Myth-Gotten Gains

Chapter 13

THE BLEAK, OPEN landscape let us spot the carter more than half an hour before we reached him. The black-furred Pikinise studied us curiously but with no fear. He stopped his cart as I called out a greeting, and leaned his elbow onto his homespun-clad knee.

"Heading for Pikerel?" I asked, trying not to show the impatience that I felt.

"About," he replied. "Come from there?"

That was a safe bet, since the road we were standing on led directly back to the small hamlet.

"Yeah," I said shortly. "I wonder if you can help us. We're looking for someone."

"And you found him," the carter said, leaning back and looking pleased.

"Not you."

"Well, then, you ain't found him yet," the carter opined. I reached up and took him by the bib of his overalls.

"I've been walking for two days, and I'm not in the mood for yokel humor."

The Pikinise brushed my hands away and sat back.

"There's no need to get ugly," he said. "I thought it'd make you happy to get done what you're aimin' to do. Who you lookin' for?"

"He's right, friend Aahz," Ersatz said. "Perhaps if you'd been more specific…"

"Shut up," I said. "I don't do everything perfect like you four." I turned back to the local. "I'm trying to find a guy who lives out in this direction. He lives out in the middle of nowhere. He studies all the time. He's got books."

In no hurry, the carter scratched at the fur on his shoulder with a meditative hand.

"Seems to me," he said, "you might want one of the folks who lives out on the wild heath. The happy floormaker is somewhere out there. Very artistic fellah. He searches the mud puddles and hollows of the marshes and fields for found materials and clay and just other little mineral treasures to make the blocks and artistic mosaics that he takes such joy in. He takes folks in who just want a quiet place to stay. That's his territory." The carter waved a hand out vaguely behind him.

"I see," I observed, "so that's the Merry Tiler Moor."

I looked at the man for applause. I shouldn't have bothered. I had never seen such a blank look in my life.

"Wai, you might phrase it that way, stranger. Follow the wild beast trails. Ain't no road to his place. Good luck."

"What did he say?" Calypsa demanded, following closely on my heels as I looked for another person to ask for directions. "And what did you say before that? Why did he look so puzzled?"

"All right," I said, rounding on her. "This is turning into a regular liability. I can disguise you as a local. I can guide you through a hundred dimensions and locate the treasures of the ages, but I don't have time to give you language lessons! If you don't understand something, stow it. I'll tell you if it's important. I've got enough problems to concentrate on."

The Walt quailed. "I am sorry, Aahz, but I only wish to know what is going on so I can help…"

"Well, you're not helping," I said. "Just shut up. I'll tell you when there's something you really need to know."

"Isn't that just a typical Pervect?" Asti said, through the leather of her case. "Temper, temper, temper, and never a thought for anyone else's feelings."

I rattled her case. "The 'shut up' goes for you, too, sister. You're always riding me, and I don't deserve all the abuse you are handing out. I'm doing what I can. Sorry if I would rather accomplish her mission than provide the Cook's tour to dimensions we're passing through."

"I know all tongues from the lands through which I have passed in my years," Ersatz said. "I would be pleased to help Calypsa with interpretation."

"But you might not be with her everywhere she goes," Kelsa said. In her depths was a picture of Calypsa passing through a door with the outline of a woman on it.

"Oh, I can fix her," Asti said. "Take me out of here, Pervect. I don't like messing up my case." As soon as she was clear of her carrier, her bowl filled up with a bright green liquid. "Drink this, child. All of it."

Calypsa looked nervous. "What will it do to me?"

"Do? It'll make you the superior of these two in languages. You will understand all tongues, of every creature that walks the dimensions."

"Dial that back," I said. "If she starts talking to fish and trees, someone's going to think she's insane."

"Why not?" Asti said. "You talk to goblets and swords. Go on, Calypsa."

The Walt lifted the goblet in quaking hands. With a nervous glance at Tananda and me, she dipped her beak in the liquid, and tilted her head back so it ran down her throat. She coughed violently.

"Ugh! It is disgusting!"

"I didn't say it wouldn't be," Asti said. "You are tasting the tongues of a thousand dimensions. Of course there's bound to be a little halitosis here and there."

Calypsa held the goblet away from her. "Tongues!" She looked as though she was going to be sick.

