Myth-Gotten Gains

"Well, save it." I turned to the guards. "Can we get a move on? We're ru

"They are crazy," one of the guards commented. "His Enchantedness is going to want to know about them as soon as possible."

"Go report," the captain said.

"Stay here!" I ordered. "We're too dangerous for a reduced squad to handle."

"What?"

Tananda wound herself around the guard and fondled the toothy jaw with a finger. "Look, I'm escaping."

"Back in line, stranger!" the captain commanded.

"That's no way to talk to a lady," she said. She stiff-armed the guard in his long snout, knocking him backwards off his feet.

The whole contingent surrounded us, prodding us with the point of their spears.

Tananda lifted her hands in surrender. "Easy, easy! I don't mind playing rough, but I do draw the line at toys."

If the Dile guards could have blushed, they would have.

"March," the guard captain said, more hoarsely than before.

"Calypsa had better stay on schedule," I said.

Chapter 23

THE DUNGEONS WERE about what I would have expected from someone who had read the Tyrant's Guide to Oppression, or Despotism For Dummies. A heavy iron door with a grate the size of my hand creaked open onto a downward spiral stairway so narrow that we could only walk down it single file. The guards at the front and rear lit torches, which smoked like five-pack-a-day addicts, and shed just enough light that you couldn't really tell the difference between shadows and solid objects. The place smelled of blood, fear, eau de unwashed prisoner, rotten food and rat droppings. Considering we were nowhere near the dimension where rats had originated, I took a moment to marvel at the ubiquitousness of the vermin species.

My thoughts took my attention away momentarily from Payge's nonstop commentary.

"His efforts to spur Chin-Hwag to greater speed in producing money have failed. He has threatened Calypsa's life, but the Purse is pretending she can't hear him. He's assigned a flunky to catch the coins when she spits one out.

"Let me know when he runs out of legitimate items, willya?" I asked.

"Silence in the ranks!" the captain's voice echoed up to us.

At the bottom of the staircase, they pushed me and Tananda up against the wall. The jailor gri

"Guess the lack of dental hygiene among cell-keepers is pretty universal dimensionwide," I commented.

"Silence!"

Payge broke it. "The wizard eyes the Sword. He signs to the Walt maiden to hand it to him. She is reluctant. "If you do not give it to me, your grandfather will die a long, slow, terrible death" he said."

"Will you pay attention to your cases?" Kelsa said peevishly. "You keep jumping in between present and past tense."

"Forgive me. I am not accustomed to reporting something so recently recorded into the archives. The tenses change."

"What do we do with the gold?" one of the guards asked his captain.

"What do you think? We save them for His Enchantedness! He knows everything that goes on around here."

"Not everything," Kelsa said. "Why, he doesn't know that you have made up a song about him. It goes, "Barrik is a squint-eyed boob, his nose is like a spiky tube..."

"Say, that's snappy!" Buirnie exclaimed. "Give me the rhythm, Zildie!"

RAT-TAT! RAT-TAT!

"Silence!"

Ba-dum. The drum dipped its head in disappointment.

"You really know how to hurt an artist," Buirnie complained.

"Knock it off," I told him. "You'll have plenty of opportunity in a minute."

"Can I dose them now?" Asti asked me. "They are getting on my nerves almost as much as you do."

"Not yet," I said.

"Against her will," Payge continued, "the Walt maiden holds out the Sword. The wizard Barrik snatches it from her. "Will you serve me?" he asks the Sword. Ersatz looks at him. "You have a very poor grip. You would lose me the first time you swung me." The wizard becomes enraged. "Ptoo!" says Chin-Hwag. Barrik is distracted as his servant leaps to catch the coin..."

"Chain them to the wall in cell 47," the captain said.

"I ain't cleaned it up yet. That other guy who died in there, he's still there!"

"No matter," the captain said, leering at me. "Perverts don't mind a little rotten flesh, do you?"

"Now, Aahz?" Asti asked.

"Not yet," I growled, as the guards steered us at spearpoint toward a low, soot-darkened door. I could see that the hasp for the lock was on the bottom third of the door, well away from the gloating-hole. Even Tananda would have trouble reaching that, even assuming we could undo the promised chains.

"Aahz," she said.

"I know! Kelsa, what's going on?"

"Well, he just tossed Ersatz aside. Calypsa almost fainted when he hit the ground. He started to pick up the Book."

"I am the Book," Payge said, offended.

"Yes, I know you are, dear, but you're not the one that Calypsa is trying to pass off as you, you see."

"What's going on??" I interrupted her.

"Oh, well, Chin-Hwag waited until he started to pick it up, then spat out another coin. She's just stringing him along so beautifully, you would think she's done this before!"

"She has done this before," Payge said.

"Barrik frowned," Kelsa said, her Pervect face wide-eyed. "He's counting. Oh, he's upset! Listen!"

A ti

"But there are only six of the Hoard here. Where is the great Ring, Bozebos?"

"That's His Enchantedness," the captain burst out, terrified. "How are you doing that? Can he hear us?"

"Oh, dear, no," Kelsa said. "I'm a receiving set, not a broadcaster. For that you would have wanted to talk to..."

"Shut up," I said. "I'm listening."

Calypsa's voice followed. She sounded defiant, even though I know she was scared half to death. "I will produce the Ring when you bring my grandfather up here and let me see that he is all right."

"What makes you think you have room to bargain? He stays in the dungeon, and unless you want to join him, you will turn your treasures over to me now!"

"I am going to find him."

"That's not in the script," I groaned.

I heard the sounds of a scuffle.

"Get your filthy, scaly hands off me!" I had to say Calypsa was magnificent in her indignation, though I didn't like her choice of insults. The outcry was followed by a slap that was audible to everyone in the dungeon.

"How dare you touch me! You shall pay! I will do the Dance of Death!"

Tananda and I exchanged glances.

"That's really not in the script," I said.

Barrik's voice was higher than usual.

"Guards! Guards! ALL my guards, seize this wench!"

"We've got to go," the captain said, signing to the jailor. "Lock these two up. Everyone, get ready to move out!"

They shoved us toward the yawning black hole that lay behind the low door. I braced my feet on the floor, trying to slow them down. Tananda grabbed hold of a wall sconce. The Diles peeled her fingers away one by one and dragged her, an inch at a time, into the cell.

"NOW, Aahz?"

"Be my guest," I said, holding Asti right in the captain's face. "Hey, pal, look at the pretty cup!"

Asti overflowed, not with the milk of golden kindness, but an olive-drab oil slick that would have done a double-ought agent proud. The captain made a grab for me, but his feet whisked out from under him.

CLANK!

He knocked over the next man in line, who dominoed into the third one.

"Omaniee balundarie straterumie brigunderie..."

Payge started reciting spells. The guard holding him stiffened into stone. A couple more Diles reached for the Book.

"Whiskerie sposorie toppirie zing!"