Myth-Gotten Gains

Chapter 7

I WISHED WE could have used the D-hopper and bamfed out without all the fancy footwork, but we still had to retrieve Ersatz. I was regretting leaving him behind in the woods, but it was better to have to backtrack and get him than to have to search the castle for whatever armory in which Highboy would have stashed an obviously valuable sword after he confiscated it from us. I didn't know whether Calypsa's hips would have held out for that long.

We paused at the door while Tananda whipped us up a new disguise spell, then plunged out of the castle, disguised as Highboy and two generic soldiers. The guards on duty outside threw me a grand salute, which I returned, looking harried. Not a bad imitation, if I do say so myself.

Ersatz spotted us long before we could see him. He was hidden at just above eye level in a hollow branch of a big tree overhanging the forest path.

"Well, friend?" the sardonic voice asked. "Is all well? Are your powers restored to you?"

"Don't ask," I grunted, as I yanked him out of his post.

"Have you the old beaker with you? She has not yet poisoned you, at any rate."

"I would know that rusty garden gate of a voice across the universe," Asti shrilled. "Let me out of this rag bag at once!"

I looked around to make sure no one was coming, then I brought Asti out of my rucksack. The jeweled eyes and the reflected ones regarded each other with expressions of mutual dislike.

"So, there you are, you cake spatula," Asti said. "The last time I saw you, you ruined a perfectly good peace accord I was overseeing on Jahk!"

"An assassin of the Bruhns bid fair to stab the ambassador of the Bhuls in the back!" Ersatz replied. "A good peace accord signifies that all have agreed to down weapons, not plunge them into the other party's representatives."

"And no one would have, if you hadn't bellowed out, Ware assassins!' Suddenly both armies whipped out knives, knouts, brass knuckles — you name it — and the table went over as the Bruhns shoved it onto the Bhuls' ambassador's toe. In no time the place was a shambles. That's where I got this dent," she added, the ruby eyes rolling up toward a bulge at the rim.

"And added more since," Ersatz said, with less tact than I would have expected out of him. "You look rather the worse for wear."

"No thanks to you! No one even thought of tapping it out. My beautiful roundness, marred, and it's all your fault!"

"Wait a minute," I said, raising my hands. "How long ago was this?"

"Five hundred twenty years, nine months and three days," they said in virtual unison.

"And four days," Kelsa piped up, as Calypsa unwrapped her. The face appeared in the ball. "You forget about universal drift and daylight savings time!"

"Be quiet," Ersatz said. "You were not there."

"I don't have to be, my dear," Kelsa reminded him. "I know all, see all, remember!"

"You told them I could bring back his powers!" Asti burst out.

Kelsa's face changed until she looked like a goblet herself, but with the turban and glasses over a couple of jewels shaped like eyes.

"Why, I never did. I only told them what I saw."

"Aha. And you believed her?" the cup asked me, shocked. "When she hasn't had a clearheaded moment in centuries?"

"Clearheaded?" Kelsa asked, the image thinning in the golden crystal until it was almost transparent with fury. "I am always clearheaded. Look at me? Why shouldn't they believe me! I told them the future! Everything I said came to pass. They didn't interpret it correctly."

"And you didn't interpret it for them?"

"My dear, my job is to predict! If I was known for interpretation, there would be many more usurpers taken to the block and many more crowned heads safe on their pillows at night. Fewer little girls would take chancy trips through the woods unescorted, and the divorce courts would be full since no cheaters could possibly go undetected. My facts are undisputed to the open mind. You're the one who's full of alcohol all the time!"

"Not all the time," Asti said, sulkily. "I make other potions than alcohol. All kinds. Anything that purports to 'know all,' should know that."

"Why, Asti, I didn't say you couldn't. I simply inferred that you didn't" Kelsa said. She looked smug.

"You silicon implant, you have no right to blare people's private business all over the cosmos!"