"Drink it anyhow, child. Pinch your nose…ah, you don't have one. Pretend it's medicine. It is, in a way. It will cure you of non-understanding."

"Drink it, dear," Kelsa said. "Then you will be able to understand what Aahz has been muttering about you beneath his breath."

"He is what?" The Walt looked at me accusingly. She seized the Cup in both hands and bent her beak to the foaming liquid.

"What muttering?" I asked, suspiciously.

"Dear me, did I say that out loud?" Kelsa asked, but the eyes behind her glasses twinkled.

"Drink, drink, drink, Arvernians…" Buirnie burst into song. "Come on, Calypsa! Don't think, just drink!"

"Chug, chug, chug, chug!" Ersatz chanted. Calypsa made a face, but went for a second mouthful.

It took a lot of encouragement, and more bobbing and tilting, but pretty soon the goblet was empty. It fell from Calypsa's nerveless hands. I just barely caught Asti before she hit the ground. Tananda caught Calypsa.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"That was horrible," Calypsa said. She looked shaken. Her normally high-pitched voice wandered all over the octaves. "I feel funny."

Tananda and I grinned at each other.

"What are you smiling at?" she asked.

"You just said that in perfect Troll," I said.

"I don't speak Troll!"

"You do now," I said. "And Pervect. Now, come on, we've got ground to cover."

Tananda entertained herself for a while trying out Calypsa's new talent by talking to her in languages she had picked up over the years. I tuned them all out. I preferred to be alone with my thoughts. I was envious that the Hoard had given Calypsa a great gift like that, when I'd had to pick up my fluency the hard way. Still, I had to agree that we really didn't have the time for her to learn anything, and it was a pain translating everything we heard, then explaining the cultural references that went with them. This girl was so-oo-oo young. I knew I had never been that green. So to speak. No one I knew ever was…no, that's not true. I was pretty sure that Asti would give both me and Tananda the potion, too, if we asked, but I would rather have my scales peeled off with a paint scraper than ask. She already had the wrong impression about my sense of fairness regarding compensation, and I was not going to give her more ammunition. I already was tired of listening to the litany of my shortcomings, in her immortal opinion.

"Hot," Kelsa said, as we came to a crossroads.

"Which way?" I asked.

"Left, I think. It's a pity we are looking for the Book instead of traveling with him, because he has all the addresses in the world in his index. Absolutely anyone who's anyone! Of course, we don't know the name of the person with whom he is staying…it's such a muddle. The being's head is just full of names, I can't pick out his own!"

Tuning out the babble, I turned left. "Still hot?"

"Yes! Hot."

I strode along the narrow path behind Tananda. It was just a track that local ruminants must have made. My feet slipped on the ground. The mud was compacted to a rubbery surface with just enough dew on the surface to make it slick going. I kept my eyes just ahead of my feet to keep from tripping on exposed roots.

"…Hot…hot…hot…cold!"

"Cold? I thought you said it was hot!" Tananda said.

"Well, it will be cold, if you go through that bush just ahead," Kelsa said, blinking up at her, transformed into a very sexy Trollop with diamond-studded spectacles. "The bridge is out."

"Say, I know a song about a bridge!" Buirnie volunteered. "It's a tragic dirge. You'll love it. It's just the kind of thing to make our hike go faster."

I ignored him.

"This way," I said, as we crested yet another muddy hummock, early on the third day of our trek. "I hear hammering."

"Well done, Aahz!" Kelsa crowed. "Yes, I was just going to say…There it is. Off to the right, just past that stand of hawberry trees."

I led the way. As we got closer, the mud-colored building on the other side of the copse started to take shape. One fat oval story sat on top of a lower level that spread out in all directions, looking as if it had been built up over centuries. As an inhabitant decided he needed another room, he just broke a hole in the wall and built alongside it. Smoke was coming from several of the dozens of chimneys sticking up from the tiled roof. We halted about ten yards away.

"Turn off the music," I told Buirnie. "This has to be the place."

"Oh, thank the Choreographers!" Calypsa exclaimed. She headed for the front door.

I pulled her back.

"Not so fast! What do you think you're doing?"

"Going inside?" Calypsa said. She looked from one to the other of us, puzzled. "Or should we not use the door?"

"It might not be as easy as it looks," I said.

