'Well . . .' The king automatically scratched his chin. 'I suppose I have to wait until they've done all the preparations and so forth. Mummified me. And built a bloody pyramid. Um. Do I have to hang around here to wait for all that?'
I ASSUME SO. Death clicked his fingers and a magnificent white horse ceased its grazing on some of the garden greenery and trotted towards him.
'Oh. Well, I think I shall look away. They take all the squishy inside bits out first, you know.' A look of faint worry crossed his face. Things that had seemed perfectly sensible when he was alive seemed a little suspect now that he was dead.
'It's to preserve the body so that it may begin life anew in the Netherworld,' he added, in a slightly perplexed voice. 'And then they wrap you in bandages. At least that seems logical.'
He rubbed his nose. 'But then they put all this food and drink in the pyramid with you. Bit weird, really.'
WHERE ARE ONE'S INTERNAL ORGANS AT THIS POINT?
'That's the funny thing, isn't it? They're in a jar in the next room,' said the king, his voice edged with doubt. 'We even put a damn great model cart in dad's pyramid.'
His frown deepened. 'Solid wood, it was,' he said, half to himself, 'with gold leaf all over it. And four wooden bullocks to pull it. Then we whacked a damn great stone over the door . . .'
He tried to think, and found that it was surprisingly easy. New ideas were pouring into his mind in a cold, clear stream. They had to do with the play of light on the rocks, the deep blue of the sky, the manifold possibilities of the world that stretched away on every side of him. Now that he didn't have a body to importune him with its insistent demands the world seemed full of astonishments, but unfortunately among the first of them was the fact that much of what you thought was true now seemed as solid and reliable as marsh gas. And also that, just as he was fully equipped to enjoy the world, he was going to be buried inside a pyramid.
When you die, the first thing you lose is your life. The next thing is your illusions.
I CAN SEE YOU HAVE GOT A LOT TO THINK ABOUT, said Death, mounting up. AND NOW, IF YOU'LL EXCUSE ME-
'Hang on a moment-'
YES?
'When I . . . fell, I could have sworn that I was flying.'
THAT PART OF YOU THAT WAS DIVINE DID FLY, NATURALLY. YOU ARE NOW FULLY MORTAL.
'Mortal?'
TAKE IT FROM ME. I KNOW ABOUT THESE THINGS.
'Oh. Look, there's quite a few questions I'd like to ask-'
THERE ALWAYS ARE. I'M SORRY. Death clapped his heels to his horse's flanks, and vanished.
The king stood there as several servants came hurrying along the palace wall, slowed down as they approached his corpse, and advanced with caution.
'Are you all right, O jewelled master of the sun?' one of them ventured.
'No, I'm not,' snapped the king, who was having some of his basic assumptions about the universe severely raffled, and that never puts anyone in a good mood. 'I'm by way of being dead just at the moment. Amazing, isn't it,' he added bitterly.
'Can you hear us, O divine bringer of the morning?' inquired the other servant, tiptoeing closer.
'I've just fallen off a hundred foot wall on to my head, what do you think?' shouted the king.
'I don't think he can hear us, Jahmet,' said the other servant.
'Listen,' said the king, whose urgency was equalled only by the servants' total inability to hear anything he was saying, 'you must find my son and tell him to forget about the pyramid business, at least until I've thought about it a bit, there are one or two points which seem a little self-contradictory about the whole afterlife arrangements, and-'
'Shall I shout?' said Jahmet.
'I don't think you can shout loud enough. I think he's dead.'
Jahmet looked down at the stiffening corpse.
'Bloody hell,' he said eventually. 'Well, that's tomorrow up the spout for a start.'