"Don't let them touch me! Roadies! Help!"
"Help!" Kelsa shouted. "These beasts have bad karma!"
I grabbed up a handy bowl and heaved it. It hit the lead guard on the Buirnie side smack in the face. He dropped like a stone. With expressions that said that the following action was against their better judgment, a dozen more lowered their spears and charged at me.
"What do you have that they don't like?" I asked Asti.
"I've barely recovered from feeding the five thousand!" she protested.
"Save the blather!"
"Oh, very well!"
A blue liquid bubbled out of her bowl and dribbled onto the floor. It smelled like industrial-grade soap. I brandished it at the charging guards. The leaders windmilled to a stop, and fell back on the spears of their comrades. I sloshed more of the blue stuff toward them. They shrieked and ran in the opposite direction.
"Thanks!" Tananda said, rubbing her shoulders. "My goodness, I haven't had to deal with so many aggressive males since Frat Night in Imper."
"Slumming again?" I said dryly. She winked. "What was that stuff?" I asked Asti.
"Commercial dessicant," Asti said, as the liquid immediately dried to a crust on the floor. "These creatures need their skins to stay very moist, or it cracks."
I grinned. "No wonder they don't appreciate the beauty of scales like mine."
"NOBODY appreciates beauty like yours except those who are totally blind!"
Tanda went on guard.
"Look out!"
The warning was unnecessary. I knew that at least eight of the guards were within a few feet of me.
I spun, brandishing Asti.
"You guys really have to oil your armor if you want to sneak up on someone," I suggested, sloshing them with the contents of Asti's bowl. They batted at the stuff with both hands, then looked at their hands in horror. The webs between their fingers shrank noticeably.
"Agh! Dry skin! Dry skin!"
They backed away from me. I followed, still flinging sludge. They fled, calling for help. I laughed at them and shouldered aside the curtain leading to the courtyard.
My eyes widened. The entire square was full of soldiers. At the rear was a gigantic carriage drawn by four matched newts. In it, a scrawny little guy wearing a rusty red wig bigger than his whole body.
"What is wrong with you?" the wizened little guy yelled at the soldiers. "Take them! Bring me the treasures!"
Hylida dropped to her knees. Most of her flock followed suit. "That's the Majaranarana!"
"Yield to me!" he shrieked, whipping his newts until they charged us. "I want the gold!"
The soldiers shouted. "For the Majaranarana!"
Buirnie outshouted them. The Fife let out a deafening trill that turned my ears inside out. The noise set the newts bucking and tossing their heads. Riders were thrown off their backs, including the Majaranarana, whose carriage flipped wheels-up as the four beasts tried to flee in several directions at once. The riders tried to grab their mounts, but the panicked lizards fled out of the square.
Klik, the spotlight, flew up out of reach and shone a blinding beam down on his boss, as Zildie started beating a martial rhythm. Buirnie blasted out a war song.
I kept spattering soldiers with Asti's special brew. Tananda flitted from guard, deftly kicking the spears out of their hands or knocking them flying with a stewpot on a chain she had picked up from Hylida's kitchen.
Our defiance of the tax authority had awoken something in the Toadies of the Abbey. They were fighting back, to the astonishment of the soldiers, who obviously were used to bullying them whenever they felt like it. The armored males defended themselves at bay or cowered with their hands over their heads as gangs of the neighborhood poor battered at them with pots, pans, rocks, unripe fruit, spoiled food and garbage. The soldiers might have been better armed, but they were vastly outnumbered. It looked like a cross between a soccer riot and the great pie fight. Poor Hylida stood huddled against the front wall of her mission, shouting at people to calm down and stop fighting. It was no use. Her followers were fed up with their treatment, and were taking probably their one and only opportunity in their lives to fight back. I tried to get to her, but I spotted Calypsa in the middle of a ring of soldiers who were still trying to follow their master's orders and seize the Hoard. She looked terrified. I started throwing guards out of my way to get to her.
"Draw me!" Ersatz bellowed at her. "Come on, lass! Defend yourself! Draw me!"
