“I wanted to be buried at sea,” said Teppicymon. “I hate pyramids.”
“You do not,” said Ashk-ur-men-tep.
“Excuse me, but I do,” said the king, politely.
“But you do not. What you feel nowe is myld dislike. When you have lain in one for a thousand yeares,” said the ancient one, “
then
you will begin to know the meaning of hate.”
Teppicymon shuddered.
“The sea,” he said. “That’s the place. You just dissolve away.”
They set off toward the next pyramid. Gern led the way, his face a picture, possibly one painted late at night by an artist who got his inspiration on prescription. Dil followed. He held his chest high. He’d always hoped to make his way in the world and here he was now, walking with kings.
Well.
Lurching
with kings.
It was another nice day in the high desert. It was always a nice day, if by nice you meant an air temperature like an oven and sand you could roast chestnuts on.
You Bastard ran fast, mainly to keep his feet off the ground for as long as possible. For a moment as they staggered up the hills outside the olive-tree’d, field-patchworked oasis around Ephebe, Teppic thought he saw the
Unnamed
as a tiny speck on the azure sea. But it might have been just a gleam on a wave.
Then he was over the crest, into a world of yellow and umber. For a while scrubby trees held on against the sand, but the sand won and marched triumphantly onward, dune after dune.
The desert was not only hot, it was quiet. There were no birds, none of the susurration of organic creatures busily being alive. At night there might have been the whine of insects, but they were deep under the sand against the scorch of day, and the yellow sky and yellow sand became an anechoic chamber in which You Bastard’s breath sounded like a steam-engine.
Teppic had learned many things since he first went forth from the Old Kingdom, and he was about to learn one more. All authorities agree that when crossing the scorching desert it is a good idea to wear a hat.
You Bastard settled into the shambling trot that a prime racing camel can keep up for hours.
After a couple of miles Teppic saw a column of dust behind the next dune. Eventually they came up behind the main body of the Ephebian army, swinging along around half-a-dozen battle elephants, their helmet plumes waving in the oven breeze. They cheered on general principles as Teppic went past.
Battle elephants! Teppic groaned. Tsort went in for battle elephants, too. Battle elephants were the fashion lately. They weren’t much good for anything except trampling on their own troops when they inevitably panicked, so the military minds on both sides had responded by breeding bigger elephants. Elephants were impressive.
For some reason, many of these elephants were towing great carts full of timber.
He jogged onward as the sun wound higher and, and this was unusual, blue and purple dots began to pinwheel gently across the horizon.
Another strange thing was happening. The camel seemed to be trotting across the sky. Perhaps this had something to do with the ringing noise in his ears.
Should he stop? But then the camel might fall off…
It was long past noon when You Bastard staggered into the baking shade of the limestone outcrop which had once marked the edge of the valley, and collapsed very slowly into the sand. Teppic rolled off.
A detachment of Ephebians were staring across the narrow space toward a very similar number of Tsorteans on the other side. Occasionally, for the look of the thing, one of them waved a spear.
When Teppic opened his eyes it was to see the fearsome bronze masks of several Ephebian soldiers peering down at him. Their metal mouths were locked in sneers of terrible disdain. Their shining eyebrows were twisted in mortal anger.
One of them said, “He’s coming round, sarge.”
A metal face like the anger of the elements came closer, filling Teppic’s vision.
“We’ve been out without our hat, haven’t we, sonny boy,” it said, in a cheery voice that echoed oddly inside the metal. “In a hurry to get to grips with the enemy, were we?”
The sky wheeled around Teppic, but a thought bobbed into the frying pan of his mind, seized control of his vocal chords and croaked: “The camel!”
“You ought to be put away, treating it like that,” said the sergeant, waggling a finger at him. “Never seen one in such a state.”
“Don’t let it have a drink!” Teppic sat bolt upright, great gongs clanging and hot, heavy fireworks going off inside his skull. The helmeted heads turned toward one another.
