Myth-Gotten Gains

I disliked going over the circumstances that had lost me my powers, but it sounded like I had no choice. Giving Tanda a quelling glance, I took a deep breath, and began.

"Up until that day I'd always liked Garkin. He had the same kind of sense of humor I had..."

Chapter 18

"ALMS, MISTER, ALMS!" Another one of the skinny, ruddy, toadlike people grabbed for my ankle. He was wearing only a loincloth and a headcloth. His bulgy eyes rolled up at me appealingly. I growled.

"Just kick him off," Kelsa advised. "They expect it."

I had already done so.

"I don't need you to tell me that." I looked around me. "What a dump."

The city of Sri Port, largest population center in the dimension of Toa, stretched out in all directions except up. Most of the mud-and-straw buildings, once painted in bright colors and now faded by the sun, were less than three stories, and most of them were in conditions so wretched that no one would want to live in them unless they had absolutely no choice. From the look of the locals, they had no choice. I couldn't estimate the population, but I had to guess it was in the millions or tens of millions of hairless, froglike individuals, who shared their homes with skinny ruminants that chewed on the weeds that grew in the mud. Sri Port looked like the summer home of at least two of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The sun beat down through a haze of humidity thick enough to swim in. I glanced back at Calypsa, who was picking her way daintily through the piles of garbage, dung and broken bricks that obstructed the narrow path between buildings. Behind her, Tananda kept an eye on anyone who might be following us. She was fondling the blade of a knife with a deliberate thumb. The Toadies standing in doorways or stumping through the narrow alleyways glanced at her and hastily away again. I grinned. She could look plenty formidable when she chose.

Strings of laundry swung over our head, flapping in the hot breeze. Noise battered at our eardrums, smells clawed at

our nostrils, and the locals bumped into us at every possible turning. The streets and alleyways were far too narrow for the crowds. Following Kelsa's directions, I led the way, shouldering through locals arguing with one another, bargaining, wooing, bullying, child-disciplining, praying, playing, begging, gossiping, and more bargaining.

Allowing for the difference in the physical form of the locals, Sri Port looked precisely like the Bazaar at Deva, if you sucked out all of the money from the latter.

"A donation, good sir, a donation for the poor and blind child of leprous drunkard!" A skinny, purple, clawlike hand reached up to me from a collection of filthy rags.

"He's lying," Kelsa said, cheerfully. "He's not blind, of course, and neither parent has leprosy. Actually, his mother has a degree in dental hygenics from the University of Sri Port, but they are having trouble keeping up with the mortgage on their little apartment. No cost of living increase this year, or for the last three years, for that matter. The dentist can't afford to give her one. He's having trouble with HIS mortgage, by the way. Shagul, here, begs after school, but he really should be home doing his book report. It's due tomorrow morning."

A pair of goggling eyes glared hatred out of the folds of cloth. "The curse of the Thousand Gods be upon you!"

"Go do your homework," I snarled, lunging toward him. He crabwalked hastily backwards away from me, scrambled to his feet, and ran.

"Now, this one is poor," Kelsa went on, as we walked by a female dressed in a swathe of patched but clean cloth. "You've got a small silver piece in your purse. Drop it on the melon-seller's wagon as we go by. She'll pick it up."

I didn't like having anyone dictate what I did with my money, and I'd spent plenty already in the service of the Golden Hoard. Besides, I already had a coin in my hand I'd been planning to drop in the shabby female's way. I'm not a total miser, no matter what you might have heard about me before. I brushed my hand over the rail of the cart, leaving the dona-

tion on the splintery plank. I didn't look behind me, and I wouldn't meet Tananda's eye. I could tell she was grinning. I cursed all magikal treasures and Trollops.

"This is it!" Kelsa announced, as we shoved through the throng into yet another crumbling city square. The buildings here were just as dilapidated as the others, but the people here, by and large, were smiling. A lot of them squatted in the dirt in front of a low, more-or-less whitewashed building with big holes in the walls and a holey pink curtain for a door. "That's the place."

"You could buy the whole house for a Devan nickel," Tananda said, letting out a low whistle.

"The Purse is there?" Calypsa asked, in disbelief. "The source of unending wealth is in that hovel?"

"That's what we're going to find out," I said. "Either the person who's got it doesn't know how to use it, or it's a fake. We've got to check it out."