Read Eric for Free Online Page B

crowns. They were, in fact, mere discs with holes in the middle.
    The procession trotted up the wide avenues of the city to a cluster of buildings at the foot of the pyramid, where another group of civic dignitaries was waiting for them.
    They were wearing lots of jewelry. It was all basically the same. There are quite a lot of uses to which you can put a stone disc with a hole in the middle, and the Tezumen had explored all but one of them.
    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. *
    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.
    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