Nunzio shook his head. “But here I am worried about the loss of life. Somethin’ that can take that big a bite out of a solid stone pillar is a danger to the public. We gotta take it out.”
“I agree, too,” I exclaimed, but as usual, my comment came out “Gleep!”
Guido reached over and roughly touseled my ears. “You said it, fella,” he told me with a grin.
As I continued to sniff around the great hall of merchandise I caught a scent that was unfamiliar to me—unfamiliar and dangerous. It caused a frisson to race down the scales along my back. We dragons are not easily frightened. Nor was I now, not until I had the facts of the matter in sum before me. It appeared, therefore, that my sensation of fearfulness was caused by the scent itself. I judged that it contained a pheromone that, unlike the mating chemicals that caused attraction, provoked a feeling of fear and dread. I found I was curious, but I would proceed with caution. I dropped lower until my belly was virtually sweeping the spotless black-and-white tiles of the floor.
The two Mob enforcers noticed the change in my stance, and followed my lead in applying caution. Both of them drew from inside their coats the miniature crossbows that they carried. Deveel shoppers plying the aisles for soap flakes might have been taken aback had they encountered the two Klahds on the street, but within King-Mart, where marketing was an element of the shopping experience, such behavior was accepted as playacting. That would explain why the presence of bodies had aroused neither fear nor a visit from the Merchants’ Association.
Guido had been correct in his assessment of the source of the former king’s wealth. The huge hall, seemingly a tent on the outside, was built of wood. I smelled enchantment in its seams; that would serve to keep out intruders. Yet, according to accounts, something had penetrated the interior and had managed to conceal itself while committing several sallies against pelf and personnel alike.
Hair wash, board games, garden implements, handbags . . . there seemed no end to the types of goods that the former Shoalmirkers could produce. A sheaf of rakes with wooden handles leaned drunkenly in a tall crate that was studded with small boxes containing paper envelopes of flower seeds. Sacks of food lay beside shelves of toys; racks of garments ranged back out of sight in the right-hand third of the store. I thought the colors were vulgar, but as I had noted with regard to my pet, there is no accounting for taste.
A middle-aged Klahd with the pot-belly of prosperity wearing the king’s livery came striding toward us. He wore a determined smile, and maneuvered past the weapons to shake the two males’ hands.
“Mr. Guido and Mr. Nunzio!” he said. “Finding everything you want?”
“Not exactly,” Guido said, wryly. “I believe we are lookin’ for somethin’ in a large-jawed monster with a taste for gold and ambuscade. You got one of those?”
The Klahd’s smile became somewhat pained. “You jest, sirs, but it is not a matter for amusement. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, it is my men who are taking the brunt of these nighttime raids.”
“You will excuse, I hope, the effort at levity,” Guido said smoothly. “We take all our visits seriously, Lord Howadzer. Maybe you can tell us what’s changed since we was here last in your flagship location?”
Howadzer thought for a minute. “Not much. A few changes in personnel, perhaps. His majesty commanded that we rotate the staff so that everyone has a chance to take part in every job. He likes to see a variety of servants at each of the stores when he holds court. It is meant to make employees more flexible, but we are getting a number of complaints. You cannot make a craftsman into a salesman, nor a seamstress into a security guard, no matter how easy it seems to interchange one peasant for another. After all, we have to pay them now.”
“You hadda pay them before,” Guido pointed out.
“Not as much as we do today,” Howadzer said, obviously aggrieved. “They have been speaking with the neighbors.” The ultimate word was accompanied by a visible shudder. “Brr.”
“Don’t like Deveels?” Nunzio asked.
Howadzer frowned at him. “Well, you are from our world, too, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, we’re all Klahds.”
“Please! I don’t like that word! It was imposed upon us by people not like us, who do not live in our world! I am not happy about living in exile, especially in a place like this. I am only willing to put up with it if prosperity follows, but if I may say so in confidence, it is too long in coming for my taste.”
