‘I think it got caught up in geometry,’ he said, hopefully. ‘I heard you were very good at geometry here,’ he added, ‘and perhaps you could tell me how to get back.’
‘Geometry is not my forte,’ said Ibid. ‘As you probably know.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Haven’t you read my Principles of Ideal Government?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Or my Discourse on Historical Inevitability?’
‘No.’
Ibid looked crestfallen. ‘Oh,’ he said.
‘Ibid is a well-known authority on everything,’ said Xeno. ‘Except for geometry. And interior decorating. And elementary logic.’ Ibid glared at him.
‘What about you, then?’ said Teppic.
Xeno drained his mug. ‘I’m more into the destruct testing of axioms,’ he said. ‘The chap you need is Pthagonal. A very acute man with an angle.’
He was interrupted by the clatter of hooves. Several horsemen galloped with reckless speed past the tavern and on up the winding, cobbled streets of the city. They seemed very excited about something.
Ibid picked a stunned seagull out of his wine cup and laid it on the table. He was looking thoughtful.
‘If the Old Kingdom has really disappeared-‘ he said.
‘It has,’ said Teppic firmly. ‘It’s not something you can be mistaken about, really.’
‘Then that means our border is concurrent with that of Tsort,’ said Ibid ponderously.
‘Pardon?’ said Teppic.
‘There’s nothing between us,’ explained the philosopher.
‘Oh, dear. That means we shall be forced to make war.’
‘Why?’
Ibid opened his mouth, stopped, and turned to Xeno.
‘Why does it mean we’ll be forced to make war?’ he said.
‘Historical imperative,’ said Xeno.
‘Ah, yes. I knew it was something like that. I am afraid it is inevitable. It’s a shame, but there you are.’
There was another clatter as another party of horsemen rounded the corner, heading downhill this time. They wore the high plumed helmets of Ephebian soldiery, and were shouting enthusiastically.
Ibid settled himself more comfortably on the bench and folded his bands.
‘That’ll be the Tyrant’s men,’ he said, as the troop galloped through the city gates and out on to the desert. ‘He’s sending them to check, you may depend upon it.’
Teppic knew about the enmity between Ephebe and Tsort, of course. The Old Kingdom had profited mightily by it, by seeing that the merchants of both sides had somewhere discreet in which to trade with one another. He drummed his fingers on the table.
‘You haven’t fought each other for thousands of years,’ he said. ‘You were tiny countries in those days. It was just a scrap. Now you’re huge. People could get hurt. Doesn’t that worry you?’
‘It’s a matter of pride,’ said Ibid, but his voice was tinged with uncertainty. ‘I don’t think there’s much choice.’
‘It was that bloody wooden cow or whatever,’ said Xeno. ‘They’ve never forgiven us for it.’
‘If we don’t attack them, they’ll attack us first,’ said Ibid.
”S’right,’ said Xeno. ‘So we’d better retaliate before they have a chance to strike.’
The two philosophers stared uncomfortably at one another.
‘On the other hand,’ said Thid, ‘war makes it very difficult to think straight.’
‘There is that,’ Xeno agreed. ‘Especially for dead people.’ There was an embarrassed silence, broken only by Ptraci’s voice singing to the tortoise and the occasional squeak of stricken seagulls.
‘What day is it?’ said Ibid.
‘Tuesday,’ said Teppic.
‘I think,’ said Thid, ‘that it might be a good idea if you came to the symposium. We have one every Tuesday,’ he added. ‘All the greatest minds in Ephebe will be there. All this needs thinking about.’
He glanced at Ptraci.
‘However,’ he said, ‘your young woman cannot attend, naturally. Females are absolutely forbidden. Their brains overheat.’
King Teppicymon XXVII opened his eyes. It’s bloody dark in here, he thought.
And he realised that he could hear his own heart beating, but muffled, and some way off.
And then he remembered.
He was alive. He was alive again. And, this time, he was in bits.
Somehow, he’d assumed that you got assembled again once you got to the netherworld, like one of Grinjer’s kits.
