Myth-Gotten Gains m-17

by Robert Lynn Asprin

  Calypso straightened his thin back. "Sir! All our dances have meaning! The death dance is a challenge and a geas. Once it is begun, it can be interrupted, but never ends until one of the participants is dead!"

  "Ayieee!" Calypsa shrilled. She held Ersatz horizontally over her head, the point aiming at Barrik. "Honor must be satisfied!"

  She charged him. The Dile wizard leaped away. He felt in his cape pockets, his hands tangling in the thick velvet.

  Calypsa advanced upon him. Just before she got in slashing range, he whipped a wand out of a pocket and leveled it at her.

  "Parry four!" Ersatz yelled. Calypsa brought the sword down in a twinkling and twisted the blade up and to the left.

  Barrik withdrew in surprise and attempted to riposte. "Parry six! Now, fleche!"

  Calypsa rose on her toes and bounded toward the startled wizard. She swung Ersatz up and across. The wand went flying.

  "Attagirl!" I shouted. Gleefully, I slapped the nearest henchman on the back. "What do you think of that?"

  "Ten silver pieces on the wench," the henchman said promptly.

  "What?" I demanded. "You think I'm going to bet against my own contender?"

  "I will take your action," a large, ochre-skinned reptile said. "Fifteen says she can't touch him. He is the great enchanter!"

  "Fifteen says she guts him," the first henchman said.

  "I will take both of you!" the big guy insisted.

  "You can't wager on whether he'll kill her or not!" Tananda said. She looked shocked.

  "Who says?" I stood gleefully collecting bets. "I'm going to win."

  Calypsa thrust the huge weapon, then recovered onto one long foot. Barrik backed up, clapping his hand to his chest. He looked at it for blood, but Calypsa had missed him by a scale. He had been taken by surprise once, but it would take some work to pull that off again. He held out his hand and the wand jumped back into it. Calypsa narrowed her eyes.

  Suddenly, the Dile jumped toward her, pointing the wand. A bolt of lightning jumped from its tip. Almost of its own volition, Ersatz dipped in front of her body, deflecting it.

  The bolt cracked off the blued steel and rebounded. Barrik threw himself to the floor as it blasted over his head. It hit a huge ceramic vase on a pedestal, which exploded.

  "Now, press your advantage, child," Ersatz said. "He is off guard. Ballestra!"

  Calypsa leaped and lunged. She would have gutted Barrik, but he rolled bonelessly to his feet. He aimed the wand at Calypsa again.

  "No!" Calypso cried. He tried to break away from my side to help her.

  "Stay back," I said. "We've got this under control."

  "But she is just a girl."

  "She's your granddaughter," Tananda said. "Believe in her. She'll make you proud, I promise."

  "Yes," the old man said, his eyes gleaming. "She is my granddaughter."

  The two combatants circled each other. Barrik was starting to wheeze. He didn't have the stamina to keep up with a trained dancer. I knew sooner or later he would start to play dirty tricks.

  I left Tananda guarding Calypso. The old man was gazing at the action. I headed to the opposite end of the audience chamber. With henchmen pressing coins into my hands I was still collecting bets.

  I spotted Chin-Hwag on the floor. The Purse coughed up one more coin. She gave me a fishy embroidered eye. I signed toward Barrik. She nodded. If there was anything she could do to help, she was ready.

  I had no idea what I could do against a powerful magician when the time came, but I could direct operations. A rattling sound attracted my attention to the rafters, where Payge fluttered in and balanced on a fancy carved boss.

  Barrik started muttering. Tananda sent me a high sign. She was feeling a drain on the lines of force passing through the castle.

  "Penny-ante, cheap, showboating legerdemain!" Bozebos muttered darkly. I opened my hand and looked at the face in the gem.

  "What's he doing?" I asked.

  "Oh, calling up a whirlwind," the Ring said. "That sort of thing went out with seances and disembodied floating faces outside the window."

  "What?" I sputtered.

  I dove for a spot behind a heavy pillar as a gray funnel cloud dropped out of the ceiling and joined Calypsa on the dance floor. The henchmen backed up, giving the miniature tornado plenty of room.

  She tossed her head. She had no trouble staying out of its way. The pasa doble became a troika, with Barrik trying to avoid Calypsa and his own creation. He snarled and whipped a hand. The whirlwind got larger.

  "Can you tie a knot in that windbag?" I asked the Ring.