“No, I can see where that would be a problem,” Nunzio said, with a commendable degree of tact.
“There must be better places than this,” Howadzer said.
“You could leave,” Guido suggested.
The chancellor looked at him disdainfully. “And go where? With what? His majesty pays but poor wages compared with going concerns in the Bazaar. Besides,” he sighed, “I remain loyal to my fellow Klahds, if you must call us that. At least we do not have horns and tails, or green skin. Or consort with strange monsters.” He eyed me nervously. I sidled up and deliberately slurped his hand with my tongue.
From his reaction, you would have thought that I had cut off the limb with a dull knife. Howadzer grabbed a stack of embroidered tea towels off a shelf and swabbed himself vigorously until he had taken off not only the offending saliva, but the first layer of skin underneath as well.
I automatically decided that I did not care for this person, and it seemed that Guido and Nunzio shared my distaste. Howadzer realized he had lost his audience’s sympathy. He gave them a worried smile.
“Let me show you the scene of the crime,” he said.
We wended our way nearly to the rear of the showroom. As at the front of the store, Petherwick had commanded to be built a facility that must have been very much like the facility that he had left behind in Shoalmirk.
“Behold the Treasury,” Howadzer said, with a flourish of his flabby hand.
It was very impressive. Guido and Nunzio had seen it before, since they had made many visits to King-Mart, so they surveyed it with experienced eyes. I, on the other hand, had a good look.
Like many castle strong-rooms, the King-Mart Treasury had been created in the shape of a round tower, this one two stories high, bringing it within a few feet of the lofty ceiling. Instead of cage bars or heavy stones, the walls were constructed of clear crystalline blocks, giving the customers a slightly distorted view of the interior. We approached from the left side of the small building. Two guards in chainmail coifs over their tabards and holding polearms stood stiffly at the door, and two more flanked glittering heaps of treasure inside the crystal structure. I walked all the way around it, sniffing. The heady smell was present, though only near the entrance. There was no other way inside.
“We have four men on duty at all times,” Howadzer said. “On the nights when we were attacked, the guards told us that they heard loud noises coming from the aisles nearby. The men who survived said that they never saw the monster coming, and none of them can give us a description.”
“That’s convenient,” Guido said.
“What?”
“I mean, that’s terrible,” Guido corrected himself. “Petherwick said you had another robbery just last night?”
“King Petherwick to you, if you do not mind,” Howadzer said, haughtily. “Whether or not he retains his kingdom, he is royal to his marrow. “Yes, we did. I blame all this magik! Here is your puzzle. A strong-room that has never been breached, yet gold is stolen and men are dead. We seek a monster that goes abroad when no one can see it, yet leaves behind horrendous damage and dead bodies, and steals gold without breaking into the vault.”
“This stinks of inside job,” Guido said, looking the Chancellor square in the eye. “You gotta know that is what springs to the eye on first examination. Gold doesn’t walk away by itself. Someone who knows the works here is involved.”
Howadzer snorted. “You would say that. But talk is cheap. Gold is money. Earn yours.”
With that as his exit line, t
he Chancellor of the Exchequer, Shoalmirk in exile, turned on his heel and strode away.
“He is right about the value of money,” Nunzio said. “But people, no matter of what stripe or shape, will do very strange things for money. In my experience, few creatures without pockets see much use in gold.
“Excepting dragons, of course,” he added, reaching into his pocket for a strip of jerky for me. I accepted it, and forewent my usual slurp in gratitude for his recognition of my species’ affection for the imperishable and noble metal.
