Pyramids - Terry Pratchett [49]
Long minutes went past. At one point she thought she heard a tiny noise, like a gasp.
A little later there was subtle clink of metal, so slight as to be almost beyond the range of hearing.
More time wound onto the spool of eternity and then the silence beyond the cell, which had been the silence caused by absence of sound, very slowly became the silence caused by someone making no noise.
She thought: It’s right outside the door.
There was a pause in which Teppic oiled all the bolts and hinges so that, when he made the final assault, the door swished open in heart-gripping noiselessness.
“I say?” said a voice in the darkness.
Ptraci pressed herself still further into the corner.
“Look, I’ve come to rescue you.”
Now she could make out a blacker shadow in the flarelight. It stepped forward with rather more uncertainty than she would have expected from a demon.
“Are you coming or not?” it said. “I’ve only knocked out the guards, it’s not their fault, but we haven’t got a lot of time.”
“I’m to be thrown to the crocodiles in the morning,” whispered Ptraci. “The king himself decreed it.”
“He probably made a mistake.”
Ptraci’s eyes widened in horrified disbelief.
“The Soul Eater will take me!” she said.
“Do you want it to?”
Ptraci hesitated.
“Well, then,” said the figure, and took her unresisting hand. He led her out of the cell, where she nearly tripped over the prone body of a guard.
“Who is in the other cells?” he said, pointing to the line of doors along the passage.
“I don’t know,” said Ptraci.
“Let’s find out, shall we?”
The figure touched a can to the bolts and hinges of the next door and pushed it open. The flare from the narrow window illuminated a middle-aged man, seated cross-legged on the floor.
“I’m here to rescue you,” said the demon.
The man peered up at him.
“Rescue?” he said.
“Yes. Why are you here?”
The man hung his head. “I spoke blasphemy against the king.”
“How did you do that?”
“I dropped a rock on my foot. Now my tongue is to be torn out.”
The dark figure nodded sympathetically.
“A priest heard you, did he?” he said.
“No. I told a priest. Such words should not go unpunished,” said the man virtuously.
We’re really good at it, Teppic thought. Mere animals couldn’t possibly manage to act like this. You need to be a human being to be really stupid. “I think we ought to talk about this outside,” he said. “Why not come with me?”
The man pulled back and glared at him.
“You want me to run away?” he said.
“Seems a good idea, wouldn’t you say?”
The man stared into his eyes, his lips moving silently. Then he appeared to reach a decision,
“Guards!” he screamed.
The shout echoed through the sleeping palace. His would-be rescuer stared at him in disbelief.
“Mad,” Teppic said. “You’re all mad.”
He stepped out of the room, grabbed Ptraci’s hand, and hurried along the shadowy passages. Behind them the prisoner made the most of his tongue while he still had it and used it to scream a stream of imprecations.
“Where are you taking me?” said Ptraci, as they marched smartly around a corner and into a pillar-barred courtyard.
Teppic hesitated. He hadn’t thought much beyond this point.
“Why do they bother to bolt the doors?” he demanded, eyeing the pillars. “That’s what I want to know. I’m surprised you didn’t wander back to your cell while I was in there.”
“I—I don’t want to die,” she said quietly.
“Don’t blame you.”
“You mustn’t say that! It’s wrong not to want to die!”
Teppic glanced up at the roof around the courtyard and unslung his grapnel.
“I think I ought to go back to my cell,” said Ptraci, without actually making any move in that direction. “It’s wrong even to think of disobeying the king.”
“Oh? What happens to you, then?”
“Something bad,” she said vaguely.
“You mean, worse than being thrown to the crocodiles or having your soul taken by the Soul Eater?” said Teppic, and caught the grapnel firmly on some hidden ledge on the flat roof.
“That’s an interesting point,” said Ptraci, winning the Teppic Award for clear thinking.
“Worth considering, isn’t it?” Teppic