myth-taken identity

"I will, too," Chumley confided. "Can't get back to my barber for ages. May as well take advantage of the local talent."

Eskina's eyes flew wide open. "Did you just say all that?"

"Please, keep your voice down," Chumley whispered. "As long as we are to be allies, we must lay all our cards upon the table." "One thing I would have thought you'd have figured out," I added, "is that not everything is always as it seems." Eskina regarded us all with respect. "I see," she said.

Eskina was a pretty quick learner. I began to feel a lot of respect for the intrepid little investigator. She'd put up with a lot of hardship in pursuit of her case. I could tell from Par's nonstop gibes as she led us from one establishment to another that Mall security had not given her any kind of a hand, but she'd pretty much made her own way, making friends with most of the longtime owners. Besides the Deveel barber who let her use his spa every morning, the Dji

"Let us go on," Eskina proclaimed, leaping up as soon as she had finished a snack furnished by the owner of the Jolly Dragon pub on the corner across from Troll Music, a huge bardic emporium which sold little magikal boxes that played dozens, even hundreds of songs when opened. I hadn't finished the rest of my fifth beer, but I was glad to get away from the racket pouring out the door across from us. The way the cacophony blended or, rather, failed to blend with the bands within earshot made me lose my appetite. Not that a ham, a dozen-egg omelette, and a broiled half pineapple was more than a light snack.

"You don't sit down long," I observed, as we strode out again. The i

"No," she contradicted me. "I have been on this assignment five years. We of the Ratislavan Intelligence are nothing if not... dogged." She gri

"Mmmph," Parvattani grunted, skeptically. But no matter what he thought, most of the denizens of The Mall were on his rival's side.

"Any friend of Eskina's a friend of mine," was a litany we heard over and over again. And we heard plenty of stories about how the shapechangers had ripped them off. If they'd been in the Bazaar, the Merchants' Association would have caught up with the thieves and traced them back to their master in nothing flat, with none of this five-year delay because of a mental turf war.

"There are procedures," Parvattani argued, as we left another stall.

"Tell me," I confronted Par, "if you'd figured out yourself there was a foreign master criminal ru

"Maybe," Par admitted. "But then I would be approaching it with evidence. She has never produced anything that I can call evidence. Show me, and I'll believe!"

"Bah." Eskina waved a dismissive hand. "This is the closest he has ever come to showing me professional courtesy, by listening, and it is all because of you."

They marched ahead of us. Par strode rapidly, covering a lot of distance with each pace, but Eskina stayed abreast of him, trotting on her little legs. I gri

"That is Banlofts," Eskina explained, nodding toward a two-headed Gorgon trying on a pair of hats at a stall. "They're a personal shopper on Gor. Very popular in The Mall. Very good taste, too."

"Always pays cash," Parvattani added. "No problem with theft, either, since they can shop and keep an eye on their purse at the same time."

"Their business flourishes because they always compare their impressions before they buy."

"So two heads are better than one," I chortled. "But in the case of a tie you have to let the right prevail, huh?" Chumley and Massha shot me pained looks. "What?"

"Arrest her," Eskina whispered suddenly, pointing to a long, ski

"Why?" Par demanded.

"She has stolen that purse! It is from Kovatis's shop."

"How do you know she didn't buy it?" I asked.

"Because Kovatis only works to order," Eskina hissed urgently. "And I was in the store with the Klahd lady who ordered it."

"Do you see, Master Aahz?" Par asked, furiously. "This is the kind of nonsense she has been treating us to for years!"

I might have agreed with him, but something about the Wisil's too-careful walk pushed my alarm buttons, too. "Get her," I instructed Chumley.

"Right ho," he agreed. He stuck out a large hand, raised the Wisil by her shiny satin scruff, hauled her over until MYTH-TAKEN IDENTITY 95

she was eye to eye with him, and boomed out, "Give purse back."

"Oh! Oh!" the Wisil screeched, twisting this way and that to escape. "Don't hurt me! I—I just wanted to take it for a test walk to see if I wanted to buy it! Here, here!" Hastily, she shoved the jeweled bag into my hands,

Parvattani hadn't hesitated once he'd realized he was wrong. A quick word into his long-distance orb brought a pair of uniformed guards ru

We started walking again. Palpable in the air between Eskina and Par was the phrase "I told you so." Again, I had to give the little raterrier credit: she didn't say it, but boy, could Par hear it. After another block or two, he cleared his throat.

"Good call," he murmured.

Eskina's head turned slightly toward him, then away to scan the shops on her left. I could see that she was smiling.

"Aren't they adorable?" Massha sighed. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear the two of them were a little sweet on each other. I love a budding romance. It reminds me of me and Hugh."

"For pity's sake, don't say anything like that where they can hear you," Chumley warned her. "That would surely nip it in the bud, so to speak."

"I'm with him," I added, although in a million years I would never have seen a comparison between the wall-pounding lust fest that she and Hugh had indulged in before they got married and a couple of shy kids who happened to be rivals in the same profession. "Let them discover it."

"Oh, well." Massha shrugged, but she agreed. "It'll be hard not to say anything. They make a cute couple."

"Give 'em time," I advised. "If they don't figure it out before we leave, you can play matchmaker then."

Since I had a chance to watch die goings-on in The Mall, I realized that the gestalt was very much like that in 96 Robert Asprin and Jody Ly