"Do a little favor for her and don't expect a favor in return."
"Don't be in such a hurry! Trust takes time."
"Maybe she is looking for the same thing you are, but let her tell you."
"Just be nice. That means more than all the presents in the world."
Before long, I had a hundred suggestions for my imaginary book. I was going to have so much information and opinions that maybe I should have thought about writing one. It was kind of embarrassing to listen to them shooting the breeze back and forth, making unflattering statements about bad dates. The notion that I might have been one of those thoughtless men made me feel awful. I surely was guilty of at least a few of the mistakes they discussed. My biggest night out was still a blur in my head. I couldn't recall all of my date with Cassandra. At least I hadn't been cheap—in fact, I had been wildly profligate, as my bill from the credit card had shown. And while my advances had gone farther than they might have if I had been sober, they hadn't been completely unwanted, if the note she had left on my mirror in lipstick was an indication.
"Does any of this help?" Bunny asked at a lull in the conversation.
"No," I admitted. "I think I'm more confused than before."
She smiled at me. "You'll get it. Really. Relationships between men and women are as natural as the birds and the bees. Otherwise, why would there be so many people?"
I had no answer to that. I stuck my nose in my wine cup to think. Why hadn't Aahz put in his two copper pieces? He was always free with advice.
I glanced around and spotted him next to the bar counter. Aahz and the tavern owner had their heads close together in conversation. I was afraid it was something about the mishap, but it looked more like a friendly chat. Aahz was grinning widely. Out of his pocket, he whipped a contract, pointing to various clauses. While I had been listening to dating advice, he had managed to convince a Deveel to buy a stone, sight unseen.
But, no. Lucanzi took down some information on a napkin and stuffed it into the pocket of his apron. Aahz caught my eye and gave me a thumb's up. Another prospect. No question about it: Aahz was good at selling. He was motivated. Before I knew it, he would have sold all million slabs, ensuring his name at the top of Phase Two. I was impressed.
"Psst! Hey, Boss!"
Chapter 15
"Do what I say, not what I do."
—B. Franklin
I was pulled out of my reverie. Guido and Nunzio stood flanking me. At my nod, they sat down on the bench on either side of me. I took a quick look at the others. They were still debating appropriate behavior on dates. "What's up, fellows?" I asked.
"You get any more insight into that other matter which we was discussin' the last time we met?" Guido asked, tilting his head toward Aahz.
I shook my head. "Nothing concrete. Whatever's bothering him isn't his stomach, and he doesn't show any signs of weakness. He must have hiked up and down both pyramids five or six times each today, not to mention taking a swim through a floating office building."
"He doesn't seem under the weather," Nunzio agreed. "In fact, he looks to be in robust health."
"Miss Bunny did a little checking around with Bytina," Guido whispered, keeping his lips rigid. "She inquired of Dr. Webb, but he had not had any questions from anyone resemblin' Aahz who might have been usin' an alias."
I nodded. Dr. Webb was an M.D. from Octaroo who dispensed general medical information for free. Aahz wouldn't pay for advice if he could help it.
"Perhaps it wasn't his health he's worried about," I said. "Maybe a prophet predicted doom for him. Maybe a fatal accident or something like that? We've had a lot of mishaps on the site."
"You go on keepin' an eye on him," Guido advised. "We will keep our ears to the ground and other places. While Aahz may not be my favorite person in the world as he is to you, he is still a partner and a trusted accomplice. I will help to protect him if it is in my power to do so."
"Agreed," Nunzio said.
"Hey, what are all you lovely ladies talking about?" Aahz asked, strutting back to the table. Instead of sitting down at our table, he scooted in next to Felina.
"Oh, the differences between men and women," she said.
"So, what are the differences?" Aahz asked. "Anything special I should know about?"
"If you don't know by your age, you are never going to know!" the stout woman shouted. The others in the bar laughed.
"I'm always willing to take instruction from a smart lady like this one," Aahz said, smirking. "What are you drinking?"
"Rabbit tail," Felina said. It was a mildly intoxicating cocktail. It had a chocolate flavor, which I liked, but the kick at the end always came as a surprise.
