A middle-aged Klahd with the potbelly of prosperity wearing the king's livery came striding toward us. He wore a determined smile, and maneuvered past the weapons to shake the two males' hands.
"Mr. Guido and Mr. Nunzio!" he said. "Finding everything you want?"
"Not exactly," Guido said, wryly. "I believe we are lookin' for somethin' in a large-jawed monster with a taste for gold and ambuscade. You got one of those?"
The Klahd's smile became somewhat pained. "You jest, sirs, but it is not a matter for amusement. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, it is my men who are taking the brunt of these nighttime raids."
"You will excuse, I hope, the effort at levity," Guido said smoothly. "We take all our visits seriously, Lord Howadzer. Maybe you can tell us what's changed since we was here last in your flagship location?"
Howadzer thought for a minute. "Not much. A few changes in personnel, perhaps. His majesty commanded that we rotate the staff so that everyone has a chance to take part in every job. He likes to see a variety of servants at each of the stores when he holds court. It is meant to make employees more flexible, but we are getting a number of complaints. You cannot make a craftsman into a salesman, nor a seamstress into a security guard, no matter how easy it seems to interchange one peasant for another. After all, we have to pay them now."
"You hadda pay them before," Guido pointed out.
"Not as much as we do today," Howadzer said, obviously aggrieved. "They have been speaking with the neighbors." The ultimate word was accompanied by a visible shudder. "Brr."
"Don't like Deveels?" Nunzio asked.
Howadzer frowned at him. "Well, you are from our world, too, aren't you?"
"Yeah, we're all Klahds."
"Please! I don't like that word! It was imposed upon us by people not like us, who do not live in our world! I am not happy about living in exile, especially in a place like this. I am only willing to put up with it if prosperity follows, but if I may say so in confidence, it is too long in coming for my taste."
"No, I can see where that would be a problem," Nunzio said, with a commendable degree of tact.
"There must be better places than this," Howadzer said.
"You could leave," Guido suggested.
The chancellor looked at him disdainfully. "And go where? With what? His majesty pays but poor wages compared with going concerns in the Bazaar. Besides," he sighed, "I remain loyal to my fellow Klahds, if you must call us that. At least we do not have horns and tails, or green skin. Or consort with strange monsters." He eyed me nervously. I sidled up and deliberately slurped his hand with my tongue.
From his reaction, you would have thought that I had cut off the limb with a dull knife. Howadzer grabbed a stack of embroidered tea towels off a shelf and swabbed himself vigorously until he had taken off not only the offending saliva, but the first layer of skin underneath as well.
I automatically decided that I did not care for this person, and it seemed that Guido and Nunzio shared my distaste. Howadzer realized he had lost his audience's sympathy. He gave them a worried smile.
"Let me show you the scene of the crime," he said.
We wended our way nearly to the rear of the showroom. As at the front of the store, Petherwick had commanded to be built a facility that must have been very much like the facility that he had left behind in Shoalmirk.
"Behold the Treasury," Howadzer said, with a flourish of his flabby hand.
It was very impressive. Guido and Nunzio had seen it before, since they had made many visits to King-Mart, so they surveyed it with experienced eyes. I, on the other hand, had a good look.
Like many castle strong-rooms, the King-Mart Treasury had been created in the shape of a round tower, this one two stories high, bringing it within a few feet of the lofty ceiling. Instead of cage bars or heavy stones, the walls were constructed of clear crystalline blocks, giving the customers a slightly distorted view of the interior. We approached from the left side of the small building. Two guards in chainmail coifs over their tabards and holding polearms stood stiffly at the door, and two more flanked glittering heaps of treasure inside the crystal structure.
I walked all the way around it, sniffing. The heady smell was present, though only near the entrance. There was no other way inside.
"We have four men on duty at all times," Howadzer said. "On the nights when we were attacked, the guards told us that they heard loud noises coming from the aisles nearby. The men who survived said that they never saw the monster coming, and none of them can give us a description."
"That's convenient," Guido said.
"What?"
"I mean, that's terrible," Guido corrected himself. "Petherwick said you had another robbery just last night?"
"King Petherwick to you, if you do not mind," Howadzer said, haughtily. "Whether or not he retains his kingdom, he is royal to his marrow. "Yes, we did. I blame all this magik! Here is your puzzle. A strong-room that has never been breached, yet gold is stolen and men are dead. We seek a monster that goes abroad when no one can see it, yet leaves behind horrendous damage and dead bodies, and steals gold without breaking into the vault."
"This stinks of inside job," Guido said, looking the Chancellor square in the eye. "You gotta know that is what springs to the eye on first examination. Gold doesn't walk away by itself. Someone who knows the works here is involved."
Howadzer snorted. "You would say that. But talk is cheap. Gold is money. Earn yours."
With that as his exit line, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Shoalmirk in exile, turned on his heel and strode away.
"He is right about the value of money," Nunzio said.
"But people, no matter of what stripe or shape, will do very strange things for money. In my experience, few creatures without pockets see much use in gold.
"Excepting dragons, of course," he added, reaching into his pocket for a strip of jerky for me. I accepted it, and forewent my usual sluip in gratitude for his recognition of my species' affection for the imperishable and noble metal.
Dragons and gold have been inseparable in legend for millenia, but no one has ever asked us why we accumulate hoards of it in our own as well as other dimensions. We do not prize it for its purchasing value, since we do not buy that which we need. No, gold occupies a much simpler stratum in our culture. When dragonlets hatch out from their eggs, our mothers care for us while our fathers seek prey to feed us. During our earliest days, we can only consume soft meat, such as eggs and flesh pre-chewed for us by our doting parents (Yes, in spite of their fearsome reputation, dragons are as devoted to their offspring as any other intelligent being.) Soon, though, our baby teeth grow in. To hone them sharp enough to pierce skin, bone, and armor, we need substances to teethe upon that are resistive yet not hard enough to break juvenile dentition. Our mothers seek out and obtain soft metal for us to chew. Most minerals available are either toxic, like lead, or are prone to rust or corrosion, such as copper and steel. Therefore, the metal of choice is gold. A clutch of active youngsters can go through a large quantity until they are large enough to leave the nest. Even afterward, the sight or smell of the metal brings us back to times when we were happy and protected, so we amass a hoard of treasure to keep that feeling alive. We prize gold because it reminds us of Mother.
I sniffed through the bars of the door, to the discomfiture of the guards both inside and outside the vault I could tell that the day's takings had come from a multitude of dimensions. The pile of gold gleamed invitingly. I am afraid that the avid gleam in my eyes made the Klahds on duty very nervous. Quite a quantity of it smelled of dragon, meaning that at one time it had come from a hoard possessed by one of my kind. Since dragons never give away any of their amassed wealth, I only hoped that it had been obtained by stealth that did not result in harm or death to its possessor. To put it mildly, I would take against that. Still, the strange scent was not that of a dragon. It seemed that it should be familiar to me, but I just could not place it.