underneath my desk out of the way, gave me a sorrowful look.
Each of my friends took their turn, in solemn silence. Bunny, with a little more foreknowledge of the culture than the rest of us, did better at all the rituals. I admired her skill so much that I didn't feel bad when Bunny got to the only empty chair ahead of me to win that game. Hermalaya oversaw everything with an austere eye, guiding us with a little magik here and there.
When it was all through, Hermalaya gave me a small box she had wrapped in colored paper. It contained a pinch of the sprinkles that had been on the cake. I felt as if I had been given a treasure chest.
'Thank you,' I said.
'Thank you for coming,' Hermalaya said, formally, urging us out into Bunny's foyer.
Came back in again, Hermalaya sat exhausted on the lone chair. Bunny and I started to clear up. There was little in the way of leftovers, but Chumley crammed the remaining half of the Cake in his mouth with every evidence of
Trollish enjoyment, and I only wished I had thought of getting to it first. Nunzio carefully took down the dragon tapestry, now well pinned, and I gathered up all the glitter and spilled sprinkles with a handful of magik. The swamp vixen didn't protest at all until I reached for the silver server. She swooped down on that and her ice- cream knife.
'No one touches the tools of a Cake Master,' she said apologetically. She cleaned them off and placed them in a small fitted case covered with mother-of-pearl. 'I'm sorry to seem discourteous.'
'Not at all,' I said. 'I'm the one ignorant of your customs.'
'That was beautiful,' Bunny said. 'I'm so moved. I never saw the real thing.'
'Few have,' Hermalaya said, with a shrug of her narrow shoulders. 'There are pale approximations all through the dimensions—you alluded to one yourself. It's a shame, because I think it's so uplifting?'
The mental candle that had been trying to light itself over my head finally burst out in a flare of brilliant flame.
'Would you consider introducing more people to the joys of Cake?' I asked.
'Why, what do you mean?' Hermalaya asked. Bunny raised her eyebrows warily, but let me explain.
'I was really impressed by how skilled you are at the ceremony,' I said. 'Like Nunzio said, you need to get important people on your side. I think that if you offered to host a high-end experience for honored guests, guests with a lot of influence and money, we might be able to get you home again and refill the treasury. You should be unique with this kind of approach.'
'That's true,' Nunzio said. 'Big gestures are lost on important people. I like this because it's a subtle approach.'
'But I couldn't ask people for money,' Hermalaya said, looking distressed. 'That would be vulgar.'
I frowned. 'You're right. We don't want to lower the tone of the ceremony by making it about money instead.'
'Ask offering?' Chumley asked. It was difficult for him to express complex concepts in his persona as Big Crunch, but he was good at conveying what he wanted in a mono-syllabic fashion.
'That might do,' I said. 'It'll be my job to look for the best prospects. I will approach them and tell them your story. If they're sympathetic, at best I will line up their support on your behalf for a move against Matfany. At worst, I'll go for a loan or a grant of some kind. In exchange, they get to experience the Cake ceremony. I'll... have them wrap up the gold like a present. If they enjoy themselves, they can give it to you.'
'Well, that's better,' Hermalaya agreed.
'I am sure once they've been through the rituals with you, it will change their lives,' Bunny said. 'They'd have to be dead not to be wowed.'
'I'll have to write down some of the details of your experiences to tell them,' I added.
'Oh, you don't have to do that,' the princess said. 'I've got it all written down already? I've kept a diary all of my life—ever since I could write, that is. The last volume is right here in my bag?'
She opened up the dainty clutch and drew out of it a huge tome bound in pure white leather tooled in gold, with gems set along the binding. 'It's all here,' she said. 'Every single one of my thoughts and experiences over that terrible time.'
'Read me some of it,' I said, reaching out for a line of force and a sheet of parchment. The Bazaar was filled with those streams of magikal power. They varied in color, intensity, and even configuration, but they were the source of raw magik in all of the dimensions that used it. I gathered a good handful from the curly green line that ran beneath the tent and formed it into an earlike shell. I aimed the opening toward Hermalaya.
'What's that, Boss?' Nunzio asked, curiously.
'It's a new spell I worked out recently when I was thinking how I could help my new clients. It takes down everything they say on this paper, so later on I can invoke it and see what they said exactly how they said it. I don't want to forget details I might need to solve their problems. You can watch it again and again, as long as the parchment stays intact.'
'Clever,' growled Chumley.
'Go ahead and read,' I told the princess. She turned to a page in the middle and began.
Hermalaya had been born in the wrong place. She should have been a dramatist. Her observations of her people were keen, filled with interesting little details. She spared nothing on her tale of the invasion of the insects and how her subjects' lives were changed. I felt my heart go out to her when she told how she listened to them pleading for help, and I wanted to dash out and bring down Matfany when she narrated the events leading up to her expulsion from Foxe-Swampburg.
'Perfect,' I said, letting the roll of parchment snap shut.
'But what'll you do with it?' Hermalaya asked.
'Take it with me and show it to prospective donors,' I said. 'The Princess's Diary is so evocative it's got to convert people to your cause. It'd be too undignified for you to go out and ask for support, so I will make all the connections and conduct the interviews. I'll offer the ones who offer sympathy—and money—a chance to experience your Cake ceremony. If they bite, they get to meet the princess and have Cake made and served by her own dainty royal hands. I hope that our twofold approach will even get some of them to go lean on Matfany to give you back your throne. It can't miss.'
'Good,' Chumley said, grinning. 'Work wonders.'
'Yeah, Boss,' Nunzio said. 'Nobody could fail to be moved by the poignance of her situation.'
'Gleep!' exclaimed my dragon.
'That's really pretty clever,' Bunny said, tilting her head.
'If I do have to say so myself,' I agreed. 'Do you think Aahz will do anything like this?'
Bunny gave me a flat look. 'I'm not going to tell you. You know better than that.'
I shrugged. 'It was worth a try.'
BAMF!
'Welcome to Foxe-Swampburg, gentlemen,' Matfany said.
We appeared in the middle of the so-called busiest street in Foxe-Swampburg. which would have been a safety issue almost anywhere else I have ever visited on purpose. I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of dimensions I had visited that were prettier than Foxe-Swampburg. The sky was a rich lapis blue. Flowers as big as my head bloomed in insane neon colors on bright green bushes. Birds twittered in the trees, and the blue-green sea washed up and down a perfect, broad, sandy beach. However, the place was deserted. Practically nobody was out browsing the windows of the shops, or riding the shaggy-pelted donkeys munching feed from nose bags, or rowing in any of the numerous configurations of boat that lined the rocky shore. The second we appeared, a dozen pedal cabs converged upon us from every direction. The drivers shouted and rang handbells at us to get our attention.
'Hey, madam! Come on! Most comfortable cab in the city!' a red-pelted Swamp Fox shouted. 'Cleanest seats!'