"Certainly I do. My job is to predict, inform, provide light in the darkness, give a head's up to my possessor as to events which will shape his future and that of the rest of the dimensions. By the way, dear," she said, turning to me and winking an eye, "you might want to pick your feet up. There's a hunting party on the way. Horses, lots of sharp, pointy objects. Ersatz can't possibly take them on all by himself."

"Who says that I cannot, wench?" the sword fumed.

"Knock it off!" I said, not wanting to deal with his ego at the moment. "Who is it?"

"Lord Highperin, his chief huntsman, three sergeants-at-arms, fifteen men-at-arms, a pack of hounds…"

A loud bay confirmed at least part of her statement. I glanced at Tananda.

"Where to?" she asked.

"Anywhere but here," I said. I grabbed Asti and started to shove her back into my rucksack.

"Just a moment!" she said, sounding horrified. "You're not putting me back in that wretched rag again, are you?"

"You bet I am, sister," I said.

"Over my bent stem, you are," Asti retorted.

Out of her bowl, sour-smelling red liquid began to pour, then spray upward in an increasing fountain like a fire hose. I held her away from my face. The liquid was wine, a crummy vintage that I wouldn't have used for insecticide. The spray rose higher. In a moment it would rise higher than the trees. Highperin wouldn't need the dogs to trace us.

"Turn it off!" I shouted. "What do you want?"

"I thought you might see reason. After all, you want your reward, don't you?" The stream cut off between one drop and another. The ruby eyes regarded me with a pleased expression. "I just want a case that befits my status, Mr. Aahz. I am one of the most important members of the Golden Hoard. You can't just wrap me in rags and expect me to be happy about it."

"A case?" I asked, dumbfounded.

"You always possessed delusions of grandeur," Ersatz said. "You will not give in to her petty blackmail, will you?"

"Oh, yes, he will," Asti said, confidently. "Well?"

"Not a chance," I said, with my teeth gritted.

Wine began to flow over my hand again.

"All right, all right!" I shouted. "We'll get you a case."

"A nice one," Asti said. "One with a decent silk lining, tooled leather, and my name written in jewels. Those don't have to be as nice as my own, of course," she added. "Gold clasps would be acceptable, and padded with the best cashmere. Dyed purple, I think. It sets off my patina so well."

I started to growl, "Over my dead body," but Calypsa put her hand on my arm.

"Asti is an ancient treasure, and we do need her help," she said. "The purse will surely reimburse you for any outlay you make. I would feel better if she was made the most comfortable."

The cup beamed. "I like this girl. She knows how to treat an artifact!"

Tananda and I looked at each other.

"Deva," she said.

If you're one of the non-dimension-hopping rubes who have never been to the Bazaar at Deva, picture the biggest shopping arena you know of.

Now, double it.

Now, double it again.

Just keep on doubling it until you run out of numbers.

The Bazaar is well known throughout the dimensions as the go-to place for almost kind of merchandise. If it can be bought, sold, traded, stolen and sold again, it's for sale in one of the tents, booths, open-air rings, tables and even cloths spread on the ground in its dirty, crowded, noisy, hot lanes. You can get a tattoo anywhere on your body, including the inside. You can, as I know to my everlasting regret, buy a live dragon here. (If you have any sense at all, you won't.)

You can find restaurants serving food from countless lands, including one of the only Pervish restaurants I have ever found ex-dimension. Most other races don't want to serve Pervish food, because it tends to be ambulatory, and it has a pretty strong aroma — make that stench. No item or ingredient is so exotic that money won't bring it to your table, unless it's sentient. Even the locals aren't that sick.

The local species, who run most of the establishments, are known as Deveels. In appearance they're similar to the beings of Klahdish nightmares, with dark red skin, little horns on either side of their foreheads, and lower limbs that end in hooves. To deal with a Deveel, you had better be a savvy trader or be willing to lose whatever you're carrying on you. There's no truth in the rumor that you can lose your soul to one of the merchants in the Bazaar, unless you were foolish enough to put it on the table in the first place. In other words, you need to understand what you have agreed to, and make certain that there are no handy loopholes in your verbal contract, or the shopkeeper will wriggle out of fulfilling his end of the bargain if he can find any way at all to do so.

