Myth-Gotten Gains

Chapter 23

THE DUNGEONS WERE about what I would have expected from someone who had read the Tyrant's Guide to Oppression, or Despotism For Dummies. A heavy iron door with a grate the size of my hand creaked open onto a downward spiral stairway so narrow that we could only walk down it single file. The guards at the front and rear lit torches, which smoked like five-pack-a-day addicts, and shed just enough light that you couldn't really tell the difference between shadows and solid objects. The place smelled of blood, fear, eau de unwashed prisoner, rotten food and rat droppings. Considering we were nowhere near the dimension where rats had originated, I took a moment to marvel at the ubiquitousness of the vermin species.

My thoughts took my attention away momentarily from Payge's nonstop commentary.

"His efforts to spur Chin-Hwag to greater speed in producing money have failed. He has threatened Calypsa's life, but the Purse is pretending she can't hear him. He's assigned a flunky to catch the coins when she spits one out."

"Let me know when he runs out of legitimate items, willya?" I asked.

"Silence in the ranks!" the captain's voice echoed up to us.

At the bottom of the staircase, they pushed me and Tananda up against the wall. The jailor grinned at us, showing gaps in the rows of hundreds of stunted, yellow teeth.

"Guess the lack of dental hygiene among cell-keepers is pretty universal dimensionwide," I commented.

"Silence!"

Payge broke it. "The wizard eyes the Sword. He signs to the Walt maiden to hand it to him. She is reluctant. "If you do not give it to me, your grandfather will die a long, slow, terrible death" he said."

"Will you pay attention to your cases?" Kelsa said peevishly. "You keep jumping in between present and past tense."

"Forgive me. I am not accustomed to reporting something so recently recorded into the archives. The tenses change."

"What do we do with the gold?" one of the guards asked his captain.

"What do you think? We save them for His Enchantedness! He knows everything that goes on around here."

"Not everything," Kelsa said. "Why, he doesn't know that you have made up a song about him." It goes, "Barrik is a squint-eyed boob, his nose is like a spiky tube…"

"Say, that's snappy!" Buirnie exclaimed. "Give me the rhythm, Zildie!"

RAT-TAT! RAT-TAT!

"Silence!"

Ba-dum. The drum dipped its head in disappointment.

"You really know how to hurt an artist," Buirnie complained.

"Knock it off," I told him. "You'll have plenty of opportunity in a minute."

"Can I dose them now?" Asti asked me. "They are getting on my nerves almost as much as you do."

"Not yet," I said.

"Against her will," Payge continued, "the Walt maiden holds out the Sword. The wizard Barrik snatches it from her. "Will you serve me?" he asks the Sword. Ersatz looks at him. "You have a very poor grip. You would lose me the first time you swung me." The wizard becomes enraged. "Ptoo!" says Chin-Hwag. Barrik is distracted as his servant leaps to catch the coin…"

"Chain them to the wall in cell 47," the captain said.

"I ain't cleaned it up yet. That other guy who died in there, he's still there!"

"No matter," the captain said, leering at me. "Perverts don't mind a little rotten flesh, do you?"

"Now, Aahz?" Asti asked.

"Not yet," I growled, as the guards steered us at spearpoint toward a low, soot-darkened door. I could see that the hasp for the lock was on the bottom third of the door, well away from the gloating-hole. Even Tananda would have trouble reaching that, even assuming we could undo the promised chains.

"Aahz," she said.

"I know! Kelsa, what's going on?"

"Well, he just tossed Ersatz aside. Calypsa almost fainted when he hit the ground. He started to pick up the Book."

"I am the Book," Payge said, offended.

"Yes, I know you are, dear, but you're not the one that Calypsa is trying to pass off as you, you see."

"What's going on??" I interrupted her.

"Oh, well, Chin-Hwag waited until he started to pick it up, then spat out another coin. She's just stringing him along so beautifully, you would think she's done this before!"

"She has done this before," Payge said.

"Barrik frowned," Kelsa said, her Pervect face wide-eyed. "He's counting. Oh, he's upset! Listen!"

