'Curses! Foiled again.'
I didn't sleep well that night. I kept waking up from dreams of being locked in a tiny, dank, dark chamber with slime dripping down the walls onto me. Then I realized that Gleep was asleep with his long neck and head stretched out on the bed beside me. The slime and the damp breath belonged to him. I breathed in the familiar gagging aroma of sulphur and tried to get some rest.
We went back to the office on the morning of the seventh day, but not to stay.
'I see no reason to sit around waiting to go to prison,' Aahz said. 'I wouldn't have come back at all, but I want a copy of the list of my clients. Either I'll figure out a way to make it up to them, or keep out of their way until this all blows over. Gurn is going to have to chase us if he wants to catch us.'
I concurred. We couldn't do anything locked up in a cell. Aahz and I might have to go on the run for a while, but we had plenty of places we could stay for a few days at a time. Gurn wouldn't be able to tell where we had gone. We would work on lifting the curse at a safe distance from Ghordon.
As we appeared in the Zyx Valley, I glanced nervously
over at Diksen's pavilion, worrying about threats from that direction as well. Then I looked back again.
'Aahz, look!'
I pointed. He looked.
The bubble, normally clear and iridescent, was murky and sort of brownish-blue. 'Was it like that last night?' 'No,' I said.
As we watched, the bubble stretched upward into an ovoid, then compressed into an oblate sphere. It sprang into its normal shape, but the murkiness darkened. Aahz grinned.
'Maybe there's hope, partner. Come on.'
We opened the Crocofile and started through the papyri of all of Aahz's contacts. I wrote down the names as he read them off. It turned out to be a much longer list than I had ever dreamed. Aahz must have drawn in people he had met as long ago as childhood, or anyone he'd ever chatted with on a street-corner. Miss Tauret was a little miffed that Aahz paid her little attention when she came in frequently with beer, sandwiches, cookies, chili or any other delicacies she thought would tempt him.
'Not now, honey,' he said, holding up a hand without looking up from his stack of papers. 'We've got a problem. Maybe later, huh?'
'Later means never!' Bulbous gray nose in the air, Miss Tauret went sashaying out in a huff. Aahz groaned and rubbed his eyes.
Mid-morning, we were only halfway through the sheaves of documents, when Samwise came in to wring his hands at us.
'Has Diksen sent any word yet?' Samwise asked. He had paled from his usual bright pink to a faint shell color.
'No,' Aahz said. 'Looks like he's going to tough it out.'
'But Gurn could be here at any moment!'
'When he is, we won't,' Aahz said.
Samwise's eyes widened. 'You're going to abandon me?'
'We're here under false pretences,' Aahz pointed out. 'Your false pretences. You want to make something of it?'
'Well, no, but I thought you would help me!'
'Here's my last and best piece of advice,' Aahz said. 'Leave. Now. We're about to.'
'But, I can't!' Samwise wailed. 'I thought you believed in my project!'
'I did. But I also believe in being free to practice my own beliefs. I can't do that if I'm locked in a cell, particularly not with you.' He bared his teeth and leaned toward the Imp. 'You don't want me reminding you day after day whose fault it is that we're in this situation, do you?'
'I... I'll let you know if I see him coming,' Samwise said, retreating toward the door.
'Tell him now,' Gurn said, peering up at us. We all jumped.
'Gurn's here,' I said unnecessarily.
The cursedly-handsome minister wasn't alone. Two or three dozen Ghord guards stood behind us, their spears drawn.
'Kid!' Aahz shouted.
That was my cue. I was holding a full load of power from the blue force line. I enveloped Aahz and the protesting Samwise in the spell and transferred us out toward one of Aahz's designated safe houses.
Bamf!
The architect's office vanished around us. Bamf!
We were back where we started. I looked at my hands as if trying to figure out if I'd thrown one spell too many, and realized I was looking up toward the ceiling.
I was lying on the floor with two or three spears at my throat and more pointed at other parts of my anatomy. I held up my hands in surrender. Aahz and Samwise were similarly occupied with their own branches of the queen's guard.
'You fools,' Gurn said, bending down to leer at us. 'You forget that I, too, am a magician. Bind them! We will take them to the palace!'
The Ghords must have been trained by experts in Necropolis, because they wound us all expertly in yards of linen bandages until we were firmly trussed up. I reached into my inner reserves for magik to cut the bands as I had in Necropolis, but they were empty. Gurn must have drained the magik from me when he dragged us back. I reached out to the force lines I could see in my mind's eye, but it was as if they were behind glass. I couldn't touch any of them.
'Aahz, he's blocking me.' 'I know, kid. Don't worry.'
The guards rolled us onto flying carpets and steered us out into the main office. The clerks followed, wringing their hands.
'Let us go,' I said. 'We'll figure out something else. Maybe you can even stay as you are now ...'
'No!' Gurn shouted. 'Don't even think about that! Take them to the chariot,' he directed his force. 'We will throw them into the depths of the dungeons. Her majesty is not used to being trifled with!'
'Who said I offered her trifles?' Aahz asked, as they carried us toward the soaring chariot. There, the Sphinxes stood pawing the ground. 'Chocolate melts in this heat.'
'Not truffles, trifles!' Gurn shrieked. 'Say no more, or suffer the consequences!'
'Are you going to say this is going to turn ugly?' Aahz leered.
'Aahz!'
'I refuse to kowtow to this miserable gudgeon.'
'That's Gurn,' the small minister insisted furiously.
Aahz was unimpressed. 'Whatever. If you're going to shut us up, do it. I don't care. You can't hold us. We're powerful magicians.'
The small minister danced in fury. 'One of you is a powerful magician! One of you has a big mouth! You will all suffer the vengeance of Gurn!'
'Do you guys get your speeches out of a script?' Aahz asked. 'I mean, every two-bit despot and tyrannical prime minister always uses the same syntax. I could almost recite it along with you . . . Yeow!'
Gurn shot a lightning bolt from his fingertip that burned the end of Aahz's nose, but it didn't wipe the grin off his face. The guards dumped us on the golden steps at the foot of the chariot. The sharp edges bruised my ribs. I tried to use magik to ease my position, but Gurn's spell kept me from reaching any power. The small minister mounted the steps. He pointed downward.
'Ghords, to your places!'
'Yeah, he wouldn't want to accidentally overlook you,' Aahz added. 'He is short-sighted.'
