Myth-Taken Identity

TWENTY-SEVEN

When we reached The Volcano it looked markedly different than it had only minutes before. All the fighting had ceased. The Djinnies and the mall-rats seemed to have been cooperating to put the merchandise back on the shelves, but now they all stood, gawking, in the direction of the entrance to the Rat Hole. Massha floated on the air toward the back of the store.

"He went thataway, Big Spender!" she called, as I thundered down the orange aisle.

"He seeks the device," Eskina explained. Massha swooped down to join us.

"He doesn't have it?" she asked, surprised.

"He's running out of gas," I stated. "We can knock him out once and for all if we can get to the device ahead of him."

"But where is it?" Massha inquired.

"Under the throne," Chumley exclaimed, an enlightened expression on his face. "He calls it the Master Card. I saw him stow it there after he had used it." The glowing aisle under my feet felt hot, as if the volcano under the floor sensed the turmoil going on above it.

We hammered down the ramp into the Rat Hole.

"One Card to Rule The Mall, One Card to Charge it..." Rattila had reached the mound ahead of us. Chanting, he dug his paw into the rotting trash and came up with a gleaming rectangle of gold. Suddenly, the black rat was replaced by a glowing golden wyvern. It spat a stream of acid at us. Chumley caught a whole load in the chest. Howling in pain, he beat at the spreading blob of blackness in the middle of his purple fur. Massha flew to his aid.

Rattila let go with another gob. It splashed at my feet, burning a few holes in my pants hems.

I was too furious to care. This whole adventure started with me getting fireballs thrown in my general direction. This was the being to blame for my partner's damaged reputation, for the trouble we'd all been through. I wasn't about to let him get away again, no matter how much punishment I had to take to get to him. I stepped over the acid and advanced on him.

Massha was ready with a few tricks of her own. Like trying to see one tree in a thick forest, I had never noticed one particular piece of jewelry or another in her formidable ensemble. The solid gold lemon was new to me.

"Here comes the spoiler," she called. She waved it, and the spurting acid turned into huge potted plants, which landed with a thud on the cluttered floor. I laughed. Rattila snarled and changed shape. I growled now; he had transformed himself into the attractive Pervect I had first seen in Rimbaldi's shop.

Evidently the original had had a purseful of heavy-duty hardware. Rattila dipped into the handbag and came up with a fully automatic repeating crossbow. We all dove for cover as the armor-piercing rounds sprayed out.

I took advantage of the muzzle flash blinding my adversary to start crawling, commando fashion, to my left. Once his sight cleared Rattila was looking where I had been, not where I was. He let the enchantress's image drop. I was glad; the mangy SOB didn't deserve to wear a Pervect face.

I figured two or three or four could play at the identity-theft game.

"Massha," I hissed, "disguise me as him. All of us!"

"One special coming up!" Massha announced.

I couldn't see the change in myself, but suddenly there was a big black rat hovering in midair, one lifting an end table to use as a missile, and another one sneaking up behind Rattila.

Eskina had entered the field of battle now. She had a pair of handcuffs dangling from one hand as she crawled up the mound. I stood up, making as much noise as I could. Rattila stared at me, then at Chumley and Massha. He looked shocked and angry; then he grinned, showing all his teeth.

"So, you like my face," he smirked. "Well, I like yours, too!" Beginning the interminable chant again, he changed into the image of Massha. "Don't I look pretty? An oversized Jahk with garish taste in clothes?"

"Not everyone looks good in basic black, you scum," Massha retorted furiously, clasping her hands together.

Rattila's face contorted as he started to choke. Abruptly he recovered, and an evil grin spread across his face. "How do you like turnabout, Jahk?" He closed his/her hands, and the floating rat that was Massha began to cough, clutching her throat. "And your pathetic little toys—those aren't real power!" Her necklaces and bracelets began to shatter. The fragments rained down. "Yes, that one, too!" Her flying belt disappeared. She thumped to the ground.

Chumley heaved the end table at him. He dodged it. I flung myself forward. Eskina scrambled the rest of the way up to the peak of the mound.

Rattila heard the jingle, and spun. Massha stopped coughing. Now Eskina was suffocating. Her handcuffs went flying. I closed the rest of the distance.

Rattila couldn't keep his mind on more than one thing at a time. I put him in a judo hold and tripped him over on his back. As soon as I grabbed him, Eskina fell down, gasping for breath. Chumley joined us, holding on to the figure's kicking feet.

"Some world-ruler you are," I scoffed in Rattila's face. "You lose focus too easily. I bet all your spells fall apart like that." I reached for the gold card.

Roaring out his rhyme, Rattila squirmed out of my grasp in the shape of a gigantic serpent. Chumley reached around with both arms and locked my arms in the corners of the serpent's jaw so he couldn't sink his fangs into anyone. I spotted the Master Card on a tiny chain around the snake's neck, and started to shinny up the writhing, muscular length toward it.

"Mmmph mmmph mmm mmm mmm mmmph, mmmmph mmm mmm mmm mmph," Rattila-the-snake muttered around my arms.

