While he fought to think clearly his hands went through the motions of the Ritual of the Seventh Hour, guided by neural instructions as rigid and unchangeable as crystals.
‘You have tried everything?’ he said.
‘Everything that you advised, O Dios,’ said Koomi. He waited until most of the priests were watching them and then, in a rather louder voice, continued: ‘If the king was here, he would intercede for us.’
He caught the eye of the priestess of Sarduk. He hadn’t discussed things with her; indeed, what was there to discuss? But he had an inkling that there was some fellow, sorry, feeling there. She didn’t like Dios very much, but was less in awe of him than were the others.
‘I told you that the king is dead,’ said Dios.
‘Yes, we heard you. Yet there seems to be no body, O Dios. Nevertheless, we believe what you tell us, for it is the great Dios that speaks, and we pay no heed to malicious gossip.’
The priests were silent. Malicious gossip, too? And somebody had already mentioned rumours, hadn’t they? Definitely something amiss here.
‘It happened many times in the past,’ said the priestess, on – cue. ‘When a kingdom was threatened or the river did not rise, the king went to intercede with the gods. Was sent to intercede with the gods.’
The edge of satisfaction in her voice made it clear that it was a one-way trip.
Koomi shivered with delight and horror. Oh, yes. Those were the days. Some countries had experimented with the idea of the sacrificial king, long ago. A few years of feasting and ruling, then chop – and make way for a new administration.
‘In a time of crisis, possibly any high-born minister of state would suffice,’ she went on.
Dios looked up, his face mirroring the agony of his tendons.
‘I see,’ he said. ‘And who would be high priest then?’
‘The gods would choose,’ said Koomi.
‘I daresay they would,’ said Dios sourly. ‘I am in some doubt as to the wisdom of their choice.’
‘The dead can speak to the gods in the netherworld,’ said the priestess.
‘But the gods are all here,’ said Dios, fighting against the throbbing in his legs, which were insisting that, at this time, they should be walking along the central corridor en route to supervise the Rite of the Under Sky. His body cried out for the solace over the river. And once over the river, never to return . . . but he’d always said that.
‘In the absence of the king the high priest performs his duties. Isn’t that right, Dios?’ said Koomi.
It was. It was written. You couldn’t rewrite it, once it was written. He’d written it. Long ago.
Dios hung his head. This was worse than plumbing, this was worse than anything. And yet, and yet. . . to go across the river . . .
‘Very well, then,’ he said. ‘I have one final request.’
‘Yes?’ Koomi’s voice had timbre now, it was already a high priest’s voice.
‘I wish to be interred in the-‘ Dios began, and was cut off by a murmur from those priests who could look out across the river. All eyes turned to the distant, inky shore.
The legions of the kings of Djelibeybi were on the march. They lurched, but they covered the ground quickly. There were platoons, battalions of them. They didn’t need Gern’s hammer any more.
‘It’s the pickle,’ said the king, as they watched half-a-dozen ancestors mummyhandle a seal out of its socket. ‘It toughens you up.’
Some of the more ancient were getting over enthusiastic and attacking the pyramids themselves, actually managing to shift blocks higher than they were. The king didn’t blame them. How terrible to be dead, and know you were dead, and locked away in the darkness.
They’re never going to get me in one of those things, he vowed.
At last they came, like a tide, to yet another pyramid. – It was small, low, dark, half-concealed in drifted sands, and the blocks were hardly even masonry; they were no more than roughly squared boulders. It had clearly been built long before the Kingdom got the hang of pyramids. It was barely more than a pile.
Hacked into the doorseal, angular and deep, were the hieroglyphs of the Kingdom: KHUFT HAD ME MADE. THE FIRST.
Several ancestors clustered around it.
‘Oh dear,’ said the king. ‘This might be going too far.’
‘The First,’ whispered Dil. ‘The First into the Kingdom: No-one here before but hippos and crocodiles. From inside that pyramid seventy centuries look out at us. Older than anything-‘
‘Yes, yes, all right,’ said Teppicymon. ‘No need to get carried away. He was a man, just like all of us.’
‘”AndKhuftthecamelherderlookeduponthevalley. . .”‘ Dil began.