They are the slickest businesspeople in the universe, and they can sense the presence of money. Being cheated by a Deveel is a normal event in the Bazaar, but if you can keep your head, you can find goods of surprising quality among the acres and acres of dreck. Some of the finest craftspeople of all races have shops there. The chances were also pretty good that if any of the other treasures of the Golden Hoard were presently for sale, they might be kicking around here. I thought it was worth taking a look.

The Bazaar was also the site of the former offices of M.Y.T.H., Inc., the operation that had been headed up by my old partner, Skeeve, with me as his advisor. The tent, which was, to quote another dimensional traveler, was substantially bigger on the inside than it was on the outside because of a common trick used in the Bazaar and elsewhere, of setting only the front door, and maybe the anteroom, of a building in a particular dimension, and carving the rest of the space out of a neighboring dimension by means of a spell. Our tent backed onto a dimension called limbo, which even the Deveels were loath to visit. The main race there was vampires, with werewolves and a few other children of the night thrown in for makeweight, or make-wight, if you like. It had explained why our tent had been priced so reasonably even though it was located on a main thoroughfare. Skeeve insisted that the Limboans were as afraid of us as we were of them, but the place gave me the creeps. Still, I used it as my pied-a-terre — you can't argue with the fact that it was already paid for. A few of the gang came and went as business brought them to Deva, but it wasn't like the old days.

Even though most people would hesitate to tangle with a Pervect, especially a notable like myself, I felt very uncomfortable carrying three very valuable pieces of magikal hardware through the Bazaar. The pickpockets and thieves that roamed the lanes could smell gold through ten layers of bespelled safe-satchels, let alone buried in the middle of ancient sacks that we'd lifted from a nearby potato field in Klah.

Ersatz we couldn't hide at all, except to cover his hilt with an old sack. Bumping along on Calypsa's narrow shoulder, he was getting a lot of attention from the shopkeepers we passed. I kept a hand on the D-hopper in my pocket. It was an ancient artifact, and there weren't many around. No way after all this time was I losing my ride.

"I don't see why you have to have a special carrying case," I told Asti sourly. "That kid who had you on his shelf sure didn't have a fancy set up for you, especially not one with jewels and tooled leather."

"I don't expect dancing girls and acolytes, Mr. Aahz," Asti said, smugly, now that she knew she was getting her way.

"It's just Aahz," I said.

"As you wish. I liked Imgam. In every way that counted, that simple setting was a shrine. Imgam gave me the very best he had. He set me on a plinth of wood he cut with his own hands. He polished me with the finest cloth in the house, a piece of silk his mother got as a wedding present. It was cheap by comparison with most of the polishing cloths I've had over the years, but there was none better to be had. He handled me with love and the deepest respect." She sighed. "Outside of the Temple of Shamus, I have never had such worship. I really enjoyed it. You had better have removed me from his care for a very important reason indeed, and not just to restore powers to a Pervert."

Calypsa opened her mouth to speak, but I held up a hand to shush her. "Not here," I said. "We'll get you your case, then go to someplace where it's less likely we'll Debugged."

"My goodness, what an interesting place," Kelsa said, from Tananda's shoulder bag. She had insisted that we not use the silencing cloth, and she had babbled nonstop since we bamfed in. "Did that Deveel really just take that Imper for the last silver piece he had? And all because he was palming the bean that should have been under at least one of those shells?"

Her shrill voice was plenty audible enough so that the Imp in question heard it. He glared at the Deveel, who glared in our direction. The Imp demanded a refund. The Deveel, no surprise, refused. That started an argument with the huckster that drew an audience from the surrounding booths. I put a hand into Calypsa's back and hustled her out of the way of the brawl that was going to start in, oh, ten seconds.

