"It's Skeeve," I said, with a grimace.
"Is he in trouble?" Massha asked, cocking her head and pursing her big lips.
"I don't know," I replied.
I explained my visitors and their purported mission.
"My guess is someone is trying to pass himself off as Skeeve. That's smart and dumb, because no one is gonna question a wizard is he who he says he is, with the exception of that wizard's friends. I'm convinced that Skeeve was never on Flibber, or shopped at any Mall. It looks like my confirmation's here." '
As if to echo my statement, a winking light appeared at the window. I opened the casement, and the fist-sized globe dropped into my hand. The glow was purple now instead of gold, indicating a reply was enclosed. As soon as I touched the globe it dissolved into a piece of parchment. The Deveel in the Bazaar who made them was growing rich— this month; next month some other manufacturer would undoubtedly figure out how to make them and undercut the first guy.
To my relief the writing on the paper was Bunny's. In the message she said no, Skeeve hadn't budged from Klah except for his outing to Wuh, he was fine, she would make sure to keep him at the inn for the duration, and where was this Mall? Women. Some things are just universal.
"That's it. Bunny says the kid's never been to Flibber. The debt's not his, and that's all I need to know."
"So you wish to deliver a warning to the counterfeit?" Chumley asked, aiming one moon-shaped eye at me.
To the uninitiated, a huge purple-furred Troll with odd-sized eyes might look amusing and relatively harmless, but no one ever makes one mad twice on purpose.
"I want to do more than that," I said, baring my teeth. "There's the matter of over a hundred thousand gold pieces. Someone incurred those bills, and I want them cleared up with absolutely no doubt who is really responsible for paying, because it ain't Skeeve, and it ain't going to be me or either of you. And someone owes me a new easy chair."
"Agreed," Chumley said. "My goodness, a hundred thousand would put a largish hole in the family exchequer, what?"
"Whew!" Massha agreed. "With that kind of loot I could buy out the Gimmicks 'R' Us store, shelves and all. Just let me leave a note for Hugh."
With two sets of magikal means to transport us, there was an Alphonse-Gaston moment until we decided Massha ought to blink us there. I had a D-hopper now, but no one had the experience with gadgets like Massha. Using the directions we got from an infosearch spell Massha whipped up using an antique locket set with turquoise buttons, we popped in practically on the front doorstep of The Mall.
TWO
The bamf that was the displacement of air heralding our arrival also displaced several bodies. When we appeared, my arms were pinned to my sides by the sheer press of the huge crowd surrounding the gigantic white building ahead. Pretty majestic, I thought, taking in as much as I could in one glance. The building had been constructed of white marble, stretching three stories to the gargoyles that ran around underneath the lip of the roof made of curved red tiles. A pediment underneath the peak on our side of the building displayed a frieze with a center figure that looked familiar to me. The place was a temple to Agora, a goddess of shopping centers who held sway in more than one dimension. As far as I knew she didn't have any influence in Deva; maybe she'd packed up in disgust. Her centers of worship tended to be orderly, and the only thing you could say about order at the Bazaar was that it had rules of engagement that if they pertained to fighting, you'd assume you were talking about street fighting, not war. I'd never had a tussle with Agora that I could recall. I wriggled to get loose from the crowd and tried to press closer toward the building.
"Oh, no, you don't get ahead that way!" a shrill female voice cried.
I felt myself grabbed from behind by a host of hands and tossed into the air. A snarl of protest from Chumley and a shriek of surprise from Massha told me that they had been seized, too. Massha had her gadgets, so she rose over the top of the crowd as the Troll and I were tossed like water buckets in a fire brigade until we landed with a thump on the ground behind the horde. Female faces glared at us as we scrambled to our feet.
"What's going on?" I said, trying to hold on to my dignity and temper.
"A sale!" a female Dragonet exclaimed, fluttering her light blue wings excitedly.
"Is that unusual?" Massha said.
"There's one every day in The Mall," the Dragonet's pale green partner asserted glumly.
"But not at Cartok's," his mate corrected him. "Seven percent off everything in the shop!"
Seven percent didn't sound like much of a discount to me, but most of the shoppers seemed to think it was a good deal.
"How come there's a crowd out here?" I asked.
"They don't open until ten," the blue Dragonet said. A clock in Agora's belly up on the pediment showed that the minute hand was still a short distance from striking the hour. "We saw you try to line-hop. They'll tear you apart if you try."
"We'll stay back here," I said, holding my hands up in surrender.
But one small male with a domed head, deep blue skin, and tall, narrow, double-pointed ears seemed heedless of the danger. I watched curiously as he shoved his way into the mass of shoppers and plunged doggedly forward. Got tossed back again and again, landing at Aahz's feet. Had to admire the little guy's perseverance in the face of an obstacle I wouldn't face myself. Tossed back, clothes torn, the beginning of a bright purple bruise under one eye.
"That's it," he swore as he landed almost at our feet. He picked himself up and dusted himself off. "One more time they throw me back, and I'm not opening The Mall."
"I'll help," Massha said.
She levitated downward like a big orange balloon and scooped the little man up in her arms. Lightning bolts and missiles of various types flew at her from the irate crowd as she flew him toward the front of the line, but she dodged them all. At the door she let the little man down, then sailed up out of the way as the twelve-foot-high doors flew open, and the horde of shoppers poured forward.
Massha sailed back to us and settled down, a satisfied look on her face.
"Not a bad thing to start the day with a good deed," she remarked.
"Let's go," I said impatiently, as people surged past us on every side. "C'mon, Chumley."
Massha yelped as a furry shape hurtled past her.
"He's got my purse!" she shouted.
"I'll get him," Chumley offered gallantly, and made as if to dash after the little brown creature. Massha grabbed the Troll's arm.
"Never mind," she said with a smile. Putting two fingers in her mouth, she blew a sharp whistle.
The bounding creature hauling the orange purse nearly as large as it was let out a cry of despair as the purse seemed to grow legs. It galloped forward, caught up with its captor, opened its mouth, and engulfed the creature in one bite, then snapped shut. Massha retrieved the struggling handbag.
"Now what'll I do with it?" she wondered.
"And what is it?" Chumley asked, as we bent over the purse to look. I opened the handbag a crack and stuck my hand into it. My skin's pretty tough, compared with Trolls and Jahks, being covered with a handsome layer of scales. The critter tried to bite my fingers, but I got it by the scruff and hauled it out. "A rat!" was all I had time to say before it went for the tendons in my wrist.
It caught the pressure point under my thumb between its long, sharp front teeth and chomped down. I snarled in pain. My fingers went limp. Before I could grab the little monster with the other hand and squeeze the life out of it, it had clambered up over our shoulders and disappeared into the crowd.
"Son of a flea-bitten blankety-blank," I said through gritted teeth, clutching my hand.
"Rats are a big problem in The Mall," a female in a white, fur-trimmed coat informed us as she swept by.