"You know what they say about rabbits," Aahz said, after signaling the barmaid for the order.
"No," Felina said, with a smile. "What?"
Aahz leaned over and whispered into her pointed ear. She let out a peal of laughter and pushed him playfully with one hand. Aahz paid for their drinks and let his arm drift around her shoulders. She didn't seem to mind.
"I'd swear that there's nothing wrong with him," I said, watching carefully without, I hoped, making it too obvious.
"But you gotta admit," Guido said, "he's not actin' normal for his usual Pervish self. I never heard him give credit like that without he had been pushed from behind."
"I concur, cousin," Nunzio agreed, taking a swig of beer.
"Get your hand off our little sister!"
I looked around. Before I could rise, Guido and Nunzio were out of their seats with their hands stuck into the folds of their natty jackets. Aahz was also on his feet, facing eight Deveel males. The family resemblance among them was very strong, so I guessed they were brothers. Brothers, I realized with a gulp, to the lady who had until that moment, been sitting in the shelter of Aahz's arm.
"Now, gentlemen," Aahz said, with his most ingratiating smile. "I was just keeping her company until you got here."
"Keeping her company! I saw you whispering in her ear!" said a middle-sized brother with goggly eyes.
"What was he talking to you about?" asked the meanest looking Deveel.
"Nothing. He asked me if I knew what they said about rabbits," Felina said, tossing her head.
"He asked what?" The biggest brother stepped up and grabbed Aahz by the front of his shirt.
"Now, fellows, don't make something out of nothing," I said. "Come and have a drink with us."
"You think we're going to sit down with a Pervert who is whispering dirty secrets to our sister?" demanded yet another brother.
"He don't mean nothin' by it," Guido said. "How about you gentlemen just takin' it down a couple of notches? There's other people tryin' to enjoy themselves. Youse could have a quiet evenin', too. We'll let you alone if you let us alone."
The second-biggest brother came to stick a forefinger in Guido's face. "Are you threatening us, Klahd?"
Guido took his hand and twisted it downward until the thumb was facing up at an unnatural angle.
"Threats are for people who can't back it up, Deveel. I am just offerin' you some friendly advice. If youse wants a table with just your family, then take one. There's one openin' up right there near the front."
"You can't tell us what to do!"
"I want to sit with him," Felina said, tilting her head toward Aahz. "He's funny."
"He's funny?" the mean one echoed. "What have you done to our innocent little sister?"
"Nothing but look," Aahz said. "Any guy with normal vision would want to do that."
"You looked at our sister?"
"And he put his arm around me, too," Felina said, smugly.
"He what?" One of them grabbed for a bench and upended it, sending the Deveels who were on it tumbling to the ground. He swung it at Aahz, who ducked. The bench hit the back of another patron's head. He jumped up and took a punch at Aahz. Nunzio intercepted the blow as Guido pushed the oncoming brother backwards. The other brothers waded in to defend their sibling. The offended p
atron picked the pitcher up off his table and emptied it on Nunzio's head. Gus picked up the patron and hooked him on the chandelier. The Deveel threw fire spells at Gus, which just bounced off his stone exterior.
All of us piled in behind Guido, including Tananda. Bunny removed herself from the fray, taking Felina with her by the ear. While I used magik to keep the youngest brother from taking a dirty swing at Aahz from behind, I noticed Bunny giving the girl a piece of her mind. Felina's face, already a natural red, grew redder.
The biggest Deveel brother grabbed up a beer mug and crashed it down on Guido's head.
"Dat does it," the Mob enforcer snarled. He snatched the drink out of the nearest drinker's hand and smashed it directly between the Deveel brother's horns. The Deveel searched out blindly for another stein, and broke it over Guido's skull. Refusing to give ground, Guido held out his hand. Nunzio slapped another mug into it. Guido brought it crashing onto his opponent.
I was dealing with a couple of the smaller brothers. Using magik to yank curios off the wall, they pelted me with weird junk and street signs. I fended them off as best I could, while trying to keep the debris from hitting other customers. Most of them joined in the fray, some from outrage, others for the fun of a good brawl.