"Well, of course it is," she said, eyes wide. "You lift the latch, then push it open…what am I missing?"

I groaned. She was SO young.

"Guile," Ersatz said. "Dear child, this is an extremely isolated location. If you lived here, away from aid, would you not have concerns for your safety from passersby? You would set up some manner of defense."

Calypsa looked abashed. "I've always lived in the village," she said.

"Houses about ten feet apart, right?" I said. She nodded. "When the neighbor has Limburger, you hold your nose?"

"What's Limburger?"

"Forget it," I snapped. "Kelsa, is this place booby-trapped?"

"No, it's not, but there's one detail that might be of interest to you, not that all the details of this quest aren't interesting, they'll make good telling in the saga that Buirnie is going to write one day, but…"

"I am?" the Flute asked brightly. "Wow! Will it become world famous?"

"Of course, dear," Kelsa said. "Don't all of your songs? But, Aahz…"

"Can it. Tanda, let's look like the locals. I don't want to spook this guy. I just want to be one of the brotherhood. Savvy?"

"One disguise spell, coming up," Tananda said, closing her eyes to concentrate.

"Amazing!" Calypsa said, as soon as the spell took effect. She had been transformed into a slender, black-furred beauty, if you could call the locals beautiful. "You are even more ugly than usual!"

"Thanks a heap," I grunted.

Ersatz had said that Payge was a completely interactive grimoire, so the chances were that we were dealing with a magician of some kind. Tanda made me into a fellow master magician of the local species, formidable yet approachable. I'd suggest a trade, or barring that, a contest to win the Book from him. I was prepared to cheat my way to success under any circumstances. She and Calypsa were dressed as a couple of attractive acolytes carrying my magikal impedimenta, namely the Golden Hoard. I hoped that we could make some sort of peaceful arrangement. We had little more than a week left, and Calypsa was getting antsier by the day.

I rapped on the door with a stick I had picked up from the woodpile, now doing double-duty as a wizard's staff.

"Anyone home?" I asked.

No answer. I realized the door was ajar. That was never a good sign. That could mean anything from a bucket of water to a thermonuclear grenade armed to go off when we passed over the threshold.

"Oh, Aahz," Kelsa said. "One thing you really should know…"

"Not now," I said. "Stand back."

I stepped around to one side of the frame, and shoved the door open with the end of my staff. The hinges protested like a dozen banshees with hangovers, and the door slammed against the inner wall.

Tortured souls poured out of the house in a cloud of chartreuse smoke. They screamed woe and sorrow, pointing bony fingers at us. Their empty eye sockets gleamed red as they swooped down at us. Mouths opened on multiple sets of fangs.

Calypsa screamed. I grabbed her hand and towed her behind me, her toes scraping the ground. As soon as she got her wits moving, she shook loose from my grip, and took off ahead of us like an Olympic sprinter. Tananda wasn't too far behind her. That left me in the rear. The ghouls flowed after me in a wave. I kept glancing back at them over my shoulder. What could I do? I didn't have any magik to dispell them. They were catching up. The ghouls grinned. Their claws were inches from scalp. They could tear me apart. I put on a burst of speed.

The going on the marshy path was heavy. I felt something grab my foot. I saw the root as I went flying. I rolled over, claws and teeth pointing upward, ready to fight to the death.

The cloud of ghouls kept flowing past me, wailing and screaming. They paid no attention to me. Within a few yards, they dissipated into a haze of burnt yellow smoke.

"Party howlers," I said, with disgust. I got to my feet and brushed myself off. "Pretty tasteless color combination, too."

"That was one undignified sprawl," Asti observed, from her case. I retrieved her from where she'd fallen in a swampy pool at the path's edge. "Ugh! And all over my nice leather, too. Make sure you get all the dirt off, Pervect. I can't believe you fell for that!"

"Zip it," I told her. I started trudging toward where the rest of my party had disappeared.

At that moment, Tananda came rushing back over the crest of the hill, knives drawn in each hand. I suspected, but couldn't see, that at least one of them was enchanted against magikal attack. Behind her, Calypsa came up holding Ersatz, drawn, in both hands. They saw me standing there, unhurt but muddy. I waved a hand.

