Myth Alliances

"This way," our host directed us. He led us down an immaculately clean, white-walled corridor. Oddly, this surprisingly clean place reminded me of the Bazaar, because loud, unintelligible noises, music and shouting poured out of every door. Tananda, Gleep and I stuck close together, on guard in case anything jumped out at us. Bunny walked with Zol, hanging on his every word. "I confess I am a trifle peckish after all that work. Would you like something to eat while I and my friends analyze the map?" "Yeah!" I replied avidly. Zol smiled and pushed through one of the identical doors. The room beyond was filled with Kobolds, all staring into screens like his and playing upon keyboards as though they were pianos. At the far end of the room was a long table filled with brightly colored packages.

"Help yourselves," he offered. "The amount of nourishment in each bag is approximately equal to one-sixth of a Kobold's daily needs, therefore Master Skeeve will need twelve, Mistress Tananda nine, and Mistress Bunny eight. Gleep can have as many as he likes."

The packages were easy to tear open. The food inside was mostly what was sold in taverns at the Bazaar as snacks to eat with beer: sweet or salty, crunchy morsels. I munched on golden twists that smelled faintly of meat. Gleep ate the packages wrapper and all, licking his chops happily. Tananda picked through the packets and chose bags of tiny cookies and some pork rinds. Bunny waited and selected what Zol did.

"Take as many as you like," Zol invited, tearing open a bag of cheese pretzels. "And here! Have something to drink."

He filled mugs for us from a keg set in a cradle at the end of the table. I took a deep draught, and nearly choked. The beverage looked like ale, but tasted sweet and fizzy, filling my nose, lungs and stomach with bubbles. I lowered the tankard in a hurry, and let out a tremendous belch. I smacked my lips, waiting for the familiar sensation of warmth and well-being. It was not forthcoming.

"Not very strong, is it?" I asked.

"Oh, this isn't liquor," Zol explained. "Liquor is consumed on Kobol, and it's very good, but you cannot do complex mathematical calculations if you are drunk. We wait until after we log out."

My mother had taught me the basics of arithmetic when I was a child, and I'd picked up a lot about bookkeeping, percentages and commissions in my years working in and around the Bazaar, but nothing I had ever done or seen remotely resembled the work I observed going on around me.

"What are they doing?" I inquired.

"They are helping to maintain our reality. Field agents such as I gather up factual information. These analysts translate it into formulae that we are working on to explain how everything fits together. They help us decide what crops to grow, what professions to take up, what parcels of land to develop ... oh, everything. We call it the Unified Field Theory."

I gazed around me. All the noise I had noticed coming in was not coining from the Kobolds, but rather from the computers. While line after line of tiny characters spun out on the shining surface of some, other Kobolds were using their mirrors to spy upon the actions of travelers such as my own companions. Where those travelers encountered opposition, say meeting up with other-dimensional beings, bloody battles always seemed to ensue. None of the parties I saw ever tried to avoid conflict, instead drawing sword or raising wand against one another immediately. I watched being after being die, until I was nearly weeping for the unnecessary loss of life.

"Don't worry," Zol assured me, touching my arm sympathetically. "Those aren't real. They are only make-believe characters in a game. Kobolds use such things to relax their minds when they are not working. It's only a game."

"A game?" I reiterated, shocked. "Why don't they play a real game, like dragon poker?"

"Too easy," Zol shrugged. "The odds are fully calculable, and that's not relaxation to a Kobold."

"Too easy?" I sputtered.

"Why don't they just go and relax ... when they want to relax?" Bunny said, her eyes fixed on the busy Kobolds.

"They seem to like it," Tananda commented. "Look, they're all smiling. They get pleasure from these devices." She eyed the nearest Kobold up and down with a speculative eye. He was grinning vacantly at his code. His fingers seemed to stroke the buttons on the board sensuously. Tananda moved closer to him.