Pyramids - Terry Pratchett [101]
The gold mask of the kings of Djelibeybi, slightly buckled out of shape, had rolled into a corner. He picked it up and, on a suspicion, scratched it with one of his knives. The gold peeled away, exposing a sliver-gray gleam.
He’d suspected that. There simply wasn’t that much gold around. The mask felt as heavy as lead because, well, it was lead. He wondered if it had ever been all gold, and which ancestor had done it, and how many pyramids it had paid for. It was probably very symbolic of something or other. Perhaps not even symbolic of anything. Just symbolic, all by itself.
One of the sacred cats was hiding under the throne. It flattened its ears and spat at Teppic as he reached down to pat it. That much hadn’t changed, at least.
Still no people. He padded across to the balcony.
And there the people were, a great silent mass, staring across the river in the fading, leaden light. As Teppic watched a flotilla of boats and ferries set out from the near bank.
We ought to have been building bridges, he thought. But we said that would be shackling the river.
He dropped lightly over the balustrade onto the packed earth and walked down to the crowd.
And the full force of its belief scythed into him.
The people of Djelibeybi might have had conflicting ideas about their gods, but their belief in their kings had been unswerving for thousands of years. To Teppic it was like walking into a vat of alcohol. He felt it pouring into him until his fingertips crackled, rising up through his body until it gushed into his brain, bringing not omnipotence but the feeling of omnipotence, the very strong sensation that while he didn’t actually know everything, he would do soon and had done once.
It had been like this back in Ankh, when the divinity had hooked him. But that had been just a flicker. Now it had the solid power of real belief behind it.
He looked down at a rustling below him, and saw green shoots springing out of the dry sand around his feet.
Bloody hell, he thought. I really am a god.
This could be very embarrassing.
He shouldered his way through the press of people until he reached the riverbank and stood there in a thickening clump of corn. As the crowd caught on, those nearest fell to their knees, and a circle of reverentially collapsing people spread out from Teppic like ripples.
But I never wanted this! I just wanted to help people live more happily, with plumbing. I wanted something done about rundown inner-city areas. I just wanted to put them at their ease, and ask them how they enjoyed their lives. I thought schools might be a good idea, so they wouldn’t fall down and worship someone just because he’s got green feet.
And I wanted to do something about the architecture…
As the light drained from the sky like steel going cold the pyramid was somehow even bigger than before. If you had to design something to give the very distinct impression of mass, the pyramid was It. There was a crowd of figures around it, unidentifiable in the gray light.
Teppic looked around the prostrate crowd until he saw someone in the uniform of the palace guard.
“You, man, on your feet,” he commanded.
The man gave him a look of dread, but did stagger sheepishly upright.
“What’s going on here?”
“O king, who is the lord of—”
“I don’t think we have time,” said Teppic. “I know who I am, I want to know what’s happening.”
“O king, we saw the dead walking! The priests have gone to talk to them.”
“The dead walking?”
“Yes, O king.”
“We’re talking about not-alive people here, are we?”
“Yes, O king.”
“Oh. Well, thank you. That was very succinct. Not informative, but succinct. Are there any boats around?”
“The priests took them all, O king.”
Teppic could see that this was true. The jetties near the palace were usually thronged with boats, and now they were all empty. As he stared at the water it grew two eyes and a long snout, to remind him that swimming the Djel was as