myth-taken identity m-14

by Robert Asprin

  Massha, Eskina, and I followed the battle as it progressed around the overstuffed Rat Hole and up the ramp out into The Volcano. Roars, howls, and thuds warned the curious listeners in the store overhead to get the hell out of the way and retreat to a safe distance by the time Chumley and his impostor rolled through the curtained doorway.

  "Should we not help Chumley?" Eskina inquired.

  "We're far more likely to get in the way," I informed her. "If Chumley needs our help, he'll ask."

  One Troll was clearly flagging. He heaved up a low platform, brought it down on his opponent's head, and stopped to pant. The other staggered backward, then came running at the first one with his head down. The first went flying back into a rack of clothes.

  I figured Chumley had gotten enough of his own back by now. Moa and The Mall guards watched, wide-eyed, with the shopkeepers and Jack Frost, who must have been called in about the heat leak again. As soon as my way was clear, I beckoned to the Djinnellis.

  "Give us a hand!" I shouted, miming pulling two objects apart.

  The Djinnellis understood and held up their folded arms.

  Suddenly, the two Trolls were plastered on the air like huge, shaggy paper dolls. I realized then that the exhausted one was Chumley. The other, a glint of gold showing through the fur near his neck, seemed fresh as a daisy.

  To the amazement and consternation of the Djinns, Rattila shook off the suspension spell. He seemed to grow larger as he marched toward me.

  "That was refreshing!" he boomed. "I am nearly at full power! And I am going to use your friend's identity to do it!"

  The Troll vanished. In his place was a tall, skinny, pale-haired, pale-eyed Klahd with a goofy grin and a kind, open expression. Skeeve.

  "Hey, Aahz, don't you like the idea of me being the most powerful magician in the world? I'm going to make it possible for Rattila to achieve his dream. Isn't that great?"

  My hands twitched. At the sight of my ex-partner's face I admit a lot of emotions went though me, but on top was outrage, followed by fury.

  "You dare," I began in a low voice that made everyone else in the store back away slowly, "to sully the good name of my friend?"

  "More than that!" the Skeeve-face gloated. "At the same time he gives up the rest of the energy I need to become a full magician, I take full possession of him, too. He will cease to have any separate existence from my Master Card."

  "Well, then, we need to cancel your account," I informed him smoothly.

  I darted toward the pouch on his belt. A hand like a steel trap caught mine. He bent my wrist backward until the bones ground together.

  He grinned in my face. "Want to hear me sing?"

  "Not a chance!" I snarled.

  I swept my feet underneath his and sent him sprawling. He had Skeeve's quick reflexes at his command, so he was up in no time. I knocked him down again with a backhanded swipe. He flicked a hand, and I floated up toward the ceiling. I windmilled, trying to get back toward the ground.

  "Flying's great, Aahz! Don't you wish you could do it on your own? Oh, but I forgot," the face pouted. "You lost your magik." The pad of air under my body vanished, and I hit the floor. "You kept up a facade like you were still important. You tried to show me how wise you are, but it's all a sham. Everyone pretends they like you, that they feel sorry for you, but inside they're laughing. In this world nothing else matters but power!"

  He reached out and pinched his thumb and forefinger together. Suddenly, my ears were filled with a deafening blare of music, voices, and noise. I knew what he had done: he'd destroyed Massha's cone of silence. Without its protection my sensitive ears were going to be overwhelmed by the sounds of The Mall—he hoped.

  "You are so wrong, long-nose," I gritted out. "And this is going to end now!"

  The ground dropped away from me again, but I had a hand on a display rack. I used my weightlessness to swing my legs around in a circle. I cringed a little at attacking one of my closest friends, but I reminded myself that this was not my friend but someone who wanted to drain the life out of him. At the last moment I tensed so my whole weight hit him in the head. Rattila staggered back a couple of paces, then came roaring in at me. As I swung around I smacked him in the face. He stopped, goggling. I came around the pole again and slapped him so hard he staggered and fell.

  My feet settled toward earth.

  "Go get him, tiger!" Massha shouted, waving a charm shaped like a scale at me.

