Page 14 (1/2)

He surfaced fro

If this was his posterity, he'd take his chances with 600-ton limestone blocks At least they were quiet

'Shut up, the pair of you,' he said

They stopped, and sat down, gru

'I've made up my mind,' he said

IIb doodled fitfully with his stylus IIa stru to do it,' said Ptaclusp, and strode out of the room 'And any son who doesn't like it will be cast into the outer darkness where there is a wailing and a crashing of teeth,' he called over his shoulder

The two brothers, left to thelowered at each other

At last IIa said, 'What does "quantued 'It ht,' he said

'Oh,' said IIa, 'is that all?'

All along the river valley of the Djel the pyra the accumulated power of the day

Great soundless flaed as lightning, cold as ice

For hundreds of littered with the constellations of the dead, the aurora of antiquity But along the valley of the Djel the lights ran together in one solid ribbon of fire

It was on the floor and it had a pillow at one end It had to be a bed

Teppic found he was doubting it as he tossed and turned, trying to find some part of the mattress that was prepared to rew up on beds like this And pillows carved out of rock I was born in this palace, this is e, I must be prepared to accept it

I must order a proper bed and a feather pillow fro, have said this shall be done

He turned over, his head hitting the pilloith a thud

And plu what you could do with a hole in the ground

Yes, plu And bloody doors Teppic definitely wasn't used to having several attendants waiting on his will all the ti his ablutions before bed had been extreoing to get to know the people It rong, all this skulking in palaces

And hoas a fellow supposed to sleep with the sky over the river glowing like a firework?

Eventually sheer exhaustion wrestled his body into soes stalked across his eyeballs

There was the shaists translated the as-yet unpainted frescoes of his reign: '"Squiggle, constipated eagle, wiggly line, hippo's bottole": And in the year of the Cycle of Cephnet the Sun God Teppic had Plu Installed and Scorned the Pillows of his Forebears'

He dreahtning, calling down the wrath of the heavens on this descendant as betraying the noble past

Dios floated past his vision, explaining that as a result of an edict passed several thousand years ago it was essential that he ods vied for his attention, explaining details of godhood, while in the background a distant voice tried to attract his attention and screa to be buried under a load of stone But he had no time to concentrate on this, because he saw seven fat cows and seven thin cows, one of the a trombone

But that was an old dreaht

And then there was aarrows at a tortoise

And then he alking over the desert and found a tiny pyra up and bleay the sand, only noasn't a wind, it was the pyra sides

And it grew bigger and bigger, bigger than the world, so that at last the pyra that the whole world was a speck in the centre

And in the centre of the pyrae happened

And the pyra the world with it and vanished

Of course, when you're a pharaoh, you get a very high class of obscure drea, as curled up on the bed and using his rolled-up clothes as a pillow Around the stone an to wake up

Dios's boat slid gently through the water and bumped into the jetty Dios cli up the steps three at a tiht of a fresh day laid out before hi neatly into place So anise, so much to be needed for

The chief sculptor and maker of ood job there, Master Dil,' he said

Dil nodded There was no false e 'What a team, eh?' he said 'You pickle 'em, I crate 'em'

Dil nodded, but rather more slowly The sculptor looked down at the wax oval in his hands

'Can't say I thinkhard on the corner slab on one of the Queen's late cats, which he had been allowed to do all by himself, looked up in horror

'I done it very careful,' he said sulkily

'That's the whole point,' said the sculptor

'I know,' said Dil sadly, 'it's the nose, isn't it'

'It was more the chin'

'And the chin'

'Yes'

'Yes'

They looked in glooe of the pharaoh So did the pharaoh

'Nothing wrong with my chin'

'You could put a beard on it,' said Dil eventually 'It'd cover a lot of it, would a beard'