Myth-Gotten Gains

Tananda had already caught on to my idea. With the lightness of someone who was accustomed to moving in and out of a location undetected, she had edged past the guards and backed up the stairs. In one hand she had a dagger by the point; in the other she cradled the muffled form of Kelsa. I didn't need any other armament than I had been furnished by nature, but I was hampered with Asti, who, being made of solid gold, was a heck of a lot heavier she looked, and squealed whenever she was tipped sideways. How no one in that pathetic little town had failed to cotton on to the metal, let alone the quality of her workmanship, made me despair of Klahds ever entering seriously into the realm of advanced commerce. I stuffed her into one of our carry sacks and ignored her complaints. Too bad we didn't have a second silence scarf like the one around Kelsa.

As Calypsa undulated around her admirers, I edged out of the dungeon. Except for Tananda, I couldn't hear anyone else breathing within about twenty yards. I recalled that the door through which we had been hauled wasn't far from the dungeon—all the easier to make deliveries. I could smell fresh air, or what passed for it around here, redolent of cow manure and kitchen garbage.

The Walt wriggled her way up each of the stone stairs. The guards followed her, tongues hanging out. She stopped to pirouette on the top step, with a cute little boom-sha movement that would have been worth its weight in gold pieces at any of the quality strip clubs on Perv, like Gawker's or Irv's Red Hotsies, and gave them a little toss of her head as if to say "here's one for the boys in the back row." When she got in range, I snaked my arm in, yanked her out, and slammed the door.

It took a moment for the spell to break. By the time the guards realized they'd been tricked, I'd locked the big door on them. Tananda beckoned over her shoulder and fled into the dark hallway. I hauled Calypsa along behind me.

"But I was not finished!" she protested. The guards started pounding on the door and yelling, from frustration or anger, I couldn't tell.

"We don't hang around for curtain calls," I snarled, hustling her toward the disappearing green figure of the Trollop. "What was that?"

"The Dance of Fascination," Calypsa said, tossing her head proudly. "My great-great aunt, the dancer Rumba, was the first to perform it."

Chapter 7

I WISHED WE could have used the D-hopper and bamfed out without all the fancy footwork, but we still had to retrieve Ersatz. I was regretting leaving him behind in the woods, but it was better to have to backtrack and get him than to have to search the castle for whatever armory in which Highboy would have stashed an obviously valuable sword after he confiscated it from us. I didn't know whether Calypsa's hips would have held out for that long.

We paused at the door while Tananda whipped us up a new disguise spell, then plunged out of the castle, disguised as Highboy and two generic soldiers. The guards on duty outside threw me a grand salute, which I returned, looking harried. Not a bad imitation, if I do say so myself.

Ersatz spotted us long before we could see him. He was hidden at just above eye level in a hollow branch of a big tree overhanging the forest path.

"Well, friend?" the sardonic voice asked. "Is all well? Are your powers restored to you?"

"Don't ask," I grunted, as I yanked him out of his post.

"Have you the old beaker with you? She has not yet poisoned you, at any rate."

"I would know that rusty garden gate of a voice across the universe," Asti shrilled. "Let me out of this rag bag at once!"

I looked around to make sure no one was coming, then I brought Asti out of my rucksack. The jeweled eyes and the reflected ones regarded each other with expressions of mutual dislike.

"So, there you are, you cake spatula," Asti said. "The last time I saw you, you ruined a perfectly good peace accord I was overseeing on Jahk!"

"An assassin of the Bruhns bid fair to stab the ambassador of the Bhuls in the back!" Ersatz replied. "A good peace

accord signifies that all have agreed to down weapons, not plunge them into the other party's representatives."

"And no one would have, if you hadn't bellowed out, Ware assassins!' Suddenly both armies whipped out knives, knouts, brass knuckles—you name it—and the table went over as the Bruhns shoved it onto the Bhuls' ambassador's toe. In no time the place was a shambles. That's where I got this dent," she added, the ruby eyes rolling up toward a bulge at the rim.

"And added more since," Ersatz said, with less tact than I would have expected out of him. "You look rather the worse for wear."

"No thanks to you! No one even thought of tapping it out. My beautiful roundness, marred, and it's all your fault!"

"Wait a minute," I said, raising my hands. "How long ago was this?"

"Five hundred twenty years, nine months and three days," they said in virtual unison.