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TERRY PRATCHETT - PYRAMIDS (A Discworld Novel)

[ISBN 0-552-13461-9]

BOOK I

The Book of Going Forth

Nothing but stars, scattered across the blackness as though the Creator had

smashed the windscreen of his car and hadn't bothered to stop to sweep up the

pieces. This is the gulf between universes, the chill deeps of space that

contain nothing but the occasional random molecule, a few lost comets and ...

... but a circle of blackness shifts slightly, the eye reconsiders

perspective, and what was apparently the awesome distance of interstellar

wossname becomes a world under darkness, its stars the lights of what will

charitably be called civilisation.

For, as the world tumbles lazily, it is revealed as the Discworld -

flat, circular, and carried through space on the back of four elephants who

stand on the back of Great A'tuin, the only turtle ever to feature on the

Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram, a turtle ten thousand miles long, dusted with

the frost of dead comets, meteor-pocked, albedo-eyed. No-one knows the reason

for all this, but it is probably quantum. Much that is weird could happen on

a world on the back of a turtle like that.

It's happening already.

The stars below are campfires, out in the desert, and the lights of

remote villages high in the forested mountains. Towns are smeared nebulae,

cities are vast constellations; the great sprawling city of Ankh-Morpork, for

example, glows like a couple of colliding galaxies.

But here, away from the great centres of population, where the Circle

Sea meets the desert, there is a line of cold blue fire. Flames as chilly as

the slopes of Hell roar towards the sky. Ghostly light flickers across the

desert. The pyramids in the ancient valley of the Djel are flaring their

power into the night.

The energy streaming up from their paracosmic peaks may, in chapters to

come, illuminate many mysteries: why tortoises hate philosophy, why too much

religion is bad for goats, and what it is that handmaidens actually do.

It will certainly show what our ancestors would be thinking if they were

alive today. People have often speculated about this. Would they approve of

modern society, they ask, would they marvel at present-day achievements? And

of course this misses a fundamental point. What our ancestors would really be

thinking, if they were alive today, is: 'Why is it so dark in here?'

In the cool of the river valley dawn the high priest Dios opened his eyes. He

didn't sleep these days. He couldn't remember when he last slept. Sleep was

too close to the other thing and, anyway, he didn't seem to need it. Just

lying down was enough - at least, just lying down here. The fatigue poisons

dwindled away, like everything else. For a while.

Long enough, anyway.

He swung his legs off the slab in the little chamber. With barely a

conscious prompting from his brain his right hand grasped the snake-entwined

staff of office. He paused to make another mark on the wall, pulled his robe

around him and stepped smartly down the sloping passage and out into the

sunlight, the words of the Invocation of the New Sun already lining up in his

mind. The night was forgotten, the day was ahead. There was much careful

advice and guidance to be given, and Dios existed only to serve.

Dios didn't have the oddest bedroom in the world. It was just the oddest

bedroom anyone has ever walked out of.

And the sun toiled across the sky.

Many people have wondered why. Some people think a giant dung beetle

pushes it. As explanations go it lacks a certain technical edge, and has the

added drawback that, as certain circumstances may reveal, it is possibly

correct.

It reached sundown without anything particularly unpleasant happening to

it* (* Such as being buried in the sand and having eggs laid in it.), and its

dying rays chanced to shine in through a window in the city of Ankh-Morpork

and gleam off a mirror.

It was a full-length mirror. All assassins had a full-length mirror in

their rooms, because it would be a terrible insult to anyone to kill them

when you were badly dressed.

Teppic examined himself critically. The outfit had cost him his last

penny, and was heavy on the black silk. It whispered as he moved. It was

pretty good.

At least the headache was going. It had nearly crippled him all day;

he'd been in dread of having to start the run with purple spots in front of

his eyes.

He sighed and opened the black box and took out his rings and slipped

them on. Another box held a set of knives of Klatchian steel, their blades

darkened with lamp black. Various cunning and intricate devices were taken

from velvet bags and dropped into pockets. A couple of long-bladed throwing

tlingo's were slipped into their sheaths inside his boots. A thin silk line

and folding grapnel were wound around his waist, over the chain-mail shirt. A

blowpipe was attached to its leather thong and dropped down his back under

his cloak; Teppic pocketed a slim tin container with an assortment of darts,

their tips corked and their stems braille-coded for ease of selection in the

dark.

He winced, checked the blade of his rapier and slung the baldric over

his right shoulder, to balance the bag of lead slingshot ammunition. As an

afterthought he opened his sock drawer and took a pistol crossbow, a flask of

oil, a roll of lockpicks and, after some consideration, a punch dagger, a bag

of assorted caltraps and a set of brass knuckles.

Teppic picked up his hat and checked its lining for the coil of

cheesewire. He placed it on his head at a jaunty angle, took a last satisfied

look at himself in the mirror, turned on his heel and, very slowly, fell

over.

It was high summer in Ankh-Morpork. In fact it was more than high. It was

stinking.

The great river was reduced to a lava-like ooze between Ankh, the city

with the better address, and Morpork on the opposite bank. Morpork was not a

good address. Morpork was twinned with a tar pit. There was not a lot that

could be done to make Morpork a worse place. A direct hit by a meteorite, for

example, would count as gentrification.

