He knew we were following him, too. He turned and launched another powerball in our direction. I threw myself to the left behind the nearest obstruction, a cotton-candy stand. The cones of fluff blackened, smouldered, and went up like torches.
"I'm not hurt," I shouted, as much for my allies as for Rattila. "Is that all you've got, you pitiful little vermin?"
In answer, a cannonade of small embers followed. I avoided almost all of them. One struck my arm like a foul ball. I batted out my burning sleeve and kept running.
"You are under arrest," Eskina shrieked. "Felony theft, conspiracy, receiving stolen goods, larceny, criminal damage to property, grievous bodily harm, kidnapping, fleeing and eluding—"
Another bolt roared toward us, this time aimed at her. She had been expecting it, though, and flattened herself behind an empty musician stand. The firebolt slammed into a wall, leaving a singe mark the size of a medicine ball.
"Is that the thief?" the gray-spotted Shire horse demanded, as we rolled past the oat shop.
"The master thief!" I shouted back.
"My friends and I will help!" he whinnied. He threw back his head and let out a long neigh. Shopkeepers and clerks poured out into the corridor. What guards had not already converged on The Volcano joined the throng.
"No, don't get in our way!" I yelled. All I needed was for innocent civilians to get hurt by this maniac. The shopkeepers paid no attention, falling in around us. Those who could fly caught up with Rattila, only to get pelted with magikal fire. A Phoenix was burned badly enough to burst into a pillar of flames. By the time I passed him he was reduced to a heap of ashes, out of which peeked the curved shell of the new egg.
Others weren't so lucky. Imps, Gnomes, Deveels, and Djinnies who weren't quick enough to dodge or magikally avert Rattila's attacks suffered burns and scorches. The corridor was getting crowded again.
"He's only got one idea," I hissed to Cire when he swooped low enough for me to hear. "Can you counteract those fireballs?"
"Think so," the Walroid stated. "I can extinguish them when I see them coming."
I groaned. "So why weren't you?"
"Oh, come on, Aahz! It's been a long time since I saw action like this." In training or not, once Cire had the idea, he made good use of technique. Rattila snapped out missiles at the growing crowd as we followed him around corners, up ramps, and down stairs. Cire sailed along at a comfortable altitude, snuffing out the crackling spheres like birthday candles.
"Where is he going?" Eskina demanded. We passed through the center court of The Mall.
"The loading dock," I guessed. "That's where the other rat went to ground."
"I can beat him there," offered one of the Shire horses. Risking Rattila's attacks, she galloped past him.
"We must stop her," Eskina warned.
"We can't catch her," I retorted. "Besides, there's nothing there but garbage, unless it's the back way into the Rat Hole."
I couldn't have been more wrong.
We banged through the swinging metal doors into the unadorned space where the shop owners received their deliveries and dropped off their refuse. I spotted the Shire horse and the other clerks who had run on ahead of us. They were all standing stock-still, staring at a pair of figures at the end of the long chamber.
The one on the right was Chloridia. She had come back!
Just in time I recognized the shadow thrown up on the wall of the figure on the left. Rattila had turned into a basilisk! The still figures had been turned to stone statues.
"Don't look!" I warned Eskina and Cire, as they stumbled to a halt behind me. I pulled them down behind a crate. I couldn't warn the others, who piled into the room, took one glance at the sinuous figure wavering back and forth, and froze in place with surprised looks on their faces.
"Chlory!" I shouted. "It's me, Aahz! That's Rattila! Stop him!"
I peeked around the corner to see if she heard me. She heard me, all right: a bolt of bright green light shot toward me. I ducked back as the magik came close enough to sizzle a few of the scales on my cheek. I glanced again. Chloridia marched toward us, a blank look in her eyes.
"Rattila has her in his power," Eskina hissed.
"Well, she's not as strong as I am," Cire insisted. He stood up and flung a double flipperful of golden light in her direction.
The four-eyed enchantress chanted a brief phrase, and the light dissipated. She leveled her hands at us, and the packing crate blew into pieces. Rubber Kewpie dolls went flying in every direction. We backed off. Chloridia advanced on us, with Rattila behind her, cackling.
"Take that!" Cire announced. A pit opened up at Chloridia's feet. She simply stepped out onto the empty air. "Uh-oh. Run."
