'You can't think I'd risk that? Supposing you didn't come back!'
'I'll be back tonight,' said Teppic. 'And - and I'll see if I can drop some food and water in some time today. She stood on tiptoe, her ankle bangles jingling all the way down Teppic's libido. He glanced down involuntarily and saw that every toenail was painted. He remembered Cheesewright telling them behind the stables one lunch-hour that girls who painted their toenails were . . . well, he couldn't quite remember now, but it had seemed pretty unbelievable at the time.
'It looks very hard,' she said.
'What?'
'If I've got to lie in it, it'll need some cushions.'
'I'll put some wood shavings in, look!' said Teppic. 'But hurry up! Please!'
'All right. But you will be back, won't you? Promise?'
'Yes, yes! I promise!'
He wedged a splinter of wood on the case to allow an airhole, heaved the lid back on and ran for it.
The ghost of the king watched him go.
The sun rose. As the golden light spilled down the fertile valley of the Djel the pyramid flares paled and became ghost dancers against the lightening sky. They were now accompanied by a noise. It had been there all the time, far too high-pitched for mortal ears, a sound now dropping down from the far ultrasonic
KKKkkkkkkhhheeee. . .
i let herself slide back down to the chilly stones of the floor. Come in through the door! She wondered how it could manage that. Humans would need to open it first.
She crouched in the furthest corner of the cell, staring at the small rectangle of wood.
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 on to 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.