"There's M.Y.T.H., Inc.," I pointed out.
He opened one yellow eye and aimed it at me. "That's not my legacy, kid. That's yours. Bunny may be in charge now, but if you really wanted to run it again, no one would say no, not even me. Everyone in the Bazaar knows you established it. It runs on your principles. Not that that's all bad," he added.
"You were Garkin's friend," I said.
"So what? He had a lot of friends. He was a swell guy."
"I was with him for months, and no one ever dropped in on him except you," I said.
"That means either I'm too dense to know that he wanted to be alone, or he never passed the threshold of pissing me off so I left him alone, too."
"Well, if you hadn't been his friend, you wouldn't have been there that day when Isstvan's assassins killed him," I said reasonably. "They'd probably have taken me out, too. I could hardly muster enough magik to light a candle. I wasn't in any shape to fight a couple of armed Imps."
Aahz grunted. "So I saved your life. Maybe. You've returned the favor a dozen times. We're even."
"But you taught me everything I know," I said. "I mean, what would have happened, say, if I'd wandered into the Bazaar on my own ..."
I let my thoughts peter out. Aahz had more or less let me wander around on my own, which is how I got to meet Tananda, who was now one of my best friends; and how I acquired a dragon that Aahz had only in later years admitted was not such a big pest as he had been at first. "Anyhow, you've been my mentor
and my partner. I guess it may not seem like a lot to accomplish, but you changed my life. All that I have, I owe to you. And that includes M.Y.T.H., Inc."
Aahz made a sour face. "Kid, that's the kind of hogwash I expect to hear on a soap opera." He held up a hand to forestall the question that was on the way out of my open mouth. "It's a drama series in which commercial messages are interrupted by actors spouting angst at each other. And hogwash is what comes off a hog after a bath, not what you use to clean it. But thanks for trying to cheer me up. I was more looking for the kind of deed that would mean something to future generations. Changing the world, somehow."
"Maybe that's still ahead of you," I said hopefully. I cudgeled my brains to come up with a deed that would fulfill his wishes, but I wasn't used to thinking in that broad a scope. I put the notion away to confer with our friends later on.
"Yeah, well, maybe. I know a hollow rock isn't what I'm thinking of, but it got me thinking. I didn't think my day was done, but it hurts not to be able to make a splash even when I want to. I had a great rep as a master magician, and I earned it, kid. People were impressed by me. My name meant something. I had promise. Now I have to listen to small time shysters like Samwise call me a has-been. I thought waiting a century was no big deal for the joke powder to wear off, but a guy can only take so many hits to his ego." "Everyone respects you," I said.
"Seeing is believing," Aahz said. "I couldn't do anything to save that broken corner of Phase One. You saved the day. It was damned impressive. You ought to be proud of that."
"I wouldn't have been able to do that without your help," I said. It was the truth.
But I knew what he meant. The crowd that had looked for his expertise had suddenly turned away from him. It had felt good to get credit, but not at Aahz's expense. I just sat there, unable to think of anything to say that didn't sound like . . . hogwash.
Sighing, I looked out over the construction site. From our vantage point way above the desert floor, we had a great view of Phase One. The fourth tier was coming along nicely. I wondered about the well-being of all the investors and whether they were getting hit as hard by the bad-luck stick as we had been. I couldn't see Beltasar and her individual workers at this distance, but I saw the tide of iridescent shells surging and receding under each stone as it moved. Their strength still impressed me.
"You could have taken credit for saving the pyramid," I said at last. "I expected you to. That's one of the reasons that Guido and I were worried about you. You usually go for part of the glory."
"Yeah, well ... I missed you, too, over all those months.
I resolved that I wouldn't be so stingy about credit in the future. You've never been selfish about giving others their due. I could learn a little from you, too."
That made me feel prouder than any other commendation I could have received from kings or industrial leaders.
"Thanks," I said.
