t seemed unlikely, however. The
man was paying no attention to the lines of slaves. It would be hard to
spot one among three million, anyhow. More likely, Hanson decided, Ser
Perth was supervising the supervisors, making an inspection tour of all
this.

Of all what? Apparently then this must be another of their frenzied
efforts to find a way to put back the sky. He'd heard that they had
called up the pyramid builder, but hadn't fully realized it would lead
to this type of activity.

He looked around him appraisingly. The long lines of slaves that had
been carrying rock and rubble the day before now were being formed into
hauling teams. Long ropes were looped around enormous slabs of quarried
rock. Rollers underneath them and slaves tugging and pushing at them
were the only means of moving them. The huge stones slid remorselessly
forward onto the prepared beds of rubble. Casting back in his memory,
Hanson could not recall seeing the rock slabs the night before. They had
appeared as if by magic--

Obviously, they had really been conjured up by magic. But if the rocks
could be conjured, what was the need of all the slaves and the sadistic
overseers? Why not simply magic the entire construction, whatever it was
to be?

The whip hit him again, and the raging voice of the overseer ranted in
his ears. "Get on, you blundering slacker. Menes himself is looking at
you. Ho there--what the devil?"

The overseer's hand spun Hanson around. The man's eyes, large and
opaque, stared at Hanson. He frowned cruelly. "Yeah, you're the same
one! Didn't I take the hide off your back twice already? And now you
stand there without a scar or a drop of blood!"

Hanson grunted feebly. He didn't want attention called to himself while
Ser Perth was around. "I--I heal quickly." It was no more than the
truth. Either the body they'd given him or the conjuring during the
right split second had enabled him to heal almost before a blow was
struck.

"Magic!" The overseer scowled and gave Hanson a shove that sent him
sprawling. "Blithering magic again! Magic stones that melt when you get
them in place--magic slaves that the whip won't touch! And they expect
us to do a job of work such as not even Thoth could dream up! They won't
take honest work. No, they have to come snooping and conjuring and
interfering. Wheels on rollers! Tools of steel and the gods know what
instead of honest stone. Magic to lift things instead of honest ropes
that shrink and