Pyramids

that you advised, O Dios,” said Koomi. He waited until most of the priests were watching them and then, in a rather louder voice, continued: “If the king was here, he would intercede for us.”
    He caught the eye of the priestess of Sarduk. He hadn’t discussed things with her; indeed, what was there to discuss? But he had an inkling that there was some fellow, sorry, feeling there. She didn’t like Dios very much, but was less in awe of him than were the others.
    “I told you that the king is dead,” said Dios.
    “Yes, we heard you. Yet there seems to be no body, O Dios. Nevertheless, we believe what you tell us, for it is the great Dios that speaks, and we pay no heed to malicious gossip.”
    The priests were silent. Malicious gossip, too? And somebody had already mentioned rumors, hadn’t they? Definitely something amiss here.
    “It happened many times in the past,” said the priestess, on cue. “When a kingdom was threatened or the river did not rise, the king went to intercede with the gods. Was sent to intercede with the gods.”
    The edge of satisfaction in her voice made it clear that it was a one-way trip.
    Koomi shivered with delight and horror. Oh, yes. Those were the days. Some countries had experimented with the idea of the sacrificial king, long ago. A few years of feasting and ruling, then chop—and make way for a new administration.
    “In a time of crisis, possibly any high-born minister of state would suffice,” she went on.
    Dios looked up, his face mirroring the agony of his tendons.
    “I see ” he said. “And who would be high priest then?”
    “The gods would choose,” said Koomi.
    “I daresay they would,” said Dios sourly. “I am in some doubt as to the wisdom of their choice.”
    “The dead can speak to the gods in the Netherworld,” said the priestess.
    “But the gods are all here ,” said Dios, fighting against the throbbing in his legs, which were insisting that, at this time, they should be walking along the central corridor en route to supervise the Rite of the Under Sky. His body cried out for the solace over the river. And once over the river, never to return…but he’d always said that.
    “In the absence of the king the high priest performs his duties. Isn’t that right, Dios?” said Koomi.
    It was. It was written. You couldn’t rewrite it, once it was written. He’d written it. Long ago.
    Dios hung his head. This was worse than plumbing, this was worse than anything. And yet, and yet…to go across the river…
    “Very well, then,” he said. “I have one final request.”
    “Yes?” Koomi’s voice had timber now, it was already a high priest’s voice.
    “I wish to be interred in the—” Dios began, and was cut off by a murmur from those priests who could look out across the river. All eyes turned to the distant, inky shore.
    The legions of the kings of Djelibeybi were on the march.

    They lurched, but they covered the ground quickly. There were platoons, battalions of them. They didn’t need Gern’s hammer anymore.
    “It’s the pickle,” said the king, as they watched half-a-dozen ancestors mummyhandle a seal out of its socket. “It toughens you up.”
    Some of the more ancient were getting over-enthusiastic and attacking the pyramids themselves, actually managing to shift blocks higher than they were. The king didn’t blame them. How terrible to be dead, and know you were dead, and locked away in the darkness.
    They’re never going to get me in one of those things, he vowed.
    At last they came, like a tide, to yet another pyramid. It was small, low, dark, half-concealed in drifted sands, and the blocks were hardly even masonry; they were no more than roughly squared boulders. It had clearly been built long before the Kingdom got the hang of pyramids. It was barely more than a pile.
    Hacked into the doorseal, angular and deep, were the hieroglyphs of the Ur Kingdom: K HUFT HAD ME M ADE . T HE F IRST .
    Several ancestors clustered around it.
    “Oh, dear,” said the king. “This might be going too far.”
    “The First,” whispered Dil. “The First into the Kingdom. No one here before but hippos and crocodiles. From inside that pyramids seventy centuries look out at us. Older than anything—”
    “Yes, yes, all right,” said Teppicymon. “No need to get carried away. He was a man, just like all of us.”
    “‘And Khuft the camel herder looked upon the valley…’” Dil began.
    “After seven thousand yeares, he wyll be