Chapter 9 (part two)

Disclaimer: see previous chapters

(Sadie Kane)

And so, we ended up back in Brazil. Once again we were hit by humidity and heat: normally the nomes, according to Zia and uncle Amos have their own internal climate control, but the two hundred and fifty-first nome had been broken for a while now, so climate control was no go.

"Ok, uncle Amos, do your magic!" Carter said brightly, as the clay tortoise shabti glared at us from its corner. It may have been brought to heel by Carter and Zia somehow, but it still was not very friendly towards us.

Uncle Amos, who until now was clearly busy assessing the damage brought by us and the shabti, and, possibly, Nephthys (though I hope not – what I can remember about her, she was nice and helped Isis escape from Set long ago), looked at Carter, muttering something about "random vs. funnel" under his breath.

"Pardon?" Carter did not appear to have caught this either.

"Nothing," uncle Amos shook his head and turned to Walt: "Could you please put the tools outside the nome building?"

"Sure," Walt nodded (he did not really need Anubis to make himself sound gloomy, but it was obvious that he and Anubis were in the middle of something as well), and complied with the request without any arguments.

"Is he feeling all right?" uncle Amos frowned.

"If you're talking about Walt, he's still under a curse; if about Anubis, then remember that his mom has apparently kidnapped two guys for I know not what," I said archly. What? I hate when someone belittles my boyfriend besides me. (Not that I belittle Walt, Carter, and yes, 'belittle' was the word of the day. Now give me back the microphone!)

"Ah," uncle Amos nodded, frowning even more, "I see. Walt?"

"They're outside," Walt replied as he got back through the hole in the wall (apparently no one had thought of fixing it. Oops.)

"Splendid," uncle Amos nodded sagely and walked over to the hole; he thrust his staff forward and spoke the spell – and the tools instantly came to life. Axes, chisels, drills, saws, things I do not even know the names off – they jumped out of the box and attacked the nearest trees as if they were piranhas and the trees were swimmer or bathers. (What? We are in Brazil.) They moved almost faster than the eye could see, and before long, among the mounds of wood chips and sawdust there was a proper Egyptian boat. Or ship.

There was actually one little problem-

"Chief Lector? It's on land," Zia said quietly.

"Well, it is supposed to be in a dock," uncle Amos confessed, "but-"

"Oh, that is easily fixable," senhorita Vasquez spoke up for the first time since uncle Amos had tried to compliment her. She took off her jacket and in several strides was behind our boat of misery, before she began to push it into the water.

And the boat complied. It was really quite amazing – even for us, who got used to the weird and wonderful by now, to see the rather regular-sized young woman push this really big boat (it was as long as the Queen of the Nile, though probably not as heavy, but still, it was big) without even breaking a sweat or a pause in her stride. Within 8 minutes or so the boat was fully in the water, bobbing in the shallows, and senhorita Vasquez turned to face us, as we were staring at the site, quite impressed.

"What? I am a Sobekite," she shrugged, going for nonchalance, but not quite succeeding. "My people are known for their strength."

"Yes, but it was still very impressive," uncle Amos insisted as we joined her at the river's edge.

"Yes, and the boat is very impressive too," Walt spoke up trying to ease the tension.

It was when the gnome king arrived. Now earlier, Walt and I did run into one of the more ordinary gnomes, and contrary to my expectations, at least, the bloke was at least as big as I was – not exactly a 'runt', you know? Of course, uncle Amos is a big man, maybe as big as dad was, so maybe to him gnomes are runts, but the gnome king was something else.

He was as big as a regular man was, he rode some sort of a wild pig, he brandished an iron pitchfork, and he had those reversed legs as the regular gnomes did. Oh, and he had those burning eyes as well – maybe not quite intimidating as Set had been when we've seen him for the first time in the museum, but still, it was a very good try.

And he (the gnome king, not Set, wherever he was), was not happy.

"Chief Lector!" he addressed uncle Amos, while pointing his pitchfork in a generally unfriendly way. "For what reason do you assault our lands?" And he sounded really pompous too.

"My apologies," uncle Amos did not sound particularly apologetic at all. "It's just that the Avenging Mother is in a rather foul mood and needs to be appeased, nothing more."

"Aye, when the Lady gets into a lonely mood, troubles occur as ripples across the surface of waters," the king agreed. "Your indiscretion, Chief Lector, is forgiven." And he swung his pitchfork in a grand way.

Instinctively, we looked. The king had a point – the magic tools (currently they were lying back in their box) have really devastated the local woodland, creating a textbook example of deforestation. I, for one, felt bad – so did Carter.

"We're sorry," he said softly. "It was necessary, but if we can make up for it somehow?"

"No need, oh Great House," the gnome king replied. "Unlike human works, magic can repair magic – remember that." He swung his pitchfork and immediately new trees and shrubs began to grow in place of the cut-down ones: it was magic, and it was very impressive, even by House of Life's standards.

"Remember this, Chief Lector," the gnome king glared at uncle Amos, whirled his hog steed around and vanished back in the rainforest.

"So," uncle Amos tried to look nonchalant, but he clearly had not enjoyed this encounter very much. "Anyone else wants to say something?"

"You were really brave now," senhorita Vasquez said quietly, but uncle Amos heard her, and twitched.

"Yes, well, er-"

"Really smooth, uncle," I sighed. "So what do we do with the boat now that it is in the water?"

"Right, that is simple," uncle Amos replied with an evident relief. "All aboard!"

Obediently, we climbed aboard the boat, uncle Amos said the magic words... and we sank.

TBC