Teppic dreamed.
He saw seven fat cows and seven thin cows, and one of them was riding a bicycle.
He saw some camels, singing, and the song straightened out the wrinkles in reality.
He saw a finger Write on the wall of a pyramid: Going forth is easy. Going back requires (cont. on next wall) . . .
He walked around the pyramid, where the finger continued: An effort of will, because it is much harder. Thank you.
Teppic considered this, and it occurred to him that there was one thing left to do which he had not done. He’d never known how to before, but now he could see that it was just numbers, arranged in a special way. Everything that was magical was just a way of describing the world in words it couldn’t ignore.
He gave a grunt of effort.
There was a brief moment of speed. Dil and IIb looked around as long shafts of light sparkled through the mists and dust, turning the landscape into old gold.
And the sun came up.
The sergeant cautiously opened the hatch in the horse’s belly. When the expected flurry of spears did not materialise he ordered Autocue to let out the rope ladder, climbed down it, and looked across the chill morning desert.
The new recruit followed him down and stood, hopping from one sandal to another, on sand that was nearly freezing now and would be frying by lunchtime.
‘There,’ said the sergeant, pointing, ‘see the Tsortean lines, lad?’
‘Looks like a row of wooden horses to me, sergeant,’ said Autocue. ‘The one on the end’s on rockers.’
‘That’ll be the officers. Huh. Those Tsorteans must think we’re simple.’ The sergeant stamped some life into his legs, took a few breaths of fresh air, and walked back to the ladder.
‘Come on, lad,’ he said.
‘Why’ve we got to go back up there?’
The sergeant paused, his foot on a rope rung.
‘Use some common, laddie. They’re not going to come and take our horses if they see us hanging around outside, are they? Stands to reason.’
‘You sure they’re going to come, then?’ said Autocue. The sergeant frowned at him.
‘Look, soldier,’ he said, ‘anyone bloody stupid enough to think we’re going to drag a lot of horses full of soldiers back to our city is certainly daft enough to drag ours all the way back to theirs. QED.’
‘QED, sarge?’
‘It means get back up the bloody ladder, lad.’
Autocue saluted. ‘Permission to be excused first, sarge?’
‘Excused what?’
‘Excused, sarge,’ said Autocue, a shade desperately. ‘I mean, it’s a bit cramped in the horse, sarge, if you know what I mean.’
‘You’re going to have to learn a bit of will power if you want to stay in the horse soldiers, boy. You know that?’
‘Yes, sarge,’ said Autocue miserably.
‘You’ve got one minute.’
‘Thanks, sarge.’
When the hatch closed above him Autocue sidled over to one of the horse’s massive legs and put it to a use for which it wasn’t originally intended.
And it was while he was staring vaguely ahead, lost in that Zen-like contemplation which occurs at moments like this, that there was a faint pop in the air and an entire river valley opened up in front of him.
It’s not the sort of thing that ought to happen to a thoughtful lad. Especially one who has to wash his own uniform.
A breeze from the sea blew into the kingdom, hinting at, no, positively roaring suggestions of salt, shellfish and sun-soaked tidelines. A few rather puzzled seabirds wheeled over the necropolis, where the wind scurried among the fallen masonry and covered with sand the memorials to ancient kings, and the birds said more with a simple bowel movement than Ozymandias ever managed to say.
The wind had a cool, not unpleasant edge to it. The people out repairing the damage caused by the gods felt an urge to turn their faces towards it, as fish in a pond turn towards an influx of clear, fresh water.
No-one worked in the necropolis. Most of the pyramids had blown their upper levels clean off, and stood smoking gently like recently-extinct volcanoes. Here and there slabs of black marble littered the landscape. One of them had nearly decapitated a fine statue of Hat, the Vulture-Headed God.
The ancestors had vanished. No-one was volunteering to go and look for them.
Around midday a ship came up the Djel under full sail. It was a deceptive ship. It seemed to wallow like a fat and unprotected hippo, and it was only after watching it for some time that anyone would realise that it was also making remarkably fast progress. It dropped anchor outside the palace.
After a while, it let down a dinghy.
Teppic sat on the throne and watched the life of the kingdom reassemble itself, like a smashed mirror that is put together again and reflects the same old light in new and unexpected ways.
No-one was quite sure on what basis he was on the throne, but no-one else was at all keen on occupying it and it was a relief to hear instructions issued in a clear, confident voice. It is amazing what people will obey, if a clear and confident voice is used, and the kingdom was well used to a clear, confident voice.
Besides, giving orders stopped him thinking about things. Like, for example, what would happen next. But at least the gods had gone back to not existing again, which made it a whole lot easier to believe in them, and the grass didn’t seem to be growing under his feet any more.
Maybe I can put the kingdom together again, he thought. But then what can I do with it? If only we could find Dios. He always knew what to do, that was the main thing about him.
A guard pushed his way through the milling throng of priests and nobles.
‘Excuse me, your sire,’ he said. ‘There’s a merchant to see you. He says it’s urgent.’
‘Not now, man. There’s representatives of the Tsortean and Ephebian armies coming to see me in an hour, and there’s a great deal that’s got to be done first. I can’t go around seeing any salesmen who happen to be passing. What’s he selling, anyway?’
‘Carpets, your sire.’
‘Carpets?’
It was Chidder, grinning like half a watermelon, followed by several of the crew. He walked up the hall staring around at the frescoes and hangings. Because it was Chidder, he was probably costing them out. By the time he reached the throne he was drawing a double line under the total.
‘Nice place,’ he said, wrapping up thousands of years of architectural accumulation in a mere two syllables. ‘You’ll never guess what happened, we just happened to be sailing along the coast and suddenly there was this river. One minute cliffs, next minute river. There’s a funny thing, I thought. I bet old Teppic’s up there somewhere.’
‘Where’s Ptraci?’
‘I knew you were complaining about the lack of the old home comforts, so we brought you this carpet.’
‘I said, where’s Ptraci?’
The crew moved aside, leaving a grinning Alfonz to cut the strings around the carpet and shake it out.
It uncurled swiftly across the floor in a flurry of dust balls and moths and, eventually, Ptraci, who continued rolling until her head hit Teppic’s boot.
He helped her to her feet and tried to pick bits of fluff out of her hair as she swayed backwards and forwards. She ignored him and turned to Chidder, red with breathlessness and fury.
‘I could have died in there!’ she shouted. ‘Lots of other things have, by the smell! And the heat!’
‘You said it worked for Queen wossname, Ram-Jam-Hurrah, or whoever,’ said Chidder. ‘Don’t blame me, at home a necklace or something is usually the thing.’
‘I bet she had a decent carpet,’ snapped Ptraci. ‘Not something stuck in a bloody hold for six months.’
‘You’re lucky we had one at all,’ said Chidder mildly. ‘It was your idea.’
‘Huh,’ said Ptraci. She turned to Teppic. ‘Hallo,’ she said. ‘This was meant to be a startling original surprise.’
‘It worked,’ said Teppic fervently. ‘It really worked.’
Chidder lay on a daybed on the palace’s veranda, while three handmaidens took turns to peel grapes for him. A pitcher of beer stood cooling in the shade. He was grinning amiably.
On a blanket nearby Alfonz lay on his stomach, feeling extremely awkward. The Mistress of the Women had found out that, in addition to the tattoos on his forearms, his back was a veritable illustrated history of exotic practices, and had brought the girls out to be educated. He winced occasionally as her pointer stabbed at items of particular interest, and stuffed his fingers firmly in his great, scarred ears to shut out the giggles.
At the far end of the veranda, given privacy by unspoken agreement, Teppic sat with Ptraci. Things were not going well.