'Chin-Hwag was in there,' I groaned.
'No, she isn't,' Bozebos corrected me. 'Check your belt.'
I looked down. The woven Purse looked up at me, perturbed.
'You could have come to get me,' she said.
I was relieved, but I wasn't going to let her make me look incompetent.
'Why?' I asked casually. 'The Ring was on the job.'
'Perverts! You are all so lazy. You wait for others to do your work.'
'That's a big fat lie,' I snarled. 'I'm just waiting for the right moment to step in.'
Kazoo music loomed nearer and nearer. Zildie, the drum, raised its three little feet over the threshold of the enlarged keyhole. Buirnie gleamed brilliantly in the light from Klik, his personal spotlight.
'Say, everyone, did you miss me?' Buirnie asked. 'Hey, you're not dancing! Everyone should be dancing!'
He struck up a livelier tone.
Now that he was inside the audience chamber, Barrik's barrier spell was useless. The henchmen broke into a shuffle. They looked at each other uneasily, as their feet started moving unwittingly. In a moment they had started doing a mass hora around the room. Barrik stared at them in horror.
The penny dropped.
'Those were fakes!' he shouted.
'It only took you a minute to figure that out,' I said, stepping forward. 'Congratulations. I heard Diles weren't completely stupid. Just most of them.'
'You! You Pervert!' Barrik said, his toothy face focusing on me. 'I knew it couldn't be the child or her senile old grandfather who came up with such a scheme.'
'Senile?' Calypso said, his back as straight as a die. 'The Calypsos never become senile!'
'Per-VECT!' I corrected Barrik. 'And one smart enough to realize that you were too greedy to tell you weren't dealing with the real thing. Here they are,' I said, waving at the golden treasures, hanging from the rafters, floating in the air, or waving dangerously close to his long, pointy nose. 'The Golden Hoard. Legends. You can't blow
Kelsa started the ball rolling, so to speak. The window of her little case became the focus for a laserlike beam of hot gold light. It struck Barrik in the belly and left a rectangular scorch mark.
'Ow! Curses!' he yelped.
'I didn't know you could do that,' I remarked.
'Oh, I developed that to deal with Stygian darkness,' Kelsa said, cheerfully, swiping another beam past the Dile, who leaped over it. The tail of his cloak caught fire, and he beat it out with an angry fist. 'Styg is a nice place, but so much particulate matter in the air that one can barely tell when the sun is up...'
Barrik aimed the wand at us. I backpedaled into the conga line, trying to get out of his way.
'My turn!' Buirnie called. The kazoo music got faster and faster. The henchmen were doing shuffle-ball- change-shuffle so fast that their feet were flashing. Barrik's face concentrated. I could tell he was doing everything he could to keep from dancing, but the music was irresistible. Even I was starting to feel it, and I had been inoculated. Barrik fired bolt after bolt at
the Fife, trying to silence him. His feet broke into a jig. He hopped and skipped. I almost applauded.
Calypsa, as usual, was unaffected by Buirnie. She continued to circle Barrik.
'We are not finished with our duel,' she said.
'It's not fair,' Barrik whined. 'You're using Ersatz!'
'You have your wand,' she countered. 'Throw it away, and I will surrender the Sword!'
'He has no honor, child,' Ersatz chided her. 'Do not believe him.'
'I will disarm if he will,' she said. 'We will settle this like civilized beings.'
Barrik faked as if to throw his magik stick away. Calypsa followed him, move for move. On the third flick, he actually cast down the wand. Calypsa followed suit. Ersatz went spinning across the floor. I caught him.
'Fool!' Barrik grinned. He opened his hand, and the wand went flying back.
'Return me, friend Aahz,' Ersatz pleaded, his dark eyes blazing.
'Calypsa!' I called. She glanced at me. I tossed Ersatz, hilt downward. She dove for it and caught it just above the floor. Barrik aimed a beam of purple light at her.
'Look out,' Tananda yelled. Calypsa rolled. The floor where she had been just a moment before blew up in a burst of mosaic tiles. She sprang up, the sword in her hand
Asti threw in her two coppers. From her bowl, a yellow liquid overflowed and began to cover the floor. Barrik, backing away from Calypsa, didn't see it until he stepped in it. He tried to raise one foot. It didn't move. He tried to pick up the other. It was stuck, too. He aimed the wand at his feet.
'Silelie benifie usteckie,' Payge chanted. The Book flapped his way down from the rafters. Buirnie ordered Zildie to trot him over to join the circle.
Barrik started throwing spells. The Hoard countered him, tossing visible waves of force in his direction. The
'Take me there, Pervect,' Chin-Hwag said. 'I must join my fellows.'
I brandished her, Bozebos and Kelsa at the trapped wizard, who cowered from them as if I'd been leveling a live dragon. Tananda held out Asti, who looked like she was thinking up another potion to evoke.
'You wanted us all here,' Ersatz boomed. 'I do not care for what nefarious purpose, but you have us now. He who invokes the Hoard must stand the consequences.'
'Leave him alone!' Calypsa demanded. She came toward him with Ersatz covered in blue fire. 'Now, we will face one another in the Dance of Death, evil Barrik! When Asti releases you, it will be to the finish!'
Barrik's beady eyes went wide with terror.
'Noooo!' he whimpered. He whisked the wand over his own head.
One second later, there was no one in the middle of the circle. Nothing remained but the impressions of his feet in the hardened yellow glue. Calypsa realized she was confronting open air. She sagged. I put out an arm to support her, but she waved me away. Her grandfather came over to embrace her.
'You do the family of Calypso great honor,' he told her. 'Thank you, child. Thank you.'
'Oh, grandfather!' she said. The two of them embraced.
'Oh, cut it out,' I said. 'You people can't really be like this, day after day. It'd be like living in a soap opera.'
'Oh, Aahz,' Tananda said, punching me hard in the arm. 'You just can't stand it when someone's happy.'
'Now, do you see how well I did that?' Asti said. 'My glue is proof against even your noise, Buirnie.'
'But I am holding thousands of Diles in thrall!' the Fife protested. 'They must dance to my music!'
'It is interfering with my ability to direct a clean battle,' Ersatz said, sternly. 'What if one unwittingly pranced into the
midst when Calypsa was directing a strike? I do not attack noncombatants!'
'Oh, I suppose you would let them live just because they tell you they were only following orders?' Bozebos said, offensively.
The ground started to shake.
'Knock it off or I'll have to separate you!' I bellowed. 'It's over. You won.'
'We did?' Kelsa asked. 'Oh, yes. We did. Of course we did!'
'The archives,' Payge said, with a gentle noise like a throat clearing, 'will say that Calypsa won. We were but tools to aid in the victory. Adjuncts.'
'Oh, well,' Buirnie said. The kazoo music died away at last. I wiggled a finger in my ear in relief. 'At least I'll get royalties on the dance music I wrote!'
'He's gone!' one of the guards said. 'His Enchantedness is gone!'
'Oh, yes,' Bozebos said, looking around at the sound of the voice. His eyes fixed on the Diles huddled around the big room. 'Them.'
A thin rope of power looped out from the Ring and penetrated right through the walls of the audience