We ran.
"Quick," Cire demanded, as the swinging doors swished shut behind us. "What are her weaknesses? What can I exploit?"
"Nothing," I spat out, after searching my memory. "She's a consummate professional. She teaches magik at the Kallian academy in the off-season from her daily show."
"Fishguts!" Cire swore.
We headed into the nearly empty midway. Behind us the basilisk's scaled belly hissed on the tiled floor. I couldn't hear Chloridia's footsteps at all.
That was because she had taken to the air. As we rounded the corner into the food court, she alighted in front of us, her four purple eyes as blank as poker chips.
"Chlory, snap out of it!" I ordered. "You're under a spell! Listen to me!"
A sneer twisted her lovely face as she waved an arm. The entire display of pies in a pastry-shop window came flying at us.
I dove for cover behind a caramel-corn wagon, pursued by a plank of lemon meringue pies. They all splatted harm- lessly on the glass, showering me with blobs of filling. Cire yelped as a pot of soup dumped itself on his head.
"Ugh! I hate licorice!" Eskina wrestled with strands of black and red looping around her like whips. They knotted themselves, pinioning her arms to her body. She attacked them with her sharp little teeth.
"Chlory, it's mind control!" I called. "Think! I know you're in there somewhere!"
Chloridia's arms waved again, and more display windows burst outward, their contents flying to do her bidding.
"Aahz, look out!" Cire shouted.
He dove toward me just as a roasted chicken on a skewer arrowed toward my heart. He jumped in the way. The skewer missed me, but it went partly through Cire's arm. I dragged him into the doorway of the chicken shop and yanked it out.
"Ow!" Cire protested. "That hurt as much coming out as going in."
"Sorry," I offered. "I never knew you'd take a pullet for me."
Cire's face screwed up in a pained grin. "What are friends for?"
The blinding glare of a warming light gave me an idea. I picked up the nearest heavy object, a rolling pin used for making the shop's celebrated pot pies, and put it in Cire's good hand.
"Take this. When you get the chance, use it!"
"For what?"
"Hey, Chlory!" I called, standing up. The blank eyes turned toward me, and the hand flew up to throw another spell. "The media is here! They want to interview you!" I turned the light so it shone in her face. "Look! The cameras are rolling! Come over here for your close-up!"
Somewhere, deep in the controlled mind of the enchantress, the need to seek publicity overrode Rattila's spell. She hesitated, then tottered toward me.
"That's it," I crooned. "Come on. The reporters all want to talk to you. Come right in—" Clunk!
Cire whacked her across the back of the head with his rolling pin. She sagged bonelessly to the ground.
"She's out for the count for the time being," I announced. "Now, for Rattila."
I stepped out into the hallway, just in time to see the basilisk's tail disappear around the next corner.
"He is running away! He is cowardly without his minion!" Eskina crowed, taking off after the fleeing snake.
"Well done, Cire," I remarked, grudgingly.
The Walroid smirked, clutching hi
s wounded arm.
"So you finally forgive me for all those other times when things didn't exactly go right?" Cire asked.
"When you screwed up," I corrected him. "It's a start. Now we've got to fix your arm and snap Chlory out of her trance. Sibone!"
"I am here, darling Aahz," came the sultry voice. Sibone undulated to me and wound a couple of arms around me, while one sinuous arm extended to charm golden bubbles out of thin air. When the heady aroma of fresh coffee began to percolate down to us, Chloridia's four purple eyes fluttered open. She reached for the nearest iridescent sphere. It turned into a substantial pottery mug full of ink black liquid.
"Oooh, my head!" she moaned.
"I will take care of them," Sibone assured me, turning her lidless eyes my way. "Go!"
I took off in the direction of Eskina's energetic baying.
The sounds of battle echoed from the high ceiling when I got to Atrium K. Eskina ducked and wove between the examples of statuary that adorned this particular intersection, all the time trying to get closer to her quarry. He had changed form again. I spotted him as he dove behind a granite plinth holding the image of a gryphon rampant. He was now a Deveel, but his ears still retained the double point of a Flibberite. Something was going wrong with his magik!
"Hey, ratface!" I shouted. "I'm over here!"