In the next second I was grasping a bright yellow, six-foot fish covered with five-inch-long spines.

"Yeowch!" I yelled. It was an effort, but I held on.

"I'll take care of it, honey," Massha called. I don't know how she did it, but the spines became rubbery and soft. We wrestled Rattila to the ground by his fins and dragged him by inches down the slope toward Eskina and the handcuffs. His flukes flopped furiously, trying to make me let go.

"No way, vermin," I snarled. Eskina jumped on top of him and fastened the cuffs around one fin. The open mouth goggled a few times. We collapsed on top of a nest of thin tentacles like pink spaghetti. They whipped around us with astonishing strength and dragged us up toward a maw filled with incurving teeth.

"You don't know the power of the Master Card," Rattila slavered.

I braced myself off a bundle of the writhing tentacles and came around with both hands joined in a double fist. I smashed it into the grinning face. The tentacles contorted painfully as the face collapsed in pain.

"I don't believe in credit cards," I informed him, giving him a solid kick, and followed it up with an uppercut.

Eskina sank her teeth into the tentacle holding her. Chumley, uncommonly furious for a being of his temperament, knotted the writhing legs together in a gigantic macrame plant holder.

"Gives other people too much power over you."

Rattila wailed in pain. I recognized the chant again.

"I no longer need to control you," he yelled, changing into a Troll the exact likeness of Chumley. "I've got power over all your friends!" He lifted each of us in one hand and threw us down the mound. "Where are my mall-rats?" he roared, stomping toward the showroom.

Massha staggered to her feet. "They're not coming," she announced, dusting herself off. "They got a better offer."

The Troll spun on his heel, gawking in astonishment.

I wanted an explanation from Massha, too, but it would have to wait.

Chumley was there and ready for him.

"You do not deserve to wear my face," he informed Rattila, wrapping one meaty arm around the other's head.

If you've never seen two Trolls fight, let me tell you it is not a lot different than watching two avalanches rolling toward one another. The collateral damage to the location, furnishings, and anyone unlucky enough to be within range of a limb or thrown object is usually considerable. Most insurance policies written in dimensions where there is a lot of D-hopping specifically exclude damage sustained involving a Troll, a lot like the dragon-fire exclusion. I had always found it amusing that insurance never covered anything that was likely to cost the most to repair.

Massha, Eskina, and I followed the battle as it progressed around the overstuffed Rat Hole and up the ramp out into The Volcano. Roars, howls, and thuds warned the curious listeners in the store overhead to get the hell out of the way and retreat to a safe distance by the time Chumley and his impostor rolled through the curtained doorway.

"Should we not help Chumley?" Eskina inquired.

"We're far more likely to get in the way," I informed her. "If Chumley needs our help, he'll ask."

One Troll was clearly flagging. He heaved up a low platform, brought it down on his opponent's head, and stopped to pant. The other staggered backward, then came running at the first one with his head down. The first went flying back into a rack of clothes.

I figured Chumley had gotten enough of his own back by now. Moa and The Mall guards watched, wide-eyed, with the shopkeepers and Jack Frost, who must have been called in about the heat leak again. As soon as my way was clear, I beckoned to the Djinnellis.

"Give us a hand!" I shouted, miming pulling two objects apart.

The Djinnellis understood and held up their folded arms.

Suddenly, the two Trolls were plastered on the air like huge, shaggy paper dolls. I realized then that the exhausted one was Chumley. The other, a glint of gold showing through the fur near his neck, seemed fresh as a daisy.

To the amazement and consternation of the Djinns, Rattila shook off the suspension spell. He seemed to grow larger as he marched toward me.

"That was refreshing!" he boomed. "I am nearly at full power! And I am going to use your friend's identity to do it!"

The Troll vanished. In his place was a tall, skinny, pale-haired, pale-eyed Klahd with a goofy grin and a kind, open expression. Skeeve.

"Hey, Aahz, don't you like the idea of me being the most powerful magician in the world? I'm going to make it possible for Rattila to achieve his dream. Isn't that great?"

My hands twitched. At the sight of my ex-partner's face I admit a lot of emotions went though me, but on top was outrage, followed by fury.

"You dare," I began in a low voice that made everyone else in the store back away slowly, "to sully the good name of my friend?"

"More than that!" the Skeeve-face gloated. "At the same time he gives up the rest of the energy I need to become a full magician, I take full possession of him, too. He will cease to have any separate existence from my Master Card."

"Well, then, we need to cancel your account," I informed him smoothly.

I darted toward the pouch on his belt. A hand like a steel trap caught mine. He bent my wrist backward until the bones ground together.

He grinned in my face. "Want to hear me sing?"

"Not a chance!" I snarled.

I swept my feet underneath his and sent him sprawling. He had Skeeve's quick reflexes at his command, so he was up in no time. I knocked him down again with a backhanded swipe. He flicked a hand, and I floated up toward the ceiling. I windmilled, trying to get back toward the ground.

