Myth-Fortunes

Chapter 1

I sat back in my chair with my feet propped up on Aahz's desk. My baby dragon, Gleep, lay curled underneath the bridge of my legs. Whenever Samwise, a pink-faced Imp with blunt little horns on his bald head, in a hideous checked black-and-yellow suit too wide across the shoulders for anyone but a Troll, made one of his frequent exclamations, Gleep would raise his green head sleepily, checking to see what the fuss was. When it turned out to be another bombastic sales pitch, he went back to sleep. I wished I could do the same, but I had promised Aahz I would sit in on this one. I didn't mind. There was no place in any dimension I would rather have been.

It had been a couple of weeks since M.Y.T.H., Inc., had put itself back together. Oh, there were changes. Everyone had some getting used to it to do, especially me. And Aahz. But I thought and still think that it was for the best. Trying to come out of my self-imposed retirement had not been the booming success I had hoped it would be. Try as I might, I kept stepping on the toes of the people I most cared about. Still, in the end, I was back in M.Y.T.H., Inc., with my friends and trusted colleagues, though not as its president. I'd lost that privilege, but I found that I was happier in my current, and I hoped permanent, position as partner. The others seemed as glad to have me back as I was to be there. They had chosen a new president: my former assistant, Bunny. I couldn't argue with the decision; I had relied on her intelligence, tact, and organization for a long time. M.Y.T.H., Inc., would benefit from her talents. Bunny had some new ideas that she was putting into operation, most of them received without argument from the other partners. On the whole, it had been a good reconciliation.

We had opened a second office a few miles from this one, our original location. When the lease on the remote site was up in a few months, we'd vote on what to do with it. At the moment, it was used for private meetings with clients who didn't want to be seen entering the narrow tent in the Bazaar at Deva that was well known as the home of M.Y.T.H., Inc. It also was a home away from home for Buttercup, my war unicorn. In the Bazaar, owing to cramped conditions, a lot of establishments opened out at the rear into extradimensional space, extending them as far as the host dimension would allow. This tent backed onto a gloomy, low-magik dimension called Limbo. By contrast, the secondary office occupied a piece of Ombud, a pleasant and pastoral dimension mostly populated by farmers and low-technology craftsmen, not unlike Klah, where I grew up. Buttercup occupied a field behind the farmhouse that was our small tent's presence in Ombud. I almost wished I was there at that moment, lying in the sun in the grass, with Buttercup here in my place, prodding the Imp with his single, well-sharpened horn to make him get to the point.

"So what kind of business proposition is it?" I asked, no longer bothering to be subtle.

"Profitable," Samwise declared, with the lift of an arched black eyebrow. If a red-skinned Deveel—Deveels were the natives of the dimension in which M.Y.T.H., Inc., operated— made the same gesture it might have come across as elegant or menacing. In Imps, a smaller, lighter-hued race, it came across as supercilious. Even their horns and pointed tails didn't hold any menace. "But I wouldn't expect a Klahd like you to understand an intricate arrangement like this one."

I glanced at Aahz. His yellow eyes were half-lidded with unconcealed boredom.

"Pal," he said, in a low, genial tone that I recognized as the one he used just before he ripped someone's head off, "as a salesman, you're a washout. Did you ever make a successful deal by insulting the partner of the guy you're trying to sell to? Didn't you listen when I introduced you? This is Skeeve the Magnificent, the most famous Klahd magician of all time."

The Imp turned from hot pink to pale ecru. "No offense intended!" he said hastily. "I mean, Mr. Aahz, it is you Perverts who are masters of the complex scheme."

"That's Per-vect!" Aahz snarled. Samwise blanched to off-white.

"Of course. I misspoke. Sorry. No intent to offend. Klahds are usually, er, more straightforward, if you get my drift."

"I've heard enough," Aahz said lazily. "Skeeve, does your dragon want an Imp for lunch? Or a snack?"

"I don't like him to eat too many Imps," I said, patting

Gleep on the head. Gleep blinked his big blue eyes at me. "They give him gas. I don't want him blowing out the back of the tent."

"Too bad." Aahz grinned, showing a mouthful of four-inch pointed teeth. "Think Guido could use a little target practice?"

"Maybe," I replied, keeping one eye on the Imp. "He's getting rusty without live targets to shoot at."

"You can't do that!" Samwise exclaimed. "What will people say if I don't leave here?"

"I don't know," Aahz said, leaning back and flexing his talons which were, if not as impressive as his teeth, imposing when compared with the minor claws of an Imp. "Did you leave any advance directives? Or a note saying where you went? I doubt anyone's going to miss you much, the way you manage to make friends everywhere you go." He grinned.