A tinny voice came through the crystal loud and clear. It had to be Barrik.

"But there are only six of the Hoard here. Where is the great Ring, Bozebos?"

"That's His Enchantedness," the captain burst out, terrified. "How are you doing that? Can he hear us?"

"Oh, dear, no," Kelsa said. "I'm a receiving set, not a broadcaster. For that you would have wanted to talk to…"

"Shut up," I said. "I'm listening."

Calypsa's voice followed. She sounded defiant, even though I know she was scared half to death. "I will produce the Ring when you bring my grandfather up here and let me see that he is all right."

"What makes you think you have room to bargain? He stays in the dungeon, and unless you want to join him, you will turn your treasures over to me now!"

"I am going to find him."

"That's not in the script," I groaned.

I heard the sounds of a scuffle.

"Get your filthy, scaly hands off me!" I had to say Calypsa was magnificent in her indignation, though I didn't like her choice of insults. The outcry was followed by a slap that was audible to everyone in the dungeon.

"How dare you touch me! You shall pay! I will do the Dance of Death!"

Tananda and I exchanged glances.

"That's really not in the script," I said.

Barrik's voice was higher than usual.

"Guards! Guards! ALL my guards, seize this wench!"

"We've got to go," the captain said, signing to the jailor. "Lock these two up. Everyone, get ready to move out!"

They shoved us toward the yawning black hole that lay behind the low door. I braced my feet on the floor, trying to slow them down. Tananda grabbed hold of a wall sconce. The Diles peeled her fingers away one by one and dragged her, an inch at a time, into the cell.

"NOW, Aahz?"

"Be my guest," I said, holding Asti right in the captain's face. "Hey, pal, look at the pretty cup!"

Asti overflowed, not with the milk of golden kindness, but an olive-drab oil slick that would have done a double-ought agent proud. The captain made a grab for me, but his feet whisked out from under him.

CLANK!

He knocked over the next man in line, who dominoed into the third one.

"Omaniee balundarie straterumie brigunderie…"

Payge started reciting spells. The guard holding him stiffened into stone. A couple more Diles reached for the Book.

"Whiskerie sposorie toppirie zing!"

They began to spin in place like tops.

"St-o-o-o-op!" they moaned.

The Book flapped his covers and floated up toward the staircase like a giant golden butterfly.

"See you in the audience chamber," his soft voice called.

"Well, that's my cue, too," Buirnie said. "Come on, Zildie, Klik! On the beat. A one, a two…"

Buirnie, accompanied by his drummer, set up a deafening barrage of martial kazoo music that would have had the henchmen on their knees with their fingers in their ears, if it wasn't compelling them to dance their brains out. Those on dry land dipped and twisted, with a shuffle-off-to-Buffalo for good measure. The rest kicked and hopped. One guard went over backwards. He fell into his companions. They went down like dominoes. The whole troop ended up on their backs in the oil slick. Their legs were still moving. They were begging for mercy by the time I sauntered past them, my feet protected by a non-slip lotion Asti had brewed up earlier that also protected us from Buirnie's compulsory dance spell.

"Father and I went down to camp, along with High General Mikwuk Trimbuli. There we saw the Imps and Mumps as red as pasta fagioli!" Buirnie sang, accompanied by the nasal buzz. The henchmen kept time with the drum, beating their limbs on the ground. "Let's go, boys."

The snare drum, with the Fife on board trotted over the oil slick, lit by Klik's beam. The prone Diles kept on dancing.

"Help me, Pervert," the captain begged. He rocked back and forth.

"That's Pervect," I said. I located the jitterbugging jailor and relieved him of his ring of keys. "Thanks, pal."

"I had better get up there ASAP," Tananda said. I handed her Asti, who continued to spew oil, though carefully missing Tananda's feet.

"Move it. I'll get up there as soon as I can."

She nodded and ran away on tiptoe.

"Light it up," I told Kelsa.

"Light? Right!" Kelsa said. She burst into hysterical giggles. "I made a rhyme!"

