Read Online Pyramids by Terry Pratchett - Free Book Online Page A

performance, continued to drift smoothly above the rim of the world. And out of it, moving faster than any bird should be able to fly, a seagull bore down on Ankh-Morpork, on the Brass Bridge and eight still figures, on one staring face…
    Seagulls were common enough in Ankh. But as this one flew over the group it uttered one long, guttural scream that caused three of the thieves to drop their knives. Nothing with feathers ought to have been able to make a noise like that. It had claws in it.
    The bird wheeled in a tight circle and fluttered to a perch on a convenient wooden hippo, where it glared at the group with mad red eyes.
    The leading thief tore his fascinated gaze away from it just as he heard Arthur say, quite pleasantly, “This is a number two throwing knife. I got ninety-six percent for throwing knives. Which eyeball don’t you need?”
    The leader stared at him. As far as the other young assassins were concerned, he noticed, one was still staring fixedly at the seagull while the other was busy being noisily sick over the parapet.
    “There’s only one of you,” he said. “There’s five of us.”
    “But soon there will only be four of you,” said Arthur.
    Moving slowly, like someone in a daze, Teppic reached out his hand to the seagull. With any normal seagull this would have resulted in the loss of a thumb, but the creature hopped onto it with the smug air of the master returning to the old plantation.
    It seemed to make the thieves increasingly uneasy. Arthur’s smile wasn’t helping either.
    “That’s a nice bird,” said the leader, in the inanely cheerful tones of the extremely worried. Teppic was dreamily stroking its bullet head.
    “I think it would be a good idea if you went away,” said Arthur, as the bird shuffled sideways onto Teppic’s wrist. Gripping with webbed feet, thrusting out its wings to maintain its balance, it should have looked clownish but instead looked full of hidden power, as though it was an eagle’s secret identity. When it opened its mouth, revealing a ridiculous purple bird tongue, there was a suggestion that this seagull could do a lot more than menace a seaside tomato sandwich.
    “Is it magic?” said one of the thieves, and was quickly hushed.
    “We’ll be going, then,” said the leader, “sorry about the misunderstanding—”
    Teppic gave him a warm, unseeing smile.
    Then they all heard the insistent little noise. Six pairs of eyes swiveled around and down; Chidder’s were already in position.
    Below them, pouring darkly across the dehydrated mud, the Ankh was rising.

    Dios, First Minister and high priest among high priests, wasn’t a naturally religious man. It wasn’t a desirable quality in a high priest, it affected your judgment, made you unsound . Start believing in things and the whole business became a farce.
    Not that he had anything against belief. People needed to believe in gods, if only because it was so hard to believe in people. The gods were necessary. He just required that they stayed out of the way and let him get on with things.
    Mind you, it was a blessing that he had the looks for it. If your genes saw fit to give you a tall frame, a bald head and a nose you could plow rocks with, they probably had a definite aim in mind.
    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.
    He sat on the steps of the throne with his staff across his knees, and passed on the king’s