  I leaped onto the impostor. The Djinnellis and other onlookers crowded in.

  "Back off!" I roared. 'This one's mine!"

  I hauled Rattila up by the scruff. His mouth and hands twitched. I felt something hot and gluey pour over my head, covering my eyes, nostrils and mouth. I sucked in a deep breath. The stuff solidified, but I didn't let go. I shoved Rattila into the wall and head-butted him. The shell over my face cracked away. I lifted a fist. The blue eyes opened wide.

  "Aahz, don't hit me," Skeeve's voice begged me. It caught me off guard. "I didn't mean those things I said. I respect you. Really."

  I cocked my head. "Sorry, partner," I replied.

  It was a wish for the absent Skeeve, not for this loser. With all the strength in my body, I connected my fist with his jaw. I threw another punch. The head snapped back against the wall, and the long body collapsed in a heap on the floor. I could have stopped then, but I had a lot of resentment to get out of my system, too. I kept pounding on Rattila until the Skeeve-form disappeared, and he became a rat again.

  I straightened up and kicked at him. "And your rhyme stinks, too!"

  Eskina raced in and bound up the limp rodent's limbs with her cuffs. "Magnificent, Aahz!" she congratulated me. My friends and new acquaintances crowded in to shake my hand and pound me on the back. "Now, where is the device?"

  I searched through the greasy black fur until I came up with the gleaming gold card. "Here it is."

  "Excellent! Give it to me! I must take it back!"

  "No way," I retorted. "This thing is too dangerous to exist. Besides, it's got an imprint in it of everyone that Rattila ever ripped off."

  "In spite of my firewall I can still feel a pull from its spell," Massha added.

  "I, too," Chumley agreed.

  "Unless you can empty it of its charge, you're not getting it back," I concluded.

  "But I must bring it back with me!" Eskina shrieked. "Five years I have sought it. The scientists are waiting!"

  "And what happens the next time an alchemy lab janitor can't resist the temptation?" I asked.

  Eskina looked crestfallen.

  "You are right," she acknowledged.

  "You have the villain," Parvattani reminded her, coming up to put a consoling arm around her.

  She looked up at him gratefully. "That is true," she smiled.

  "You two make a good team," I told them. "Think about it."

  They both looked shy.

  "What about the card, Hot Stuff?" Massha asked.

  "History," I snapped out.

  I bent the device between my fingers. Unlike the slave cards it could make, the Master Card wouldn't break, no matter how much I twisted it.

  "Let me try," Chumley offered.

  But he couldn't make a dent in it either. Nor could the magik of any of the Djinnellis, Cire, Sibone, or Chloridia, nor Woofle, who had finally come out from wherever he had been hiding.

  "I'm stumped," I admitted.

  "Perhaps you had better let me take it back," Eskina offered, sympathetically. "It was made to withstand elemental forces."

  "Elemental!" I snapped my fingers. "Jack, are you here?" The climate-control engineer squeezed through the crowd. "What can I do for you, Aahz?"

  I tapped a foot on the glowing red floor. "What'll it take to get through this to the lava underneath?"

  "A snap," Jack grinned at me. "A cold snap." He pointed a finger at the floor. A white cone formed over the spot.

  When he finished there was a round white patch on the floor. I brought a heel down on i
t. It shattered. Lava splashed up through the broken shards of flooring. I tossed the gold card into the liquid burning stone until the letters on it ran. A chorus of howling voices rose from it as it melted away. The remains flowed off under the floor. Jack spread his hands, and the hole sealed up as if it had never been there. I dusted my hands together.

  "It's a time-honored tradition, after all," I remarked, "throwing all-powerful magik items into volcanos to get rid of them."

  "I feel so much better!" Massha announced.

  "So do I," Chumley agreed.

  "Me, too," added Marco.

  "And I," a female Deveel put in.

  The chorus of voices went on and on, until everyone was looking at one another.

  "And the moral of that story is," I concluded, "always look out for those hidden charges."

