'Brethren!' he cried.
'Excuse me,' said the priestess of Sarduk.
'And sistren-'
'Thank you.'
'-let us rejoice!' The assembled priests stood in total silence. This was a radical approach which had not hitherto occurred to them. And Koomi looked at their upturned faces and felt a thrill the like of which he had never experienced before. They were frightened out of their wits, and they were expecting him — him — to tell them what to do.
'Yea!' he said. 'And, indeed, verily, the hour of the gods-'
'-and goddesses-'
'-yes, and goddesses, is at hand. Er.'
What next? What, when you got right down to it, was he going to tell them to do? And then he thought: it doesn't matter. Provided I sound confident enough. Old Dios always drove them, he never tried to lead them. Without him they're wandering around like sheep.
'And, brethren — and sistren, of course — we must ask ourselves, we must ask ourselves, we, er, yes.' His voice waxed again with new confidence. 'Yes, we must ask ourselves why the gods are at hand. And without doubt it is because we have not been assiduous enough in our worship, we have, er, we have lusted after graven idols.'
The priests exchanged glances. Had they? How did you do it, actually?
'And, yes, and what about sacrifices? Time was when a sacrifice was a sacrifice, not some messing around with a chicken and flowers.'
This caused some coughing in the audience.
'Are we talking maidens here?' said one of the priests uncertainly.
'Ahem.'
'And inexperienced young men too, certainly,' he said quickly. Sarduk was one of the older goddesses, whose female worshippers got up to no good in sacred groves; the thought of her wandering around the landscape somewhere, bloody to the elbows, made the eyes water.
Koomi's heart thumped. 'Well, why not?' he said. 'Things were better then, weren't they?'
'But, er, I thought we stopped all that sort of thing. Population decline and so forth.'
There was a monstrous splash out in the river. Tzut, the Snake-Headed God of the Upper Djel, surfaced and regarded the assembled priesthood solemnly. Then Fhez, the Crocodile-Headed God of the Lower Djel, erupted beside him and made a spirited attempt at biting his head off. The two submerged in a column of spray and a minor tidal wave which slopped over the balcony.
'Ah, but maybe the population declined because we stopped sacrificing virgins — of both sexes, of course,' said Koomi, hurriedly. 'Have you ever thought of it like that?' They thought of it. Then they thought of it again.
'I don't think the king would approve-' said one of the priests cautiously.
'The king?' shouted Koomi. 'Where is the king? Show me the king! Ask Dios where the king is!'
There was a thud by his feet. He looked down in horror as the gold mask bounced, and rolled towards the priests. They scattered hurriedly, like skittles.
Dios strode out into the light of the disputed sun, his face grey with fury.
'The king is dead,' he said.
Koomi swayed under the sheer pressure of anger, but rallied magnificently.
'Then his successor-' he began.
'There is no successor,' said Dios. He stared up at the sky. Few people can look directly at the sun, but under the venom of Dios's gaze the sun itself might have flinched and looked away. Dios's eyes sighted down that fearsome nose like twin range finders.
To the air in general he said: 'Coming here as if they own the place. How dare they?'
Koomi's mouth dropped open. He started to protest, and a kilowatt stare silenced him.
Koomi sought support from the crowd of priests, who were busily inspecting their nails or staring intently into the middle distance. The message was clear. He was on his own. Although, if by some chance he won the battle of wills, he'd be surrounded by people assuring him that they had been behind him all along.
'Anyway, they do own the place,' he mumbled.
'What?'
'They, er, they do own the place, Dios,' Koomi repeated. His temper gave out. 'They're the sodding gods, Dios!'
'They're our gods,' Dios hissed. 'We're not their people. They're my gods and they will learn to do as they are instructed!'
Koomi gave up the frontal assault. You couldn't outstare that sapphire stare, you couldn't stand the war-axe nose and, most of all, no man could be expected to dent the surface of Dios's terrifying righteousness.
'But-' he managed.
Dios waved him into silence with a trembling hand.
'They've no right! ' he said. 'I did not give any orders! They have no right!'
