Myth-Fortunes

"That's the way I feel," Aahz said, standing beside me. "Sunk."

Chapter 24

"No one will ever find out about us."

My return to the site in the morning was somewhat subdued. I never got to sleep. Bu

they didn't want to let me out of their sight. They cried on my shoulder, shook me, hugged me, offered me food and drink, and made me sit between them on one of the couches, demanding to hear every single thing that had happened since I had left them the morning before.

Both of them held one of my hands. I hated to make them let go to reach for any of the snacks or drinks on the table beside us, so I concentrated on giving them every detail of my fall through the sands and ride back to the pyramid. They demanded that I repeat it all over and over until I was sure there was nothing left to tell. Then they cried once more.

"Never do that again!" Bu

What could I say?

"I promise I will try never to get sucked down through a desert into an underground kingdom," I said. She and Tananda had to be satisfied with that. They hugged me

again and again. I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the attention.

Guido and Nunzio left us sometime after midnight. Aahz sat up with me and the ladies for a while, but he brooded in a corner with a jug of wine, snapping whenever anybody spoke to him. I could tell he felt left out. I did my best to cheer him up and bring him into the conversation, but I got tired of being snarled at. I understood that he felt responsible for my fall, but it wasn't his fault. It had been mine. I got distracted and hit in the head by that Dorsal Warrior when I wasn't paying attention. Aahz would have called it a rookie mistake, a colloquialism I had learned long ago. I pointed that out to him, but it didn't help.

He still wasn't really talking to me in the morning. I left him hunched over the paperwork in the office and got out. There wasn't room enough in our atelier for both of us and his mood.

Instead, I took a break and decided to fulfill a long-made promise to myself to look around the rest of the Valley of Zyx. I hired a Camel to take me on a tour. We skimmed around the emptiness so I could get an unobstructed view of the mountain ranges that formed the valley, then took a long ride by the banks of the river Zyx itself. It was a magnificent, wide ribbon of dark blue silk. Despite Ghordon's resemblance to Deva in terms of geology and climate, Deva didn't have a river like that. If it did, it would be fronted by luxury mansions or filled with garbage—or both. Deveels tended to exploit natural resources to the maximum.

I finished my tour at the Kazbah, the cluster of colorful tents at the eastern edge of the valley. My Camel dropped me off at one end and promised to come back for me a couple of hours hence at the other.

The Kazbah was remarkably similar to the Bazaar. I had to check once in a while to make sure the merchants shrieking out their sales pitch were Ghords, not Deveels. Tents, often no more than a flapping cloth canopy to keep off the aggressive noontime sun, did nothing to keep down the dust-fine sand that blew everywhere. I found myself wiping my eyes every few minutes, until I created a small spell that protected my face. The merchants offered everything from food to fine tailoring, delicate pottery to mill wheels. Local magicians, herbalists, fortune-tellers, and other seers offered their services by means of signs on which living glyphs beckoned to passersby.

I thought I would look around for little gifts for Bu

I threaded my way among the flapping tents. The most ancient stalls, the jewelers included, were carved right into the mountain sides. Lion-headed women with toothless jaws roared at me to come and inspect the spices or cloth or painted leatherwork or cast metal they had for sale. Everyone offered sour beer or mint tea if I would just sit down and let them show me their merchandise. Traders screamed at each other and their prospective clients, addressing them in every language until they came up with one that the prospect spoke. They were as allergic to giving change as Aahz was to letting loose a coin.

I got a lot more respect from the locals since the day I had boosted the pyramid. If I stopped to look at a display, tiny glyphs went zipping out of the shop past me into other booths along the streets. If I didn't ask about prices, the owners would snatch up a few examples of their goods and follow me, bleating about quality and pleading with me to come back.

"I will have so much more status if I can say that the visiting Klahd magician Skeeve the Magnificent shops here!"

"You will tell people who see you wear this, and everyone will come to me to buy one and I shall be rich! It would so benefit us both. Come back, come back!"

Most of the time I just smiled and kept walking, promising to go back some time, but I bought a few knickknacks just to enjoy the bargaining. I felt at home. Yes, the Kazbah was a lot like the Bazaar, traders, pickpockets, prostitutes, gullible travelers, and all.

My mind was on Aahz. He had dozens of clients lined up to see sites in Phase Two over the coming weeks, but I could tell his heart wasn't in it any longer. He was worried about the rumors that would start when it came out that a curse came with the location. What could we do about that? Treat it as some kind of premium? He had already had to give a refund to Bendix. That meant his commission was gone, too. A rug merchant from the Bazaar had wanted to sell sublets on his own. We were afraid if he did, an exponential accumulation of bad luck would devolve upon Aahz and Samwise. The more shares that were sold, the more risk they took. I couldn't think what would be worse than what had already happened, and I didn't want to find out. Diksen had apologized to us, but he had been firm. The curse stayed as long as the pyramids did. Yet we were all too committed to back out. Samwise had bills for materials, workers' salaries, advertising, magicians' fees, and union dues. He had to go on.

So did Aahz. He really, really wanted that top spot on Phase Two. He had already commissioned Ay-Talek to start on his stone herself. He had furnished the scribe with dozens of scrolls containing his exploits. She had exhibited the first glyphs she had carved on the side. They were beautifully rendered, though spelling out 'Pervect' had taken some tactful images.

Samwise avoided both of us whenever possible. He had put us in a terrible position. I would have left Ghordon in a minute and never returned, but we had to find a way to take the curse off Aahz. At the moment, Diksen's little booby-trap was still a secret, known only to the three of us, See-Ker's folks, and the friends whom Aahz had brought in as a strike force. None of those would tell, but who else had overheard our discussions? Ghords seemed to live to gossip. Glyphs seemed to shoot around the construction zone more often than before—or perhaps I was just more aware of it than I had been. We had to behave as if news of the curse could slip out at any time. Aahz spoke of damage control, but that went right back to not knowing just how to spin that piece of news. I didn't know what Samwise and Aahz would do if word got back to the Pharaoh. Considering how often he turned up underfoot, I was surprised Gurn hadn't managed to insinuate himself into our conference the other night.