Most of the river bed was a honeycomb crust of cracked mud. Currently

the sun appeared to be a big copper gong nailed to the sky. The heat that had

dried up the river fried the city by day and baked it by night, curling

ancient timbers, turning the traditional slurry of the streets into a

drifting, choking ochre dust.

It wasn't Ankh-Morpork's proper weather. It was by inclination a city of

mists and drips, of slithers and chills. It sat panting on the crisping

plains like a toad on a firebrick. And even now, around midnight, the heat

was stifling, wrapping the streets like scorched velvet, searing the air and

squeezing all the breath out of it.

High in the north face of the Assassins' Guildhouse there was a click as

a window was pushed open.

Teppic, who had with considerable reluctance divested himself of some of

the heavier of his weapons, took a deep draught of the hot, dead air.

This was it.

This was the night.

They said you had one chance in two unless you drew old Mericet as

examiner, in which case you might as well cut your throat right at the start.

Teppic had Mericet for Strategy and Poison Theory every Thursday

afternoon, and didn't get along with him. The dormitories buzzed with rumours

about Mericet, the number of kills, the astonishing technique . . . He'd

broken all the records in his time. They said he'd even killed the Patrician

of Ankh-Morpork. Not the present one, that is. One of the dead ones.

Maybe it would be Nivor, who was fat and jolly and liked his food and

did Traps and Deadfalls on Tuesdays. Teppic was good at traps, and got on

well with the master. Or it could be the Kompt de Yoyo, who did Modern

Languages and Music. Teppic was gifted at neither, but the Kompt was a keen

edificeer and liked boys who shared his love of dangling by one hand high

above the city streets.

He stuck one leg over the sill and unhitched his line and grapnel. He

hooked the gutter two floors up and slipped out of the window.

No assassin ever used the stairs.

In order to establish continuity with later events, this may be the time to

point out that the greatest mathematician in the history of the Discworld was

lying down and peacefully eating his supper.

It is interesting to note that, owing to this mathematician's particular

species, what he was eating for his supper was his lunch.

Gongs around the Ankh-Morpork sprawl were announcing midnight when Teppic

crept along the ornate parapet four storeys above Filigree Street, his heart

pounding.

There was a figure outlined against the afterglow of the sunset. Teppic

paused alongside a particularly repulsive gargoyle to consider his options.

Fairly solid classroom rumour said that if he inhumed his examiner

before the test, that was an automatic pass. He slipped a Number Three

throwing knife from its thigh sheath and hefted it thoughtfully. Of course,

any attempt, any overt move which missed would attract immediate failure and

loss of privileges*. (* Breathing, for a start.)

The silhouette was absolutely still. Teppic's eyes swivelled to the maze of

chimneys, gargoyles, ventilator shafts, bridges and ladders that made up the

rooftop scenery of the city.

Right, he thought. That's some sort of dummy. I'm supposed to attack it

and that means he's watching me from somewhere else.

Will I be able to spot him? No.

On the other hand, maybe I'm meant to think it's a dummy. Unless he's

thought of that as well . . .

He found himself drumming his fingers on the gargoyle, and hastily

pulled himself together. What is the sensible course of action at this point?

A party of revellers staggered through a pool of light in the street far

below.

Teppic sheathed the knife and stood up.

'Sir,' he said, 'I am here.'

A dry voice by his ear said, rather indistinctly, 'Very well.'

Teppic stared straight ahead. Mericet appeared in front of him, wiping

grey dust off his bony face. He took a length of pipe out of his mouth and

tossed it aside, then pulled a clipboard out of his coat. He was bundled up

even in this heat. Mericet was the kind of person who could freeze in a

volcano.

'Ah,' he said, his voice broadcasting disapproval, 'Mr. Teppic. Well,

well.'

'A fine night, sir,' said Teppic. The examiner gave him a chilly look,

suggesting that observations about the weather acquired an automatic black

mark, and made a note on his clipboard.

'We'll take a few questions first,' he said.

'As you wish, sir.'

'What is the maximum permitted length of a throwing knife?' snapped

Mericet.

Teppic closed his eyes. He'd spent the last week reading nothing but The

Cordat; he could see the page now, floating tantalisingly just inside his

eyelids - they never ask you lengths and weights, students had said

knowingly, they expect you to bone up on the weights and lengths and throwing

distances but they never- Naked terror hotwired his brain and kicked his

memory into gear. The page sprang into focus.

'"Maximum length of a throwing knife may be ten finger widths, or twelve

in wet weather",' he recited. '"Throwing distance is-"

'Name three poisons acknowledged for administration by ear.' A breeze

sprang up, but it did nothing to cool the air; it just shifted the heat

about.

'Sir, wasp agaric, Achorion purple and Mustick, sir,' said Teppic

promptly.

'Why not spime?' snapped Mericet, fast as a snake. Teppic's jaw dropped

open. He floundered for a while, trying to avoid the gimlet gaze a few feet

away from him.

'S-sir, spime isn't a poison, sir,' he managed. 'It is an extremely rare

antidote to certain snake venoms, and is obtained-' He settled down a bit,

more certain of himself: all those hours idly looking through the old

dictionaries had paid off- 'is obtained from the liver of the inflatable

mongoose, which-'

'What is the meaning of this sign?' said Mericet.

07 - pyramids.pdf

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