Dragons and gold have been inseparable in legend for millenia, but no one has ever asked us why we accumulate hoards of it in our own as well as other dimensions. We do not prize it for its purchasing value, since we do not buy that which we need. No, gold occupies a much simpler stratum in our culture. When dragonlets hatch out from their eggs, our mothers care for us while our fathers seek prey to feed us. During our earliest days, we can only consume soft meat, such as eggs and flesh pre-chewed for us by our doting parents (Yes, in spite of their fearsome reputation, dragons are as devoted to their offspring as any other intelligent being.) Soon, though, our baby teeth grow in. To hone them sharp enough to pierce skin, bone, and armor, we need substances to teethe upon that are resistive yet not hard enough to break juvenile dentition. Our mothers seek out and obtain soft metal for us to chew. Most minerals available are either toxic, like lead, or are prone to rust or corrosion, such as copper and steel. Therefore, the metal of choice is gold. A clutch of active youngsters can go through a large quantity until they are large enough to leave the nest. Even afterward, the sight or smell of the metal brings us back to times when we were happy and protected, so we amass a hoard of treasure to keep that feeling alive. We prize gold because it reminds us of Mother.
I sniffed through the bars of the door, to the discomfiture of the guards both inside and outside the vault. I could tell that the day’s takings had come from a multitude of dimensions. The pile of gold gleamed invitingly. I am afraid that the avid gleam in my eyes made the Klahds on duty very nervous. Quite a quantity of it smelled of dragon, meaning that at one time it had come from a hoard possessed by one of my kind. Since dragons never give away any of their amassed wealth, I only hoped that it had been obtained by stealth that did not result in harm or death to its possessor. To put it mildly, I would take against that. Still, the strange scent was not that of a dragon. It seemed that it should be familiar to me, but I just could not place it.
“Sirs, sirs!” A squeaky chorus of voices came from above. I looked up to see a small flight of Shutterbugs sail out of the air and land on the colorful display of story-books beside the Treasury.
“There you are,” Guido said, greeting the black and silver insects. These were denizens of Nikkonia. Their especial talent was the ability to capture an image on the sensitive film that lined their wings. A trained magician could transfer these images to larger pieces of parchment. “How come you didn’t report in when I got here, Koda?”
Koda, the largest of the Shutterbugs, rubbed at his nose with the tip of his foreleg. “That Klahd is distrustful of us, sirs. He swats at us.”
“Yeah, he’s a regular xenophobe,” Guido said. “I already caught that. Anything new to report?”
Koda turned to his number. They each spread out one wing, and small scales sifted down onto the bookshelf. “Nothing of much helpfulness, good sirs. The sight lines are not good, and the light levels are low. On the night of the last attack, we saw nothing at all, though we have taken many images, as you see. We wish to please Don Bruce!”
“You’re good employees,” Nunzio said, soothingly, to the agitated Shutterbug. “Just keep on doing the good work you’ve been doing.” He and Guido picked up the small, translucent cells and held them up to the light. “I don’t get it. What kind of monster have you ever heard of that can’t be seen or smelled or heard, but can crunch up a stone pillar?”
“I dunno,” Guido said. “One thing I learned, once we started workin’ with the Boss, and here I am not speakin’ of Don Bruce, is that there’s way more out there than either of us will ever find out in our lifetimes. This, though, is not one of those things. We need to figure this out, and pronto!”
I turned back for one more scent of gold, but I felt a tug at my leash.
“C’mon, Gleep, boy,” Nunzio said. “We will stake out this place tonight. In the meantime, I know a little place that does wyvern parmigiana like Mama used to make.”
At precisely the evening hour of nine, gargoyle mouths attached to pillars and sconces around the vast shop all emitted the following announcement at once.
“Attention, please, guests of his royal majesty, King Petherwick. Thy visit, alas, draws to a close. Within five minutes the doors will be locked, and for security’s sake, thou must be on the other side of it. Pray carry the goods thee wishes to purchase to any of our willing servants at the desks near the front, and they will count up thy expenditure for today. We wish to tender to thee our most sincere thanks that thou have visited King-Mart, and prithee have a nice day.”
Guido put down the ceramic Kobold-shaped nightlight that he had been examining at the head of aisle 2.
“Anything, Gleep?” he asked.