  "No trouble," he said. The sapphire next to the base glowed, and the funnel cloud constricted. It squeaked like a deflating balloon, and vanished. Barrik looked perturbed.

  "Who dares to interfere with me?" he demanded, glaring around him. He leveled the wand, and green flame spurted out in a ring. The henchmen wailed and ducked to avoid their master's spell. I kept low. Fire is one of the few things that can hurt my thick Pervect hide.

  "Exterie vaunterie bellerie," came Payge's soft voice from the rafters. Barrik's flames went out. He started to look frightened.

  "Who is doing that?" he asked, his voice an octave higher than before. He turned to Calypso. "YOU must be responsible for this! I knew the dancing was some kind of front! You are both magicians! Confess!"

  He whipped up the wand. Waves of green light radiated toward the old man. I held up the Ring, but Tananda had Asti in her hands. From the bowl of the Cup arose a cloud of pink smoke. Green met pink and burst outward.

  BLAM!

  Half the henchmen in the vicinity were knocked off their feet. Barrik sprang to his feet, fuming. He faced Calypso.

  The old man held himself proudly, pushing aside the wand.

  "You don't scare me, tyrant. The Calypsos will withstand anything you can throw at them."

  Barrik eyed him keenly. He looked like a guy who knew his way around lines of force. I wasn't wrong. He glared.

  "The magik isn't coming from you! It is the Hoard that defends you! I shall destroy them!"

  Magnificently, Barrik turned and aimed his wand at the heap of golden treasure on the floor.

  "A load of magikal junk is no match for Barrik the Enchanter!" he declared. A blaze of white light shot out of the wand, landed on the pile and exploded, sending shards of white-hot metal flying.

  Calypsa threw herself toward him, but too late. Even at that distance I could recognize a thermite grenade. Barrik must have some high-tech weaponry around to supplement force-line based magik.

  "Chin-Hwag was in there," I groaned.

  "No, she isn't," Bozebos corrected me. "Check your belt."

  I looked down. The woven Purse looked up at me, perturbed.

  "You could have come to get me," she said.

  I was relieved, but I wasn't going to let her make me look incompetent.

  "Why?" I asked casually. "The Ring was on the job."

  "Perverts! You are all so lazy. You wait for others to do your work."

  "That's a big fat lie," I snarled. "I'm just waiting for the right moment to step in."

  Kazoo music loomed nearer and nearer. Zildie, the drum, raised its three little feet over the threshold of the enlarged keyhole. Buirnie gleamed brilliantly in the light from Klik, his personal spotlight.

  "Say, everyone, did you miss me?" Buirnie asked. "Hey, you're not dancing! Everyone should be dancing!"

  He struck up a livelier tone.

  Now that he was inside the audience chamber, Barrik's barrier spell was useless. The henchmen broke into a shuffle. They looked at each other uneasily, as their feet started moving unwittingly. In a moment they had started doing a mass hora around the room. Barrik stared at them in horror.

  The penny dropped.

  "Those were fakes!" he shouted.

  "It only took you a minute to figure that out," I said, stepping forward. "Congratulations. I heard Diles weren't completely stupid. Just most of them."

 
"You! You Pervert!" Barrik said, his toothy face focusing on me. "I knew it couldn't be the child or her senile old grandfather who came up with such a scheme."

  "Senile?" Calypso said, his back as straight as a die. "The Calypsos never become senile!"

  "Per-VECT!" I corrected Barrik. "And one smart enough to realize that you were too greedy to tell you weren't dealing with the real thing. Here they are," I said, waving at the golden treasures, hanging from the rafters, floating in the air, or waving dangerously close to his long, pointy nose. "The Golden Hoard. Legends. You can't blow them up like Hill 59. They're more than a match for you." I waved a lazy hand. "Get 'em, guys."

  Kelsa started the ball rolling, so to speak. The window of her little case became the focus for a laserlike beam of hot gold light. It struck Barrik in the belly and left a rectangular scorch mark.

  "Ow! Curses!" he yelped.

  "I didn't know you could do that," I remarked.

  "Oh, I developed that to deal with Stygian darkness," Kelsa said, cheerfully, swiping another beam past the Dile, who leaped over it. The tail of his cloak caught fire, and he beat it out with an angry fist. "Styg is a nice place, but so much particulate matter in the air that one can barely tell when the sun is up…"

  Barrik aimed the wand at us. I backpedaled into the conga line, trying to get out of his way.

