I was so excited at my discovery that I went in search of more of the insects. Entirely absent in the light of day, they abounded at this hour. I scented hundreds of them on the floor, scurrying away from me. I could not run them down without accidentally running them over. I swallowed a few by accident.
“What is it, boy?” Nunzio asked. I sucked up the nearest bug and spat it into the hand of the Mob enforcer.
“A bug?” Guido asked.
Nunzio's eyes lit up. I thought that his knowledge as a naturalist would not let him, or me, down. “Not an ordinary bug, cousin,” he said. “It's the key to the whole conspiracy. Good boy, Gleep!”
He rumpled my head.
“Gleep,” I exclaimed in relief.
“Since the two of you understand one another so well,” Guido said, dryly, “perhaps you will let a poor ignorant Klahd in on your secret knowledge.”
“Well, Guido, it is like this.”
What followed was a learned discourse upon the biology and habits of the Goldbug. Nunzio had studied far more about Genus Arthropoda Aureliphagus than I ever dreamed he could absorb. Guido listened carefully, his eyes narrowing more and more as his cousin expounded.
“That explains it all,” he said. “Now all we have to do is work out a means of exposin' the culprit. Now that we know what we're lookin' for, it should be a piece of cake.”
We huddled for the rest of the night to work out our plan.
King Petherwick was extremely displeased that more of the gold had been abstracted from the Treasury, and none of the Klahds could explain it to him.
“I swear, your majesty,” the leader of the knight-shift said fervently, when the king and his entourage inspected the Treasury the next morning, “nothing got past us, yet gold is gone again. We all swear we had nothing to do with it You may search us. You will find no gold secreted about our persons. We will take a test of loyalty to you. The monster must have cast a spell upon us, and robbed us unaware.”
Petherwick turned to my associates. “I take it that no spell was cast upon you. So, where is this monster?”
“We haven't found any evidence of a monster,” Guido said. “At least, not a demon kind of monster, like you're thinking.”
“What do you mean?” the king asked, aghast. “Of course, there must be something. The gold is gone! Men are dead!”
“Well, if a monster exists.” Guido said smoothly, “then it never left the Treasury, because we've been watchin' it every minute. So, if it was here, it must still be here.”
“But, where?”
I could not ask for a better cue. As the guards shifted and looked around nervously for a hidden monster, I crouched and began growling.
“Do you see it, boy?” Nunzio asked. He let go of my leash. The guards gasped and stepped backward.
I gathered my haunches and sprang upward, onto the roof of the Treasury, and clamped my jaws — half-open. I let out an eldritch wail from the depths of my chest, simulating the sound of another monster. My head twisted to the left, as if my prey was struggling, then I fell backward, flailing my claws.
“Gleeeeeep!” I wailed. I landed with a deafening jangle in the heap of money. The gold cushioned my fall. I was up in a moment, at bay, my eyes turned upward toward the an unseen enemy. The guards backed out of the small room in fear. I continued to do battle with my invisible foe.
It was a terrible battle, though the Klahds, and the customers looking astonished over their shoulders, only saw the half of it I tore at the air, batting as my opponent appeared to fasten its teeth in my stubby right wing. I rolled painfully on one side and rabbit-kicked. The grimace on my face showed what efforts I was putting out as my third kick dislodged my foe and sent him sailing across the round room, where he must have landed near the wall. I flung myself onto the spot I had chosen, and turned over and over, gnashing and clawing, and occasionally letting out a yelp to indicate I had been bitten or clawed myself.
I had to congratulate myself on a masterful performance. When at last I “bested” my foe, I stood atop the heap of gold. I took an invisible mouthful and shook it vigorously, let it drop, then turned my back on the “corpse.” With my rear foot, I raked a few clawsful of gold over the body to show my disdain, then trotted obediently to Nunzio to have my leash reattached.
“What a good dragon!” the enforcer said, reaching into his pocket for some dried earthworms. I slurped down my treat.
“Gleep!” I acknowledged with pride.