Suddenly, I found myself flung against the bar wall, a commemorative trophy in my arms. All of the would-be combatants were similarly pinioned. The bartender walked up and down between us, wielding a bat-shaped staff—the source, I guessed, of the spell.
"Hold it, hold it, hold it!" he bellowed. "When will you people learn? The free-for-all is tomorrow! No unscheduled fights in here tonight! Now, everyone behave or I am tossing you all out into the street!"
The goggle-eyed Deveel brother pointed a finger, which was the only body part he could move. "That Pervert started it!"
Aahz sneered at him. "That's Per-vect, and all I did was buy your sister a drink. She didn't turn me down!"
"Oh, yeah? You had to put a spell on her, because why would she talk to you for one second, let alone
long enough to get your hands on her?"
The bartender kept us hanging there until we settled the argument. As the first lights of dawn began to lighten the sky, we arrived at a truce, negotiated chiefly by Guido and the largest brother, who began to recognize that, appearances aside, his baby sister might not have been totally innocent of provocation.
Once the bartender let us down, the big brother shook hands with Guido. The Deveel family removed their much-chastened sister from Bunny's custody and thence from the bar. I sat down, my ears ringing, and called for a fruit juice.
"What did you tell her?" I asked Bunny. She and Tananda had spent the last three hours of the fray sitting at a side table with the hefty woman and her slim husband.
"That men had responsibilities, but so do women," Bunny said with a sly smile. "If she wants to drive her brothers crazy, she doesn't have to involve a bunch of strangers."
"Sandbagged," Aahz groaned, accepting an ice pack for his head. The veins in his yellow eyes were ochre. "Just my luck I had to get involved with a girl who had family in the neighborhood."
I grinned. "Maybe you shouldn't have asked who her daddy was, but whether she had any brothers."
"You're learning, kid."
Chapter 16
"Find me someone I can blame for this!"
—H. Hoover
When we got back to the site in the morning, both of us were somewhat shopworn. Aahz was battered from getting tossed around between seven or eight large Deveel brothers. I nursed a bruise on the side of my head, but I had to admit he looked worse.
"Oh, Mr. Aahz!" Miss Tauret exclaimed as we entered the And Company office. "What happened? You look as though a building fell on you!" Her hand flew to her mouth as though trying to take back her words. In Aegis, such a thing could happen.
"I'm okay," Aahz said, rolling his yellow eyes her way. "It was pretty tough, but I got through with just a few scrapes."
She rose from her desk. "Let me get you some fresh coffee! Please, go sit down. I'll have it in your office in just a moment. What can I do to make you feel better?"
Aahz opened his mouth, then paused, looking at her warily. "You don't have a bunch of big, older brothers, do you?
"Why, no," Miss Tauret said, her little gray ears turning this way and that. "Just one sister. She is younger than I am." She looked at me and flirted her eyelashes. "I glyphed her all about you yesterday. She was so impressed that you saved the pyramid."
"Uh, that's nice," I said.
"I taught the kid everything he knows," Aahz purred, leaning over the desk and staring deeply into her eyes.
"You did?" she rested her elbow on the counter and her chin on her hand.
"Yeah," Aahz said.
"Uh, excuse me," I said. I hurried into our office to look at the previous day's paperwork. Miss Tauret had been interested in Aahz since the first day, and after last night he was vulnerable to a little sympathetic female attention with no possibility of reprisals from angry relatives. While I was glad for him, I didn't have to watch.
Miss Tauret's attentiveness certainly cheered Aahz up. She came in and out of our room all day whenever we were in there, hoisting the empty beer barrel onto her meaty shoulder as if it was weightless and, even more impressively, bringing the fresh one in and tapping it for Aahz's convenience. After I took the morning rounds of the site, I found her rubbing his shoulders. He peered out from under the cold compress on his eyes and gave me a wink.