“Gods, he must have something really terrible against camels,” said one of them. Teppic staggered upright and lurched across the sand to You Bastard, who was trying to work out the complex equation which would allow him to get to his feet. His tongue was hanging out, and he was not feeling well.
A camel in distress isn’t a shy creature. It doesn’t hang around in bars, nursing a solitary drink. It doesn’t phone up old friends and sob at them. It doesn’t mope, or write long soulful poems about Life and how dreadful it is when seen from a bed-sitter. It doesn’t know what angst
is
.
All a camel has got is a pair of industrial-strength lungs and a voice like a herd of donkeys being chainsawed.
Teppic advanced through the blaring. You Bastard reared his head and turned it this way and that, triangulating. His eyes rolled madly as he did the camel trick of apparently looking at Teppic with his nostrils.
He spat.
He
tried
to spit.
Teppic grabbed his halter and pulled on it.
“Come on, you bastard,” he said. “There’s water. You can
smell
it. All you have to do is work out how to get there!”
He turned to the assembled soldiers. They were staring at him with expressions of amazement, apart from those who hadn’t removed their helmets and who were staring at him with expressions of metallic ferocity.
Teppic snatched a water skin from one of them, pulled out the stopper and tipped it onto the ground in front of the camel’s twitching nose.
“There’s a river here,” he hissed. “You know where it is, all you’ve got to do is go there!”
The soldiers looked around nervously. So did several Tsorteans, who had wandered up to see what was going on.
You Bastard got to his feet, knees trembling, and started to spin around in a circle. Teppic clung on.
…let d equal 4, thought You Bastard desperately. Let a.d equal 90. Let not-d equal 45…
“I need a stick!” shouted Teppic, as he was whirled past the sergeant. “They never understand anything unless you hit them with a stick, it’s like punctuation to a camel!”
“Is a sword any good?”
“No!”
The sergeant hesitated, and then passed Teppic his spear.
He grabbed it point-end first, fought for balance, and then brought it smartly across the camel’s flank, raising a cloud of dust and hair.
You Bastard stopped. His ears turned like radar aerials. He stared at the rock wall, rolling his eyes. Then, as Teppic grabbed a handful of hair and pulled himself up, the camel started to trot.
…Think
fractals
…
“’Ere, you’re going to run straight—” the sergeant began.
There was silence. It went on for a long time.
The sergeant shifted uneasily. Then he looked across the rocks to the Tsorteans, and caught the eye of their leader. With the unspoken understanding that is shared by centurions and sergeant-majors everywhere, they walked toward one another along the length of the rocks and stopped by the barely visible crack in the cliff.
The Tsortean sergeant ran his hand over it.
“You’d think there’d be some, you know, camel hairs or something,” he said.
“Or blood,” said the Ephebian.
“I reckon it’s one of them unexplainable phenomena.”
“Oh. That’s all right, then.”
The two men stared at the stone for a while.
“Like a mirage,” said the Tsortean, helpfully.
“One of them things, yes.”
“I thought I heard a seagull, too.”
“Daft, isn’t it. You don’t get them out here.”
The Tsortean coughed politely, and stared back at his men. Then he leaned closer.
“The rest of your people will be along directly, I expect,” he said.
The Ephebian stepped a bit closer and when he spoke, it was out of the corner of his mouth while his eyes apparently remained fully occupied by looking at the rocks.
“That’s right,” he said. “And yours too, may I ask?”
“Yes. I expect we’ll have to massacre you if ours get here first.”
“Likewise, I shouldn’t wonder. Still, can’t be helped.”
“One of those things, really,” agreed the Tsortean.
The other man nodded. “Funny old world, when you come to think about it.”
“You’ve put your finger on it, all right.” The sergeant loosened his breastplate a bit, glad to be out of the sun. “Rations OK on your side?” he said.
“Oh, you know. Mustn’t grumble.”
“Like us, really.”
“’Cos if you
do
grumble, they get even worse.”
“Just like ours. Here, you haven’t got any figs on your side, have you? I could just do with a fig.”
