committed suicide during this first period of night. This puzzled Anu for a while, until he concluded that sunlight was somehow important to the brain, and without it men became depressed. Along with the services of the women he now allowed strong drink and opiates to be offered to his workers, and organized dances, competitions and other forms of entertainment for those who had finished their labours.
By the thirtieth day the foundations of the pyramid -a deep and perfect square of limestone blocks, stretching for 750 feet on each side – were finally laid in place. Anu arranged an impromptu party, allowing the men to vote for a Foundations King. The winner – a foreman named Yasha – was crowned with laurel leaves and carried around the foundations, which were then inscribed with his name. Anu liked Yasha, a big man, wide-shouldered and tall, with a booming laugh and a powerful way with other men. He was an imposing figure and his crew of thirty were the best by far.