"No, we do not need you!" Beltasar insisted. "Ghords and Perverts ruin everything!"
"Knock it off," Aahz growled. "This is my project!"
"On your head be it." Beltasar flitted back to the stone's destination. "Proceed!"
"Together now," bellowed Inhstep, Beltasar's assistant contractor.
Hundreds of Scarabs burrowed down and lifted the huge block. Aahz stooped and got his fingertips underneath the edge.
"Hoist!" cried Inhstep.
The huge stone rose a couple of feet. Aahz's muscles popped under his fashionable tunic as he helped move it. His strength was far greater than mine. Even with help, I couldn't have moved that slab without magik. Together, the team edged slowly over the rammed foundation, backed slowly onto the new work area, and started to lower it.
A loud rumble began. I felt the ground start to shake under my feet. I was thrown to one side. I kept from falling by grabbing onto the air with a handful of magik and hanging on.
"Yeow!"
A familiar bellow reached my ears. I flew to Aahz's side. "What's wrong?" I asked.
"Stone. On. Foot!" he gritted out. I looked down and realized his toes were partway underneath the gigantic slab of rock. The Deveel merchant, by virtue of having hooves instead of feet, missed out on the same tragedy, but his fingers got caught. He was on his knees trying to tug them loose. Hundreds of
Scarabs had been knocked flat on their faces, their six limbs spread out around them. They flexed their legs to try and heave upward.
"Gee, that's awful," I said. "Does it hurt?"
"Of course it hurts!" Aahz bellowed. "Do something!"
"No problem," I said.
Having done it once with the pyramid next door, hefting one building block posed no problem. I pressed against the unseen desert bedrock, far beneath the sands, and the block rose. Aahz staggered backwards and sat down on the paving stones. I moved the slab and set it down out of the way.
"That's the most common injury," Dr. Cobra sighed, switching his narrow head from side to side. "Give me room!" he ordered, pushing back onlookers.
"Funny thing," Beltasar said, as we stepped out of the doctor's way. "All of these people are owners."
Gurn was gone, probably back to Suzal to report on us.
Chapter 17
"Now we're all in this together."
A crushed foot took a few days longer to heal than a cut palm, although in the case of a Pervect, not much longer. Aahz took advantage of Miss Tauret's cooing over him and kept the cast on his leg well past the time when he showed any pain at putting his foot on the floor. Even though having him out of commission meant I had to do all the rounds on site myself, I let him get away with sitting around. I felt responsible for him getting hurt. After the conference Guido, Nunzio, and I had had, I should have been watching more closely. If that stone had fallen on him, it could have killed him.
"You know, Miss Tauret's supposed to be greeting visitors, not just waiting on you," I said, as the receptionist slipped out of the room with an empty pitcher.
"You gotta enjoy the perks," Aahz stretched lazily. "Besides, I'm not going to haul my butt up and down those ramps with plaster on my leg. I don't have any clients coming by until tomorrow. It's not like I don't have any work. The paperwork never stops." He threw a document to me. "Here. Sign this."
I glanced at it. The papyrus was entirely written in glyphs, except for Aahz's signature down at the bottom. A second line had been drawn to the right of it with a symbol below. The figure of a male with the bee revolving around its head meant 'skinny Klahd, hair of honey.' "What is it?" I asked.
"Progress report," Aahz grunted. I shrugged and reached for a reed pen. As soon as I signed it, Aahz took it back and stuck it in the Crocofile.
"Where's the food?" he demanded. "Hey, honey, come on with the snacks! I have to get my strength back!"
"Honey?" A face showed around the doorjamb. Instead of the gray visage we expected, it was covered in purple fur. "Sorry, what? I say, Aahz, are you up to having visitors?"
"Chumley!" I exclaimed, coming to offer him a hand. He engulfed me in one of his usual Trollish embraces.
"Good to see you, Skeeve, but mum please on the C-word, eh? The walls, as they say, have ears. I go by Wat-Is-Et here."
"Wat-Is-Et?" I asked.
"My name," Chumley said.
"I get it, but what is your name?" I asked.
"It is what it is."
"I thought you said 'what is it?' " "No, Wat-Is-Et."
"I'm still trying to figure out what it is." "It's very simple." "Then what is it?"
"Now you have it," Chumley said, with a smile. "What?"
"Hold it, hold it!" Aahz said, holding up his hands to stop us. "We haven't got time for 'Who's On First.' I'll explain it to the kid later." I closed my open mouth. "Take a load off! How are you doing? It's been a while. We've been expecting you to drop by."
"Oh, yes." Chumley looked a little uncomfortable. "It hasn't been too easy to get away, what with the way things have been going in the royal court. Suspicion and intrigue have been rife, what?"
Aahz eyed him. "And you're right in the middle of it?"
"Trying not to be, old thing, trying not to be! But it is difficult. The walls have ears, as they say, and even a simple gesture is enough for some of our neighbors to read. They are adept at putting volumes of meaning into a single expression."
"I've noticed," I said. "Some of those glyphs are as long as a book."
"When your means of writing is a chisel and a block, you compress as much as you can into every stroke," Chumley said. "It is a marvelous time saver, but also fraught with difficulty if you get even a syllable wrong, as I have found to my dismay."
"I won't ask what you're doing," I said. "I mean, it's none of my business. But I have to say I'm curious how you got involved in the court here."
"For once," Chumley said, "my erudition won out over my more obvious attributes."
"Huh?"
"How'd you get to be a linen-wearing bureaucrat?" Aahz asked.
Chumley sat back on the guest bench, which creaked under his weight, and threw off the curtaining headdress. "Ah, well, it started as an accident, I am afraid. The previous Pharaoh, Geezer the Ninth, had a wise man who actually went to university with me. While studying in the university library some years ago, we rekindled our friendship. Naten-Idjut was a fine fellow. We had mutual interests in the study of geology and mineral rights, but we came upon one another in the ancient lore section. Scads of old scrolls and ostraca, marvelous sources of both rumor and information.
"Naten-Idjut fell ill before he could return home. He needed to convey to his employer some important information. Leaving him in hospital, I went to Aegis as his locum and found myself as a visiting fireman, so to speak. To my surprise, I also spotted a problem that my old friend had not observed, having to do
with food supply and sanitation, and was called a wise man for my pains by none less than the Pharaoh Geezer himself. Ever since then, he and then his daughter, when he finally succumbed to old age, have called upon me when they needed outside perspective, what?"
"What?" I asked. "What perspective?"
"Whatever they require," Chumley said. "I must say, it is nice to have a job in which one can use one's own manner of speech. Big Crunch's monosyllabic verbalizations are hard on the throat."
"I think the kid wants to know, what perspective are they looking for this time?" Aahz asked.