"Thank you," she said, and shot away.
Where was Aahz?
I went back to the And Company office. He wasn't in our studio. I checked all the offices. No Aahz.
"He has not been in here in hours," said Miss Tauret. She
looked a trifle miffed. I thanked her and went out to ask around the site.
"Aahz?" asked Lol-Kit, the female scribe. "The male with the face of Sober?"
"That's right," I said. I had been walking around for an hour without luck.
"Oh, he went over there some time ago," she said.
"Where?"
"Up there." She pointed a delicate claw toward the sky. I squinted into the sun, and made out a small black object hovering in the sky. "Yes, he is still there. He has been lying there for hours."
I panted my way up the steps to the top of Phase Two's invisible framework.
"Aahz!" I shouted again. "Are you all right? Answer me!"
My heart battered against the inside of my chest. Had the worst happened? Had he gone up to wait for a client and collapsed without anyone noticing?
He lay on his back at the apex of the four ramps, one arm outstretched, his hand curled around a circular object. He was lying too still. I took to the air and flew the rest of the way.
"Aahz!"
I zipped through the top of the framework and into the air until I was hovering over his face. His eyes were open. "Aahz!"
The eyes rolled in my direction and focused on me. "What? Can't a guy get any peace around here?"
My heart slowed a little, and I lit on the next step down from his. He had a clear pitcher beside him the size of a barrel half-filled with a pale golden liquid. I wasn't naive enough to think it was lemonade. A chased goblet that would have made a good bucket sat empty beside it. That had been the object in his hand.
"Are you okay?" I asked. "Everybody's been wondering where you are."
Aahz sat up and sighed.
"I just needed to get away by myself for a while," he said. "These last few days have been kind of tough on the ego." "I can understand that," I said.
Aahz poured himself a drink. He offered me the goblet. I shook my head, and he took a hefty gulp.
"You sounded like you were in a panic when you came flitting up here," he said. "Something the matter?" He aimed a talon at my nose. "Don't try to hedge. I've been watching you and the others tiptoe around me for weeks. What's on your mind?"
"Nothing!"
"Skeeve, you're a lousy liar. What's going on?"
No use in hedging, as he said, though there wasn't a shrub in sight. "We've been worried about you."
"What about me? I'm not the one who got lost in the sand for three days and hitched a ride home with Shrouds-R-Us."
I shrugged. "We've been kind of worried about your health."
"Why? I'm eating and drinking. Everything else is functioning just fine, thanks. What makes you think I'm not well?"
"Well. . . it's just. . . you've been nice to people lately."
"I'm always nice to people!" he roared. "What are you talking about?"
I smiled. That sounded like the old Aahz.
"It's not just that," I acknowledged. "We were concerned as to why you wanted to be involved in Samwise's project so badly. I saw your face when he started describing the pyramid stones, the carving, the mourners and everything. We've turned down working on jobs like this in the past. It's nothing special. It's construction. But you've taken this very personally. After finding out Samwise is responsible for bringing the curse on himself and everybody involved, we would have walked away from a situation like this in the past, but you've hung on. Why?"
Aahz threw himself on his back again and looked up at the sky.
"Legacy."
"Legacy?" I echoed, feeling panic rising again. "Then, there is something wrong with you? I'm your best friend. Will you tell me what it is?"
"There's nothing wrong with me!" he shouted. "I don't have to be at death's door to wonder what people are going to think about me when I'm gone. By then, it's too late. I'm not as young as I used to be. When Samwise sat down in our office and let loose with his sales spiel is when I really started thinking about it.
"I tend to live with an eye on the future, but it's not my primary focus. But, you know, as time goes by, you start to think about things. What have I ever done that anyone will remember me for? My kids don't talk to me. I've spent a lot of time kicking around, but what have I really accomplished? What's my mark on the future? Where is it? What did Aahzmandius ever do to earn a footnote in history?"
"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.