Myth-Told Tales

was failing to pay dividends in intelligence.

In the early hours toward dawn, voices at a distance from us in the dimly lit store broke the silence. Guido and Nunzio rose as if to check out the disturbance, but I recognized the voices. They were Lord Howadzer and Lord Dalhailey. I made a point of cocking my head, then stretching luxuriously and settling down again upon my rattan couch.

'Guess it's nothing' to worry about,' Nunzio said, sitting down again. 'Ugh! We have to speak to King Petherwick about real, live pest control.' He stamped his shiny shoes down on the tiles.

'What's the matter?' Guido asked.

'Bug ran right over my foot!' He continued to step, but his quarry eluded him. 'Fast little monster!' CRUNCH! 'There.' He pointed triumphantly. 'Got it.'

I caught the scent and scooted forward to slurp up the squashed body. 'Never miss an opportunity to try a new taste sensation' is my motto. I swallowed the morsel, and stopped, jaws agape. 'You okay, little buddy?' Nunzio asked. I turned to lick his face in delight Light had dawned!

I realized I should not have been inspecting only the customers, but the merchandise! One of the rakes smelled of Klahdish blood. It had been washed, but that was not enough to remove the scent for one with such as sensitive a sense of smell as mine.

I hearkened back upon my earliest dragonlet memories. The flavor of the titbit had reminded me of a lesson my mother had taught me and my siblings when I was but fresh out of the egg. She had brought some of these creatures back to our nest to teach us that there was a beast that was feared even by dragons for its insidiousness.

Goldbugs!

Goldbugs are the scourge of dragons, because they eat gold. They do, in fact, consume and digest it They crave even tiny, minuscule morsels of the precious metal, and can winkle it out of even the tightest confines, destroying anything that might keep them from their favorite comestible. I realized in a flash of enlightenment that would explain the 'bite mark' that had been taken out of the pillar. If someone who had handled gold, such as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had touched the wall, it would have left a trace that was irresistible to the little pests. They would have swarmed up to the handprint, invisible to all but them, and chewed the stone until they had every atom of gold safe in their bellies.

They left a mark that played well into the grasp of the thief or thieves, who were able to spread rumors of a monster on the loose, and so distract attention from the series of burglaries that had been committed directly under the nose of the employees and lords of King-Mart! Since the bugs had been intercepted before they had walked very far, that spoke of a mortal agent, one of above-animal intelligence. Since all the robberies took place at night, the culprit could not be a customer. It had to be one of the staff. Guido was quite correct when he stated that he believed this to be an inside job. Somehow an employee, or more than one, had brought it to bear upon King-Mart and commit depredations against same for the purposes of theft. But whom?

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