'Then what are you going to do?' said Koomi.
Dios's hands opened and closed fitfully. He felt like a royalist might feel — a good royalist, a royalist who cut out pictures of all the Royals and stuck them in a scrapbook, a royalist who wouldn't hear a word said about them, they did such a good job and they can't answer back — if suddenly all the Royals turned up in his living room and started rearranging the furniture. He longed for the necropolis, and the cool silence among his old friends, and a quick sleep after which he'd be able to think so much more clearly . . .
Koomi's heart leapt. Dios's discomfort was a crack which, with due care and attention, could take a wedge. But you couldn't use a hammer. Head on, Dios could outfight the world.
The old man was shaking again. 'I do not presume to tell them how to run affairs in the Hereunder,' he said. 'They shall not presume to instruct me in how to run my kingdom.'
Koomi salted this treasonable statement away for further study and patted him gently on the back.
'You're right, of course,' he said. Dios's eyes swivelled.
'I am?' he said, suspiciously.
'I'm sure that, as the king's minister, you will find a way. You have our full support, O Dios.' Koomi waved an uplifted hand at the priests, who chorused wholehearted agreement. If you couldn't depend on kings and gods, you could always rely on old Dios. There wasn't one of them that wouldn't prefer the uncertain wrath of the gods to a rebuke from Dios. Dios terrified them in a very positive, human way that no supernatural entity ever could. Dios would sort it out.
'And we take no heed to these mad rumours about the king's disappearance. They are undoubtedly wild exaggerations, with no foundation,' said Koomi.
The priests nodded while, in each mind, a tiny rumour uncurled the length of its tail.
'What rumours?' said Dios out of the corner of his mouth.
'So enlighten us, master, as to the path we must now take,' said Koomi.
Dios wavered.
He did not know what to do. For him, this was a new experience. This was Change.
All he could think of, all that was pressing forward in his mind, were the words of the Ritual of the Third Hour, which he had said at this time for — how long? Too long, too long! — And he should have gone to his rest long before, but the time had never been right, there was never anyone capable, they would have been lost without him, the kingdom would founder, he would be letting everyone down, and so he'd crossed the river. . . he swore every time that it was the last, but it never was, not when the chill fetched his limbs, and the decades had become — longer. And now, when his kingdom needed him, the words of a Ritual had scored themselves into the pathways of his brain and bewildered all attempts at thought.
'Er,' he said.
You Bastard chewed happily. Teppic had tethered him too near an olive tree, which was getting a terminal pruning. Sometimes the camel would stop, gaze up briefly at the seagulls that circled everywhere above Ephebe city, and subject them to a short, deadly burst of olive stones.
He was turning over in his mind an interesting new concept in Thau-dimensional physics which unified time, space, magnetism, gravity and, for some reason, broccoli. Periodically he would make noises like distant quarry blasting, but which merely indicated that all stomachs were functioning perfectly.
Ptraci sat under the tree, feeding the tortoise on vine leaves.
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Heat crackled off the white walls of the tavern but, Teppic thought, how different it was from the Old Kingdom. There even the heat was old; the air was musty and lifeless, it pressed like a vice, you felt it was made of boiled centuries. Here it was leavened by the breeze from the sea. It was edged with salt crystals. It carried exciting hints of wine; more than a hint in fact, because Xeno was already on his second amphora. This was the kind of place where things rolled up their sleeves and started.
'But I still don't understand about the tortoise,' he said, with some difficulty. He'd just taken his first mouthful of Ephebian wine, and it had apparently varnished the back of his throat.
''S quite simple,' said Xeno. 'Look, let's say this olive stone is the arrow and this, and this-' he cast around aimlessly — 'and this stunned seagull is the tortoise, right? Now, when you fire the arrow it goes from here to the seag — the tortoise, am I right?'
'I suppose so, but-'
'But, by this time, the seagu — the tortoise has moved on a bit, hasn't he? Am I right?'
'I suppose so,' said Teppic, helplessly. Xeno gave him a look of triumph.
