Pyramids (Discworld, #7)

by Terry Pratchett

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.

But everyone agreed that the assassins’ school offered the best all-around education in the world. A qualified assassin should be at home in any company, and able to play at least one musical instrument. Anyone inhumed by a graduate of the Guild school could go to his rest satisfied that he had been annulled by someone of taste and discretion.

“Satin and leather are no good. Or jewelry of any kind. You can’t have anything that will shine or squeak or clink. Stick to rough silk or velvet. The important thing is not how many people you inhume, it’s how many fail to inhume you.”

When you die, the first thing you lose is your life. The next thing is your illusions.

People needed to believe in gods, if only because it was so hard to believe in people.

He instinctively distrusted people to whom religion came easily. The naturally religious, he felt, were unstable and given to wandering in the desert and having revelations—as if the gods would lower themselves to that sort of thing. And they never got anything done. They started thinking that rituals weren’t important. They started thinking that you could talk to the gods direct. Dios knew, with the kind of rigid and unbending certainty you could pivot the world on, that the gods of Djelibeybi liked ritual as much as anyone else. After all, a god who was against ritual would be like a fish who was against water.

You scrimped and saved to send them to the best schools, and then they went and paid you back by getting educated.

“But, good grief, cutting it off? It’s too cruel!” Dios stepped forward. Now his voice was back to its normal oil-smooth tones. “Cruel, sire? But it will be done with precision and care, with drugs to take away the pain. He will certainly live.” “But why?” “I did explain, sire. He cannot use the hand again without defiling it. He is a devout man and knows this very well. You see, sire, you are a god, sire.” “But you can touch me. So can the servants!” “I am a priest, sire,” said Dios gently. “And the servants have special dispensation.”

There is nothing mystical about the power of pyramids. Pyramids are dams in the stream of time. Correctly shaped and orientated, with the proper paracosmic measurements correctly plumbed in, the temporal potential of the great mass of stone can be diverted to accelerate or reverse time over a very small area, in the same way that a hydraulic ram can be induced to pump water against the flow.

The original builders, who were of course ancients and therefore wise, knew this very well and the whole point of a correctly-built pyramid was to achieve absolute null time in the central chamber so that a dying king, tucked up there, would indeed live forever—or at least, never actually die. The time that should have passed in the chamber was stored in the bulk of the pyramid and allowed to flare off once every twenty-four hours.

And Dil was realizing that there are few things that so shake belief as seeing, clearly and precisely, the object of that belief. Seeing, contrary to popular wisdom, isn’t believing. It’s where belief stops, because it isn’t needed anymore.

No one is more worried by the actual physical manifestation of a god than his priests; it’s like having the auditors in unexpectedly.

“No, because we’ll just make Ankh our main branch office and pay our taxes in wherever the place is. All we need is an official address in, I don’t know, the Avenue of the Pyramids or something. Take my tip and don’t give in on anything until father gives you a seat on the board. You’re royal, anyway, that’s always impressive . . .” Chidder chattered on. Teppic felt his clothes growing hotter. So this was it. You lost your kingdom, and then it was worth more because it was a tax haven, and you took a seat on the board, whatever that was, and that made it all right.

It is now known to science that there are many more dimensions than the classical four. Scientists say that these don’t normally impinge on the world because the extra dimensions are very small and curve in on themselves, and that since reality is fractal most of it is tucked inside itself. This means either that the universe is more full of wonders than we can hope to understand or, more probably, that scientists make things up as they go along.

The trouble with gods is that after enough people start believing in them, they begin to exist. And what begins to exist isn’t what was originally intended.