A line of ancestors stretched across the chamber, down the dark passageway, and out into the sand. It was filled with whispers going in both directions, a dry sound, like the wind blowing through old paper.
Dil lay on the sand, with Gern flapping a cloth in his face.
‘Wha’ they doing?’ he murmured.
‘Reading the inscription,’ said Gern. ‘You ought to see it, master! The one doing the reading, he’s practically a-‘
‘Yes, yes, all right,’ said Dil, struggling up.
‘He’s more than six thousand years old! And his grandson’s listening to him, and telling his grandson, and he’s telling his gra-‘
‘Yes, yes, all-‘
‘”And Khuft-too-said-Unto-the-First, What-may-We-Give-Unto-You, Who-Has-Taught-Us-the-Right-Ways”,’ said Teppicymon[31], who was at the end of the line. ‘”And-the-First-Spake, and-This-He-Spake, Build-for-Me-a-Pyramid, That-I-May-Rest, and-Build-it-of-These-Dimensions, That-it-Be-Proper. And-Thus-It-Was-Done, and-The-Name-of-the-First-was . . .”‘
But there was no name. It was just a babble of raised voices, arguments, ancient cursewords, spreading along the line of desiccated ancestors like a spark along a powder trail. Until it reached Teppicymon, who exploded.
The Ephebian sergeant, quietly perspiring in the shade, saw what he had been half expecting and wholly dreading. There was a column of dust on the opposite horizon. The Tsorteans’ main force was getting there first.
He stood up, nodded professionally to his counterpart across the way, and looked at the double handful of men under his command.
‘I need a messenger to take, er, a message back to the city,’ he said. A forest of hands shot up. The sergeant sighed, and selected young Autocue, who he knew was missing his mum.
‘Run like the wind,’ he said. ‘Although I expect you won’t need telling, will you? And then . . . and then . .
He stood with his lips moving silently, while the sun scoured the rocks of the hot, narrow pass and a few insects buzzed in the scrub bushes. His education hadn’t included a course in Famous Last Words.
He raised his eyes in the direction of home.
‘Go, tell the Ephebians-‘ he began.
The soldiers waited.
‘What?’ said Autocue after a while. ‘Go and tell them what?’
The sergeant relaxed, like air being let out of a balloon.
‘Go and tell them, what kept you?’ he said. On the near horizon another column of dust was advancing.
This was more like it. If there was going to be a massacre, then it ought to be shared by both sides.
The city of the dead lay before Teppic. After Ankh-Morpork, which was almost its direct opposite (in Ankh, even the bedding was alive) it was probably the biggest city on the Disc; its streets were the finest, its architecture the most majestic and awe-inspiring.
In population terms the necropolis outstripped the other cities of the Old Kingdom, but its people didn’t get out much and there was nothing to do on Saturday nights.
Until now.
Now it thronged:
Teppic watched from the top of a wind-etched obelisk as the grey and brown, and here and there somewhat greenish, armies of the departed passed beneath him. The kings had been democratic. After the pyramids had been emptied gangs of them had turned their attention to the lesser tombs, and now the necropolis really did have its tradesmen, its nobles and even its artisans. Not that there was, by and large, any way of telling the difference.
They were, to a corpse, heading for the Great Pyramid. It loomed like a carbuncle over the lesser, older buildings. And they all seemed very angry about something.
Teppic dropped lightly on to the wide flat roof of a mastaba, jogged to its far end, cleared the gap on to an ornamental sphinx – not without a moment’s worry, but this one seemed inert enough – and from there it was but the throw of a grapnel to one of the lower storeys of a step pyramid. The long light of the contentious sun lanced across the spent landscape as he leapt from monument to monument, zig-zagging high above the shuffling army.
Behind him shoots appeared briefly in the ancient stone, cracking it a little, and then withered and died.
This, said his blood as it tingled around his body, is what you trained for. Even Mericet couldn’t mark you down for this. Speeding in the shadows above a silent city, running like a cat, finding handholds that would have perplexed a gecko – and, at the destination, a victim.
