More important, though, were the boxes and boxes of treasure stacked in front of them. They were stuffed with jewels.
Eric’s eyes widened.
“The tribute!” he said.
Rincewind gave up. It really was working. He didn’t know how, he didn’t know why, but at last it was all going Right. The setting sun glinted off a’dozen fortunes. Of course, it belonged to Eric, presumably, but maybe there was enough for him, too …
“Naturally,” he said weakly. “What else did you expect?”
And there was feasting, and long speeches that Rincewind couldn’t understand but which were punctuated with cheers and nods and bows in Eric’s direction. And there were long recitals of Tezuman music, which sounds like someone clearing a particularly difficult nostril.
Rincewind left Eric sitting proudly enthroned in the firelight and wandered disconsolately across to the pyramid.
“I was enjoying the wossname,” said the parrot reproachfully.
“I can’t settle down,” said Rincewind. “I’m sorry, but this sort of thing has never happened to me before. All the jewels and things. Everything going as expected. It’s not right.”
He looked up the monstrous face of the steep pyramid, red and flickering in the firelight. Every huge block was carved with a bas-relief of Tezumen doing terribly inventive things to their enemies. It suggested that the Tezumen, whatever sterling qualities they possessed, were not traditionally inclined to welcome perfect strangers and heap them with jewels. The overall effect of the great heap of carvings was very artistic — it was just the details that were horrible.
While working his way along the wall he came to a huge door, which artistically portrayed a group of prisoners apparently being given a complete medical check-up.[9]
It opened into a short, torch-lit tunnel. Rincewind took a few steps along it, telling himself he could always hurry out again, and came out into a lofty space which occupied most of the inside of the pyramid.
There were more torches all around the walls, which illuminated everything quite well.
That wasn’t really welcome because what they mainly illuminated was a giant-sized statue of Quezovercoatl, the Feathered Boa.{7}
If you had to be in a room with that statue, you’d prefer it to be pitch dark.
Or, then again, perhaps not. A better option would be to put the thing in a darkened room while you had insomnia a thousand miles away, trying to forget what it looked like.
It’s just a statue, Rincewind told himself. It’s not real. They’ve just used their imagination, that’s all.
“What the wossname is it?” said the parrot.
“It’s their god.”
“Get away?”
“No, really. It’s Quezovercoatl. Half man, half chicken, half jaguar, half serpent, half scorpion and half mad.”
The parrot’s beak moved as it worked this out.
“That makes a wossname total of three homicidal maniacs,” it said.
“About right, yes,” said the statue.
“On the other hand,” said Rincewind instantly, “I do think it’s frightfully important for people to have the right to worship in their own special way, and now I think we’ll just be going, so just—”
“Please don’t leave me here,” said the statue. “Please take me with you.”
“Could be tricky, could be tricky,” Rincewind said hurriedly, backing away. “It’s not me, you understand, it’s just that where I come from everyone has this racial prejudice thing against thirty-foot-high people with fangs and talons and necklaces of skulls all over them. I just think you’ll have trouble fitting in.”
The parrot tweaked his ear. “It’s coming from behind the statue, you stupid wossname,” it croaked.
It turned out to be coming from a hole in the floor. A pale face peered short-sightedly up at Rincewind from the depths of a pit. It was an elderly, good-natured face with a faintly worried expression.
“Hallo?” said Rincewind.
“You don’t know what it means to hear a friendly voice again,” said the face, breaking into a grin. “If you could just sort of help me up …?”
“Sorry?” said Rincewind. “You’re a prisoner, are you?”
“Alas, this is so.”
“I don’t know that I ought to go around rescuing prisoners just like that,” said Rincewind. “I mean, you might have done anything.”
“I am entirely innocent of all crimes, I assure you.”
“Ah, well, so you say,” said Rincewind gravely. “But if the Tezumen have judged—”
“Wossname, wossname, wossname!” shrieked the parrot in his ear as it bounced up and down on his shoulder. “Haven’t you got the faintest? Where’ve you been? He’s a prisoner! A prisoner in a temple! You’ve got to rescue prisoners in temples! That’s what they’re bloody there for!”
“No it isn’t,” snapped Rincewind. “That’s all you know! He’s probably here to be sacrificed! Isn’t that right?” He looked at the prisoner for confirmation.
The face nodded. “Indeed, you are correct. Flayed alive, in fact.”
“There!” said Rincewind to the parrot. “See? You think you know everything! He’s here to be flayed alive.”
“Every inch of skin removed to the accompaniment of exquisite pain,” added the prisoner, helpfully.
Rincewind paused. He thought he knew the meaning of the word “exquisite”, and it didn’t seem to belong anywhere near “pain”.
“What, every bit?” he said.
“This is apparently the case.”
“Gosh. What was it you did?”
The prisoner sighed. “You’d never believe me …” he said.
The Demon King let the mirror darken and drummed his fingers on his desk for a moment. Then he picked up a speaking tube and blew into it.
Eventually a distant voice said: “Yes, guv?”
“Yes sir!” snapped the King.
The distant voice muttered something. “Yes, SIR?” it added.
“Do we have a Quezovercoatl working here?”
“I’ll see, guv.” The voice faded, came back. “Yes, guv.”
“Is he a Duke, Earl, Count or Baron?” said the King.
“No, guv.”
“Well, what is he?”
There was a long silence at the other end.
“Well?” said the King.
“He’s no-one much, guv.”
The King glared at the tube for some time. You try, he thought. You make proper plans, you try to get organised, you try to help people, and this is what you get.
“Send him to see me,” he said.
Outside, the music rose to a crescendo and stopped. The fires crackled. From the distant jungles a thousand glowing eyes watched the proceedings.
The high priest stood up and made a speech. Eric beamed like a pumpkin. A long line of Tezumen brought baskets of jewels which they scattered before him.
Then the high priest made a second speech. This one seemed to end on a question.
“Fine,” said Eric. “Jolly good. Keep it up.” He scratched his ear and ventured, “You can all have a half holiday.”
The high priest repeated the question again, in a slightly impatient tone of voice.
“I’m the one, yes,” said Eric, just in case they were unclear. “You’ve got it exactly right.”
The high priest spoke again. This time there was no slightly about it.
“Let’s just run through this again, shall we?” said the Demon King. He leaned back in his throne.
“You happened to find the Tezumen one day and decided, I think I recall your words correctly, that they were ‘a bunch of Stone-Age no-hopers sitting around in a swamp being no trouble to anyone’, am I right? Whereupon you entered the mind of one of their high priests — I believe at that time they worshipped a small stick — drove him insane and inspired the tribes to unite, terrorise their neighbours and bring forth upon the continent a new nation dedicated to the proposition that all men should be taken to the top of ceremonial pyramids and be chopped up with stone knives.” The King pulled his notes towards him. “Oh yes, some of them were also to be flayed alive,” he added.