'Why are you provoking him?' Samwise wailed, lying limply in his bandages.
Aahz looked smug. 'Because it's fun, and because it can't last. Look.'
I tilted my head backwards in the direction of Diksen's pavilion. The bubble was no longer round or remotely clear. It had turned completely black and was twisting and deforming into weird, ugly shapes. Fumes seemed to rise from its surface. Black clouds stained the sky overhead, and lightning crackled down, striking the roiling surface. And something came shooting toward us from its direction.
As it got closer, I could see that it was one Ghord standing on a carpet.
Diksen.
The carpet skidded to a halt at the foot of the chariot. Diksen staggered off and strode directly toward us.
'Get up!' he burbled, gesticulating in the direction of his pavilion. Rain had started pouring down on the shimmering white pyramid. '... Fix . . . terrible mess!'
'Go away, Diksen,' Gurn said, dangerously. 'They are prisoners of the Pharaoh Suzal, may she live forever surrounded by beauty, music, and perfume. May every step she takes be on silk and down. May her glorious features be praised ...'
'Let them up!' Diksen interrupted him.
Gurn smiled. It was an ugly expression. 'Never. They are my prisoners.'
'Let ... go! Undo . . . disgusting . . . misery!'
The small minister was unmoved. 'Let the harm they've done resound upon you a thousandfold! I have every reason to dislike you. You insulted her most sacred majesty, she whose parents were touched by divine inspiration when they begot her, she who ...'
Diksen wrung his hands. 'My Dorsals! Skin disease . . . Ick!'
'Sorry to hear that,' I said sympathetically. 'They are fierce fighters. You ought to be proud of them.'
'Algae! Books . . . rotting! My beautiful globe!' Diksen glared down on me, and in the only entire sentence I had ever heard him utter so far, demanded, 'Take off the curse!'
I tried to arrange myself into a dignified position, wrapped as I was from neck to heels, but only succeeded in bumping down one more step.
'It's your curse,' I said haughtily. 'I am a powerful magician in my own right. The curse has rebounded on you, with a few little twists of my own.'
'My curse? How . . . ?'
'You'll never know,' Aahz said, grinning.
'What is it you want?' Diksen asked. In his fury, he was able to produce entire sentences.
'Samwise has offered his apology,' I said. 'Accept it. Take off the curse, or we all continue to suffer. Now that will include you. You can see what collateral damage you caused.'
'Never!' Diksen's jowls flapped angrily.
'Oh, fine,' I said. 'Then I hope you like living in a hurricane.'
Diksen looked back at the twisting, bounding wreck that had been his beautiful office building. In a plaintive little voice, he said, 'Mumsy.'
'What kind of a son are you if you let your mother sit in the dark like that?' Aahz asked.
'Very well!' Diksen declared. 'I accept! But none of you ever dare come near me again!'
'We can handle that,' I said evenly. 'How about it? You take off your spell, and I'll take off mine.'
Diksen reached down into the powerful black force line deep under the desert. He spread out his hands. I could feel a blanket of magik settle down over all of us. It sank through my body and seeped into the sands. As it dissipated, I felt cleaner and clearer of mind than I had in weeks. Samwise, tied like a roast a few steps up from me, let out a hefty sigh.
'Now you,' Diksen said.
Gurn folded his arms. I reached out for magik and found the way clear. I cut myself out of the bandages and stood tall.
'Thanks,' I said. 'It's over.'
'But the spell you added to mine . . . ? Undo it!'
'I didn't have to do anything to you,' I said. 'You did it all to yourself. I just made sure you felt what you did to other people. I didn't add any magik at all.'
Diksen gave me a furious look, then stalked back to his carpet. It lifted off and sped back toward the globe. As Diksen's dispell spread outward, the ball of water gradually cleared until it was transparent as crystal.
'Nice job,' Aahz said. 'Now, get me out of this tourniquet.'
I was happy to oblige, snipping the bandages away with one sweep of my magikal shears. I had help: Tweety shook off his harness to help his old friend to his feet. Samwise I left to the less expert but more eager ministrations of the USHEBTIs.
'Now, about a nonstandard activity requiring my Scarabs to leave their assigned tasks in favor of a rescue of a member of the management team, employing nonstandard construction materials ...' Beltasar's shrill voice would have gone on and on, but Aahz glared fiercely at her and brought his forefinger and thumb together in a sharp gesture. 'Perhaps later.' She called her minions together, and they swarmed away.
'Well played,' Gurn said. 'I am obliged that you didn't mention her majesty's suffering that was tied up with that curse.'
'No problem,' I said. 'No need to tell him he'd added injury to insult by refusing to build her a pyramid of her own. Samwise's will be fine, now. Won't it?' I asked the Imp.
'Absolutely!' Samwise declared. 'From now on, every-thing will be on the up and up! Completely!'
'I shall be checking on you to make certain,' Gurn said. He stalked up to the main seat of the chariot and sat down.
'Am I still ...' He felt his face with one hand, and grimaced.
'Yes,' I said. Even though the curse was gone, he was still handsome. 'You'll get used to it. By the way, thanks for the copy of the Magus Sutra.'
'What? Why would you believe I owned a salacious volume like that and would give it away for a handful of gold?'
That detail just confirmed it for me. 'You really didn't think I wouldn't figure out that the one legitimate copy would turn up just when we needed it?' I asked. 'It had to hurt to let it go. Nice acting job, too.'
'You are smarter than you look, Klahd.' Gurn shook his head. 'As I told you, I would do anything for the Pharaoh. But if you tell any of the others, I will visit a new curse on you. A terrible one from which there will be no recourse.'
'Never,' I said. 'You have my word on it. You can carve it in stone.'
'All's well that ends well.'
I owed Gleep a thorough head-scratching for being away so much over the past weeks. He lolled on the floor of Bunny's office with his head in my lap, drooling a little as I attacked the scales around his ears with my fingernails.
Aahz had kicked back in his big easy chair, his feet on the extended rest.
'It was my fault,' he said. 'I should have investigated closer. I should have known better.'
'Don't kick yourself,' Bunny said. 'A lot smarter people than you were tempted by the idea of a kind of immortality, and many of them fell into the trap.'
'Smarter than me?' Aahz asked, his eyes narrowing. 'No. Smarter people actually refused to invest in the pyramid to start with. Here's to getting out of the real estate business.'
He raised his repaired goblet to us and took a drink.