True, it was a billion tons of pyramid, and hitherto the largest client of an inhumation had been Patricio, the 23-stone Despot of Quirm.
A monumental needle recording in bas-relief the achievements of a king four thousand years ago, and which would have been more pertinent if the wind-driven sand hadn’t long ago eroded his name, provided a handy ladder which needed only an expertly thrown grapnel from its top, lodging in the outstretched fingers of a forgotten monarch, to allow him a long, gentle arc on to the roof of a tomb.
Running, climbing and swinging, hastily hammering crampons in the memorials of the dead, Teppic went forth.
Pinpoints of firelight among the limestone pricked out the lines of the opposing armies. Deep and stylised though the enmity was between the two empires, they both abided by the ancient tradition that warfare wasn’t undertaken at night, during harvest or when wet. It was important enough to save up for special occasions. Going at it hammer and tongs just reduced the whole thing to a farce.
In the twilight on both sides of the line came the busy sound of advanced woodwork in progress.
It’s said that generals are always ready to fight the last War over again. It had been thousands of years since the last war between Tsort and Ephebe, but generals have long memories and this time they were ready for it.
On both sides of the line, wooden horses were taking shape.
‘It’s gone,’ said Ptaclusp IIb, slithering back down the pile of rubble.
‘About time, too,’ said his father. ‘Help me fold up your brother. You’re sure it won’t hurt him?’
‘Well, if we do it carefully he can’t move in Time, that is, width to us. So if no time can pass for him, nothing can hurt him.’
Ptaclusp thought of the old days, when pyramid building had simply consisted of piling one block on another and all you needed to remember was that you put less on top as you went up. And now it meant trying to put a crease in one of your sons.
‘Right,’ he said doubtfully. ‘Let’s be off, then.’ He inched his way up the debris and poked his head over the top just as the vanguard of the dead came round the corner of the nearest minor pyramid.
His first thought was: this is it, they’re coming to complain. He’d done his best. It wasn’t always easy to build to a budget. Maybe not every lintel was exactly as per drawings, perhaps the quality of the internal plasterwork wasn’t always up to snuff, but . . .
They can’t all be complaining. Not this many of them.
Ptaclusp IIb climbed up alongside him. His mouth dropped open.
‘Where are they all coming from?’ he said.
‘You’re the expert. You tell me.
‘Are they dead?’
Ptaclusp scrutinised some of the approaching marchers.
‘If they’re not, some of them are awfully ill,’ he said.
‘Let’s make a run for it!’
‘Where to? Up the pyramid?’
The Great Pyramid loomed up behind them, its throbbing filling the air. Ptaclusp stared at it.
‘What’s going to happen tonight?’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Well, is it going to – do whatever it did – again?’
IIb stared at him. ‘Dunno.’
‘Can you find out?’
‘Only by waiting. I’m not even sure what it’s done now.
‘Are we going to like it?’
‘I shouldn’t think so, dad. Oh, dear.’
‘What’s up now?’
‘Look over there.’
Heading towards the marching dead, trailing behind Koomi like a tail behind a comet, were the priests.
It was hot and dark inside the horse. It was also very crowded.
They waited, sweating.
Young Autocue stuttered: ‘What’ll happen now, sergeant?’
The sergeant moved a foot tentatively. The atmosphere would have induced claustrophobia in a sardine.
‘Well, lad. They’ll find us, see, and be so impressed they’ll drag us all the way back to their city, and then when it’s dark we’ll leap out and put them to the sword. Or put the sword to them. One or the other. And then we’ll sack the city, bum the walls and sow the ground with salt. You remember, lad, I showed you on Friday.’
‘Oh.’
Moisture dripped from a score of brows. Several of the men were trying to compose a letter home, dragging styli across wax that was close to melting.
‘And then what will happen, sergeant?’
‘Why, lad, then we’ll go home heroes.’
‘Oh.’
The older soldiers sat stolidly looking at the wooden walls. Autocue shifted uneasily, still worried about something.
‘My mum said to come back with my shield or on it, sergeant,’ he said.