Rattila turned my way and threw a chunk of energy at me. I flattened myself on the floor as it went sizzling overhead. Not sizzling, really, but fizzing. I rolled over in time to see the bolt hit a bar table at a nearby inn. It made St. Elmo's fire dance in the ribs of the umbrella, but after that it dissipated harmlessly. I thought it looked more like static electricity than lightning.
He had lost his connection to the lines of force! We had him now!
Rattila saw me get to my feet with a broad grin on my face. He must have known he was history now. Even his disguise slipped. No longer a Deveel, Dragonet, or Djinn, he was reduced once more to being a plain old black rat. Fear huge in his red eyes, he eluded Eskina one more time and started running down the hall.
"He's wearing out," I panted to Eskina, as we jogged after him.
"He must not be carrying the device," Eskina pointed out. "He must seek it again, or the new power will desert him. If he succeeds in getting to it again, he will become as powerful as he was before."
Tired as I was, that news galvanized me. I started pumping my arms to make my legs move faster. I wished Cire would catch up with us again. We could certainly use his flying ability.
"To The Volcano!" I puffed.
TWENTY-SEVEN
When we reached The Volcano it looked markedly different than it had only minutes before. All the fighting had ceased. The Djinnies and the mall-rats seemed to have been cooperating to put the merchandise back on the shelves, but now they all stood, gawking, in the direction of the entrance to the Rat Hole. Massha floated on the air toward the back of the store.
"He went thataway, Big Spender!" she called, as I thundered down the orange aisle.
"He seeks the device," Eskina explained. Massha swooped down to join us.
"He doesn't have it?" she asked, surprised.
"He's running out of gas," I stated. "We can knock him out once and for all if we can get to the device ahead of him."
"But where is it?" Massha inquired.
"Under the throne," Chumley exclaimed, an enlightened expression on his face. "He calls it the Master Card. I saw him stow it there after he had used it." The glowing aisle under my feet felt hot, as if the volcano under the floor sensed the turmoil going on above it.
We hammered down the ramp into the Rat Hole.
"One Card to Rule The Mall, One Card to Charge it..." Rattila had reached the mound ahead of us. Chanting, he dug his paw into the rotting trash and came up with a gleaming rectangle of gold. Suddenly, the black rat was replaced by a glowing golden wyvern. It spat a stream of acid at us. Chumley caught a whole load in the chest. Howling in pain, he beat at the spreading blob of blackness in the middle of his purple fur. Massha flew to his aid.
Rattila let go with another gob. It splashed at my feet, burning a few holes in my pants hems.
I was too furious to care. This whole adventure started with me getting fireballs thrown in my general direction. This was the being to blame for my partner's damaged reputation, for the trouble we'd all been through. I wasn't about to let him get away again, no matter how much punishment I had to take to get to him. I stepped over the acid and advanced on him.
Massha was ready with a few tricks of her own. Like trying to see one tree in a thick forest, I had never noticed one particular piece of jewelry or another in her formidable ensemble. The solid gold lemon was new to me.
"Here comes the spoiler," she called. She waved it, and the spurting acid turned into huge potted plants, which landed with a thud on the cluttered floor. I laughed. Rattila snarled and changed shape. I growled now; he had transformed himself into the attractive Pervect I had first seen in Rimbaldi's shop.
Evidently the original had had a purseful of heavy-duty hardware. Rattila dipped into the handbag and came up with a fully automatic repeating crossbow. We all dove for cover as the armor-piercing rounds sprayed out.
I took advantage of the muzzle flash blinding my adversary to start crawling, commando fashion, to my left. Once his sight cleared Rattila was looking where I had been, not where I was. He let the enchantress's image drop. I was glad; the mangy SOB didn't deserve to wear a Pervect face.
I figured two or three or four could play at the identity-theft game.
"Massha," I hissed, "disguise me as him. All of us!"
"One special coming up!" Massha announced.
I couldn't see the change in myself, but suddenly there was a big black rat hovering in midair, one lifting an end table to use as a missile, and another one sneaking up behind Rattila.
Eskina had entered the field of battle now. She had a pair of handcuffs dangling from one hand as she crawled up the mound. I stood up, making as much noise as I could. Rattila stared at me, then at Chumley and Massha. He looked shocked and angry; then he grinned, showing all his teeth.
