Myth-Gotten Gains

I don't like having my private feelings dredged up and smashed into my face like wedding cake, but as Tananda said, she's an old friend who knows me pretty damned well. It had bugged me when Ersatz implied no mortals could have a fellowship as good as theirs—which didn't seem so terrific to me, the way they fought all the time.

"All right," I said, keeping up the show of reluctance. "But if you're coming with me, no screwing up."

"I'll try." She grabbed my ears and planted a solid kiss on my lips. "Attaboy, Aahz," she said. "Come on, Calypsa, we've got to get moving!"

BAMF!

The contrast between Vaygus and Tomburg was so marked that I thought we had jumped from a color set to black-and-white. Where neon had decorated not only the buildings but the clothes of the people of Vaygus, those of Tomburg's denizens I could see hunched over reading at desks in cubicles around me were dressed in drab, natural colors, matching the musty-smelling books on nearby shelves. We were in pretty close quarters. Tanda and Calypsa were jammed in tight.

"Where is he?" I asked Kelsa.

"Shh!" A round face was thrust into mine, a finger held vertical against its lips. I jumped back.

Only long experience kept me from smashing the face in with my fist in surprise, but I felt like doing it anyhow once I had my bearings. I didn't think that round a face could compress into that many wrinkles of disapproval. The guy behind it was cylindrical in shape, with at least nine pairs of arms and legs running down his body.

"What the hell is your problem, Bub?" I snarled.

The forefinger moved away from the fat little face, and pointed at a sign on a pillar between two tall cabinets filled with books.

SILENCE, it said. The forefinger stabbed toward it several times for good measure.

'What is this, a monastery?"

The chubby being shook its head at me. I took a good look around. The shelves of books behind me weren't the only ones. In fact, they seemed to stretch away down the aisle in which we were standing, almost to infinity. Once I tamped down my temper enough to listen, I heard dozens of unseen beings breathing and the rustle of pages turning, scholars sitting in unseen carrels bent over their books. We were in a library. I turned to Tananda and Calypsa.

"Of all the..."

"Shh!"

I scowled at the librarian, but lowered my voice. "Of all the sneaky tricks!"

"It's just what I told you," Kelsa said, for once moderating her shrill tones. "You will find Payge here among his fellow books!"

"That isn't what you said," I reminded her.

"Oh, it was something like that. What does it matter? He is here. All you have to do is catch him. I have foreseen it!"

"You foresee a lot of things," I commented. The bookworm behind me shushed me once more. "All right," I breathed. "I'll whisper!"

He nodded, then inched off, I supposed, to harass another visitor.

"Where, exactly, is he?" I asked Kelsa. "No, don't talk. Show me."

The Crystal Ball fogged up, then cleared. In its depths I saw another rank of bookshelves, identical to the ones that were around us.

"That does not help," Calypsa whispered. "They all look alike."

"Not completely," Tananda whispered back. "Look! He's standing under a sign that says "Fe-Fi." Maybe he likes being near his initials."

I grinned. "Well, let's go and Fo-Fum this Froome. I'm tired of playing catch up all across the dimensions. We'll split up and surround him." I glanced up. The local species, who resembled big bookworms, didn't just travel the floor of the aisles. I saw them clinging to the sides of shelves, even the ceiling, as they perused a row of covers.

"Can you climb up there, too?" I asked Tananda.

"Piece of cake," she said. With a supple movement, she clambered up the nearest tier, and vanished over the top.

"Then, you jump him from above. I'll go around to the right. Calypsa, you take the left." I leaned down and stuck a forefinger in Buirnie's face. "One peep out of you, and I'll use you for a U-bend under my bathroom sink, holes or no holes. Savvy?"

"Oh, very well," he said. "I will be pianissimo piano."

"No kind of piano. Not a note of music until we're out in the street. I'm not taking any chances on getting thrown out of here. Let's move.

"I can put everyone in the library to sleep," Asti suggested, as I tiptoed past "Do-Du." "I've got a wonderful soporific gas that will drop every breathing being in its tracks."

"No, thanks," I said. "I don't want anything like that circulating while Tananda's on the ceiling. If we can get close enough, you can zap him. Just try and keep me out of the fallout, all right?"

"Aahz, I have millennia of experience at this!"

"Give me a lucky beginner over an experienced veteran every time," I said.