"Don't let it go to your head. I'm still going to call you on it if you screw up. If nothing's going wrong right now, I'm just going to lie here and soak up some rays." He patted the sweating pitcher beside him. "Want a drink? The local hooch packs a pretty good wallop."
"No, thanks," I said. I was so relieved that he wasn't going to die that I felt a surge of energy. "I'm going
to go into town and check in with Chumley. He said he was going to investigate the Mumsy's curse. I'll see if he found anything."
"Fine," Aahz said, not looking down at me. "Don't hurry back. I'm enjoying myself." I turned to go.
Gurn leered up at me from the next step down. "Quite a view you have from up here," he said.
Chapter 26
"Who let the sacred cat out of the bag?"
—Pharaoh Sheshonk I
I was so startled I took a step back into nothingness. My arms wheeled in wild circles as I tried to save myself. A strong hand clasped around my wrist and dragged me back onto the invisible framework.
"Watch it, kid," Aahz said, releasing me. He glared at the small courtier. "What in hell are you doing here?"
"Just as I was about to congratulate you on being saved from a sandy grave," Gurn said, with a wicked grin that did nothing for his distorted looks. "You nearly achieve it a second time."
"Get lost," Aahz said. "This is private property."
"All property in Aegis belongs to her majesty," Gurn said. "But by all means, send me away! I can go back to her majesty with the news that her precious pyramid is infested with a curse!"
Aahz and I looked at each other. It would be the end of Phase One, let alone Phase Two, if the Pharaoh withdrew her permission to build. We'd be sunk.
"How do you know that? I've been keeping an ear on the gossip, and no one's talking about it," Aahz said.
"No one but her majesty's esteemed wise man, he who
travels in the outer lands until he is needed—or so he says."
"Ch— Lord Wat-Is-Et would never tell you anything like that."
"Oh, it was not me he told, but the words came from his mouth," Gurn said. "You should pay closer attention to the discretion of your friends."
"One of which you aren't," Aahz said lazily. "You keep turning up like a bad coin."
"I go where I want to, in her majesty's name!" Gurn said. "Observing, for example, all of the accidents that have occurred on the site of what should be her most glorious monument."
"Causing all those accidents, I wouldn't be surprised," said Aahz.
"You fool! I have been preventing accidents!" Gurn shrieked.
He aimed his little finger at Phase One. I reached out to stop him, and found my hands encased in a crackling sphere of magik.
"Hold your fire until you know what I am doing, Klahd," he said. "Foolish heroics . . . idiotic waste of time. Use your mind's eye, if you call yourself a magician."
I peered down. Beltasar's people were moving a stone up a ramp. It had stopped dead, Gurn's doing. I watched the turquoise dot that was the chief Scarab fly around and around them, haranguing her USHEBTIs into getting it going again. I couldn't tell what she was saying at that distance, but the shrill tone was unmistakable.
Then, a red-shelled Scarab, whom I knew as Rayd, came flitting toward her from upslope. The two of them flew in a circle, shrieking to one another, then zipped toward a portion of the invisible ramp.
It was not only invisible, but nonexistent. Gurn sneered at me.
"Before you ask, Klahd, no. I didn't do that. The curse did it."
We watched as the Scar
abs called for a site magician. A female in pleated robes came hustling up the slope, obviously called away from lunch, food still in her hand, to perform an emergency repair. She put down her meal and started drawing down power from the force lines in the sky. Once the foundation was filled in, Gurn waved his hand again. The Scarabs tugged the stone into motion. They got it safely up onto the fourth tier and settled it in place.
"That's a really good spell," I said admiringly.
Our little moment of camaraderie was at an end. Gurn glared. "Don't patronize me, Klahd!"
"I'm not," I said. "I am impressed. But why not tell people what you've been doing here to help?"
"Instead of turning up like a bad coin?" Gurn threw our words back at us. "Why? It's none of their business. Just as I do not tell her majesty all the things that go on here, such as playing around with the help ..."
Aahz scowled. "That's nobody's business, either."