  On the floor at my feet, Rattila groaned.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  "You must take this, too, darling madama," Rimbaldi insisted, draping another pair of djeanns on Massha's outstretched arms, this one in acid green. "And accessories! Belts, bracelets, scarves, anything you like! We must make up for the things that villain took from you. My cousin Paolo does his best to repair your lovely belt and bracelets. You shall have more, more, more!"

  "I'm overwhelmed, you beautiful man," Massha batted her eyes at him. "That's plenty, honest! Stop!"

  All morning the denizens of The Mall had been showing their gratitude for our capture of Rattila and his mob. Massha admired herself in the big three-way mirror, attended by a troop of willing Djinnies and a couple of Rattila's ex-henchrats.

  "By the way," I asked, sitting in the midst of a mountain of boxes with my name on them, "what was the deal you made with those creatures?" I gestured toward a rat who went out in search of an orange belt in Massha's size to go with the green pants.

  "Well, you know, the mall-rats were scared to death!" Massha declared, holding a scarf up to her ample chin and adding it to her heap of swag. "They're really harmless lit-' tie creatures, if you overlook their penchant for picking up anything that isn't nailed down. What with all those Djinns pouring into the store, and the guards chasing them everywhere, they thought they were about to die. Once we got them all surrounded I realized they were Rattila's pawns. With Chumley's help I kept the storekeepers from killing them while I negotiated a settlement. Negotiation," she repeated with a wink at me, "is something I learned from both my teachers."

  "Save the flattery," I growled. "Let's hear the rest."

  Massha winked at me. "Well, I got the Djinnellis to agree that if the mall-rats surrendered their cards, they would hire them to help shore up security all over The Mall. As lifelong shoplifters, they know where all the holes are, so to speak, and they exploit them. Now they can point them out to the owners. Their leader, the one they call Strewth, persuaded the other mall-rats to agree, as long as they didn't have to be official, er, rats. They had a reputation to protect."

  "Parvattani agreed," Chumley put in. "He told them they can work undercover. He even offered them their special undercover uniforms."

  I laughed, remembering the gaudy getups we had turned down. "Inspired!"

  "Indeed!" Chumley cheered. "I was very proud of Massha. I wish you could have seen how well she handled it all."

  "It was nothing," Massha bridled, shoving Chumley backward into his collection of goodies.

  The Troll, too, was surrounded by boxes of books, candy, grooming products, and anything in which he had ever expressed even the most passing interest. The patch of acid-singed fur on his chest had been expertly barbered and doctored by the local alchemist, all free of charge.

  All the frozen clerks and guards in the loading dock had been restored to life once Rattila's power was broken. The shopkeepers of The Mall were overwhelmed with gratitude, now that the ring of thieves had been broken and Rattila hauled away by a triumphant Eskina.

  The little investigator had left early that morning for Ratislava. She had persuaded Parvattani to go with her, not that he needed a lot of persuading. He was in love.

  "For a tour of the most beautiful dimension of them all," she had told me, giving me a kiss good-bye. "I have succeeded in my mission, thanks to you. I shall most likely get a promotion. And possibly, a lifelong friend." She was in love, too. It was kinda sweet.

  "Aahz, there you are!"

  Chloridia swept into The Volcano with a hand through Cire's elbow. She stretched out two free arms to embrace me.

  "I wanted to say farewell. I need to get back to Kallia. I have a documentary lined up to warn people about the trauma I have just gone through! The dangers of unbridled shopping!"

  "I'm going with her," Cire added, blowing out his mustache. "Now that The Mall has cleaned up my credit, I've got some free time, and the publicity wouldn't hurt. Thanks for everything, Aahz. Friends?"

  "Of course we're still friends," I tossed off, casually, shaking his outstretched flipper. "You're not half so bad as you used to be. You did good."

  Chloridia gave her tinkling laugh. "You should come, too. You are the great hero of the day! Let me interview you on the network. It'd be a tremendous boost for you."

  "No, thanks, sweetheart," I demurred. "All I want to do is go back to the thinking I was doing when all this started." A commotion near the front of the shop attracted my attention. "And there's the chair I'm going to do it in."

