Bloody hell, he thought. I really am a god.
This could be very embarrassing.
He shouldered his way through the press of people until he reached the riverbank and stood there in a thickening clump of corn. As the crowd caught on, those nearest fell to their knees, and a circle of reverentially collapsing people spread out from Teppic like ripples.
But I never wanted this! I just wanted to help people live more happily, with plumbing. I wanted something done about rundown inner-city areas. I just wanted to put them at their ease, and ask them how they enjoyed their lives. I thought schools might be a good idea, so they wouldn't fall down and worship someone just because he's got green feet.
And I wanted to do something about the architecture... As the light drained from the sky like steel going cold the pyramid was somehow even bigger than before. If you had to design something to give the very distinct impression of mass, the pyramid was It. There was a crowd of figures around it, unidentifiable in the grey light.
Teppic looked around the prostrate crowd until he saw someone in the uniform of the palace guard.
'You, man, on your feet,' he commanded.
The man gave him a look of dread, but did stagger sheepishly upright.
'What's going on here?'
'O king, who is the lord of-'
'I don't think we have time,' said Teppic. 'I know who I am, I want to know what's happening.'
'O king, we saw the dead walking! The priests have gone to talk to them.'
'The dead walking?'
'Yes, O king.'
'We're talking about not-alive people here, are we?'
'Yes, O king.'
'Oh. Well, thank you. That was very succinct. Not informative, but succinct. Are there any boats around?'
'The priests took them all, O king.'
Teppic could see that this was true. The jetties near the palace were usually thronged with boats, and now they were all empty. As he stared at the water it grew two eyes and a long snout, to remind him that swimming the Djel was as feasible as nailing fog to the wall.
He stared at the crowd. Every person was watching him expectantly, convinced that he would know what to do next.
He turned back to the river, extended his hands in front of him, pressed them together and then opened them gently. There was a damp sucking noise, and the waters of the Djel parted in front of him. There was a sigh from the crowd, but their astonishment was nothing to the surprise of a dozen or so crocodiles, who were left trying to swim in ten feet of air.
Teppic ran down the bank and over the heavy mud, dodging to avoid the tails that slashed wildly at him as the reptiles dropped heavily on to the riverbed.
The Djel loomed up as two khaki walls, so that he was running along a damp and shadowy alley. Here and there were fragments of bones, old shields, bits of spear, the ribs of boats. He leapt and jinked around the debris of centuries.
Ahead of him a big bull crocodile propelled itself dreamily out of the wall of water, flailed madly in mid-air, and flopped into the ooze. Teppic trod heavily on its snout and plunged on.
Behind him a few of the quicker citizens, seeing the dazed creatures below them, began to look for stones. The crocodiles had been undisputed masters of the river since primordial times, but if it was possible to do a little catching-up in the space of a few minutes, it was certainly worth a try.
The sound of the monsters of the river beginning the long journey to handbaghood broke out behind Teppic as he sloshed up the far bank.
A line of ancestors stretched across the chamber, down the dark passageway, and out into the sand. It was filled with whispers going in both directions, a dry sound, like the wind blowing through old paper.
Dil lay on the sand, with Gern flapping a cloth in his face.
'Wha' they doing?' he murmured.
'Reading the inscription,' said Gern. 'You ought to see it, master! The one doing the reading, he's practically a-'