"Look, we're not from around here," I began. "We're on a mission…"
"You are? Blessings be upon you from the Thousand Gods!" The little sister jumped up from her cloth and ran to the altar. She lit a stick of incense at the small tin brazier and stuck it in a dish full of sand in front of a tattered poster containing a myriad of images, no doubt her thousand gods, and chanted a tuneless wail that went up and down the scales like a cat's love song. Two of the acolytes ran in and began shaking sistrums and banging tambourines. My eardrums twisted at the noise. Hylida concluded her prayer and sat down again. "I am so happy to hear that. Most outworlders who find their way here are lost. How may I serve you upon this mission?"
It was an unmistakable opening, but I couldn't take it. I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.
Ersatz jumped in. "My good friend Aahz wishes to tell you that he requires you to give us the Purse of Endless Wealth, which we judge to be in your possession. That is the sum of our task in this place."
"How can you just blurt that out?" Tananda asked him. The steel-gray eyes rolled toward her on the visible portion of the blade.
"It is the next step in our task to save Calypsa's grandfather, is it not?" Ersatz asked, reasonably. "Mistress Hylida asked us, and since friend Aahz appears to be tongue-tied, I have taken the step of saying the words for him. That is what you wish, isn't it?"
"Not very subtle, are you?"
"Subtlety wastes time," Ersatz said, unperturbed. The eyes turned to our hostess. "Well, mistress? Do we seek the Purse here in vain?"
Hylida clapped her hands. "I have seen a wonder today! A sword that talks! Is that your request, green-scaled one?"
I felt doubly stupid, now. "Uh…yeah. That is it."
"Then I am happy to tell you you have succeeded! Chin-Hwag is here."
"Oh, yes, Aahz," Kelsa said. "I told you I saw her. Would I lie?"
"Lie, no," Asti said, exasperatedly. "Be mistaken, constantly."
"I always see true! Much better than someone who poisons people by accident!"
"If you don't mind," the Book said, aheming for attention, "but I have a record of all of your errors over the centuries…"
"More wonders!" Hylida said, happily. "A Book that talks! Brothers and sisters, we must celebrate!"
The Toadies jumped up again, and began dancing, more vigorously than before. The people outside rose and started shouting. They banged pots and pans together, shook mara-cas, and danced all around the square.
Bam! Boom! Zing! Bom!
"Stop it!" I shouted. No one paid any attention to me.
"Hey, this is fun!" Buirnie said, through his little window. "Mind if I join in? Zildie, from the top! A-one, a-two, a-three…"
The spotlight hit his case. The nimble leg of the drum flicked it open, and the Flute joined in the chanting on the backbeat. The people stared at the solid-gold Fife for one moment, then accepted it as yet another miracle to celebrate. He led them in singing a rondo with a catchy rhythm. I sat with my arms folded, waiting for it all to blow over, but Calypsa started to get into it. She sprang up and started to dance, kicking and twirling. The locals grabbed her hands and swung her into their circle. The noise reached epic levels.
"Enough, already!" I bellowed.
Buirnie's playing died away with a whine.
The crowd paused to stare at me.
I glared at Sister Hylida. "If this is what you call private, then I want to see what you call an open town meeting!"
"Oh, it is an event of even greater enjoyment," the Toady nun said. She signed to her people to sit down. They groaned their disappointment, but they sat. Buirnie glared at me from underneath his spotlight. "But you were asking about Chin-Hwag. She has been my companion for several years now, and a great help to me in my mission. We help the poor and serve the hungry here. You see?"
She waved toward another ragged curtain. Beyond it was a room larger than the one we sat in. Several Toadies stirred huge, dented kettles over glowing embers. Steam rose from the pots. The aroma we had noticed on the way in came from there.
"We share good fortune as well as bad here," Hylida said, placidly. "But do not worry. No one will speak of what they see and hear in this place."
I didn't believe that, but I didn't have time to argue. We had business to accomplish and a road to hit. I cleared my throat.
"Abbess, we want to be fair. What will you take for the Purse?"
At my question, protests rose from the Toadies squatting in the house and outside the broken walls.
"Sell Chin-Hwag? I could never sell her!" Sister Hylida rose and removed a slab of plaster from the wall next to the altar. Behind it was a small alcove. I nodded approval. It would be hidden from potential thieves — who would suspect that the greatest fortune in any dimension might be concealed in those crumbling walls? — but easy to grab if the sister had to evacuate her soup-kitchen in a hurry. "You must see her, of course. Here she is."
I expected a kind of shapeless bag, but the Endless Purse of Money was an inch-thick octagon of leather about six inches across, stitched together from strips of a very smooth hide that had been dyed ochre. A good deal of the surface was covered with silk embroidery so fine that it would take a magnifying glass to admire the detail. It wasn't pretty, but it was intricate. I realized that it was studying me as keenly as I was studying it. Just like the other treasures, Chin-Hwag's intelligence was out there where anyone could see it. A couple of embroidered horizontal ovals above the pull-strings around the mouth narrowed, and the purse-strings moved.
"By all that jingles, a Pervert! You keep your scaly hands off me, greenboy!"
Hylida looked scandalized.
"Watch your language, Chin-Hwag, he is a visitor!"
The embroidered eyes shifted.
"I can see what he is a member of one of the greediest races in all the dimensions, after Deveels and a few other born felons. Find out what he wants, then send him away, swiftly."
"You misunderstand him," Calypsa said. "Aahz is most kindly helping me. He has no thoughts of wealth on his own behalf."
"Oh, don't listen to her," Asti interrupted. "He is out for money."
"Only what he is owed, by a debt of honor which I incurred," Ersatz said. "On behalf of our employer, whom you will come to know as a worthy being."
"Thanks a lot," I said.
The embroidered eyes moved around. "By clink and clank, Ersatz! I thought I felt my insides twisting! How many of you are here?"
"Five of us," Kelsa said. "Almost all of us who still exist."
"How peculiar and unwelcome a notion!" Chin-Hwag said.
"That is not very charitable," Sister Hylida said, shaking a finger at the Purse. The embroidered eyes turned toward her.
"You are not worldly, Hylida. You don't know what these other objects are like," Chin-Hwag said, the mouth drawing tighter. "In a crisis, they do too much when a little will do."
"They are still our guests today," the little nun said. She turned to me. "You must join us for our meal."
"If you don't mind," Tananda said, with a look at Calypsa's face. It was almost as green as hers. I think the smell must have been getting to her. "Maybe we can take the Purse and go. We don't want to impose."
The nun's kindly face fell. "I am afraid that I cannot let you take her just yet. Tax day approaches. The Majaranarana's collectors will be coming by to assess each of the people you see out there, and take money from them according to each assessment. They do not have it, so Chin-Hwag must give it to them. Tomorrow, please, or the day after."