Get a grip on yourself, man, he thought.
It’s up to you to pull yourself together.
Right, he thought. There were at least six jars. So my eyes are in one of them. Getting the lid off would be favourite, so we can see what we’re at.
That’s going to involve arms and legs and fingers.
This is going to be really tricky.
He reached out, tentatively, with stiff joints, and located something heavy. It felt as though it might give, so he moved his other arm into position, with a great deal of awkwardness, and pushed.
There was a distant thump, and a definite feeling of openness above him. He sat up, creaking all the way.
The sides of the ceremonial casket still hemmed him in, but to his surprise he found that one slow arm movement brushed them out of the way like paper. Must be all the pickle and stuffing, he thought. Gives you a bit of weight.
He felt his way to the edge of the slab, lowered his heavy legs to the ground and, after a pause out of habit to wheeze a bit, took the first tottering lurch of the newly undead.
It is astonishingly difficult to walk with legs full of straw when the brain doing the directing is in a pot ten feet away, but he made it as far as the wall and felt his way along it until a crash indicated that he’d reached the shelf of jars. He fumbled the lids of the first one and dipped his hand gently inside.
It must be brains, he thought maniacally, because semolina doesn’t squidge like that. I’ve collected my own thoughts, haha.
He tried one or two more jars until an explosion of daylight told him he’d found the one with his eyes in. He watched his own bandaged hand reach down, growing gigantic, and scoop them up carefully.
That seems to be the important bits, he thought. The rest can wait until later. Maybe when I need to eat something, and so forth.
He turned around, and realised that he was not alone. Dil and Gern were watching him. To squeeze any further into the far corner of the room, they would have needed triangular backbones.
‘Ah. Ho there, good people,’ said the king, aware that his voice was a little hollow. ‘I know so much about you, I’d like to shake you by the hand.’ He looked down. ‘Only they’re rather full at the moment,’ he added.
‘Gkkk,’ said Gern.
‘You couldn’t do a bit of reassembly, could you?’ said the king, turning to Dil. ‘Your stitches seem to be holding up nicely, by the way. Well done, that man.’
Professional pride broke through the barrier of Dil’s terror.
‘You’re alive?’ he said.
‘That was the general idea, wasn’t it?’ said the king.
Dil nodded. Certainly it was. He’d always believed it to be true. He’d just never expected it ever actually to happen. But it had, and the first words, well, nearly the first words that had been said were in praise of his needlework. His chest swelled. No-one else in the Guild had ever been congratulated on their work by a recipient.
‘There,’ he said to Gern, whose shoulderblades were making a spirited attempt to dig their way through the wall. ‘Hear what has been said to your master.
The king paused. It was beginning to dawn on him that things weren’t quite right here. Of course the netherworld was like this world, only better, and no doubt there were plenty of servants and so forth. But it seemed altogether far too much like this world. He was pretty sure that Dil and Gern shouldn’t be in it yet. Anyway, he’d always understood that the common people had their own netherworld, where they would be more at ease and could mingle with their own kind and wouldn’t feel awkward and socially out of place.
‘I say,’ he said. ‘I may have missed a bit here. You’re not dead, are you?’
Dil didn’t answer immediately. Some of the things he’d seen so far today had made him a bit uncertain on the subject. In the end, though, he was forced to admit that he probably was alive.
‘Then what’s happening?’ said the king.
‘We don’t know, O king,’ said Dil. ‘Really we don’t. It’s all come true, O fount of waters!’
‘What has?’
‘Everything!’
‘Everything?’
‘The sun, O lord. And the gods! Oh, the gods! They’re everywhere, O master of heaven!’
‘We come in through the back way,’ said Gern, who had dropped to his knees. ‘Forgive us, O lord of justice, who has come back to deliver his mighty wisdom and that. I am sorry about me and Glwenda, it was a moment of wossname, mad passion, we couldn’t control ourselves. Also, it was me-‘
Dil waved him into a devout silence.
‘Excuse me,’ he said to the king’s mummy. ‘But could we have a word away from the lad? Man to-‘