Pyramids

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. A ND NOW, IF YOU’LL EXCUSE ME —
    “Hang on a moment—”
    Y ES?
    “When I…fell, I could have sworn that I was flying.”
    T HAT PART OF YOU THAT WAS DIVINE DID FLY, NATURALLY. You are now fully mortal.
    “Mortal?”
    T AKE IT FROM ME. I KNOW ABOUT THESE THINGS.
    “Oh. Look, there’s quite a few questions I’d like to ask—”
    T HERE 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 jeweled 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 rattled, 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 onto 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 equaled 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.”

    The sun, unaware that it was making its farewell performance, continued to drift smoothly above the rim of the world. And out of it, moving faster than any bird should be able to fly, a seagull bore down on Ankh-Morpork, on the Brass Bridge and eight still figures, on one staring face…
    Seagulls were common enough in Ankh. But as this one flew over the group it uttered one long, guttural scream that caused three of the thieves to drop their knives. Nothing with feathers ought to have been able to make a noise like that. It had claws in it.
    The bird wheeled in a tight circle and fluttered to a perch on a convenient wooden hippo, where it glared at the group with mad red eyes.
    The leading thief tore his fascinated gaze away from it just as he heard Arthur say, quite pleasantly, “This is a number two throwing knife. I got ninety-six percent for throwing knives. Which eyeball don’t you need?”
    The leader stared at him. As far as the other young assassins were concerned, he noticed, one was still staring fixedly at the seagull while the other was busy being noisily sick over the parapet.
    “There’s only one of you,” he said. “There’s five of us.”
    “But soon there will only be four of you,” said Arthur.
    Moving slowly, like someone in a daze, Teppic reached out his hand to the seagull. With any normal seagull this would have resulted in the loss of a thumb, but the creature hopped onto it with the smug air of the master returning to the old plantation.
    It seemed to make the thieves increasingly uneasy. Arthur’s smile wasn’t helping either.
    “That’s a nice bird,” said the leader, in the inanely cheerful tones of the extremely worried. Teppic was dreamily stroking its bullet head.
    “I think it would be a good idea if you went away,” said Arthur, as the bird shuffled sideways onto Teppic’s wrist. Gripping with webbed feet, thrusting out its wings to maintain its balance, it should have looked clownish but instead looked full of hidden power, as though it was an eagle’s secret identity. When it opened its mouth, revealing a ridiculous purple bird tongue, there was a suggestion that this seagull could do a lot more than menace a seaside tomato sandwich.
    “Is it magic?” said one of the thieves, and was quickly hushed.
    “We’ll be going, then,” said the leader, “sorry about the misunderstanding—”
    Teppic gave him a warm, unseeing smile.
    Then they all heard the insistent little noise. Six pairs of eyes swiveled around and