myth-taken identity

No being who heard a full-throated growl would obstruct our forward passage for long.

So much for a subtle approach. With a full-sized Troll trained in crowd management, we soon cut the distance to about ten yards.

It was a weird feeling, pursuing my ex-partner. You'd think that with all the experience I had exposing magikal fraud I could put the disassociated sensation to one side, but I couldn't. I kept getting the feeling that if we jumped this guy, it might really turn out to be Skeeve.

We entered a crossroads. Our quarry faked left, then right, then right again, loping into another avenue filled with stores, tents, and stalls. Massha, sailing along overhead thanks to her gadgets, stayed right with him. She fumbled with her jewelry, clearly trying to find one gadget in particular.

"Can you grab him?" I called to her.

"My tractor-pendant's on the fritz!" she shouted back, holding up a smoking topaz.

But she gamely dipped down, stretching out a ring-filled hand toward the ru

"Whoa!" Massha levitated suddenly.

A lightning bolt crackled just underneath her belly and impacted upon the center pole of a white pavilion tent in the middle of the corridor. The carved golden griffin at the apex fell like a downed pheasant.

"Massha!" I yelled.

"I'm okay!" she called back, and rose into view once more.

The creep really was a magician! With a grim set to her shoulders, Massha continued the aerial chase. I made a promise that if this jerk wasn't Skeeve, I was going to give him the walloping of his life, just before I tore his arms and legs off. If he was ... well, I would think about it if that unlikely situation arose.

Arms forward, our suspect dove into a pale blue tent with iridescent circles embroidered on each flap. I took a deep breath as I plunged in after him.

No air filled this one; the interior was awash in eight feet of water, in which mermaids sold jeweled brassieres to the general public. My prey kicked off in a dog paddle. My physique was much more suited to dry land than sea, so it helped when Massha grabbed me by the collar and dragged me along over the surface. I spared a quick glance back for Chumley.

The Troll was doing a creditable crawl stroke and gaining rapidly on the two of us. I seemed to recall one night around the table in our tent in the Bazaar when Tananda had revealed her big brother had been a champion swimmer at school on Trollia. The big lug was too modest about his accomplishments. Such reticence never paid off, in my philosophy.

At the far end of the tent, our prey hit the ground ru

I landed on my face, my arms empty. The back of the pavilion was illusionary, not an uncommon practice when persons of modest virtue (or less than modest) wanted to disappear discreetly. The shrieks of females surprised in various states of dishabille pierced the sound-deadening spell protecting my ears.

"A man!"

"Sorry, ladies! Just a routine inspection," I said hastily, over the screaming.

Maybe that hadn't been the best choice of words. As I scrambled to my feet, I was pelted with shoes, purses, and shopping bags by half-naked women from fifty different dimensions.

Making a hasty retreat, I fled back into the small pavilion. The sturdily built gray-furred felinoid female, one of her own red satin foundation garments supporting four rows of two bosoms each, pointed sternly to the wall at the left. Sheepishly, I followed her direction, and picked up the wet footprints left by my quarry and Chumley, whose head I spotted above those of the surrounding crowd as soon as I got outside.

The blond head swiveled back at us. Those familiar features were twisted into an expression of alarm I never thought would be directed at me. It gave me the creeps, but I didn't let it slow me down. I bounded past another set of bards, then another, passing through modem jazz, back into plainsong, and forward into punk rock. He made another break, this time into a wide tent full of mirrors.

The first thing I saw was my own handsome countenance. The proprietors, a couple of Deveels who probably broke a few pieces of merchandise behind unwary shoppers when business was slow, gawked at me when I dodged the framed mirror at the door and started ru

"Chumley!" I shouted, holding my hand high and pointing toward the fleeing impostor.

"After him!" Chumley called, then changed his voice. "Er, get Klahd!"

In a scramble of long legs, our prey dashed out and headed up a side passage that led us through tent flaps and hanging ba

"There he goes!" Massha shouted from overhead.

I glanced up. She pointed. Still ru

We shoved through a metal door left flapping by the passage of the man we were pursuing. The little dot on the map in my hand kind of hung back, as if ashamed to go into the leg of The Mall in which we found ourselves.

A wave of stench that reminded me fondly of Pervish cooking wafted past my nostrils. Unlike the absolute pristine cleanliness of the building everywhere else, this area was furnished with heaps of garbage, dumped in between huge stacks of crates, piles of cages, and skids full of bags. This must be where shipments came in and trash went out.

A loud beeping noise cut through the air, and a heap of carved wooden boxes higher than my head appeared into being underneath an ornate letter W etched on the wall. Obviously, someone's expected delivery had just arrived.

Ahead of me the kid was flagging. He must have been aware that the stone wall ahead meant the end of the chase.

"He could try and pop out, Massha," I called, though I doubted it. If he'd wanted to dimension-hop, he could have done that anytime while we were ru

"I'm ready," she shouted back, holding up a chain with a green eye pendant hanging from it. "This'll tell me where he's gone. It's a new gizmo from Kobol."

Movement caught my eye in the dwindling light toward the end of the corridor. I spared one erg of attention for the clutch of huge brown rats that were crawling around in the rotting heaps of food that had come from one of the restaurants and hadn't yet been cleared away by magikal means.

Twenty steps now. Ten. Five. The three of us converged on the "Skeeve" as he neared the shadowy wall.

"Now!" I bellowed.

All three of us dove for him—and cracked our heads together before bashing into the stone barrier. He was gone. Chumley clutched his head with one mighty hand as he felt around in the garbage for our quarry. I sprang up.