"I appreciate the effort," I said. "It was nothing. Party favors. Our friend in there has a sense of humor. I'll remember that when we negotiate with him." I bent down to peer eye to eye with Kelsa. "I thought you said the house wasn't booby-trapped. I could have broken my neck trying to get away from those cartoon ghosts!"

"Oh, well, I'd put that little outburst in the same category with practical jokes," she said. "Booby-traps are usually meant to be fatal, you see. At least, that is my understanding…"

"Never mind," I said, cutting her off. "Come on. If that's the worst he's going to throw at unexpected visitors, then he's a pushover. Let's get the book and get out of here."

I retrieved my staff from where I had thrown it, and poked it in the front door. I waggled it around, checking for electric eyes, tripwires, or deadfalls. Nothing else happened. Cautiously, I peered around the doorpost. The front room was empty.

I went in for a closer look. The room seemed to have been abandoned recently. I could see dust on the floor that outlined a bedstead, a chest, and four small squares which were probably the feet of a table. Similar lines on the shelves built into the wall suggested the room's owner had had a substantial library, which had also gone. A handful of papers were scattered on the floor. I picked one up. It was a past due bill from a stationer's store.

BANG! A smashing sound somewhere in the house grabbed my attention. It was followed by a string of colorful phrases, none of which I could really call invective, but still showed some imagination in expressing frustration. I wondered if our quarry hadn't quite made good on his getaway. I signed to Tananda to go out and around. We could catch him in a pincer movement, unless he dimension-hopped away from us. Tanda nodded to me, and ducked out of the door.

"Anyone home?" I called.

"Back here!" a hearty voice shouted back.

"Let me do the talking," I said, pushing ahead.

With me in the lead, Calypsa and I sidled through the overgrown cottage. It had been divided a few rooms at a time into several living spaces, each decorated in very different tastes. After the empty front quarters lay the diggings of a herbalist who slept in her shop and had entertaining taste in undergarments, several of which were drying on racks alongside snozzwort and hipporemus root. Beyond that was a small room used by a student of mathematics, to judge from the formulae scrawled in chalk on the walls and floor around the shabby rope bed. The slamming and thumping noises came from the next set of rooms, where a brawny male in an apron was smacking dusty forms down on a broad wooden worktable.

He looked up with a grin that shrank just a little when he saw the formidable shape I was wearing. This was the happy tiler. Then his native optimism took over, and he came around to greet me. Tananda appeared behind him, and shrugged.

"Hail, friend!" he said. "What can I do for you?"

"I seek a great treasure," I said.

"Well, I've got a bunch of them here you might like," the tiler said, pleasantly. "Just finished a batch of Flornezian interlocks with real gold in the glaze. Nice enough for an audience chamber, if that be what you're interested in. I can give you very attractive terms on financing…"

"No, it's a book we want," Calypsa said. "We're looking for a big book. With a gold cover. Maybe some jewels embedded in it. And I think it talks."

"Ah!" the Pikinise said, rocking back on his heels. "You're looking for the wizard Froome, then."

"Is he here?" I asked, after giving Calypsa an exasperated look.

"Sorry, no," he said. Since we weren't customers, he went back to loosening his wares from the frames in which they had hardened. "He came through here with that big book of his, muttering, 'they're here.' Must be you he meant."

"And where did he go?" I asked.

"Ah, couldn't tell you that," the tiler said, with a grin. "He just disappeared. Right there," he gestured with a table scraper, "Like magik, it was."

"Why didn't you tell me the Book was gone?" I snarled at the Crystal Ball, as I stalked out of the cottage.

"Well, I did try to," Kelsa simpered up at me. "You told me to be quiet. Now, I do try to comply with your wishes — that's a measure of my growing regard for you, dear — but…"

"But?" I interrupted again.

"Well, it just happened! That moment! Just before we went inside. He must have been reading about our progress in the Book. Payge does keep up on current events, you know."

I groaned and rolled my eyes. "So this whole three-day trek was pointless!"

"Three days of my grandfather's incarceration?" Calypsa echoed.

Kelsa blinked, transforming from Pervect to Walt and back again.

"Oh, not at all! He wouldn't have gone away if we hadn't come here. The thing to do is go where he has gone now."

"And where is that?" I asked, through clenched teeth.

She brightened, literally, glowing like a beer sign. "Vaygus!"