The two enforcers, knowing the keenness of my sense of smell, had instructed me to sniff the inside and outside of the Treasury, and to compare the scents I found there with those of any of the customers. Nunzio’s assessment was that the criminal would be unable to resist returning to the scene of the crime.
“Especially with all that nice gold piling up,” he said.
“Too temptin’,” Guido agreed. “How about it, little fellah?”
“Gleep,” I said, ruefully.
I had just finished escaping for the eighth time from a family of Deveels who had been shopping for a birthday present for their daughter, a four-year-old future diva who screamed out her displeasure at anything offered to her by her increasingly desperate parents. She had decided upon first entering the store and spotting me that I would be the ideal present, and nothing she had been shown in the interim, a very long forty-five minutes, had dissuaded her. At the moment, she was hanging over her father’s shoulder, crying and pointing at me, as he paid for an expensive doll and a lace-trimmed dress. I was forced to assume the Deveels’ innocence on two counts. First, that they bore no scent that I could associate with the ravaged Treasury, and second, that the parents, unless they were geniuses at dissimulation and advanced multitasking, could not possibly have been “staking out the joint,” as Guido put it, while they were trying to control their brood. I examined once again the area surrounding the Treasury and the aisles leading up to it. Nothing seemed out of place. I was perplexed.
The little Deveel and her family were at last ushered out and the door locked behind them by exhausted-looking guards. A couple of young women with brass cones on poles snuffed out three out of every four sconces. A team of sweepers in cross-gartered trews and floppy leather shoes swabbed the floor and emptied all of the wastepaper baskets. A matched team of four men in mail and tabards marched in formation around the Chancellor of the Exchequer as he gathered up the day’s take from each of the sales desks and shut them into a small strongbox. Within half an hour, an armed team of guards arrived, escorting a wagon with a locked chest upon it, the proceeds from the other thirteen King-Marts spread out across the Bazaar. Howadzer counted up the proceeds and escorted it to the cage at the rear of the store.
We followed. In the gloom, the Treasury stood out like a beacon. The crystal walls had their own sconces, unextinguished, which caused the whole thing to glow brightly. The gold inside glittered in the flickering torchlight.
The lead escort came to the barred door of the Treasury and stamped his left foot twice.
“Who goes there?” asked the first guard.
“Me, Willis the Cobbler.”
“No, you’re not a cobbler tonight,” Howadzer said, impatiently. “You are a guard!” He shook his head. “Try again.”
>
The sentry at the door of the Treasury scratched his head. “Er, all right. Who goes there?”
This time the erstwhile cobbler rose to the occasion.
“Willis the Guard! And some friends. Marit, from the sheep farm, only he’s a guard tonight, too. Braddock from the Fishermen’s Guild, and Corrie the Woodworker. He’s my neighbor, and a dab hand with a chisel, let me tell you.” At an exasperated “ahem!” from Howadzer, he added, “They’re guards, too.”
“Well, pass, Willis, Marit, and you other two, and you, my lord,” added the sentry. “He sort of forgot to mention you, but he’ll get it next time, won’t you, Willis?”
“Sure, sure. Sorry, my lord.”
“Not one of ’em was ever in uniform, or I’ll eat my hat,” Nunzio whispered to his cousin.
“Your hat is safe,” Guido whispered back. “While you were runnin’ a check through the aisles a little while ago, I was readin’ the employee roster, such as it is. To tell you the truth, it consists mostly of a list of names, professions, and villages, plus some comments penciled in on the side. Not real systematic, and it don’t take into account strengths and weaknesses, not like what we keep in the Mob. These are all what you might call the little people who make everything possible.”
We watched as the newcomers replaced the daytime guards, who stamped their left feet in unison, and marched away. The four night guards took up their posts as Howadzer upended the little chest and spilled coins on top of the pile already there.
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to leave the money in the boxes?” Guido asked the chancellor.
Myth-Told Tales Page 16