Myth-Gotten Gains

BANG! A smashing sound somewhere in the house grabbed my attention. It was followed by a string of colorful phrases, none of which I could really call invective, but still showed some imagination in expressing frustration. I wondered if our quarry hadn't quite made good on his getaway. I signed to Tananda to go out and around. We could catch him in a pincer movement, unless he dimension-hopped away from us. Tanda nodded to me, and ducked out of the door.

"Anyone home?" I called.

"Back here!" a hearty voice shouted back.

"Let me do the talking," I said, pushing ahead.

With me in the lead, Calypsa and I sidled through the overgrown cottage. It had been divided a few rooms at a time into several living spaces, each decorated in very different tastes. After the empty front quarters lay the diggings of a herbalist who slept in her shop and had entertaining taste in undergarments, several of which were drying on racks alongside snozzwort and hipporemus root. Beyond that was a small room

used by a student of mathematics, to judge from the formulae scrawled in chalk on the walls and floor around the shabby rope bed. The slamming and thumping noises came from the next set of rooms, where a brawny male in an apron was smacking dusty forms down on a broad wooden worktable.

He looked up with a grin that shrank just a little when he saw the formidable shape I was wearing. This was the happy tiler. Then his native optimism took over, and he came around to greet me. Tananda appeared behind him, and shrugged.

"Hail, friend!" he said. "What can I do for you?"

"I seek a great treasure," I said.

"Well, I've got a bunch of them here you might like," the tiler said, pleasantly. "Just finished a batch of Flornezian interlocks with real gold in the glaze. Nice enough for an audience chamber, if that be what you're interested in. I can give you very attractive terms on financing..."

"No, it's a book we want," Calypsa said. "We're looking for a big book. With a gold cover. Maybe some jewels embedded in it. And I think it talks."

"Ah!" the Pikinise said, rocking back on his heels. "You're looking for the wizard Froome, then."

"Is he here?" I asked, after giving Calypsa an exasperated look.

"Sorry, no," he said. Since we weren't customers, he went back to loosening his wares from the frames in which they had hardened. "He came through here with that big book of his, muttering, 'they're here.' Must be you he meant."

"And where did he go?" I asked.

"Ah, couldn't tell you that," the tiler said, with a grin. "He just disappeared. Right there," he gestured with a table scraper, "Like magik, it was."

"Why didn't you tell me the Book was gone?" I snarled at the Crystal Ball, as I stalked out of the cottage.

'Well, I did try to," Kelsa simpered up at me. "You told me to be quiet. Now, I do try to comply with your wishes—that's a measure of my growing regard for you, dear—but..."

"But?" I interrupted again.

"Well, it just happened! That moment! Just before we went inside. He must have been reading about our progress in the Book. Payge does keep up on current events, you know"

I groaned and rolled my eyes. "So this whole three-day trek was pointless!"

"Three days of my grandfather's incarceration?" Calypsa echoed.

Kelsa blinked, transforming from Pervect to Walt and back again.

"Oh, not at all! He wouldn't have gone away if we hadn't come here. The thing to do is go where he has gone now."

"And where is that?" I asked, through clenched teeth.

She brightened, literally, glowing like a beer sign. "Vaygus!"

Chapter 14

"STICK WITH ME!" Buirnie exclaimed, as we made our way down the teeming streets. Customers from every race in every dimension walked in and out of the brightly-colored buildings. Many of them had that world-weary look of the hardcore gambler, but most of them wore a look of open astonishment at the attractions on offer: dancers, gambling, stage show extravaganzas, you name it. It was like a Bazaar for the entertainment industry. It was night in Vaygus, but, then, it had always seemed to be night when I had visited there in the past. Flick, the Flute's spotlight, turned an actinic glare on us that lit us better than the road under our feet. I kept bumping into people who were blinded by the light. "I know this place like the back of my hand." Zildie, the snare drum, rolled out a rim shot.

"You don't have any hands," Calypsa said, looking confused. Ersatz was on her back with a cloth hiding everything except his eyes. The local laws against carrying weapons, especially potent magikal ones, were pretty strict, as they would be anywhere there was a lot of money changing hands. I figured we wouldn't be stopped. Law enforcement always had too much to do around here with real crime, as drunks staggered out of the hotels with money from the tables. In any case, he was wearing a disguise spell that made him look like a set of glitter-covered twirling batons. Nobody would steal those. The other Hoard members were similarly disguised, except Buirnie. I figured there was no harm in carrying a musical instrument. In any case, there was no way to disguise his entourage.

"Well, if I had a hand, I'd know it as well as I know Vaygus," the Flute confided. "Look around you! It's a wonder of magik and technology! I had a theater here for ten years, right up the street, over there. Full orchestra, show girls, the works!"

"Seems like a great life," Tananda said. "Why'd you give it up?"

"Well, a war started, the One-Armed Bandits versus the Crap-Shooters. It got ugly, I can tell you! The Bandits enlisted me on their side. I thought they fought a little cleaner. I wrote them some pretty terrific war music! It was a lengthy battle. We practically lost our sponsors, it took so long. At least twelve seasons, with summer reruns. We won, of course, and peace was restored, but there was terrible damage. The Strip was stripped bare, not that stripping doesn't still go on." The emeralds rolled from side to side roguishly. Tananda laughed. Calypsa just looked confused, as usual.

We strode down the broad avenue. According to Kelsa's directions, we were looking for the lion's Head Casino. I was in a bad mood. This wizard Froome obviously didn't want to let go of his Hoard treasure, and who could blame him? I don't know why I didn't just blow out of there. It was a nice evening. You could hear the ka-ching! of the gambling machines over the cacophony of voices and music. I liked visiting Vaygus once in a while. The brilliant orange bulk of the Fountainshow Casino, ablaze in its own spotlights, lay just across the street. I could go in there, ask the maitre d' for my usual table next to the stage in the Gambler's Theater, and lay back. Hot-and-cold ru

"How do we keep Froome from blowing out of town before we catch up with him again?" I asked Kelsa.

"At the moment he doesn't know that we're here," Kelsa said, beaming up at me from Tananda's shoulder bag. She'd been disguised as a large goldfish in a bowl, but nothing could conceal the diamante glasses. "He's very relieved to have

gotten away before our arrival. My goodness, I love doing these up-to-the-minute bulletins!"

"Well, look a little further ahead," I said. "I want to know where we get the Book, not just what he is thinking at this moment. Use your talent."