'So the arrow has to go a bit further, doesn't it, to where the tortoise is now. Meanwhile the tortoise has flow — moved on, not much, I'll grant you, but it doesn't have to be much. Am I right? So the arrow has a bit further to go, but the point is that by the time it gets to where the tortoise is now the tortoise isn't there. So, if the tortoise keeps moving, the arrow will never hit it. It'll keep getting closer and closer but never hit it. QED.'
'Are you right?' said Teppic automatically.
'No,' said Ibid coldly. 'There's a dozen tortoise kebabs to prove him wrong. The trouble with my friend here is that he doesn't know the difference between a postulate and a metaphor of human existence. Or a hole in the ground.'
'It didn't hit it yesterday,' snapped Xeno.
'Yes, I was watching. You hardly pulled the string back. I saw you,' said Ibid.
They started to argue again.
Teppic stared into his wine mug. These men are philosophers, he thought. They had told him so. So their brains must be so big that they have room for ideas that no-one else would consider for five seconds. On the way to the tavern Xeno had explained to him, for example, why it was logically impossible to fall out of a tree.
Teppic had described the vanishing of the kingdom, but he hadn't revealed his position in it. He hadn't a lot of experience of these matters, but he had a very clear feeling that kings who hadn't got a kingdom any more were not likely to be very popular in neighbouring countries. There had been one or two like that in Ankh-Morpork — deposed royalty, who had fled their suddenly— dangerous kingdoms for Ankh's hospitable bosom carrying nothing but the clothes they stood up in and a few wagonloads of jewels. The city, of course, welcomed anyone — regardless of race, colour, class or creed — who had spending money in incredible amounts, but nevertheless the inhumation of surplus monarchs was a regular source of work for the Assassins' Guild. There was always someone back home who wanted to be certain that deposed monarchs stayed that way. It was usually a case of heir today, gone tomorrow.
'I think it got caught up in geometry,' he said, hopefully. 'I heard you were very good at geometry here,' he added, 'and perhaps you could tell me how to get back.'
'Geometry is not my forte,' said Ibid. 'As you probably know.'
'Sorry?'
'Haven't you read my Principles of Ideal Government?'
'I'm afraid not.'
'Or my Discourse on Historical Inevitability?'
'No.'
Ibid looked crestfallen. 'Oh,' he said.
'Ibid is a well-known authority on everything,' said Xeno. 'Except for geometry. And interior decorating. And elementary logic.' Ibid glared at him.
'What about you, then?' said Teppic.
Xeno drained his mug. 'I'm more into the destruct testing of axioms,' he said. 'The chap you need is Pthagonal. A very acute man with an angle.'
He was interrupted by the clatter of hooves. Several horsemen galloped with reckless speed past the tavern and on up the winding, cobbled streets of the city. They seemed very excited about something.
Ibid picked a stunned seagull out of his wine cup and laid it on the table. He was looking thoughtful.
'If the Old Kingdom has really disappeared-' he said.
'It has,' said Teppic firmly. 'It's not something you can be mistaken about, really.'
'Then that means our border is concurrent with that of Tsort,' said Ibid ponderously.
'Pardon?' said Teppic.
'There's nothing between us,' explained the philosopher.
'Oh, dear. That means we shall be forced to make war.'
'Why?'
Ibid opened his mouth, stopped, and turned to Xeno.
'Why does it mean we'll be forced to make war?' he said.
'Historical imperative,' said Xeno.
'Ah, yes. I knew it was something like that. I am afraid it is inevitable. It's a shame, but there you are.'
There was another clatter as another party of horsemen rounded the corner, heading downhill this time. They wore the high plumed helmets of Ephebian soldiery, and were shouting enthusiastically.
Ibid settled himself more comfortably on the bench and folded his bands.
'That'll be the Tyrant's men,' he said, as the troop galloped through the city gates and out on to the desert. 'He's sending them to check, you may depend upon it.'
Teppic knew about the enmity between Ephebe and Tsort, of course. The Old Kingdom had profited mightily by it, by seeing that the merchants of both sides had somewhere discreet in which to trade with one another. He drummed his fingers on the table.