  "My turn!" Buirnie called. The kazoo music got faster and faster. The henchmen were doing shuffle-ball-change-shuffle so fast that their feet were flashing. Barrik's face concentrated. I could tell he was doing everything he could to keep from dancing, but the music was irresistible. Even I was starting to feel it, and I had been inoculated. Barrik fired bolt after bolt at the Fife, trying to silence him. His feet broke into a jig. He hopped and skipped. I almost applauded.

  Calypsa, as usual, was unaffected by Buirnie. She continued to circle Barrik.

  "We are not finished with our duel," she said.

  "It's not fair," Barrik whined. "You're using Ersatz!"

  "You have your wand," she countered. "Throw it away, and I will surrender the Sword!"

  "He has no honor, child," Ersatz chided her. "Do not believe him."

  "I will disarm if he will," she said. "We will settle this like civilized beings."

  Barrik faked as if to throw his magik stick away. Calypsa followed him, move for move. On the third flick, he actually cast down the wand. Calypsa followed suit. Ersatz went spinning across the floor. I caught him.

  "Fool!" Barrik grinned. He opened his hand, and the wand went flying back.

  "Return me, friend Aahz," Ersatz pleaded, his dark eyes blazing.

  "Calypsa!" I called. She glanced at me. I tossed Ersatz, hilt downward. She dove for it and caught it just above the floor. Barrik aimed a beam of purple light at her.

  "Look out," Tananda yelled. Calypsa rolled. The floor where she had been just a moment before blew up in a burst of mosaic tiles. She sprang up, the sword in her hand.

  Asti threw in her two coppers. From her bowl, a yellow liquid overflowed and began to cover the floor. Barrik, backing away from Calypsa, didn't see it until he stepped in it. He tried to raise one foot. It didn't move. He tried to pick up the other. It was stuck, too. He aimed the wand at his feet.

  "Silelie benifie usteckie," Payge chanted. The Book flapped his way down from the rafters. Buirnie ordered Zildie to trot him over to join the circle.

  Barrik started throwing spells. The Hoard countered him, tossing visible waves of force in his direction.

  "Take me there, Pervect," Chin-Hwag said. "I must join my fellows."

  I brandished her, Bozebos and Kelsa at the trapped wizard, who cowered from them as if I'd been leveling a live dragon. Tananda held out Asti, who looked like she was thinking up another potion to evoke.

  "You wanted us all here," Ersatz boomed. "I do not care for what nefarious purpose, but you have us now. He who invokes the Hoard must stand the consequences."

  "Leave him alone!" Calypsa demanded. She came toward him with Ersatz covered in blue fire. "Now, we will face one another in the Dance of Death, evil Barrik! When Asti releases you, it will be to the finish!"

  Barrik's beady eyes went wide with terror.

  "Noooo!" he whimpered. He whisked the wand over his own head.

  BAMF!!!

  One second later, there was no one in the middle of the circle. Nothing remained but the impressions of his feet in the hardened yellow glue. Calypsa realized she was confronting open air. She sagged. I put out an arm to support her, but she waved me away. Her grandfather came over to embrace her.

  "You do the family of Calypso great honor," he told her. "Thank you, child. Thank you."

  "Oh, grandfather!" she said. The two of them embraced.

  "Oh, cut it out," I said. "You people can't really be like this, day after day. It'd be like living in a soap opera."

  "Oh, Aahz," Tananda said, punching me hard in the arm. "You just can't stand it when someone's happy."

  "Now, do you see how well I did that?" Asti said. "My glue is proof against even your noise, Buirnie."

  "But I am holding thousands of Diles in thrall!" the Fife protested. "They must dance to my music!"

  "It is interfering with my ability to direct a clean battle," Ersatz said, sternly. "What if one unwittingly pranced into the midst when Calypsa was directing a strike? I do not attack noncombatants!"

  "Oh, I suppose you would let them live just because they tell you they were only following orders?" Bozebos said, offensively.

  The ground started to shake.

  "Knock it off or I'll have to separate you!" I bellowed. "It's over. You won."

  "We did?" Kelsa asked. "Oh, yes. We did. Of course we did!"

  "The archives," Payge said, with a gentle noise like a throat clearing, "will say that Calypsa won. We were but tools to aid in the victory. Adjuncts."