The receptionist was not the only Ghord who paid us closer attention since the day I had picked up the pyramid. Many of the workers who had held us at arm's length got into the habit of talking with us or glyphing when they noticed us walking around. A lot of the girls giggled when I went past, though they were openly friendly if I actually stopped to talk with them. All of them were pretty impressed by the feat I had performed. Miss Tauret let it be known to everyone what Aahz had said about teaching me, so we were both made much of around the site.
Beltasar was much more cooperative with me since that day, too. She kept me apprised of the progress the Scarabs were making. In fact, I was even present when the hardworking beetles laid the final stone on the third tier. I couldn't take credit for it, but there were fewer accidents on site since the pyramid had been reseated. There was never a day when there wasn't one, but Doctor Cobra had had to make fewer pyramid calls.
The very next day the first stone of the fourth tier was laid, to great fanfare from Samwise. He made a speech and everybody was given an extra measure of beer. I was starting to like the Valley of Zyx. It wouldn't be a bad place to spend eternity.
One more milestone, so to speak, occurred during that next week. Aahz managed to sell a stone on the ground floor of Phase Two, and nagged the carvers into getting started on it so there would be something to show his potential customers. That meant laying out the foundation underneath the invisible ramps.
Swarms of the Scarabs walked backwards on their hands to roll the debris off the site. They smoothed it out in two days flat and tamped the thick foundation into place, all in less time than it would take me to paper a single wall. I was incredibly impressed. With a crowd of customers and workers on Camel-back and magik carpets sailing alongside, the slab itself, chosen by Aahz and the master scribe for its smooth sides and perfection of proportion, was transported by Beltasar's crack team over the surface of the desert. The weather, as usual, was perfect. Emissaries from the Pharaoh Suzal's court were in attendance. I wasn't happy to see Gurn there, sneering at everybody as if that was in his job description. I looked around, hoping to see Chumley, but he didn't show up. Aahz and I had not wanted to send a message to him directly, worrying that we might blow his cover in the court.
The Scarabs settled the stone at the edge of the new foundation, placing it just where Aahz and the purchaser had agreed it would go. It wasn't at a corner or in the center of any of the walls, so it must have been cheap as slabs went. Still, it was an impress
ive hunk of rock. We all gathered around to watch. The Scarabs hung onto people's clothes and headdresses or hovered in mid-air to get a better view. Gurn insinuated himself just ahead of me. I had no trouble seeing over his head, but having him so close made me feel as though something slimy had wriggled into my clothes.
The master scribe, Ay-Talek, a Ghordess with the head of a fishing bird, invited us to watch from the front row as her finest stonecarver began the first line of text on the stone. Cay-Man, a Ghord with a long, reptilian face, bowed to us all and picked up his tools.
"Here we go, partner," Aahz said, his hands on his hips. The client, a used-carpet salesman from the Bazaar, stood beside us with his family clustered around him. "This is our message to the future."
Cay-Man set the chisel against the face of the smooth slab and raised his hammer. I found myself holding my breath. He brought the hammer down.
Tap!
A flake of stone leaped away, leaving a curved mark. The Ghord scribes watching broke into tremendous applause.
"What's the big deal?" I asked. "It's one little chip."
"Oh, you know," said Ay-Talek. "There's nothing more daunting than a blank slab. You can hardly think of what to write first. Once you break the gray space, it seems to go so much faster."
And Cay-Man did go faster. Tap tap tap tap tap! Tappity tappity tap! Tap! Tap! The first sign took shape immediately, the client's name, and was joined in swift succession by six more. I had been studying the glyphs since our arrival. I could identify a few of the signs as Cayman dug out a thin layer of rock around them and brought them up into relief. I saw the sign for the ancient Ghordess Hat-hed, followed by three eagles and a birdie.
"Golfer," Ay-Talek translated.
Cay-Man acknowledged the applause of his fellows, then went on to chisel out the figure of a man kneeling with his arms wide apart over his head. I thought back to the lexicon. That sigil meant 'this fish was that big, I swear on my life!' My guess was confirmed as an upside down fishhook was added beside it.
Myth-Fortunes m-19 Page 13