“Sorry.”
“Just thought I’d ask.”
“Got plenty of dates, if they’re any good to you.”
“We’re OK on dates, thanks.”
“Sorry.”
The two men stood awhile, lost in their own thoughts. Then the Ephebian put on his helmet again, and the Tsortean adjusted his belt.
“Right, then.”
“Right, then.”
They squared their shoulders, stuck out their chins, and marched away. A moment later they turned about smartly and, exchanging the merest flicker of an embarrassed grin, headed back to their own sides.
Teppic had expected—
—what?
Possibly the splat of flesh hitting rock. Possibly, although this was on the very edge of expectation, the sight of the Old Kingdom spread out below him.
He hadn’t expected chilly, damp mists.
It is now known to science that there are many more dimensions than the classical four. Scientists say that these don’t normally impinge on the world because the extra dimensions are very small and curve in on themselves, and that since reality is fractal most of it is tucked inside itself. This means either that the universe is more full of wonders than we can hope to understand or, more probably, that scientists make things up as they go along.
But the multiverse is full of little dimensionettes, playstreets of creation where creatures of the imagination can romp without being knocked down by serious actuality. Sometimes, as they drift through the holes in reality, they impinge back on this universe, when they give rise to myths, legends and charges of being Drunk and Disorderly.
And it was into one of these that You Bastard, by a trivial miscalculation, had trotted.
Legend had got it nearly right. The Sphinx
did
lurk on the borders of the kingdom. The legend just hadn’t been precise about what kind of borders it was talking about.
The Sphinx is an unreal creature. It exists solely because it has been imagined. It is well known that in an infinite universe everything that can be imagined must exist somewhere, and since many of them are not things that ought to exist in a well-ordered space-time frame they get shoved into a side dimension. This may go some way to explaining the Sphinx’s chronic bad temper, although any creature created with the body of a lion, bosom of a woman and wings of an eagle has a serious identity crisis and doesn’t need much to make it angry.
So it had devised the Riddle.
Across various dimensions it had provided the Sphinx with considerable entertainment and innumerable meals.
This was not known to Teppic as he led You Bastard through the swirling mists, but the bones he crunched underfoot gave him enough essential detail.
A lot of people had died here. And it was reasonable to assume that the more recent ones had seen the remains of the earlier ones, and would therefore have proceeded stealthily. And that hadn’t worked.
No sense in creeping along, then. Besides, some of the rocks that loomed out of the mists had a very distressing shape. This one here, for example, looked exactly like—
“Halt,” said the Sphinx.
There was no sound but the drip of the mist and the occasional sucking noise of You Bastard trying to extract moisture from the air.
“You’re a sphinx,” said Teppic.
“
The Sphinx
,” corrected the Sphinx.
“Gosh. We’ve got any amount of statues to you at home.” Teppic looked up, and then further up. “I thought you’d be smaller,” he added.
“Cower, mortal,” said the Sphinx. “For thou art in the presence of the wise and the terrible.” It blinked. “Any good, these statues?”
“They don’t do you justice,” said Teppic, truthfully.
“Do you really think so? People often get the nose wrong,” said the Sphinx. “My right profile is best, I’m told, and—” It dawned on the Sphinx that it was sidetracking itself. It coughed sternly.
“Before you can pass me, O mortal,” it said, “you must answer my riddle.”
“Why?” said Teppic.
“What?” The Sphinx blinked at him. It hadn’t been designed for this sort of thing.
“Why? Why? Because. Er. Because, hang on, yes, because I will bite your head off if you don’t. Yes, I think that’s it.”
“Right,” said Teppic. “Let’s hear it, then.”
The Sphinx cleared its throat with a noise like an empty lorry reversing in a quarry.
“What goes on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?” said the Sphinx smugly.
Teppic considered this.
“That’s a tough one,” he said, eventually.
“The toughest,” said the Sphinx.
“Um.”
“You’ll never get it.”
“Ah,” said Teppic.
“Could you take your clothes off while you’re thinking? The threads play merry hell with my teeth.”
