There were two guards outside the door, and another two on the balcony outside, and—he was impressed at Dios’s forethought—one on the roof. He could hear them trying to make no noise.
He’d hardly been able to protest. If black-clad miscreants were getting into the palace, then the person of the king had to be protected. It was undeniable.
He slipped off the solid mattress and glided through the twilight to the statue of Bast the Cat-Headed God in the corner, twisted off the head, and pulled out his assassin’s costume. He dressed quickly, cursing the lack of mirrors, and then padded across and lurked behind a pillar.
The only problem, as far as he could see, was not laughing. Being a soldier in Djelibeybi was not a high risk job. There was never a hint of internal rebellion and, since either neighbor could crush the kingdom instantly by force of arms, there was no real point in selecting keen and belligerent warriors. In fact, the last thing the priesthood wanted was enthusiastic soldiers. Enthusiastic soldiers with no fighting to do soon get bored and start thinking dangerous thoughts, like how much better they could run the country.
Instead the job attracted big, solid men, the kind of men who could stand stock still for hours at a time without getting bored, men with the build of an ox and the mental processes to match. Excellent bladder control was also desirable.
He stepped out onto the balcony.
Teppic had learned how not to move stealthily. Millions of years of being eaten by creatures that know how to move stealthily has made humanity very good at spotting stealthy movement. Nor was it enough to make no noise, because little moving patches of silence always aroused suspicion. The trick was to glide through the night with a quiet reassurance, just like the air did.
There was a guard standing just outside the room. Teppic drifted past him and climbed carefully up the wall. It had been decorated with a complex bas relief of the triumphs of past monarchs, so Teppic used his family to give him a leg up.
The breeze was blowing off the desert as he swung his legs over the parapet and walked silently across the roof, which was still hot underfoot. The air had a recently-cooked smell, tinted with spice.
It was a strange feeling, to be creeping across the roof of your own palace, trying to avoid your own guards, engaged on a mission in direct contravention of your own decree and knowing that if you were caught you would have yourself thrown to the sacred crocodiles. After all, he’d apparently already instructed that he was to be shown no mercy if he was captured.
Somehow it added an extra thrill.
There was freedom of a sort up here on the rooftops, the only kind of freedom available to a king of the valley. It occurred to Teppic that the landless peasants down on the delta had more freedom than he did, although the seditious and non-kingly side of him said, yes, freedom to catch any diseases of their choice, starve as much as they wanted, and die of whatever dreadful ague took their fancy. But freedom, of a sort.
A faint noise in the huge silence of the night drew him to the riverward edge of the roof. The Djel sprawled in the moonlight, broad and oily.
There was a boat in midstream, heading back from the far bank and the necropolis. There was no mistaking the figure at the oars. The flarelight gleamed off his bald head.
One day, Teppic thought, I’ll follow him. I’ll find out what it is he does over there.
If he goes over in daylight, of course.
In daylight the necropolis was merely gloomy, as though the whole universe had shut down for early-closing. He’d even explored it, wandering through streets and alleys that contrived to be still and dusty no matter what the weather was on the other, the
living
side of the water. There was always a breathless feel about it, which was probably not to be wondered at. Assassins liked the night on general principles, but the night of the necropolis was something else. Or rather, it was the same thing, but a lot more of it. Besides, it was the only city anywhere on the Disc where an assassin couldn’t find employment.
He reached the light well that opened on the embalmers’ courtyard and peered down. A moment later he landed lightly on the floor and slipped into the room of cases.
“
Hallo, lad
.”
Teppic opened the lid of the case. It was still empty.
“
She’s in one of the ones at the back
,” said the king. “
Never had much of a sense of direction
.”
It was a great big palace. Teppic could barely find his way around it by daylight. He considered his chances of carrying out a search in pitch darkness.
“
It’s a family trait, you know. Your grandad had to have Left and Right painted on his sandals, it was that bad. It’s lucky for you that you take after your mother in that respect
.”