Nine. Eight. Seven. Six.

"You cheated me, you scarlet shyster! Give me back my money, or I'll blow your head off!"

Oh, well, a little ahead of schedule.

The Deveel behind the leatherwork counter listened as Calypsa recited the details of the case Asti wanted. We all thought it would be better if none of the Golden Hoard said anything. The last thing I needed was a rumor going around that they were in the dimension. It would start a gold rush the likes of which hadn't been seen in a century.

"…And cashmere lining. Purple," Calypsa said. "Good enough to last for a hundred years."

"Uh-huh," said Stankel, noting down the information on a scrap of leftover parchment. "Not the usual stuff I do for you, pretty girl," he said, patting Tanda on the bottom. She smiled at him with such concentrated sweetness that he moved his hand back in alarm. I grinned.

"Just give me the estimate," I said.

"Well, it's custom work," he began, ticking off the items on the list. "Rush job, you said. Special dyes. It'll have to be clegborn beetle wing dye for the lining — it's the best. Doesn't run, won't fade. Tooling on the leather representing water flowing up out of a fountain, waves crashing on the shore, that kind of thing. If you don't mind magikal carving, I can do anything you want. Saves time. The name on the top is Asti, you said?"

He glanced up at me with a gleam in his eye. I was afraid that he'd catch on. Deveels didn't get to be the most feared traders in a hundred dimensions by missing implications, and they never forgot any detail that might be worth a copper to them.

"Yeah." I leaned close. "I wouldn't want it to get around. We're running an…operation. You understand. Set a fraud to catch a fraud, you know. Not like we've got the real Asti."

"I see," Stankel said, licking the end of his pencil and scrawling a final note. "No, I get it. Where would you get a Hoard treasure, Aahz?" He laughed.

I resented his implication, but I didn't want to start a fight. Not yet, anyhow.

"How much?" I asked.

"Oh, well, seeing as how you're an old friend, and Tanda here's a regular customer…half a gold piece."

"How much?" I asked.

"Half a gold piece. And I'm taking bread out of my children's mouths to give you a price that low."

"Your children are in their sixties," I pointed out. "If you're still feeding them, you're as crummy a parent as you are a businessman. This might be good work, but I could get Steger to whip out the same for a tenth."

"A tenth! You're out of your mind!"

I smiled. Now things were beginning to move. "Not so crazy as you are."

"How could you even think of offering me such a pathetic sum for my quality leather goods?" He appealed to passersby. "This stinking Pervert thinks he can ask the craftsman Stankel for custom work for a rotten tenth of a gold piece! Four tenths, or I'll throw you out of this booth on your scaly bottom!"

"That's Pervect," I bellowed, "and I'd like to see you try it! Two tenths!"

It was past lunch time, so the crowd that gathered to listen to us haggle wasn't as large as it might be, which suited me just fine. I didn't want anyone reading over Stankel's shoulder. Tananda was used to the custom of bargaining in the Bazaar, but Calypsa was beginning to shy backwards, away from our voices. I couldn't take the time out to let her know this was normal. Suddenly, I saw the gleam of Ersatz's eyes peeking out of the wrapping over her shoulder. Gradually, the Walt stopped trembling. After a while, she looked as if she was actually enjoying the show. When we finally finished haggling and agreed on a quarter gold piece, she joined in the applause. I thought it had been a pretty good show, myself.

After letting Stankel take measurements of Asti, we left him to work. He wasn't too impressed with the pathetically banged-up cup for which we were buying a fancy box, but had bought the story we were using it to run some kind of elaborate scam. He knew, as any Deveel would from birth, that it was solid gold, but I had chosen Stankel on purpose because he was almost as magik-blind as I was at the moment. He couldn't feel the mystical wallop she and the other two packed.

"Give me a couple of hours," Stankel said. "I should be able to whip something together by then."