  Delivery Flibberites in pale brown uniforms guided a floating platform containing a huge form under a tarpaulin through the crowds of shoppers and lowered it at my feet.

  "Your new chair, sir," the lead deliveryman announced.

  I threw off the covering and circled it, cackling with delight. "Look at that! Mahogany wood, dark red leather upholstery, drink-holders, magikal entertainment system, full horizontal recline—every bell and whistle!" I threw myself into it. The cushions conformed to my body as if they had been made for it, which they had. "Aaaaah."

  "Stylish," Chumley commented.

  "Beautiful," Massha agreed.

  "Very lovely," Chloridia acknowledged, leaning over to kiss me. "Ta-ta, darling."

  "Later, Aahz," Cire added. He waved a hand, and the two of them vanished.

  "Mr. Aahz!" Woofle bustled over to me, a receipt in his hand. "You can't expect me to pay this amount! It's outrageous!"

  Moa sauntered in after his fellow administrator. "Pay it, Woofle." It sounded like that wasn't the first time he had said it.

  "But, Moa!" Woofle looked like he was about to explode in outrage.

  "Pay it. He earned it. Even more than that."

  I tilted my head to look up at him. "You're not going to bring up that crap about a reward again," I moaned.

  I had rejected their offer last night and again this morning. Every time I did it, it was more painful, but I had made myself a promise, and I was trying to stay serene about it. Besides, Chumley and Massha were watching me.

  "Why not?" Moa pressed.

  "Because I did what I came here to do: restore my partner's good name and make sure it couldn't happen to him again," I stated. "I did it. Now I'm going home."

  "But you saved all the other shoppers, too," Moa pointed out. "You're not going to stand on principle about that?"

  I vacillated. I had earned the reward according to the deal I myself had made, but it was the principle of the thing. Skeeve would have made me stick to it. After all, I had done this for him. It hurt, but I said it.

  "No. No reward."

  Massha and Chumley let out the breaths they had been holding. Moa's mouth quirked in a little smile.

  "I'll tell you what," he suggested, "I'll make you good with Marco Djinnelli, and we'll also pick up any other expenses you incurred on our behalf, including everything from Massha's Secret. You'll at least be even."

  "Even!" Woofle snorted, with a scornful gesture. "There must be ten thousand gold pieces' worth of goods here!"

  "All gifts," I pointed out.

  "And your service was worth every copper." Moa addressed me directl
y. "By the way, speaking of Massha's Secret, I just want you to know that several Deveels have all applied to open garter shops here, starting just exactly a week from when you opened yours. We were happy to oblige, since your merchandise was so popular."

  "Uh-huh." I had my own ideas of who had called in the tax bureau the first time, and I suspected Moa did, too, but we would never be able to prove it. "Any of 'em read their leases all the way through?" I asked innocently.

  "No," Moa replied, with a conspiratorial wink. "You'd think they would, knowledgeable businessdemons like that."

  "Good," I stated, with an answering grin. "I hope they all have all the luck they deserve."

  Moa waved a hand. "We'll deliver all of this to your residence, of course. Again, Aahz, thank you. Your M.Y.T.H., Inc. certainly does merit its reputation."

  He withdrew, taking the protesting Woofle with him.

  "I'm impressed, sugar," Massha remarked, propping her hip on the arm of my recliner. "And Skeeve would be proud of you. Are you going to tell him about it?"

  "Nah," I replied. "I don't want to interrupt his education. I'll drop Bunny a line and tell her the whole thing was a mistake."

  "One of these days"—Massha smiled—"someone's going to find out what a softy you are inside."

  "When that day comes I'll have to rip out his guts," I asserted. "That includes the two of you if you ever tell any- one I gave anyone a major freebie. I don't want time-wasters coming out of the woodwork like that."

  Chumley and Massha exchanged knowing glances.

  "Our lips are sealed," Chumley assured me.

  "Good," I responded, settling deeper into the upholstery. "After all, I've got a reputation to protect. That's the one thing you can't buy in any mall."