Almost in a trance, Calypsa dragged the brand over her head. "Now what?"
"Wield me, lass!" he exclaimed. "I will guide you! Your dancer's wiles are better than a trained fencer's. Forward with right foot! Bring me around, cut upward! Slash right! Good, lass!" he called out, as the lead guard's head went bounding across the floor. "Quick, two-step to the right, plunge me behind your back! No, POINT first. Point first!"
"Ugggh!"
Calypsa turned gracefully on the tip of one toe and found herself staring at the biggest of the thugs, arms crossed over a belly-wound that I could tell was fatal.
"She doesn't need you," Asti said.
Ersatz shouted orders, and Calypsa followed them. She swung and danced, and the long, blue blade flashed in the sun like a pinwheel. To my surprise, the guards began to fall back.
"You're right," I said. "I'll be dipped in…"
"Help, aid, assistance!" Payge's soft voice suddenly exclaimed, from my other side.
I felt something tugging at the straps of the shoulder bag. I tugged back, and found myself looking into the beady eyes of the Majaranarana.
"Give that to me, or die," he said, showing his rows of jagged little teeth. At his back were thirty soldiers, most of them looking pretty beaten up. Still, I couldn't take on thirty of them. Very slowly, I extended the book bag to him.
"That's better," the scrawny ruler said, flipping open the top and fondling Payge's spine. Did I imagine it, or did the Book shudder? "Horunkus, give him the demand."
The captain cleared his throat importantly and raised his electronic tablet. "You underquoted the value of the goods which you brought into the Imperial city of Sri Port, and must pay five thousand gold coins per item that you undervalued."
"Five tho — Not a chance!" I snarled.
Horunkus grinned evilly. "Furthermore, there is a penalty of seven hundred gold coins per item for lying to officials. Or, if you cannot produce the cash," he leered at me over the keypad, "you can surrender said goods into the hands of the tax authority of the Majaranarana Taricho. Immediately." With a flourish, he tore off the length of plastic tape and handed it to me. The soldiers loomed closer in anticipation. "You want gold?" I asked. "I'll give you gold."
I grinned at the Toady, then took the Purse out of my belt and very deliberately stuck the ticket he had given me in Chin-Hwah's mouth.
The Purse protested.
"No, don't you dare, you Perv — BLEAAAAAAGHH!"
A fountain of coins spurted up out of the pouch sitting on my palm. The Majaranarana's eyes widened, and he threw himself at the growing river of coins. Horunkus, less of a fool than his master, made a grab for the Purse itself. I slugged him with a kidney punch. He turned, weakly, torn between the lust for revenge or greed. Greed won. He started trying to catch coins as they fell from the sky. The plume of glittering gold rose higher. Soldiers dropped their weapons and joined in the coin-catch. I turned and shielded my head so I didn't get a faceful of hard little disks. The roar of the fountain grew louder and louder.
After what seemed like an hour, the deafening rain of coins came to a halt.
"I feel unwell," Chin-Hwag announced weakly.
I looked around. The square had fallen silent. I couldn't see the Majaranarana or any of his men anywhere. Calypsa stood over a couple of bodies, covered with blood. Ersatz was clutched in both of her hands. I grabbed her elbow and hauled her into the doorway of the mission. She looked dazed.
"I defeated two guards!" Calypsa said, over and over again. Tananda
jumped down from a rooftop and piled in after us.
"Nice work, too," Tanda said, wiping the Walt girl's face with a rag. "None of this blood is yours. You were terrific! I'd never have dreamed you have never held a sword before."
"I never lose," Ersatz said, with no attempt at modesty, as Tananda rubbed him down and restored him to the scabbard on the unprotesting Walt's back. "But the lass has innate talent. Had she been trained since birth there'd be no army could stand against her, outnumbered or no. Ah, once we can begin training you, you will be legendary. Let us continue against the foe. They shall not take us by force!"
"Forget it," I interrupted them. I stood aside and held open the curtain so they could see. "It's over."
Chin-Hwag's gold eruption had buried half the square. Hylida's parishioners stood flattened against the crumbling walls of the surrounding buildings. Except for our breathing, the whole square was quiet as a tomb.
