Pyramids - Terry Pratchett [103]
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 gray 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 onto the wide flat roof of a mastaba, jogged to its far end, cleared the gap onto 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 stories of a step pyramid.
The long light of the contentious sun lanced across the silent 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 onto 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 stylized 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 around 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