The rest of the onlookers were silent in awe.
“There you go, your majesty,” Guido said, waving a huge palm. “Gleep took care of your monster for you. It's dead. You won't have to worry about it stealing from you anymore. You're gonna have to move the body, but that should be no big deal.”
“But. but there is no body.” Lord Dalhailey said. Then he realized his mistake. “I mean, I can't see anything. Ill have to get a closer look.” He started toward the pile of gold. I slithered quickly to cut him off and sniffed him closely, from the toes up. I ended up peering into his face. He blanched. Klahds have said time and again that they do not like my breath, which if I may say, is rather sweet for a dragon. I did not like his smell, which reeked of Goldbug. He was the master of the metal-eating insects!
I growled.
Guido and Nunzio caught on in a trice (I told you that they were bright for Klahds), and surrounded him, two crossbows pointing at the daunted lordling's ribcage.
“So, there's no monster, huh? Just exactly how do you know that?”
Cornered, Dalhailey babbled.
“I mean, I don't see one, and though I've never heard of an invisible monster, I'm sure that maybe they exist in some dimension, but what is it doing here?” Terrified, he turned to Petherwick. “Help, my liege!”
“You see,” Nunzio said, “he was using Goldbugs to steal the money right out from underneath your noses. They can't get far on their own, so he must bring them in on nights when there's a lot of gold in the Treasury. He knows when you've had a successful promotion; it's his job.”
“Traitor!” Petherwick spat.
“So that's what you were doing in the store last night!”
Howadzer boomed. “You were spying out the Treasury, planning to steal more of our hard-earned receipts!” He turned to the Treasury guards. “Seize him!”
The guards hesitated. Howadzer's face turned crimson with fury.
“What are you waiting for?”
“They're all in on it,” Guido said. “Those bugs are kind of hard to see in the dark, but this tower is very well lit You couldn't miss a swarm of the size that can eat a pile of gold in a single night I bet that he started turning them to his side a long time ago. It don't pay good to be a guard, and you're risking your life for someone else's coins, right? A few more coins here and there would help make life much more comfortable. Wouldn't it?”
“Kill them,” Dalhailey gritted through his teeth.
The guards turned toward us. Guido and Nunzio swung the points of their crossbows to cover the quintet. I showed my teeth. It was clear that though we were outnumbered, we were not outmatched. The guards' hands dropped from their hilts.
“All right,” Guido said. “Are you gonna surrender, or am I gonna have to call someone for a cleanup on aisle 3?”
The customers of King-Mart applauded.
“Great show,” said a Deveel with a goatee. “That's why I shop here.”
“Turns out,” Guido said, after a satisfying pull at a big mug of ale brought to him by Bunny upon our return from Deva, “that Dalhailey was settin' up to finance his escape from King Petherwick's service. He bought a few of Lord Howadzer's men to get them to go along with his plot.
Usually it was the same guys night after night, until Petherwick got the idea to teach everybody all the jobs. When a newcomer wouldn't go along with the scheme, well, by morning he was in no shape to tell anyone about it About the whole Treasury guard staff was in on it Howadzer never knew. You think he was unhappy before. I
think eventually Petherwick's gonna have to pension him off and ask Hemlock if he can go live in his old home town, he's so homesick. But Dalhailey's in big-time trouble.”
“And we were able to work it out all because of your little pal here,” Nunzio said, patting me on the head.
“Gleep!” I exclaimed, thanking him for recognizing my contribution.
“Yeah, he kept circling the old boy and sniffing, until Dalhailey finally confessed how he did it, by bringing in a whole swarm of Goldbugs.”
Skeeve sat forward, his face alight with interest. “Goldbugs! I've never heard of them.”
“I figured maybe not,” Guido said, producing a crystal vial. “So I brought you a few.”
“King Petherwick was right all along that the problem was pest control,” Nunzio said. “He just didn't know that it was his own minister who had infested the store with them. He kept the ones he was using for the night in a box, and let them loose within sniffing-range of the Treasury. Later, he held out a lure to get them back to the box. If we caught him walking around in the dark, well, he was just looking out for the king's interests, or figuring out a new display that would advertise the merchandise. It was the perfect cover.”