The Imp swallowed heavily. I tried to look innocent, good Klahd versus bad Pervect, but it's tough to be an innocuous presence with a live dragon snoring under your chair. Samwise sputtered.

"Look, all I want to do is make you a deal. A great deal! A once-in-a-lifetime deal!"

Aahz yawned. "You have a hundred words or less to make your pitch, or you can take a walk. I'm a busy man, and I don't hear any bulldogs being fed—or dragons."

"What's a bulldog?" I asked. The picture that appeared in my head was intriguing, but almost guaranteed to be wrong based upon my experience with Aahz and his colloquial expressions.

Aahz turned toward me with an expression of irritation that slowly relaxed into a grin. "Kid, I gotta tell you, I missed that. Show you later. Samwise, your hundred words starts now."

The Imp took a deep breath. "Mr. Aahz, when I said that this was a once-in-a-lifetime deal, I meant just that: only once in a lifetime does something this fantastic come along! Have you ever thought what your contribution to the future was going to be? I come to you today with an offer—no, two offers. One's a straight business deal. I need the help of an organization like M.Y.T.H., Inc., to watch over the day-to-day operations of my little company. The other offer is immortality, or the next best thing. You might not have thought about your legacy, but I want to offer you. ..." He clamped his mouth shut.

"What legacy?" Aahz roared, lunging forward. I was pretty curious about it myself. "You're just going to stop there?"

"Sorry, but you only gave me a hundred words!" the Imp squeaked, trying to pull his tie out of Aahz's grip. Aahz let go and thrust the Imp back into his seat.

"Okay, you can finish, but with the minimum verbiage. Talk. What kind of immortality? Are we talking

about eternal life? Because I've talked to some immortals, and believe me, it's not all it's cracked up to be."

"Well, unfortunately, it's not within my power to provide anyone with eternal life," Samwise said, straightening his tie. "I'm more in the monument business. But they're monumental monuments!"

"Describe them in concrete terms," Aahz said. "No excess verbiage. We're going to have to have the place vacuumed as it is. What do the monuments look like?"

"Why, what they are."

"And what are they?"

"Pyramids!" Samwise announced proudly. "The Eternal Garden in the Valley of Zyx. That's in the kingdom of Aegis, Ghordon. Second phase opening this month."

"Pyramids?" I asked. "Are they buildings?"

"They are, my friend," Samwise said.

"Forget it," Aahz said, waving a hand. "I'm not getting involved in any pyramid schemes. Just because they're not illegal in some dimensions doesn't mean the legislation doesn't have a point. You've had half an hour of my valuable time. Enough. I've got other clients waiting. Take a walk."

"Mr. Aahz, please!" Samwise begged. "I admit I'd like you involved personally, because it's a product I truly believe in, but it's more than that. I need help. My people are suffering a lot of on-site accidents. Too many to be just bad luck. People are getting hurt. I have Cobra, but even he's getting overwhelmed by the claims. Someone or something is sabotaging my project."

Aahz raised an eyebrow. "Did you bribe the local officials?"

"Every one of them!"

"Trade unions?"

"It's a union project."

"You hire enough prominent politicians' nephews?" "Enough to hold a family reunion," Samwise assured him. "I can't figure out who's doing it. It's deliberate. It has to be. So many incidents couldn't occur just by chance. I don't believe in coincidence."

"That's the first thing you've said that I agree with," Aahz said. "What do you want from us?"

"Well, M.Y.T.H., Inc., is famous for figuring things out. That's what I need. I have to find the source of the trouble and put an end to it. It's interfering with construction. All I want to do is make people happy."

"By selling them a monument?"

Samwise shook his head. "They're more than monuments, Mr. Aahz. They're a part of future history!"

He reached into the inner pocket of his suitcoat. I whipped up a glittering handful of magikal force. He shook his head to reassure me and came out with an irregular-shaped piece of rock with a flat bottom. It looked like a miniature landscape. A toy?

"Scale model," he explained.

"What's that mean?" I asked curiously.

"For comparison," Aahz replied. "The model's in proportion to a single scale of a dragon that would approximate the size of the actual object."

"In this case, the dragon would be about sixteen miles long," Samwise explained.

I gulped at the notion. He set the scale model on Aahz's desk and held both hands over it. It started to glow. Suddenly I could see every detail.

"The stone you choose will be part of an edifice that will last throughout the ages! Each one is unique, one in a million.

