Pyramids - Terry Pratchett [86]
It was Chidder.
“What’s it doing now?” said Ptaclusp.
His son poked his head cautiously over the ruins of a pillar and watched Hat, the Vulture-Headed God.
“It’s sniffing around,” he said. “I think it likes the statue. Honestly, dad, why did you have to go and buy a thing like that?”
“It was in a job lot,” said Ptaclusp. “Anyway, I thought it would be a popular line.”
“With who?”
“Well, he likes it.”
Ptaclusp IIb risked another squint at the angular monstrosity that was still hopping around the ruins.
“Tell him he can have it if he goes away,” he suggested. “Tell him he can have it at cost.”
Ptaclusp winced. “At a discount,” he said. “A special cut rate for our supernatural customers.”
He stared up at the sky. From their hiding place in the ruins of the construction camp, with the Great Pyramid still humming like a powerhouse behind them, they’d had an excellent view of the arrival of the gods. At first he’d viewed them with a certain amount of equanimity. Gods would be good customers, they always wanted temples and statues, he could deal directly, cut out the middle man.
And then it had occurred to him that a god, when he was unhappy about the product, as it might be, maybe the plasterwork wasn’t exactly as per spec, or perhaps a corner of the temple was a bit low on account of unexpected quicksand, a god didn’t just come around demanding in a loud voice to see the manager. No. A god knew exactly where you were, and got to the point. Also, gods were notoriously bad payers. So were humans, of course, but they didn’t actually expect you to die before they settled the account.
His gaze turned to his other son, a painted silhouette against the statue, his mouth a frozen O of astonishment, and Ptaclusp reached a decision.
“I’ve just about had it with pyramids,” he said. “Remind me, lad. If we ever get out of here, no more pyramids. We’ve got set in our ways. Time to branch out, I reckon.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you for ages, dad!” said IIb. “I’ve told you, a couple of decent aqueducts will make a tremendous—”
“Yes, yes, I remember,” said Ptaclusp. “Yes. Aqueducts. All those arches and things. Fine. Only I can’t remember where you said you have to put the coffin in.”
“Dad!”
“Don’t mind me, lad. I think I’m going mad.”
I couldn’t have seen a mummy and two men over there, carrying sledgehammers…
It was, indeed, Chidder.
And Chidder had a boat.
Teppic knew that further along the coast the Seriph of Al-Khali lived in the fabulous palace of the Rhoxie, which was said to have been built in one night by a genie and was famed in myth and legend for its splendor.* The Unnamed was the Rhoxie afloat, but more so. Its designer had a gilt complex, and had tried every trick with gold paint, curly pillars and expensive drapes to make it look less like a ship and more like a boudoir that had collided with a highly suspicious type of theater.
In fact, you needed an assassin’s eyes for hidden detail to notice how innocently the gaudiness concealed the sleekness of the hull and the fact, even when you added the cabin space and the holds together, that there still seemed to be a lot of capacity unaccounted for. The water around what Ptraci called the pointed end was strangely rippled, but it would be totally ridiculous to suspect such an obvious merchantman of having a concealed ramming spike underwater, or that a mere five minutes’ work with an ax would turn this wallowing Alcázar into something that could run away from nearly everything else afloat and make the few that could catch up seriously regret it.
“Very impressive,” said Teppic.
“It’s all show, really,” said Chidder.
“Yes. I can see that.”
“I mean, we’re poor traders.”
Teppic nodded. “The usual phrase is ‘poor but honest traders,’” he said.
Chidder smiled a merchant’s smile. “Oh, I think we’ll stick on ‘poor