MYTH-Taken Identity

by Robert Asprin

  the big three-way mirror halfway to the front. I pushed my way toward him.

  "Leave me alone!" a plump Deveel matron shrieked, holding her purse to her. "I am not a mall-rat! I am a long­time customer!" Bisimo, Parvattani's lieutenant, tugged at the purse. "Oh, you brute!" The handbag flipped open, sending cosmetic cases, address book, black leather wallet and a pair of sequined thong underwear flying. No credit cards.

  Bisimo's cheeks turned sapphire. "I am so sorry, madama!" he stammered, helping her to pick up her belong­ings. She belted him over the head with the empty bag.

  Chumley had made the first real capture. He held a mall-rat up by the scruff while he snapped its collection of identity cards one at a time in his teeth. Massha hovered over a gondola of clothes that writhed and gyrated. Every time a limb stuck itself out of the hangers, she zapped it with a little gadget that looked like a miniature lightning bolt.

  Rattila was getting closer to the entrance. Guards saw him coming and threw themselves on him or tried to stun him with the pikes Massha had issued to them a few days before. Scales crackling with power, he threw off attacks and attackers with ease.

  "Cire!" I bellowed. "Stop him!"

  The Walroid saw him coming and braced himself. His huge flipperlike hands whipped out, producing a cone of cold white light. Rattila-the-Dragonet emitted a jet of fire sixteen feet long. I couldn't blame Cire. He dove to one side.

  Eskina, baying shrilly, bounded up, trying once again to bring Rattila down. He swatted her away into three oncom­ing Djinnelli cousins. Before anyone else could get close to him, Rattila threw an enormous blast of magik at the doors. They splintered and burned. Rattila dove through the hole. I headed after him.

  "Cire, Eskina! Come with me!" I shouted. I backed up, preparing my dive carefully. I hate fire. We Pervects are

  very vulnerable to it. I threw up my arms to protect my face.

  "Aahz!" Massha called, just before I jumped. She hov­ered in the air, brandishing a kicking brown creature by the ear. She shook it at me. The creature struggled and whined. "What about these mall-rats?"

  "Handle it!" I bellowed. "You can do it just fine!"

  I leaped.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Cire flew up to the ceiling as soon as we were outside The Volcano and pointed in the direction of the fleeing Dragonet.

  "There he goes!" he shouted. "He's changed again— he's a Flibberite, I mean she!"

  Massha's salesclerk, I thought grimly. But Flibberites couldn't cover ground as fast as Dragonets. We stood a bet­ter chance of catching him now.

  The Mall would be closing very shortly, which meant the crowds had thinned down a lot. Eskina and I pelted down the nearly empty corridors. Our prey was clearly vis­ible ahead of us.

  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 his 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