  "Oh, well," Buirnie said. The kazoo music died away at last. I wiggled a finger in my ear in relief. "At least I'll get royalties on the dance music I wrote!"

  "He's gone!" one of the guards said. "His Enchantedness is gone!"

  "Oh, yes," Bozebos said, looking around at the sound of the voice. His eyes fixed on the Diles huddled around the big room. "Them."

  A thin rope of power looped out from the Ring and penetrated right through the walls of the audience chamber. After a few moments, the loop started to contract. With it came the entire contingent of the black castle, Diles in armor, in uniform, in livery, in cook's whites, in chambermaid costumes, all looking panicked as the blue thread gathered them in.

  "We should slay them all," Ersatz said.

  "Mercy," squeaked a Dile henchman, falling to his knobbly knees.

  "Mercy!"

  "You must not kill them," Calypsa said. She made a grand, sweeping gesture. "Send them home. Send them away from our fair dimension, back to whatever dread place that spawned them."

  "It's not really so bad," one henchman muttered.

  "Did she give you permission to speak?" I bellowed.

  "No, sir," he said, gulping.

  "That is a fair solution," Ersatz said.

  "And then," Calypso said, looking around the grand room, "the Walts will take possession of this fine castle. It will make a grand dance hall. So many nice floors!"

  Chapter 25

  SINCE BARRIK WAS no longer maintaining the spells, the castle already seemed less oppressive. Suddenly, I could hear birds singing. Sun shone in the courtyard. The Diles cast a last wistful look at the black castle before they were banished by a spell from Payge.

  With the Golden Hoard still bickering over whom was going to get what mention in the history books, I had Tananda airlift us over the juddering ground to the castle gates. The prisoners I had freed were already among them. Calypsa's mother and father were at the forefront of the crowd, their hands clasped with worry. When they saw their daughter and their father, they started swaying and raising their hands in a celebratory dance. I just shook my head. Pervects would never be so undignifie
d.

  We sailed out of the building and right over the moat. Tanda set us down in the midst of the townsfolk.

  "It is a miracle!" Calypsa's mother said, embracing her daughter and her father at once. "Come, we will feast and dance! And sing and dance! And drink and…"

  "Dance," I finished. "I get it."

  "You will be our honored guests," Calypso said. "You will sit at my own right hand and enjoy the hospitality of the Walts!"

  "Thanks, pal, but no thanks," I said.

  "I do not know how I can ever thank you enough," Calypsa said, embracing me and Tananda.

  "Just part of the job," I said. "Look, kid, I don't think I'm going to stick around for the celebration."

  "But why not?" the girl asked. "It will be a great event."

  I shook my head. "I'm done with what I promised. Now I'd just like to go back to where I left off on my vacation. I hope you and Ersatz live happily ever after."

  "You are still cross that you gave up your reward," Asti said. "Don't be. It was noble. I will always remember how unselfish you were."

  I winced. "Don't you let THAT get around."

  "Oh, come on, Aahz," Tananda said. "Let's party. I wouldn't mind a chance to let my hair down after all that."

  The Walts were nearly as good as the Bonhomies at throwing a shindig. Wine and hooch flowed liberally. The food was spicy, and there was enough even to satisfy my long-thwarted appetite. Asti added her own brew to the punch bowl, and everyone got pretty silly. The dancing went on and on. And on. And on. The Walts really knew how to pound the floor. I understood why they were famous for their native art form.

  Calypso got up in front of the crowd and did his own interpretation of his capture, imprisonment and rescue. In spite of myself I got interested in his performance. Calypsa had a right to be proud of him. He was every bit as good as she claimed he was. The guy elevated dance to a level I had never known it could have. Still, the kid was no slouch herself. I was beginning to wonder if I'd been smart to let Ersatz take her on as an apprentice instead of taking her myself. She had the promise to do anything she wanted to.

  Nah.

  After the fourth or fifth gallon of booze, I let go of my snit. After all, I was part of history. The Walts were thrilled to be in the presence of the Golden Hoard, who were admired and passed around the entire village. The praise and attention kept them from getting into any more arguments, but I knew the next one couldn't be far away. If they really got going, it could spell catastrophe, and the Walts had just finished with the last major disaster. Tananda warned me from time to time when she felt tremors in the lines of force so I could defuse minor spats. Barrik had chosen one heck of a location for his castle, in the nexus of so much magikal energy. I felt like I was sitting on top of a volcano.