In fact, each pyramid is made of a million and one stones! From the top you can see the whole Plain of Zyx. including the River Null, the only major waterway in the dimensions that flows backwards!" The image of the river gleamed brilliant blue with hot white twinkles of reflection from an unseen sun. At the opposite edge of the model lay a mighty mountain ridge the color of bread crust. In between those two features square-based shapes rising to points dotted the plain—pyramids. I felt dizzy as my sense of perspective zoomed from one to another. In the center of the plain, one edifice rose higher than all the others, a mountain made by living beings instead of by nature.

Aahz's eyes glittered like the river water.

"How many stones are on top of each pyramid?" Aahz asked.

"Just one," Samwise replied. "The most exclusive location is the most expensive, of course—but as a special added bonus for the buyer, you get to name the pyramid after yourself."

Aahz's eyebrows perked up again. "The whole thing?"

"The whole thing," Samwise said. "It's only right. It's the most expensive site on each pyramid, so I'm offering a perk to attract just the right buyer. Of course, we can't build the top until all the sites below it are sold. It's a great location, Mr. Aahz. It is absolutely peaceful—except for designated mourner sessions."

"Mourner sessions?" Aahz had a dreamy look on his face.

"Uh, Aahz," I began, "you told me never to get involved in a project at its outset. You said ..."

"Never mind, kid," he interrupted me. "What about mourners?"

Samwise was all business. "All part of the service. Every customer can decide what kind of moaning and wailing he wants, how much praise and how many accomplishments he wants attributed to him. And this is where the legacy I spoke of comes in: we have a team of scribes who will chisel the details of your great deeds so that they are never forgotten."

"Never?" Aahz asked. "Never's a long time."

"Absolutely never. When I say written in stone, I mean written in stone!"

"About how much would the peak stone cost?" Aahz inquired, aiming an idle talon at the centermost pyramid.

"Not a copper coin less than ten thousand."

Aahz pursed his lips. "Ten thousand copper?"

"You malign me, Mr. Aahz! Ten thousand gold pieces. But for a distinguished citizen like yourself, of course, all prices are negotiable. It is the most exclusive site available. I know such a connoisseur as you would appreciate it. And I like the idea of a business partner having a tangible stake in the project. Shall we say . . . eight thousand?"

Aahz grunted thoughtfully.

To my horror, Aahz looked like he was buying into the Imp's sales patter. I jumped up and put myself between them.

"Hold on, Samwise," I said. "You said there are problems here that are preventing you from building this pyramid at all."

"Right," Samwise said, with a peeved look at me. "That's why I need M.Y.T.H., Inc., to help me. Besides, I'm worried about cost overruns. What about it? Will you come to Ghordon and give me a hand?"

"Well ..." I could tell that Aahz was just waiting for a direct question like that. He shook his head. "We're not accountants. We don't do line item analysis."

"Just make sure I'm not being cheated blind by my staff," Samwise pleaded. "The main thing is to find the source of the sabotage and stop it. I'll make you a great deal on a stone."

"I don't buy a pig in a poke, buddy," Aahz said. "But I might take a look at a penthouse location, if you knock fifty percent off the price."

"Fifty!" Samwise yelped. "That's my whole profit margin!"

"If you don't stop the bleeding, you won't have any profits to marginalize," Aahz pointed out.

"Let's discuss it after you agree to take the job, Mr. Aahz. How about it?"

"Aahz, you always told me the ideal job was one in which you didn't have to do anything ..."

"Hold the phone, kid, I'm just listening to a proposal."

"It's just a rock, Aahz!"

"It's a legacy," Samwise insisted.

"A tomb!" I yelped. "You have to be dead to enjoy it."

"Not at all," Samwise interceded smoothly. "We guarantee total access for your enjoyment from now until one, er, takes up permanent residence. Some of our clients hold picnics on their site. It's always sunny in Ghordon."

"See, kid?" Aahz said. "It's not just a one-time thing. Besides, all I agreed was that we'd take a look at the job. That's what Sam here came to ask."

I saw something in his eyes that I had seldom seen before: wistfulness. Whatever he felt he could get out of a piece of the rock wasn't something I could define.

"We have to run the deal past our president," I pointed out lamely. While we could take jobs as independent contractors, I still had a funny feeling about Samwise and his construction project. We could afford to turn down his jobs. Each of us and the partnership had plenty of money. Except for the commodity for sale, this sounded like a hundred other corruption-sniffing projects we turned down every day. "Bunny gets the final vote on whether we take a job or not."

Aahz waved a hand. "We'll let her know after we see the place, partner," he said.

I could see that he was hooked. All I could do was tag along and hope I could spot pitfalls before we both fell in them.

"Watch the office," I told my dragon.

"Gleep!" he said. It was both farewell and warning.