"So, you like my face," he smirked. "Well, I like yours, too!" Beginning the interminable chant again, he changed into the image of Massha. "Don't I look pretty? An oversized Jahk with garish taste in clothes?"
"Not everyone looks good in basic black, you scum," Massha retorted furiously, clasping her hands together.
Rattila's face contorted as he started to choke. Abruptly he recovered, and an evil grin spread across his face. "How do you like turnabout, Jahk?" He closed his/her hands, and the floating rat that was Massha began to cough, clutching her throat. "And your pathetic little toys—those aren't real power!" Her necklaces and bracelets began to shatter. The fragments rained down. "Yes, that one, too!" Her flying belt disappeared. She thumped to the ground.
Chumley heaved the end table at him. He dodged it. I flung myself forward. Eskina scrambled the rest of the way up to the peak of the mound.
Rattila heard the jingle, and spun. Massha stopped coughing. Now Eskina was suffocating. Her handcuffs went flying. I closed the rest of the distance.
Rattila couldn't keep his mind on more than one thing at a time. I put him in a judo hold and tripped him over on his back. As soon as I grabbed him, Eskina fell down, gasping for breath. Chumley joined us, holding on to the figure's kicking feet.
"Some world-ruler you are," I scoffed in Rattila's face. "You lose focus too easily. I bet all your spells fall apart like that." I reached for the gold card.
Roaring out his rhyme, Rattila squirmed out of my grasp in the shape of a gigantic serpent. Chumley reached around with both arms and locked my arms in the corners of the serpent's jaw so he couldn't sink his fangs into anyone. I spotted the Master Card on a tiny chain around the snake's neck, and started to shinny up the writhing, muscular length toward it.
"Mmmph mmmph mmm mmm mmm mmmph, mmmmph mmm mmm mmm mmph," Rattila-the-snake muttered around my
arms.
In the next second I was grasping a bright yellow, six-foot fish covered with five-inch-long spines.
"Yeowch!" I yelled. It was an effort, but I held on.
"I'll take care of it, honey," Massha called. I don't know how she did it, but the spines became rubbery and soft. We wrestled Rattila to the ground by his fins and dragged him by inches down the slope toward Eskina and the handcuffs. His flukes flopped furiously, trying to make me let go.
"No way, vermin," I snarled. Eskina jumped on top of him and fastened the cuffs around one fin. The open mouth goggled a few times. We collapsed on top of a nest of thin tentacles like pink spaghetti. They whipped around us with astonishing strength and dragged us up toward a maw filled with incurving teeth.
"You don't know the power of the Master Card," Rattila slavered.
I braced myself off a bundle of the writhing tentacles and came around with both hands joined in a double fist. I smashed it into the grinning face. The tentacles contorted painfully as the face collapsed in pain.
"I don't believe in credit cards," I informed him, giving him a solid kick, and followed it up with an uppercut.
Eskina sank her teeth into the tentacle holding her. Chumley, uncommonly furious for a being of his temperament, knotted the writhing legs together in a gigantic macrame plant holder.
"Gives other people too much power over you."
Rattila wailed in pain. I recognized the chant again.
"I no longer need to control you," he yelled, changing into a Troll the exact likeness of Chumley. "I've got power over all your friends!" He lifted each of us in one hand and threw us down the mound. "Where are my mall-rats?" he roared, stomping toward the showroom.
Massha staggered to her feet. "They're not coming," she announced, dusting herself off. "They got a better offer."
The Troll spun on his heel, gawking in astonishment.
I wanted an explanation from Massha, too, but it would have to wait.
Chumley was there and ready for him.
"You do not deserve to wear my face," he informed Rattila, wrapping one meaty arm around the other's head.
If you've never seen two Trolls fight, let me tell you it is not a lot different than watching two avalanches rolling toward one another. The collateral damage to the location, furnishings, and anyone unlucky enough to be within range of a limb or thrown object is usually considerable. Most insurance policies written in dimensions where there is a lot of D-hopping specifically exclude damage sustained involving a Troll, a lot like the dragon-fire exclusion. I had always found it amusing that insurance never covered anything that was likely to cost the most to repair.
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