It was strange. She didn’t talk, she chattered. She didn’t seem to be able to hold a simple thought in her head for more than about ten seconds. Her brain appeared to be wired directly to her mouth, so that as soon as a thought entered her head she spoke it out loud. Compared to the ladies he had met at soirees in Ankh, who delighted in entertaining young assassins and fed them expensive delicacies and talked to them of high and delicate matters while their eyes sparkled like carborundum drills and their lips began to glisten…compared to them, she was as empty as a, as a, well, as an empty thing. Nevertheless, he found he desperately wanted to find her. The sheer undemandingness of her was like a drug. The memory of her bosom was quite beside the point.
“
I’m glad you’ve come back for her
,” said the king vaguely. “
She’s your sister, you know. Half sister, that is. Sometimes I wish I’d married her mother, but you see she wasn’t royal. Very bright woman, her mother
.”
Teppic listened hard. There it was again: a faint breathing noise, only heard at all because of the deep silence of the night. He worked his way to the back of the room, listened again, and lifted the lid of a case.
Ptraci was curled up on the bottom, fast asleep with her head on her arm.
He leaned the lid carefully against the wall and touched her hair. She muttered something in her sleep, and settled into a more comfortable position.
“Er, I think you’d better wake up,” he whispered.
She changed position again and muttered something like: “Wstflgl.”
Teppic hesitated. Neither his tutors nor Dios had prepared him for this. He knew at least seventy different ways of killing a sleeping person, but none to wake them up first.
He prodded her in what looked like the least embarrassing area of her skin. She opened her eyes.
“Oh,” she said. “It’s you.” And she yawned.
“I’ve come to take you away,” said Teppic. “You’ve been asleep all day.”
“I heard someone talking,” she said, stretching in a fashion that made Teppic look away hurriedly. “It was that priest, the one with the face like a bald eagle. He’s really horrible.”
“He is, isn’t he?” agreed Teppic, intensely relieved to hear it said.
“So I just kept quiet. And there was the king. The
new
king.”
“Oh. He was down here, was he?” said Teppic weakly. The bitterness in her voice was like a Number Four stabbing knife in his heart.
“All the girls say he’s really
weird
,” she added, as he helped her out of the case. “You
can
touch me, you know. I’m not made of china.”
He steadied her arm, feeling in sore need of a cold bath and a quick run around the rooftops.
“You’re an assassin, aren’t you,” she went on. “I remembered that after you’d gone. An assassin from foreign parts. All that black. Have you come to kill the king?”
“I wish I could,” said Teppic. “He’s really beginning to get on my nerves. Look, could you take your bangles off?”
“Why?”
“They make such a noise when you walk.” Even Ptraci’s earrings appeared to chime the hours when she moved her head.
“I don’t want to,” she said. “I’d feel naked without them.”
“You’re nearly naked
with
them,” hissed Teppic. “Please!”
“
She can play the dulcimer
,” said the ghost of Teppicymon XXVII, apropos of nothing much. “
Not very well, mind you. She’s up to page five of ‘Little Pieces for Tiny Fingers
.’”
Teppic crept to the passage leading out of the embalming room and listened hard. Silence ruled in the palace, broken only by heavy breathing and the occasional clink behind him as Ptraci stripped herself of her jewelry. He crept back.
“Please hurry up,” he said, “we haven’t got ajot of—” Ptraci was crying.
“Er,” said Teppic. “Er.”
“Some of these were presents from my granny,” sniffed Ptraci. “The old king gave me some, too. These earrings have been in my family for ever such a long time. How would you like it if you had to do it?”
“
You see, jewelry isn’t just something she wears
,” said the ghost of Teppicymon XXVII. “
It’s part of who she is
.” My word, he added to himself, that’s probably an Insight. Why is it so much easier to think when you’re dead?
“I don’t wear any,” said Teppic.
“You’ve got all those daggers and things.”
“Well, I need them to do my job.”
“Well then.”
“Look, you don’t have to leave them here, you can put them in my pouch,” he said. “But we must be going. Please!”
“
Goodbye
,” said the ghost sadly, watching them sneak out to the courtyard. He floated back to his corpse, who wasn’t the best of company.