I stared at the heap of coins, piled higher than my head. I had never seen so much money in all my life. No king had a treasury like that. It was astonishing. It was unreal.
"That," I said hoarsely, "is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life."
Everyone gazed at it, their shoulders heaving, eyes gleaming.
"Now, let us behave with moderation," Hylida said, addressing her flock with her hands raised. "Please, show restraint…"
The townsfolk stared at the pile of gold for perhaps three seconds, then they dove at it, grabbing coins off the heap, stuffing them into their pockets, purses, bras, hats, whatever would hold anything, and making off with it before anyone stopped them. Not that there was anyone to stop them at the moment. The guards were all gone.
The Abbess shook her head sadly. "After all my work. The Majaranarana's going to be angry."
"Afraid not," I said. I pointed. The swiftly-diminishing pile of coins in the center had melted away to the point where the bodies buried underneath it were visible. Hylida came to see. She gasped.
"The Majaranarana! We…we killed him!"
A couple of the Toadies gawked up at her.
"She's the one! She is responsible!"
The crowd surged around her, shouting and waving their arms. A few of the guards, who had sneaked back into the square to collect some of the gold and looked shocked to see their monarch flattened on the ground, drew their swords and homed in on the little abbess.
"Save her," Calypsa begged, as I pulled back toward the shelter of the mission.
"It'll should all right," Chin-Hwag said. "This has been coining for a long time. The city could descend into anarchy, but it has been trending that way for a long while. There might be a few guilty consciences, but Hylida is innocent. They shouldn't harm her. I am fairly certain." The Purse sounded uncertain.
"Hmmm." I pushed my way into the middle of the crowd and held Hylida's hand up over her head like a championship boxer.
"She's the one! She caused the miracle! She brought the shower of gold to punish the greedy despot!"
"Huh?"
I scooped up the hairpiece that had fallen off the deceased monarch, and plunked it on the head of the confused Sister Hylida. "What you need is the hair of the frog that fit you," I said. I turned to the crowd. "She freed you from the tyrant!"
The Toadies swarmed forward, chanting. At the sight of the wig on her head, even the guards joined in the jubilation.
"Hylida saved us from the tyrant! Hy-li-da! Hy-li-da! She saved us from poverty. Hy-li-da! Hy-li-da!"
The little Abbess shouted protests, but the crowd surged in around us. They hoisted her to their shoulders and marched out of the square, still chanting. I watched them go.
"Let's get out of here," I said to the others.
"Where?" Tananda asked.
"Anywhere but here. I need a good night's sleep, and I won't get it if any of them decides they want us in on the coronation ceremony, or whatever they're going to do once they reach the palace."
"But what about poor Hylida!" Calypsa said. "They will tear her apart."
"No, kid," I said. "She's just become a legendary hero. Unless you want to be one, too, minus one grandfather, we've got to move. The crowd looks ready for a celebration that will last a week, minimum."
"Are you sure?"
"I am," Kelsa and the book said at once.
"Look here," Kelsa and the book said at the same time. They glared at each other.
"They're carrying her, and the crowds are enormous, and you can't believe…!"
"The fated day has come to pass…!"
"One of you tell it," I said. "Payge, talk."
"I don't talk, I narrate," Payge said sourly. "Turn to page 836, and see. I have just felt an illumination sprout. I think it will tell you all you need to know."
I hauled the heavy cover over and thumbed through the heavily-illustrated pages until I found the indicated folio. On a page that began with an ornate capital I, for "In the heretofore blighted city of Sri Port, the reign of the tyrant Majaranarana Taricho came to pass, in the sacred enclosure of the mission of the Banana God Frojti. Grave was the suffering of the people of Toa, eased only by the Lady High Lida, whose kindness was as fragrant as the flowers."
"You need an editor," I groaned.
"No commentary, please," Payge said. "I record the vernacular."
