Myth-Fortunes

Aahz was humiliated beyond belief. I waited as he escorted Bendix out into the anteroom. Miss Tauret, looking everywhere except at us, made out a voucher.

"This is good through the Bank of Zoorik," she explained to Bendix. She caught my eye by accident, and her cheeks actually reddened. I gave her a sympathetic smile. Bendix snatched it up and stalked out. Miss Tauret glanced up at Aahz for support, but he was too devastated to offer anyone else an emotional lifesaver. He stalked back to our office and slammed the door.

I followed him and opened it softly.

"Can I do anything to help?" I asked.

"No! I've lost everything!" He kicked the waste-papyrus basket across the room. It bounced off the wall and fell over.

"Not everything. You still have your health. My mother always said, if you have your health ..." I let the thought trail off. Aahz wasn't listening, and in light of my concerns, it was a bad idea to bring it up. He was so mad, he might rupture something. "You still have your friends," I finished encouragingly. That much I knew to be true.

Aahz looked up at me and snarled, "Where's Samwise?"

"I left him on top of Phase One."

Aahz stormed out of the office and up the ramps. I followed him. Samwise hurried to meet us.

"Aahz! My friend! Come and see how well we're getting on!

"Forget that!" Aahz growled. "Diksen's plans were cursed, and you didn't figure that he had anything to protect him from light-fingered employees? Like you?"

"No, Aahz, he wasn't happy with it!"

"Did he really throw it out?"

"Of course he did! I mean, it was under the table, all crumpled up. I'd call that a discard. Wouldn't you?"

He was getting no concessions from Aahz. I interrupted.

"What was he designing?" I asked. "Why not use the same plans to build another pyramid? He must have had something new in mind. What was it?"

"I don't know! I told you, he didn't talk to me. He sort of mumbles, to tell the truth."

"Well, he's going to talk to us," Aahz said grimly. "If there's a curse going around, he's going to catch a piece of it."

Chapter 19

"A man's home is his castle."

We zipped straight up through the bottom of the shimmering sphere like arrows. Aahz had us land us on the rim of the lowest office floor. The secretary scrambled up from her usual sitting position, and the cats on their pedestals recoiled at the face of an angry Pervect.

"We want to see Diksen," Aahz said.

"I am sorry," the girl said. "My employer ca

"Taking a nap?" Aahz asked. "He can go back to sleep after I cut him a new one. Which way to his office?"

"No, sir!" the girl cried, as Aahz punched through flowing panes of water, then withdrew. "Please! Don't go that way! Or that way!"

She scuttled after us, cats at her heels, as we flew up the spiral staircase that wound around the inside of the sphere. It was much bigger on the inside than it had looked from the outside. Each level had been sliced pie-fashion into wedge-shaped rooms, tastefully furnished with artifacts and magikal impedimenta. Fountains, no doubt fed by the water in the walls, danced and trickled in fabulous patterns.

I would have been more impressed with his skill at design had we not been on a mission.

On the third level, Aahz threw open the first door and barged in. A female figure, thrown in silhouette against the translucent walls, sat up and clutched a length of fabric to her bosom. I guessed that we had surprised her in bed. She screamed.

"Who are you?" she shrieked. "These are my private quarters. Go away!"

"Oops," Aahz said. "Wrong number. Sorry."

"Sorry, madam, sorry," the secretary called to her as we stormed up to the next level.

That, too, was a private residence, but with more masculine fitments. No one was in them. Aahz strode resolutely upward. Finally, in the apex of the ball of water, under a domed ceiling that focused the hot Aegis sun, we found another door, this one of carved wood. It stood slightly ajar.

Aahz pushed it open. We entered a room full of floating globes and shelves of books. I had never seen so many in one place before.

A man sat with his back to us. He hovered in mid-air, his fingertips tented before him. "Diksen?"

He stirred and looked back over his shoulder, neither alarmed nor in a hurry. He was a tall Ghord with sandy hair and a worried expression on a jowly face that looked a little like one of my father's hunting hounds. He unfolded and lowered until his feet touched the floor.

"Who are you? Why do you intrude upon my privacy?" he asked in a quiet voice. At least, that's what I think he said. As Samwise had warned us, his ma

"We're working with Samwise next door," Aahz said, aiming a thumb backwards over his shoulder. "He's working off a set of plans that he said he got from you. They've been spreading a curse around. I want to know how to take it off."

"Absurd," Diksen burbled, his jowls flapping. "Insulting, to have you burst in like that."

"What about it?" Aahz demanded. "I warn you, I am not in the mood for hurt feelings. This just cost me a lot of money!"

Diksen's face got red. "Money?... More important things than money!"

"Oh, yeah? Name two!" Aahz demanded, breasting up to the Ghord magician.

"Whoa whoa whoa!" I said, getting in between them. "We started off on the wrong foot. Diksen, let us introduce ourselves. My name's Skeeve, and this is my partner, Aahz. We're part of M.Y.T.H., Inc., a group of professional problem-solvers. We work out of the Bazaar at Deva. Samwise hired us to help him out with the project next door. He said he got the plans while working for you. It looks as though they acquired a curse along the way. It's spreading and causing all kinds of havoc. I'm sure it's all preventable, but we need to find out where it came from. Can you help us figure out if it happened here in this facility, or somewhere else? Because you might have to clean one up yourself. We'd be happy to offer our services to assist you in getting rid of it, if you need it."

I put on my most wi

"Won't even discuss anything so stupid as a curse," Diksen puffed. "... Troublesome Samwise, can't keep his paws . . . useless ... on his own head . . . gone!" I saw what Samwise had meant about mumbling, but Diksen mumbled with menace. "Get out. . . will call for help."

"Who?" Aahz fleered. "Your secretary? Your cats? They're go

"Intruders . . . suffer . . . call Dorsal Warriors!" Diksen sputtered.

"Aahz!" I jumped out of the way just as something that I thought was artwork flashed and leaned out of the wall. I caught a glimpse of a pale, fishlike face as the being it was attached to threw a spear at me. He missed. Aahz grabbed the creature's scaly arm and tossed him across the room.

I had seen a lot of Ghords since we came to Aegis, but this one was different from all the rest. He did have a fish's face, with gills behind his cheeks. His legs ended in long sweeping fins instead of feet, and he had a ridge that ran up his naked back.

Aahz was scornful. "That all you got? One carp with a spear?"

He was answered by a hail of harpoons from the far wall. I dodged behind a standing bookcase. Three blades thudded into the spines of the fat, leatherbound volumes in the shelf. Aahz flattened himself on the translucent floor. He managed to avoid getting stuck by any of the weapons, but the fish-faced warriors that followed their barrage out of the water wall leaped on him. Cold and slimy hands seized me from behind.