The breeze was stronger when they reached the roof. It was hotter, too, and dry.
Across the river one or two of the older pyramids were already sending up their flares, but they were weak and looked wrong.
“I feel itchy,” said Ptraci. “What’s wrong?”
“It feels like we’re in for a thunderstorm,” said Teppic, staring across the river at the Great Pyramid. Its blackness had intensified, so that it was a triangle of deeper darkness in the night. Figures were running around its base like lunatics watching their asylum burn.
“What’s a thunderstorm?”
“Very hard to describe,” he said, in a preoccupied voice. “Can you see what they’re doing over there?”
Ptraci squinted across the river.
“They’re very busy,” she said.
“Looks more like panic to me.”
A few more pyramids flared, but instead of roaring straight up the flames flickered and lashed backward and forward, driven by intangible winds.
Teppic shook himself. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you away from here.”
“I said we should have capped it this evening,” shouted Ptaclusp IIb above the screaming of the pyramid. “I can’t float it up now, the turbulence up there must be terrific!”
The ice of day was boiling off the black marble, which was already warm to the touch. He stared distractedly at the capstone on its cradle and then at his brother, who was still in his nightshirt.
“Where’s father?” he said.
“I sent one of us to go and wake him up,” said IIa.
“Who?”
“One of you, actually.”
“Oh.” IIb stared again at the capstone. “It’s not that heavy,” he said. “Two of us could manhandle it up there.” He gave his brother an inquiring look.
“You must be mad. Send some of the men to do it.”
“They’ve all run away—”
Down river another pyramid tried to flare, spluttered, and then ejected a screaming, ragged flame that arched across the sky and grounded near the top of the Great Pyramid itself.
“It’s interfering with the others now!” shouted IIb. “Come on. We’ve got to flare it off, it’s the only way!”
About a third of the way up the pyramid’s flanks a crackling blue zigzag arced out and struck itself on a stone sphinx. The air above it boiled.
The two brothers slung the stone between them and staggered to the scaffolding, while the dust around them whirled into strange shapes.
“Can you hear something?” said IIb, as they stumbled onto the first platform.
“What, you mean the fabric of time and space being put through the wringer?” said IIa.
The architect gave his brother a look of faint admiration. It was an unusual remark for an accountant. Then his face returned to its previous look of faint terror.
“No, not that,” he said.
“Well, the sound of the very air itself being subjected to horrible tortures?”
“Not that, either,” said IIb, vaguely annoyed. “I mean the creaking noise.”
Three more pyramids struck their discharges, which fizzled through the roiling clouds overhead and poured into the black marble above them.
“Can’t hear anything like that,” said IIa.
“I think it’s coming from the pyramid.”
“Well, you can put your ear against it if you like, but
I’m
not going to.”
The scaffolding swayed in the storm as they eased their way up another ladder, the heavy capstone rocking between them.
“I said we shouldn’t do it,” muttered the accountant, as the stone slid gently onto his toes. “We shouldn’t have built this.”
“Just shut up and lift your end, will you?”
And so, one rocking ladder after another, the brothers Ptaclusp eased their bickering way up the flanks of the Great Pyramid, while the lesser tombs along the Djel fired one after another, and the sky streamed with lines of sizzling time.
It was around about this point that the greatest mathematician in the world, lying in cozy flatulence in his stall below the palace, stopped chewing the cud and realized that something very wrong was happening to numbers. All the numbers.
The camel looked along its nose at Teppic. Its expression made it clear that of all the riders in all the world it would least like to ride it, he was right at the top of the list. However, camels look like that at everyone. Camels have a very democratic approach to the human race. They hate every member of it, without making any distinctions for rank or creed.
This one appeared to be chewing soap.
Teppic looked distractedly down the shadowy length of the royal stables, which had once contained a hundred camels. He’d have given the world for a horse, and a moderately-sized continent for a pony. But the stables now held only a handful of rotting war chariots, relics of past glories, an elderly elephant whose presence was a bit of a mystery, and this camel. It looked an extremely inefficient animal. It was going threadbare at the knees.