'Thys is all?'
'Hardly worth the trouble of dying, was it?' said the queen. The ancient king nodded, but gently, as though he was afraid his head would fall off.
'Somethyng,' he said, 'must be done.'
He turned to look at the Great Pyramid, and pointed with what had once been an arm.
'Who slepes there?' he said.
'It's mine, actually,' said Teppicymon, lurching forward. 'I don't think we've met, I haven't been interred as yet, my son built it for me. It was against my better judgement, believe me.'
'It ys a dretful thyng,' said the ancient king. 'I felt its building. Even in the sleep of deathe I felt it. It is big enough to interr the worlde.'
'I wanted to be buried at sea,' said Teppicymon. 'I hate pyramids.'
'You do not,' said Ashk-ur-men-tep.
'Excuse me, but I do,' said the king, politely.
'But you do not. What you feel nowe is myld dislike. When you have lain in one for a thousand yeares,' said the ancient one, 'then you will begin to know the meaning of hate.'
Teppicymon shuddered.
'The sea,' he said. 'That's the place. You just dissolve away.
They set off towards the next pyramid. Gern led the way, his face a picture, possibly one painted late at night by an artist who got his inspiration on prescription. Dil followed. He held his chest high. He'd always hoped to make his way in the world and here he was now, walking with kings.
Well. Lurching with kings.
It was another nice day in the high desert. It was always a nice day, if by nice you meant an air temperature like an oven and sand you could roast chestnuts on.
You Bastard ran fast, mainly to keep his feet off the ground for as long as possible. For a moment as they staggered up the hills outside the olive-tree'd, field-patchworked oasis around Ephebe, Teppic thought he saw the Unnamed as a tiny speck on the azure sea. But it might have been just a gleam on a wave.
Then he was over the crest, into a world of yellow and umber. For a while scrubby trees held on against the sand, but the sand won and marched triumphantly onwards, dune after dune.
The desert was not only hot, it was quiet. There were no birds, none of the susurration of organic creatures busily being alive. At night there might have been the whine of insects, but they were deep under the sand against the scorch of day, and the yellow sky and yellow sand became an anechoic chamber in which You Bastard's breath sounded like a steam-engine.
Teppic had learned many things since he first went forth from the Old Kingdom, and he was about to learn one more. All authorities agree that when crossing the scorching desert it is a good idea to wear a hat.
You Bastard settled into the shambling trot that a prime racing camel can keep up for hours.
After a couple of miles Teppic saw a column of dust behind the next dune. Eventually they came up behind the main body of the Ephebian army, swinging along around half-a-dozen battle elephants, their helmet plumes waving in the oven breeze. They cheered on general principles as Teppic went past.
Battle elephants! Teppic groaned. Tsort went in for battle elephants, too. Battle elephants were the fashion lately. They weren't much good for anything except trampling on their own troops when they inevitably panicked, so the military minds on both sides had responded by breeding bigger elephants. Elephants were impressive.
For some reason, many of these elephants were towing great carts full of timber.
He jogged onwards as the sun wound higher and, and this was unusual, blue and purple dots began to pinwheel gently across the horizon.
Another strange thing was happening. The camel seemed to be trotting across the sky. Perhaps this had something to do with the ringing noise in his ears.
Should he stop? But then the camel might fall off.
It was long past noon when You Bastard staggered into the baking shade of the limestone outcrop which had once marked the edge of the valley, and collapsed very slowly into the sand. Teppic rolled off.
A detachment of Ephebians were staring across the narrow space towards a very similar number of Tsorteans on the other side. Occasionally, for the look of the thing, one of them waved a spear.
When Teppic opened his eyes it was to see the fearsome bronze masks of several Ephebian soldiers peering down at him. Their metal mouths were locked in sneers of terrible disdain. Their shining eyebrows were twisted in mortal anger.