"It's five times actual height," Eir replied.
"Four times would have been enough," Zojja snapped. "It's fine. Fine."
"It's perfect," said Snaff. "Thank you very much! It was certainly worth the coin." He turned to his apprentice and said, "All right, now. Let's take this back with us."
Zojja scooted to the opposite side of the stone bust. She and her master set their fingers beneath the carving. "One, two, three!"
The two asura struggled, trying to lift the five-hundred-pound block, but not moving it an inch.
Eir stood above them, arms folded.
Snaff looked up at her and tittered nervously. "I wish I had more coin to pay you to carry this."
Eir smiled. "You have more coin. You were about to pay me in silver before I asked for gold."
Snaff blushed around a tight-lipped smile. "Oh, all right-"
"Never mind," interrupted Eir, stepping between the two asura and wrapping her arms around the huge statue and hoisting it off the ground. "Where do you want it?"
Snaff crooked a finger in her direction and said, "Follow me."
Garm looked up wonderingly at his alpha. She had never followed anyone. If ever she followed anyone, it would be a creature taller and more powerful and more clever than she, not some tiny thing. But Eir did follow him. Massive bust in hand, Eir followed, as did Zojja. Garm joined in, if only to see what this asura was up to.
They paraded out of the courtyard and into the lane. "Hey, everybody," called Snaff into the shops, "look at the new sculpture. Isn't it a masterpiece?"
"Where do you want it?" Eir repeated as she struggled to carry the bust.
"Just up here, my lady," Snaff said.
They passed into a plaza filled with market tents and tables loaded with fruits, scarves, iron implements, and goods of every other type. In the center of this trading den stood an ancient gate of gray stone, carved with strange runes. Just now, the arched gate flickered and, in that flicker, gave a vision of another marketplace in a port city.
"Not going to Lion's Arch today," Snaff said to the gate attendant, another asura. Slipping him a coin, Snaff said, "Rata Sum, if you please."
The attendant crouched beside an array of powerstones, and a stone in his hand sent sparks leaping into the other crystals. The flickering scene in the arch changed to a rocky desert, a mountain lake, a golden meadow. At last, it showed a brief glimpse of what looked like three massive pyramids.
"Thanks," Snaff said, straightening up and stepping through the portal.
Eir shrugged and followed, carrying her huge load. Garm came at her heels.
Passing through the portal was like plunging into a hot bath. The cold air was ripped away from their skins, replaced by stinging, sticky heat. Instead of wintry skies, there was a blazing sun. Instead of permafrost, there were cut stones and giant leaves. The group stood on a platform that jutted from the side of a huge pyramid.
Eir staggered to a stop and looked around. "Whoa."
They stood in what seemed to be a plaza between three gigantic pyramids, except that, instead of a plaza, a chasm descended to unseeable depths. Above that chasm, giant stonework cubes seemed suspended on thin air. The lines of massive architecture were softened by palm trees planted in huge rectangular pots and pyramidal lanterns floating over the stone balustrades.
"Floating?" Eir gulped.
Snaff smiled. "Nice, eh?"
"How?"
Zojja piped up, "Even a genius-in-training knows that. It's all held aloft by powerstone fields arrayed using the dodecaic equation of the Eternal Alchemy."
"Dough-decay-what?"
"The twelvefold equation. It's the most obvious expression of universal balance in base twelve."
"Base twelve?"
Zojja turned to Snaff and muttered, "She must still count on her fingers."
He nodded discreetly. "It's the temptation of having ten."
Eir hadn't understood a word. But she did understand that this was a magical place, with purplish plasma flaring up from columns here and there, and lightning sparking along arched bridges, and powerstones glowing everywhere.
"Isn't that bust getting heavy?" Snaff asked.
"Yes… If we could just get to the spot."
"Of course! Of course!" Snaff strode out in front, his three-toed feet scampering along at a pace that was just a lumbering stroll for Eir. He led the group down a series of stairs, ever deeper into the city. Massive walls of stone rose all around them. "I live in the old city-down below."
"Of course you do."
As they walked along one pyramid, an asura krewe swarmed the slanted side, hauling a huge dandelion puff up the incline. One asura shouted, "Nice statue, Master Snaff! A little idol worship, is it?"
Snaff laughed easily. "I appreciate my apprentice. I don't idolize her. Good luck with your test flight! Just let us pass before you launch."
Eir murmured, "Test flight?"
"Test crash, more likely. Master Klab's been working for two years on that puffball-made of milkweed dander and butterfly scales and a whole lot of hastily cobbled spells. Won't fly, I assure you. But the fellow knows how to glad-hand. He never lacks for a krewe or investors."
"On three!" came a shout from above. "One… two…"
"Let's run," Snaff advised, and he and Zojja did, which still amounted to only a fast walk for Eir and Garm.
"Three!"
A loud series of pops sounded on the stone slope, sending a blast wave of air across the dandelion puffball. Hundreds of silken sacks inflated, and the thing lifted off the stone slope. The puffball broke free, rising into the air like a floating balloon. At its center, Master Klab hooted excitedly in his harness.
"Heigh-ho, Master Snaff! Running from true genius, are we? Whenever there's something clever going on, you're always heading in the opposite direction!"
The little gray master was looking slightly green as he stopped to stare upward at the flying puffball. He muttered, "I'll never hear the end of it."
Just then, the puffball rose above the city, where a breeze dragged it suddenly away.
Master Klab shouted to his krewe, "Bring the skyhooks! The skyhooks!"
Eir sniffed, "Maybe you just did hear the end of it."
"You're a good lass."
Eir huffed. "Um, can we get on with setting this thing down?"
"Ah, yes, that. Well-see that small ziggurat down there?" Snaff pointed toward the bowels of the city, at what looked like a temple missing its top. "Home, sweet home!"
They descended a series of switchback stairs and at last arrived at Snaff's ziggurat.
He piped happily, "Now it's just up the side, down some stairs, and we'll be in my laboratory."
"Good," Eir said with relief.
Except that the stairs were made for asuran feet. Eir struggled up them to reach the peak of the temple-or what used to be the peak. The top had apparently been blown off by a violent blast, with a single staircase descending into the heart of the ziggurat.
Panting, Eir paused at the brink of the crater and said, "An experiment gone awry?"
Snaff pursed his lips. "No. Why do you ask?"
"I mean, the crater."
He shrugged. "It's called a skylight. Saves on candles. Come along!" He scuttled down the stairs into the darkness, with Zojja close behind.
Even Garm pushed past Eir, apparently to make certain this wasn't a trap. He loped down into the shadows, plunging into a cool chamber with ornately carved walls, tiled floors, and trapezoidal stone tables arrayed across them. Much of the light in the space came through the "skylight," though some also came from magic lanterns that hung from great chains and sent a bluish glow down over everything. Light also leaked from great vials and beakers and tubes on the tabletops, and from strange mechanical contraptions all around.
"Oh, much cooler!" sighed Eir as she reached the floor. "Where should I put this?"
"Here," said Snaff, standing beside a table where one of the contraptions sprawled. "What an exciting day!"
Eir ambled over to the table and eased the heavy block down.