Skeeve examined the container. “Matt black, so you can't see them in the dark even if they're moving.”
“Yeah, I don't blame the Shutterbugs for missin' 'em, or us, either. But Gleep spotted 'em. He brought 'em to us, but if Nunzio hadn't known what they were, we might have missed the significance, since Gleep couldn't explain to us.”
“Gleep!” I said. My pet and I exchanged knowing gazes.
Skeeve poured a few of the bugs out onto his palm. “They really eat gold?”
Nunzio grinned. “They sure do. Then, if you wait long enough, they excrete it, too. It's a slow way to make a fortune, but Dalhailey was plenty patient, and he had lots of bugs.”
I snaked out my tongue and scooped a couple of the bugs off Skeeve's palm.
“Hey!” Skeeve said. “Those are my specimens!” CRUNCH!CRUNCH!CRUNCH!
“But we got the confession outta Dalhailey too late. The bugs was already gone from the hiding place. Dalhailey wailed that one of his confederates musta gotten away with 'em. Petherwick filed a claim with Don Bruce to make his losses good. The Don wants shut of this guy so bad that he sent over a messenger with a strong box and a quit claim. We're rid of King-Mart, but the Don is out the money. Well never get it back.”
I felt the sensations of regurgitation beginning that I knew that small number of Goldbugs would trigger, on top of the vast number I had already eaten. I crouched at Guido's feet.
HUCK! HUCK! HUCK!
“No, Gleep!” Bunny commanded. “Not on the rug!” Obedient to her wishes, I moved a few inches to the left. In a moment, I heaved up my prize at Guido's feet.
A steaming mass of molten gold the size of a prize pumpkin shimmered on the floor. I sat back on my haunches with a fragrant sigh.
“Guess we know what happened to the Goldbugs” Skeeve said, with a smile.
“Gleep,” I said.
“I take back anything I ever thought about this dragon of yours, Skeeve,” Guido said, patting me. “He's smart.”
Skeeve and I exchanged a secret wink. I settled down on the carpet with my head on his foot.
MYTHING IN DREAMLAND
By Robert Asprin and Jody Lynn Nye
The dark green roof of the forest stretched out endlessly in every direction. To most, it would look like an idylic paradise. To me, it was a major problem.
I gazed out over the massed pine trees, wondering what kind of wilderness we'd gotten stuck in. A few bare crests, like the one I was sitting on, protruded above the treeline, but they were miles away. None of it looked familiar, but no reason why it should. There were thousands of dimensions in existence, and I'd only been to a few.
At the very least, it was an embarassement. Here I was, considered publicly to be a hotshot magician, the great Skeeve, utterly lost because I'd tripped and fallen through a magic mirror.
I went through my belt pouch for the D-hopper. I was sure it was there somewhere. I wasn't alone, of course. Behind me, my partner and teacher Aahz paced up and down impatiently.
“I told you not to touch anything in Bezel's shop,” the Pervect snarled. When a native of the dimension called Perv snarls, other species blanch. The expression shows off a mouthful of four-inch razor-honed fangs set in a scaly green face that even dragons considered terrifying. I was used to it, and besides, I was pretty much to blame for his bad mood.
“Who'd have thought anybody could fall through a looking glass?” I tried to defend myself, but my partner wasn't listening.
“If you had paid attention to a single thing I've said over the last however many years it's been …” Aahz held up a scaly palm in my direction. “No, don't tell me. I don't want to know. Garkin, at least, should have warned you.”
“I know,” I said. “It's my fault.”
“It's just basic common sense when it comes to magik. Don't eat anything that says "Eat me". Don't drink anything that says "Drink me". And don't touch Klahdforsaken magik mirrors with barriers around them that say "Don't touch!" … What did you say?” Aahz spun around on his heel.
