"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."
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.
We turned into the street past the wagons full of knickknacks.
"Preserve your cultured milk solids! Keep your renneted comestibles safe from ..." The seller of cheese plates called out to the magician, then stopped in mid-cry as he focused on who it was. Hastily, he covered the pyramid shapes with a length of faded cloth and held up a doll with the head of a dog. "Toys!" he shouted "Toys for your precious children!"
Diksen stalked on, not even sparing a glance for the merchant. I scurried along behind him.
We were heading toward the oldest booths now. As he turned a corner I ducked behind a handy fold of cloth and changed my head for the face of a fish. My feet looked like silver fins now. I collected a few admiring glances for my natty appearance.