But the globe started glowing brightly, until we were surrounded by a golden nimbus. I held her out in front of me and started looking in the cells.

I saw no reason why Barrik should get to keep any of his prisoners. I opened all of the doors I came to along the way. The Walts seemed to have a natural immunity to Buirnie's music. They stepped out of the cells with dignity. Some of them even bowed their thanks as they sashayed past me and bounded out of the cavern.

"Look out for the oil…" I called, but I didn't need to have bothered. When they hit the slick, they just glided over it. I went back to my search.

The corridor was no short passage cut into a natural fissure in the rock. It went on for blocks. I was impressed that the old boy had managed to build such a sizable dungeon in the short time that he had been on Walt. The ceiling got lower and lower as we moved further into the depths underneath the mountain. By the time we got to the last cell, I was stooped over. I unlimbered the last key, a huge piece of iron with a dozen complicated wards at the end of the barrel. I looked into the tiny window. A stooped figure looked up from where it sat. Feathered arms rested on its knees.

"Calypso?" I asked.

The head snapped up, and the Walt's posture went as erect as anyone's could in a half-height cell. "Who wishes to know?" he demanded regally.

"Name's Aahz," I said. "Your granddaughter sent me."

The aged eyes popped wide open.

"Calypsa! Where is she?"

"Upstairs," I said. "She's doing something called the Dance of Death."

The old man sprang up. He fluttered his arms.

"What? That is most serious! If she has begun that, either she or her foe must die before the dance is finished. We must go to her aid!"

"Hold it," I said. "First, Where's the ring you've been earning around?"

He put a hand on his thin middle.

"I swallowed it," he said. "That terrible Barrik must never possess the treasure of the Calypsos!"

"Ah!" Kelsa said. "That would explain the noises I was hearing. It's not good for you to have that much heavy metal in your diet, dear."

"Can we get it out of him?"

"Asti can prepare an emetic," Kelsa said.

Suddenly, a multicolored glitter joined the golden light. A brilliant cluster of jewels bobbed at face level. It was the ring in Kelsa's vision. My heart beat hard with avarice, even as I acknowledged the thing was a product of the Totally-Over-TheTopSchool-ofDesign. A small face like that of an annoyed leprechaun appeared in the top gem, a diamond as big as my eyeball.

"Bozebos does not need help getting out of tight places," the Ring said.

"It can talk!" Calypso said. "A treasure of the Calypsos, talking!"

"What is so unusual about that?" Kelsa asked. "There are thousands of magikal rings in the universe. Most of them talk."

"Kelsa? Is that you?" the Ring asked, turning its little face to her. "What are you doing here?"

"We're all here, dear."

"That appalling din — is that Buirnie?"

Kelsa's face appeared in the gleaming sphere. She beamed at him. "Yes! Sometimes it's been a trial having him around constantly for the last several days, but I have to say that it has been MOST interesting, you know. I haven't seen any of you in, my goodness, centuries! That is, in person. I've seen all of you in my visions, of course…"

"But why now?"

"We had to, dear. It was necessary to get together to save the life of this Walt here."

The hovering Ring seemed to shake with fury. "You should all leave at once! This is MY dimension! I am the One Ring."

The elderly Walt stared in amazement.

"I thought it was costume jewelry. Why did it not speak before?"

"Your family is so talented you never needed my help," Bozebos said. "But you were nice to live with for a while. I will have to move on soon. Others need me." He looked at Kelsa distastefully. "I would not stay in any case if the rest of the Hoard is here. It already- feels too crowded."

"My goodness, don't be such a prima donna!" Kelsa said. "Oh, speaking of such things, you should have seen the pirouette Calypsa just did! She rose about eight feet in the air, and came down with her sword almost at Barrik's throat! It made him mad, I must say. He's not nearly as good with a sword as she is, and she has only been taking lessons for a few…"

"Why can you not stop talking trivia?" Bozebos said. "It is enough that you are here, ruining my privacy."

"Hey!" I bellowed. I captured the Ring in one hand and glared at it "Calypsa needs us pronto! Let's go."