‘After seven thousand yeares, he wyll be wantyng to look upon yt again,’ said Ashk-ur-men-tep bluntly.
‘Even so,’ said the king. ‘It does seem a bit . .
‘The dead are equal,’ said Ashk-ur-men-tep. ‘You, younge manne. Calle hym forth.’
‘Who, me?’ said Gern. ‘But he was the Fir-‘
‘Yes, we’ve been through all that,’ said Teppicymon. ‘Do it. Everyone’s getting impatient. So is he, I expect.’
Gern rolled his eyes, and hefted the hammer. Just as it was about to hiss down on the seal Dil darted forward, causing Gern to dance wildly across the ground in a groin-straining effort to avoid interring the hammer in his master’s head.
‘It’s open!’ said Dil. ‘Look! The seal just swings aside!’
‘Youe meane he iss oute?’
Teppicymon tottered forward and grabbed the door of the pyramid. It moved quite easily. Then he examined the stone beneath it. Derelict and half-covered though it was, someone had taken care to keep a pathway clear to the pyramid. And the stone was quite worn away, as by the passage of many feet.
This was not, by the nature of things, the normal state of affairs for a pyramid. The whole point was that once you were in, you were in.
The mummies examined the worn entrance and creaked at one another in surprise. One of the very ancient ones, who was barely holding himself together, made a noise like deathwatch beetle finally conquering a rotten tree.
‘What’d he say?’ said Teppicymon.
The mummy of Ashk-ur-men-tep translated. ‘He saide yt ys Spooky,’ he croaked.
The late king nodded. ‘I’m going in to have a look. You two live ones, you come with me.’
Dil’s face fell.
‘Oh, come on, man,’ snapped Teppicymon, forcing the door back. ‘Look, I’m not frightened. Show a bit of backbone. Everyone else is.’
‘But we’ll need some light,’ protested Dil.
The nearest mummies lurched back sharply as Gern timidly took a tinderbox out of his pocket.
‘We’ll need something to burn,’ said Dil. The mummies shuffled further back, muttering.
‘There’s torches in here,’ said Teppicymon, his voice slightly muffled. ‘And you can keep them away from me, lad.’
It was a small pyramid, mazeless, without traps, just a stone passage leading upwards. Tremulously, expecting at any moment to see unnamed terrors leap out at them, the embalmers followed the king into a small, square chamber that smelled of sand. The roof was black with soot.
There was no sarcophagus within, no mummy case, no terror named or nameless. The centre of the floor was occupied by a raised block, with a blanket and a pillow on it.
Neither of them looked particularly old. It was almost disappointing.
Gern craned to look around.
‘Quite nice, really,’ he said. ‘Comfy.’
‘No,’ said Dil.
‘Hey, master king, look here,’ said Gern, trotting over to one of the walls. ‘Look. Someone’s been scratching things. Look, all little lines all over the wall.’
‘And this wall,’ said the king, ‘and the floor. Someone’s been counting. Every ten have been crossed through, you see. Someone’s been counting things. Lots of things.’ He stood back.
‘What things?’ said Dil, looking behind him.
‘Very strange,’ said the king. He leaned forward. ‘You can barely make out the inscriptions underneath.’
‘Can you read it, king?’ said Gern, showing what Dil considered to be unnecessary enthusiasm.
‘No. It’s one of the really ancient dialects. Can’t make out a blessed hieroglyph,’ said Teppicymon. ‘I shouldn’t think there’s a single person alive today who can read it.’
‘That’s a shame,’ said Gern.
‘True enough,’ said the king, and sighed. They stood in gloomy silence.
‘So perhaps we could ask one of the dead ones?’ said Gern.
‘Er. Gern,’ said Dil, backing away.
The king slapped the apprentice on the back, pitching him forward.
‘Damn clever idea!’ he said. ‘We’ll just go and get one of the real early ancestors. Oh.’ He sagged. ‘That’s no good. No-one will be able to understand them-‘
‘Gern!’ said Dil, his eyes growing wider.
‘No, it’s all right, king,’ said Gern, enjoying the new-found freedom of thought, ‘because, the reason being, everyone understands someone, all we have to do is sort them out.’