Pyramids

Ptaclusp.
    “It’s me, dad.”
    “I’m glad it’s you, son.”
    “Can you see anything?”
    “No. It’s all mist and fog.”
    “Thank the gods for that, I thought it was me.”
    “It is you, isn’t it? You said.”
    “Yes, dad.”
    “Is your brother all right?”
    “I’ve got him safe in my pocket, dad.”
    “Good. So long as nothing’s happened to him.”
    They inched forward, clambering over lumps of masonry they could barely see.
    “Something exploded, dad,” said IIb, slowly. “I think it was the pyramid.”
    Ptaclusp rubbed the top of his head, where two tons of flying rock had come within a sixteenth of an inch of fitting him for one of his own pyramids. “It was that dodgy cement we bought from Merco the Ephebian, I expect—”
    “I think this was a bit worse than a moody lintel, dad,” said IIb. “In fact, I think it was a lot worse.”
    “It looked a bit wossname, a bit on the sandy side—”
    “I think you should find somewhere to sit down, dad,” said IIb, as kindly as possible. “Here’s Two-Ay. Hang on to him.”
    He crept on alone, climbing over a slab of what felt very suspiciously like black marble. What he wanted, he decided, was a priest. They had to be useful for something, and this seemed the sort of time one might need one. For solace, or possibly, he felt obscurely, to beat their head in with a rock.
    What he found instead was someone on their hands and knees, coughing. IIb helped him—it was definitely a him, he’d been briefly afraid it might be an it and sat him on another lump of, yes, almost certainly marble.
    “Are you a priest?” he said, fumbling in the rubble.
    “I’m Dil. Chief embalmer,” the figure muttered.
    “Ptaclusp IIb, paracosmic archi—” IIb began and then, suspecting that architects were not going to be too popular around here for a while, quickly corrected himself. “I’m an engineer,” he said. “Are you all right?”
    “Don’t know. What happened?”
    “I think the pyramid exploded,” IIb volunteered.
    “Are we dead?”
    “I shouldn’t think so. You’re walking and talking, after all.”
    Dil shivered. “That’s no guideline, take it from me. What’s an engineer?”
    “Oh, a builder of aqueducts,” said IIb quickly. “They’re the coming thing, you know.”
    Dil stood up, a little shakily.
    “I,” he said, “need a drink. Let’s find the river.”
    They found Teppic first.
    He was clinging to a small, truncated pyramid section that had made a moderate-sized crater when it landed.
    “I know him,” said IIb. “He’s the lad who was on top of the pyramid. That’s ridiculous, how could he survive that ?’
    “Why’s there all corn sprouting out of it, too?” wondered Dil.
    “I mean, perhaps there’s some kind of effect if you’re right in the center of the flare, or something,” said IIb, thinking aloud. “A sort of calm area or something, like in the middle of a whirlpool—” He reached instinctively for his wax tablet, and then stopped himself. Man was never intended to understand things he meddled with. “Is he dead?” he said.
    “Don’t look at me,” said Dil, stepping back. He’d been running through his mind the alternative occupations now open to him. Upholstery sounded attractive. At least chairs didn’t get up and walk after you’d stuffed them.
    IIb bent over the body.
    “Look what he’s got in his hand,” he said, gently bending back the fingers. “It’s a piece of melted metal. What’s he got that for?”
    …Teppic dreamed.
    He saw seven fat cows and seven thin cows, and one of them was riding a bicycle.
    He saw some camels, singing, and the song straightened out the wrinkles in reality.
    He saw a finger write on the wall of a pyramid: Going forth is easy. Going back requires (cont. on next wall) …
    He walked around the pyramid, where the finger continued: An effort of will, because it is much harder. Thank you .
    Teppic considered this, and it occurred to him that there was one thing left to do which he had not done. He’d never known how to before, but now he could see that it was just numbers, arranged in a special way. Everything that was magical was just a way of describing the world in words it couldn’t ignore.
    He gave a grunt of effort.
    There was a brief moment of speed.
    Dil and IIb looked around as long shafts of light sparkled through the mists and dust, turning the landscape into old gold.
    And the sun came up.

    The sergeant cautiously opened the hatch