"It has become everyone's business, thanks to your partner in mischief. You had to pick the one lady who talks," Gurn said, amused. "Or that one of her trusted ministers has another name? Cholmondley, is it?"
"Just Chumley," I said. "So what? Does it change what he is? His intelligence isn't fake. He's one of the smartest and wisest people I know."
"He is fortunate in his friends, but her majesty should be served with all truth. I could have you thrown in the deepest dungeons in the coldest and darkest part of Aegis!"
"Been there, done that," I said, with a yawn.
"This time you will not have Necrops to weave you warm underwear. To lie to her majesty is to insult the Ghords!"
"Gotcha there, pal," Aahz said, turning up on one elbow and grinning. "You're not telling her everything, either. You say she still doesn't know about the curse. That's withholding information. Or, as you insist on calling it, lying."
Gurn looked furious, as if he was about to throw his amazing stopping spell on Aahz.
"But why keep our secrets at all?" I asked, trying to defuse the situation. "You know the pyramid's cursed."
"Because her majesty sincerely wants this," Gurn said, with a sigh. "She is my life. I would do anything
not to put her nose out of joint." Once again, I was captivated by a memory of her face. Aahz, too. He must have known what we were thinking, and gave us a fierce look. "You call yourselves problem-solvers. You are accepting that fool Samwise's capital to do it, but you spend your time up here feeling sorry for yourselves. I would call you frauds."
"Hey!" Aahz said. "Taking a little time off to recharge is not fraud."
"It is if you are failing to earn your commission," Gurn said. "I lay a second charge upon you: break the spell. Now. Her majesty must be freed of the affliction that causes her to lose the royal lunch almost as soon as it is consumed. If you figure out a way to solve the problem, she need never know. Otherwise, I will see you and that idiotic Imp locked in that dungeon until you have use for this invisible pyramid stone you keep visiting. My patience is not infinite. You must solve this problem quickly, or I will see to it that you suffer every punishment. I give you one week."
"Don't you think we have been working on it?" Aahz demanded.
"Perhaps without a sufficient goad to your back. Here is mine. I can have you imprisoned and tortured if you don't succeed. And I will enjoy it."
"Do you know how to undo the bad luck?" I asked.
Gurn looked up at me. "Why should I help you? Perhaps Diksen will change his mind and construct a pyramid fit for her majesty instead of this commercial monstrosity."
"And maybe pigs will go into investment banking," Aahz said. "I'd give the same odds to each event. This is the only stone triangle she's going to get, and you know it."
"Do I?" Gurn asked, aiming a pugnacious chin at him.
"We all want this to work," I said, getting between them. "Okay, maybe for different reasons, but we want it to be a big success. On a theoretical basis, how would you lift a curse that the maker refuses to undo?"
"Why, get him involved in it," Gurn said, with an innocent look. "Use your imagination."
Before I could ask him more, he vanished.
Chapter 27
"Looking for love in all the wrong places."
—R. Montague
A week in Ghordon was seven days, the same as it was in Klah or Deva. That didn't give us much time to figure out how to get through to Diksen or find a means of breaking the curse without his help.
We went back to Deva for a brainstorming session with the rest of M.Y.T.H., Inc.
"Why don't we just back out of the project?" Bunny asked.
"No," Aahz said flatly. "We stay. Or if you all want to cut ties, I'll stay."
"I'll stay with him," I said.
"Then, what do we do?" our president asked.
"I could break into Diksen's office," Tananda said. "What if I went in through the top of the sphere and used a commercial freeze spell the way Markie did? If we knew when he goes out, I could search through his paperwork. If he found out I had been there, and he would, what could he do to me? We've already been affected by the curse."
"The answer to your second question is 'plenty,' " Aahz said. "The guy has some advanced ideas about privacy. We were only in his study for a few minutes. If he'll booby-trap
plans he's throwing away, who knows what he's got on his permanent files? And as for the first question, useless. What if you did find a dogeared page in his 'Book of My Favorite Curses' ? He still won't take it off."