“There isn’t some kind of animal that regrows legs that have been—”
“Entirely the wrong track,” said the Sphinx, stretching its claws.
“Oh.”
“You haven’t got the faintest idea, have you?”
“I’m still thinking,” said Teppic.
“You’ll never get it.”
“You’re right.” Teppic stared at the claws. This isn’t really a fighting animal, he told himself reassuringly, it’s definitely over-endowed. Besides, its bosom will get in the way, even if its brain doesn’t.
“The answer is: ‘A Man,’” said the Sphinx. “Now, don’t put up a fight, please, it releases unpleasant chemicals into the bloodstream.”
Teppic backed away from a slashing paw. “Hold on, hold on,” he said. “What do you mean, a man?”
“It’s easy,” said the Sphinx. “A baby crawls in the morning, stands on both legs at noon, and in the evening an old man walks with a stick. Good, isn’t it?”
Teppic bit his lip. “We’re talking about
one day
here?” he said doubtfully.
There was a long, embarrassing silence.
“It’s a wossname, a figure of speech,” said the Sphinx irritably, making another lunge.
“No, no, look, wait a minute,” said Teppic. “I’d like us to be very clear about this, right? I mean, it’s only fair, right?”
“Nothing wrong with the riddle,” said the Sphinx. “Damn good riddle. Had that riddle for fifty years, sphinx and cub.” It thought about this. “Chick,” it corrected.
“It’s a good riddle,” Teppic said soothingly. “Very deep. Very moving. The whole human condition in a nutshell. But you’ve got to admit, this doesn’t all happen to one individual in one day, does it?”
“Well. No,” the Sphinx admitted. “But that is self-evident from the context. An element of dramatic analogy is present in all riddles,” it added, with the air of one who had heard the phrase a long time ago and rather liked it, although not to the extent of failing to eat the originator.
“Yes,
but
” said Teppic crouching down and brushing a clear space on the damp sand, “is there internal consistency within the metaphor? Let’s say for example that the average life expectancy is seventy years, OK?”
“OK,” said the Sphinx, in the uncertain tones of someone who has let the salesman in and is now regretfully contemplating a future in which they are undoubtedly going to buy life insurance.
“
Right
. Good. So noon would be age 35, am I right? Now considering that most children can toddle at a year or so, the four legs reference is really unsuitable, wouldn’t you agree? I mean, most of the morning is spent on two legs. According to your analogy—” he paused and did a few calculations with a convenient thighbone—” only about twenty minutes immediately after 00.00 hours, half an hour tops, is spent on four legs. Am I right? Be fair.”
“Well—” said the Sphinx.
“By the same token you wouldn’t be using a stick by six p.m. because you’d be only, er, 52,” said Teppic, scribbling furiously. “In fact you wouldn’t really be looking at any kind of walking aid until at least half past nine, I think. That’s on the assumption that the entire lifespan takes place over one day which is, I believe I have already pointed out, ridiculous. I’m sorry, it’s basically OK, but it doesn’t work.”
“Well,” said the Sphinx, but irritably this time, “I don’t see what I can do about it. I haven’t got any more. It’s the only one I’ve ever needed.”
“You just need to alter it a bit, that’s all.”
“How do you mean?”
“Just make it a bit more realistic.”
“Hmm.” The Sphinx scratched its mane with a claw.
“OK,” it said doubtfully. “I suppose I could ask: What is it that walks on four legs—”
“Metaphorically speaking,” said Teppic.
“Four legs, metaphorically speaking,” the Sphinx agreed, “for about—”
“Twenty minutes, I think we agreed.”
“—OK, fine, twenty minutes in the morning, on two legs—”
“But I think calling it ‘in the morning’ is stretching it a bit,” said Teppic. “It’s just after midnight. I mean, technically it’s the morning, but in a very real sense it’s still last night, what do you think?”
A look of glazed panic crossed the Sphinx’s face.
“What do
you
think?” it managed.