“I said I know it's my fault I was just trying to keep Gleep from eating the frame,” I explained, sheepishly.
“Gleep!” the dragon beside me added brightly.
“So why didn't you tie him up before we went in?” Aahz said.
“I did tie him up!” I protested. “You know I did. You saw me knot the leash around a post.” But we could both make an educated guess as to what had happened.
My dragon was not allowed in most reputable places, or what passed for reputable at the Bazaar at Deva, the largest trading area anywhere in the multitude of dimensions. It often happened that unscrupulous Deveel shop proprietors ridded themselves of unwanted merchandise at a profit, by arranging for accidents to occur. Such as having a convenient fire during which time the owners have an unshakeable alibi. Such as leaving the door ajar while they just run next door to borrow a cup of sugar. Such as loosening the tether on a baby dragon whose reputation for clumsiness was almost as impressive as its masters' reputation for magical skill and deep pockets. Said dragon would go charging after its beloved owner. Merchandise would start to hit the tent floor as soon as it entered. More goods, not even close to being in range of said rampaging dragon, would shatter into pieces. Outraged shopkeeper would appear demanding reimbursement at rates inflated four or five times their true worth. Unlucky customer would be forced to shell out or risk expulsion (or worse) from the Bazaar. All genuine valuables would have been removed from the shop ahead of time, of course.
“Maybe one of Bezel's rivals let him loose,” I suggested hopefully, not liking my skill at tying knots to be called into question.
“What were you doing looking at that mirror anyhow?”
I felt a little silly admitting the truth, but it had been my curiosity that had gotten us stranded out here. “Massha told me about it. She said this was a really great item. It shows the looker his fondest dream… Naturally, I wanted to see if it was anything we could use in our business. You know, to scope out our clients, find out what it is they really want…”
“And what did you see?” Aahz asked quickly.
“Only my own dreams,” I said, wondering why Aahz was so touchy. “Daydreams, really. Me, surrounded by our friends, rich, happy, with a beautiful girl…” Although the mirror had been a little sketchy about the actual physical details I remembered vivid impressions of pulchritude and sex appeal.
A slow smile spread over Aahz's scaly features. “You know those dream girls, partner. They never turn out like you hope they will.”
I frowned. “Yes, but if it's your own dream, wouldn't she be exactly what you want? How about yours? What did you see?”
“Nothing,” Aahz said flatly. “I didn't look.”
“But you did,” I insisted, grabbing on to
a fleeting memory of Aahz with an astonished expression on his face. “What did you see?”
“Forget it, apprentice! It was a big fake. Bezel probably had a self-delusion spell put on the mirror to spur someone stupid like you into buying it When you got home you'd have seen nothing reflected in it but Bezel's fantasy of a genuine sucker.”
“No, I'm sure the mirror was real,” I said thoughtfully. I knew what I'd daydreamed over the years, but those wishes had been piecemeal, little things now and again. I'd never had such a coherent and complete vision of my fantasies. “Come on, Aahz, what did you see?”
“None of your business!”
But I wasn't going to be put off that easily.
“C'mon. I told you mine,” I wheedled. Aahz's wishes were bound to be interesting. He had seen dozens of dimensions, and been around a lot more than I had. “You probably have some sophisticated plan about an empire with you at the top of the heap. Hundreds of people begging for your services. Wine! Women! Song!”
“Shut up!” Aahz commanded. But by now, my curiosity was an unignorable itch.
“There's no one around here for miles,” I said, and it was the truth. “Nobody could get up here in hearing range. They'd have to build a bridge to that next peak, and it's miles away. There's no one here but us. I'm your best friend, right?”
“I doubt that!”
“Hey!” I exclaimed, hurt.
Aahz relented, looking around. “Sorry. You didn't deserve that, even if you did make a boneheaded move by touching that mirror. Well, since it's just us… Yeah, I saw something. That's why I think it's a delusion spell. I saw things the way they used to be. me doing magik? Big magik? Impressing the heck out of thousands? No, millions! I got respect. I miss that.”
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