'You haven't fought each other for thousands of years,' he said. 'You were tiny countries in those days. It was just a scrap. Now you're huge. People could get hurt. Doesn't that worry you?'
'It's a matter of pride,' said Ibid, but his voice was tinged with uncertainty. 'I don't think there's much choice.'
'It was that bloody wooden cow or whatever,' said Xeno. 'They've never forgiven us for it.'
'If we don't attack them, they'll attack us first,' said Ibid.
''S'right,' said Xeno. 'So we'd better retaliate before they have a chance to strike.'
The two philosophers stared uncomfortably at one another.
'On the other hand,' said Thid, 'war makes it very difficult to think straight.'
'There is that,' Xeno agreed. 'Especially for dead people.' There was an embarrassed silence, broken only by Ptraci's voice singing to the tortoise and the occasional squeak of stricken seagulls.
'What day is it?' said Ibid.
'Tuesday,' said Teppic.
'I think,' said Thid, 'that it might be a good idea if you came to the symposium. We have one every Tuesday,' he added. 'All the greatest minds in Ephebe will be there. All this needs thinking about.'
He glanced at Ptraci.
'However,' he said, 'your young woman cannot attend, naturally. Females are absolutely forbidden. Their brains overheat.'
King Teppicymon XXVII opened his eyes. It's bloody dark in here, he thought.
And he realised that he could hear his own heart beating, but muffled, and some way off.
And then he remembered.
He was alive. He was alive again. And, this time, he was in bits.
Somehow, he'd assumed that you got assembled again once you got to the netherworld, like one of Grinjer's kits.
Get a grip on yourself, man, he thought.
It's up to you to pull yourself together.
Right, he thought. There were at least six jars. So my eyes are in one of them. Getting the lid off would be favourite, so we can see what we're at.
That's going to involve arms and legs and fingers.
This is going to be really tricky.
He reached out, tentatively, with stiff joints, and located something heavy. It felt as though it might give, so he moved his other arm into position, with a great deal of
awkwardness, and pushed.
There was a distant thump, and a definite feeling of openness above him. He sat up, creaking all the way.
The sides of the ceremonial casket still hemmed him in, but to his surprise he found that one slow arm movement brushed them out of the way like paper. Must be all the pickle and stuffing, he thought. Gives you a bit of weight.
He felt his way to the edge of the slab, lowered his heavy legs to the ground and, after a pause out of habit to wheeze a bit, took the first tottering lurch of the newly undead.
It is astonishingly difficult to walk with legs full of straw when the brain doing the directing is in a pot ten feet away, but he made it as far as the wall and felt his way along it until a crash indicated that he'd reached the shelf of jars. He fumbled the lids of the first one and dipped his hand gently inside.
It must be brains, he thought maniacally, because semolina doesn't squidge like that. I've collected my own thoughts, haha.
He tried one or two more jars until an explosion of daylight told him he'd found the one with his eyes in. He watched his own bandaged hand reach down, growing gigantic, and scoop them up carefully.
That seems to be the important bits, he thought. The rest can wait until later. Maybe when I need to eat something, and so forth.
He turned around, and realised that he was not alone. Dil and Gern were watching him. To squeeze any further into the far corner of the room, they would have needed triangular backbones.
'Ah. Ho there, good people,' said the king, aware that his voice was a little hollow. 'I know so much about you, I'd like to shake you by the hand.' He looked down. 'Only they're rather full at the moment,' he added.
'Gkkk,' said Gern.
'You couldn't do a bit of reassembly, could you?' said the king, turning to Dil. 'Your stitches seem to be holding up nicely, by the way. Well done, that man.'
Professional pride broke through the barrier of Dil's terror.
'You're alive?' he said.
'That was the general idea, wasn't it?' said the king.
Dil nodded. Certainly it was. He'd always believed it to be true. He'd just never expected it ever actually to happen. But it had, and the first words, well, nearly the first words that had been said were in praise of his needlework. His chest swelled. No— one else in the Guild had ever been congratulated on their work by a recipient.
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