“Let’s just see where we’ve got to, shall we? What, metaphorically speaking, walks on four legs just after midnight, on two legs for most of the day—”
“—barring accidents,” said the Sphinx, pathetically eager to show that it was making a contribution.
“Fine, on two legs barring accidents, until at least supper-time, when it walks with three legs—”
“I’ve known people use two walking sticks,” said the Sphinx helpfully.
“OK. How about: when it continues to walk on two legs or with any prosthetic aids of its choice?” The Sphinx gave this some consideration. “Ye-ess,” it said gravely. “That seems to fit all eventualities.”
“Well?” said Teppic. “Well what?” said the Sphinx.
“Well, what’s the answer?”
The Sphinx gave him a stony look, and then showed its fangs.
“Oh no,” it said. “You don’t catch me out like that. You think I’m stupid?
You’ve
got to tell
me
the answer.”
“Oh, blow,” said Teppic.
“Thought you had me there, didn’t you?” said the Sphinx.
“Sorry.”
“You thought you could get me all confused, did you?” The Sphinx grinned.
“It was worth a try,” said Teppic.
“Can’t blame you. So what’s the answer, then?”
Teppic scratched his nose.
“Haven’t a clue,” he said. “Unless, and this is a shot in the dark, you understand, it’s: A Man.”
The Sphinx glared at him.
“You’ve been here before, haven’t you?” it said accusingly.
“No.”
“Then someone’s been talking, right?”
“Who could have talked? Has anyone ever guessed the riddle?” said Teppic.
“No!”
“Well, then. They couldn’t have talked, could they?”
The Sphinx’s claws scrabbled irritably on its rock.
“I suppose you’d better move along, then,” it grumbled.
“Thank you,” said Teppic.
“I’d be grateful if you didn’t tell anyone, please,” added the Sphinx, coldly. “I wouldn’t like to spoil it for other people.”
Teppic scrambled up a rock and onto You Bastard.
“Don’t you worry about that,” he said, spurring the camel onward. He couldn’t help noticing the way the Sphinx was moving its lips silently, as though trying to work something out.
You Bastard had gone only twenty yards or so before an enraged bellow erupted behind him. For once he forgot the etiquette that says a camel must be hit with a stick before it does anything. All four feet hit the sand and pushed.
This time he got it right.
The priests were going irrational.
It wasn’t that the gods were disobeying them. The gods were
ignoring
them.
The gods always had. It took great skill to persuade a Djelibeybi god to obey you, and the priests had to be fast on their toes. For example, if you pushed a rock off a cliff, then a quick request to the gods that it should fall down was certain to be answered. In the same way, the gods ensured that the sun set and the stars came out. Any petition to the gods to see to it that palm trees grew with their roots in the ground and their leaves on top was certain to be graciously accepted. On the whole, any priest who cared about such things could ensure a high rate of success.
However, it was one thing for the gods to ignore you when they were far off and invisible, and quite another when they were strolling across the landscape. It made you feel such a fool.
“Why don’t they listen?” said the high priest of Teg, the Horse-Headed god of agriculture. He was in tears. Teg had last been seen sitting in a field, pulling up corn and giggling.
The other high priests were faring no better. Rituals hallowed by time had filled the air in the palace with sweet blue smoke and cooked enough assorted livestock to feed a famine, but the gods were settling in the Old Kingdom as if they owned it, and the people therein were no more than insects.
And the crowds were still outside. Religion had ruled in the Old Kingdom for the best part of seven thousand years. Behind the eyes of every priest present was a graphic image of what would happen if the people ever thought, for one moment, that it ruled no more.
“And so, Dios,” said Koomi, “we turn to you. What would you have us do now?”
Dios sat on the steps of the throne and stared gloomily at the floor. The gods didn’t listen. He
knew
that. He knew that, of all people. But it had never mattered before. You just went through the motions and came up with an answer. It was the ritual that was important, not the gods. The gods were there to do the duties of a megaphone, because who else would people listen to?
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 rumors, 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.”