"Flying's great, Aahz! Don't you wish you could do it on your own? Oh, but I forgot," the face pouted. "You lost your magik." The pad of air under my body vanished, and I hit the floor. "You kept up a facade like you were still important. You tried to show me how wise you are, but it's all a sham. Everyone pretends they like you, that they feel sorry for you, but inside they're laughing. In this world nothing else matters but power!"

He reached out and pinched his thumb and forefinger together. Suddenly, my ears were filled with a deafening blare of music, voices, and noise. I knew what he had done: he'd destroyed Massha's cone of silence. Without its protection my sensitive ears were going to be overwhelmed by the sounds of The Mall—he hoped.

"You are so wrong, long-nose," I gritted out. "And this is going to end now!"

The ground dropped away from me again, but I had a hand on a display rack. I used my weightlessness to swing my legs around in a circle. I cringed a little at attacking one of my closest friends, but I reminded myself that this was not my friend but someone who wanted to drain the life out of him. At the last moment I tensed so my whole weight hit him in the head. Rattila staggered back a couple of paces, then came roaring in at me. As I swung around I smacked him in the face. He stopped, goggling. I came around the pole again and slapped him so hard he staggered and fell.

My feet settled toward earth.

"Go get him, tiger!" Massha shouted, waving a charm shaped like a scale at me.

I leaped onto the impostor. The Djinnellis and other onlookers crowded in.

"Back off!" I roared. 'This one's mine!"

I hauled Rattila up by the scruff. His mouth and hands twitched. I felt something hot and gluey pour over my head, covering my eyes, nostrils and mouth. I sucked in a deep breath. The stuff solidified, but I didn't let go. I shoved Rattila into the wall and head-butted him. The shell over my face cracked away. I lifted a fist. The blue eyes opened wide.

"Aahz, don't hit me," Skeeve's voice begged me. It caught me off guard. "I didn't mean those things I said. I respect you. Really."

I cocked my head. "Sorry, partner," I replied.

It was a wish for the absent Skeeve, not for this loser. With all the strength in my body, I connected my fist with his jaw. I threw another punch. The head snapped back against the wall, and the long body collapsed in a heap on the floor. I could have stopped then, but I had a lot of resentment to get out of my system, too. I kept pounding on Rattila until the Skeeve-form disappeared, and he became a rat again.

I straightened up and kicked at him. "And your rhyme stinks, too!"

Eskina raced in and bound up the limp rodent's limbs with her cuffs. "Magnificent, Aahz!" she congratulated me. My friends and new acquaintances crowded in to shake my hand and pound me on the back. "Now, where is the device?"

I searched through the greasy black fur until I came up with the gleaming gold card. "Here it is."

"Excellent! Give it to me! I must take it back!"

"No way," I retorted. "This thing is too dangerous to exist. Besides, it's got an imprint in it of everyone that Rattila ever ripped off."

"In spite of my firewall I can still feel a pull from its spell," Massha added.

"I, too," Chumley agreed.

"Unless you can empty it of its charge, you're not getting it back," I concluded.

"But I must bring it back with me!" Eskina shrieked. "Five years I have sought it. The scientists are waiting!"

"And what happens the next time an alchemy lab janitor can't resist the temptation?" I asked.

Eskina looked crestfallen.

"You are right," she acknowledged.

"You have the villain," Parvattani reminded her, coming up to put a consoling arm around her.

She looked up at him gratefully. "That is true," she smiled.

"You two make a good team," I told them. "Think about it."

They both looked shy.

"What about the card, Hot Stuff?" Massha asked.

"History," I snapped out.

I bent the device between my fingers. Unlike the slave cards it could make, the Master Card wouldn't break, no matter how much I twisted it.

"Let me try," Chumley offered.

But he couldn't make a dent in it either. Nor could the magik of any of the Djinnellis, Cire, Sibone, or Chloridia, nor Woofle, who had finally come out from wherever he had been hiding.

"I'm stumped," I admitted.

"Perhaps you had better let me take it back," Eskina offered, sympathetically. "It was made to withstand elemental forces."

"Elemental!" I snapped my fingers. "Jack, are you here?" The climate-control engineer squeezed through the crowd. "What can I do for you, Aahz?"

I tapped a foot on the glowing red floor. "What'll it take to get through this to the lava underneath?"

"A snap," Jack grinned at me. "A cold snap." He pointed a finger at the floor. A white cone formed over the spot.

When he finished there was a round white patch on the floor. I brought a heel down on it. It shattered. Lava splashed up through the broken shards of flooring. I tossed the gold card into the liquid burning stone until the letters on it ran. A chorus of howling voices rose from it as it melted away. The remains flowed off under the floor. Jack spread his hands, and the hole sealed up as if it had never been there. I dusted my hands together.

"It's a time-honored tradition, after all," I remarked, "throwing all-powerful magik items into volcanos to get rid of them."

"I feel so much better!" Massha announced.

"So do I," Chumley agreed.

"Me, too," added Marco.

"And I," a female Deveel put in.

The chorus of voices went on and on, until everyone was looking at one another.

"And the moral of that story is," I concluded, "always look out for those hidden charges."

On the floor at my feet, Rattila groaned.