I continued reading. "The Majaranarana threatened the Lady High Lida with imprisonment and torture to endure seven years if she did not give him treasure. Three strangers appeared from nowhere to her aid. A mighty battle was fought between the two sides. At the end of this battle, the Majaranarana was buried in a shower of gold. The holy mother superior High Lida flew overhead to reassure the masses that all would be well. She was acclaimed ruler of the region, and reigned for forty years in peace with her people and her neighbors."
"And she lived happily ever after," Calypsa said, with a happy sigh. "I am glad."
"There they are!" a voice cried. "The holy ones who helped our Hylida defeat the tyrant!"
A crowd of Toadies came running back into the square, beaming. They held dozens of flower garlands, and looked as though they intended to festoon us thoroughly. Tananda threw her arms around me. I grabbed Calypsa by the shoulder and thumbed the stud on the D-hopper.
Chapter 21
"WHERE ARE WE?" Calypsa asked, looking around at the foul-smelling room. "Who are they?" She asked, pointing at the reptilian bodies on the floor. "Are they all right? What are we doing here?"
"Bonhomme," I replied, curtly. "Bonhomies. Yes. Drunk is just about their natural state of being. They're friendly, and this is a safe place to get some rest and work out what we're doing next. Any other questions on this test?"
She recoiled slightly then held her chin up proudly. "That is all I require to know for the moment, thank you."
"Good," I said.
"I have a bone to pick with you, Pervert," Chin-Hwag said. "What gave you the idea to thrust the plastic ticket down my throat?"
"I've been around a while," I said modestly. "There are a lot of dimensions that use a new gizmo that originated in Zoorik," I said, modestly. "You stick a plastic card in this hole in the wall, and it spews out cash. It just made sense."
"This is quite modern?" Chin-Hwag asked.
"Pretty much."
"Hum. Then someone in the past must have seen me suffering my malady. You must promise me not to do that again!"
"If you cough up — excuse the expression — what the Hoard owes me, then I won't have to."
"I have already said I will make good on my fellow Hoarder's debt," Chin-Hwag said, her embroidery contracting into a sour expression.
"The overthrow of that miserable Toady might well have happened years before, if you had acted in a more assertive fashion," Ersatz said critically. "Why didn't you?"
"You question me?" Chin-Hwag said, slitting her eyes in annoyance. But she answered in a civil fashion. "She did not want me to. I have been trying years to persuade her that she was in a position to take over and ru
le as a benevolent queen. It was your precipitate arrival, and your sickening behavior."
"I am not the one who made you suck plastic," Ersatz said.
"You told him my weakness!"
"You told me yourself," I snapped. "Some of us mortals are capable of putting two and two together, you know."
"So they keep telling me," Chin-Hwag said, with a weary sigh. "Sums are only one of the things that all of you keep getting wrong."
"Now, there's about three dozen rooms in this place. Find one that's empty and get a little shut-eye. The food's mostly processed carbohydrates, but there's a lot of it, and no one will mind if you help yourself. The booze is community property, but I paid for plenty of it when I was here last."
"But, Aahz, we cannot rest now!" Calypsa said. "With Chin-Hwag, we lack only one of the great treasures."
"Aren't you tired?" Tananda asked her, in a soothing voice. She wrapped an arm around the girl's shoulders. "Tell her, Ersatz. A warrior is only as good as her preparation."
"Indeed, yes, wench," the Sword said. "Come, let us find a place where you may settle down and clean my blade, and I shall tell you the story of the battle of Corepos."
"And I will give you a potion in case that boring old saga doesn't manage to put you to sleep," Asti promised.
"But there's a great party going on here!" Buirnie exclaimed.
"Knock yourself out," I said. "I'm going to bed."
A warm presence wrapped itself around me and intruded itself into my dreams.
"Aahz," a soft voice said.
"Mmph."
"Aahz. Get up. You'll want to get in this."
"Too tired," I said. "Maybe later, sweetheart." Fingers played with my left ear. I smiled. The fingers took a firmer hold, then twisted firmly. I sat bolt upright, outraged. "What's going on here?"
Tananda sat up, looking pleased. "There, I said you weren't too hung over to wake up."
"Said who?"
"Come on. I think Calypsa's getting confused."
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