"Bribery?" asked Spider. She and Pookie had come back for the current staff meeting to make sure I was still breathing, and offered their expertise. "There must be something the guy wants more than revenge."
"It might have worked before we confronted him, but I doubt his pride will let him accept anything now."
"Persuasion?" Pookie suggested. I knew what kind of persuasion she meant. The clingy jumpsuits that Aahz's cousin favored still managed to conceal a remarkable arsenal.
"It'd have to be psychological," Nunzio said. "I didn't see too many holes in security."
"That bubble is eminently defensible," Guido added. "He has the advantage of bein' able to see approaches from a long distance."
"Everyone's vulnerable somewhere," Pookie insisted.
"Again, he's pretty tough," I said. "I think the only reason he didn't start flinging all of us out of his office that night was because we were there under See-Ker's protection. He has no reason to hold back on intruders. Samwise said he didn't need to have other safeguards because of his reputation, but he earned it somehow."
"I am still upset with Samwise for bringing us in under false pretences," Bunny said. Aahz flinched. "It's really not your fault, Aahz. There was only one person who could deny he had come by those plans legitimately, and we didn't ask him. We wouldn't have, considering that Diksen was running what we saw as a rival architectural concern. But it does us no good to continue to be associated with Samwise."
"I don't want to walk away from the project yet," Aahz said. "Samwise deserves it, but the rest of his people don't. In any case, it's still in our best interests to maintain contact until the curse is off."
"So, what's the best way forward?" Bunny asked. She didn't ask again if we insisted on staying on the job. Aahz aimed a talon at the ground.
"Gotta be Diksen himself. Find his weaknesses, and we find a way to persuade him to undo the problem."
"Research," Bunny sighed.
"I'll check into where he went to magik school, and where he lived before he settled in the Zyx Valley," Tananda said. "Maybe there's something in his records we can exploit."
"I'll make the rounds of magicians and wizards I know who've studied malicious magik," Aahz said. "Tweety said he'd ask around his colleagues, too. I don't have to be on site all the time. There's nothing
much going wrong that can't be explained by the curse, and most of it is minor. I'll check in daily for progress reports from the department heads."
"I'll watch Diksen," I said. "
See if he has any contacts that will be friendlier to us than he is."
"Or any nasty habits we can exploit," Pookie said.
"Good," Bunny said. "We'll compare notes tomorrow evening. Meeting adjourned."
With the help of a rotating group of volunteer Camels, I staked out Diksen's pavilion from various points out in the desert. The Ghord magician spent most of his time there. Through the translucent walls I could see him pacing around in his sphere-top office. His mother's apartments were curtained off to keep out most of the sunshine. In the evening, I saw her silhouette appear against the wall.
The second afternoon I was watching, a hole opened in the side of the sphere. I was so groggy after the vigil of a day and a night that I almost missed it. I slapped my own cheek to make myself wake up.
Diksen sailed out through the hole on a magik carpet. Even though the skies were empty and cloudless, I didn't dare lose him. Any chance to pick up information I could use to change his mind was worth taking.
"Follow that carpet," I instructed my Camel.
"Oh, that's easy," she said over her shoulder, nevertheless setting off behind the fast-disappearing figure. "Diksen always goes to the Kazbah in the afternoon."
She was right. We skimmed along the sands in time to see him set down on the edge of the crowded market. As Diksen stepped off the carpet, it rolled up into a tight cylinder. Diksen set it against a handy wall along with several others. He strode off into the crowd just as I got off my Camel.
I assumed a disguise as a Ghord with the head of a goat, as my normal appearance would excite too much comment. The merchants shouted about their wares, offered me tea or beer, but didn't try to insist when I politely foisted them off. I worried about losing Diksen in the huge crowds. People stopped abruptly in the middle of the street to gossip to one another, scream, complain or complete a speedy transaction. I felt a hand going for my belt pouch, and left the pickpocket stuck to a tent pole with a rope of magik. I didn't want to have to deal with the authorities. This might be my only chance to see where Diksen went.
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