Tuning out the babble, I turned left. "Still hot?"
"Yes! Hot."
I strode along the narrow path behind Tananda. It was just a track that local ruminants must have made. My feet slipped on the ground. The mud was compacted to a rubbery surface with just enough dew on the surface to make it slick going. I kept my eyes just ahead of my feet to keep from tripping on exposed roots.
"...Hot...hot...hot...cold!"
"Cold? I thought you said it was hot!" Tananda said.
"Well, it will be cold, if you go through that bush just ahead," Kelsa said, blinking up at her, transformed into a very sexy Trollop with diamond-studded spectacles. "The bridge is out."
"Say, I know a song about a bridge!" Buirnie volunteered. "It's a tragic dirge. You'll love it. It's just the kind of thing to make our hike go faster."
I ignored him.
"This way," I said, as we crested yet another muddy hummock, early on the third day of our trek. "I hear hammering."
"Well done, Aahz!" Kelsa crowed. "Yes, I was just going to say...There it is. Off to the right, just past that stand of hawberry trees."
I led the way. As we got closer, the mud-colored building on the other side of the copse started to take shape. One fat oval story sat on top of a lower level that spread out in all directions, looking as if it had been built up over centuries. As an inhabitant decided he needed another room, he just broke a
hole in the wall and built alongside it. Smoke was coming from several of the dozens of chimneys sticking up from the tiled roof. We halted about ten yards away.
"Turn off the music," I told Buirnie. "This has to be the place."
"Oh, thank the Choreographers!" Calypsa exclaimed. She headed for the front door.
I pulled her back.
"Not so fast! What do you think you're doing?"
"Going inside?" Calypsa said. She looked from one to the other of us, puzzled. "Or should we not use the door?"
"It might not be as easy as it looks," I said.
"Well, of course it is," she said, eyes wide. "You lift the latch, then push it open...what am I missing?"
I groaned. She was SO young.
"Guile," Ersatz said. "Dear child, this is an extremely isolated location. If you lived here, away from aid, would you not have concerns for your safety from passersby? You would set up some manner of defense."
Calypsa looked abashed. "I've always lived in the village," she said.
"Houses about ten feet apart, right?" I said. She nodded. "When the neighbor has Limburger, you hold your nose?"
"What's Limburger?
"Forget it," I snapped. "Kelsa, is this place booby-trapped?"
"No, it's not, but there's one detail that might be of interest to you, not that all the details of this quest aren't interesting, they'll make good telling in the saga that Buirnie is going to write one day, but..."
"I am?" the Flute asked brightly. "Wow! Will it become world famous?"
"Of course, dear," Kelsa said. "Don't all of your songs? But, Aahz..."
"Can it. Tanda, let's look like the locals. I don't want to spook this guy. I just want to be one of the brotherhood. Savvy?"
"One disguise spell, coming up," Tananda said, closing her eyes to concentrate.
"Amazing!" Calypsa said, as soon as the spell took effect. She had been transformed into a slender, black-furred beauty, if you could call the locals beautiful. "You are even more ugly than usual!"
"Thanks a heap," I grunted.
Ersatz had said that Payge was a completely interactive grimoire, so the chances were that we were dealing with a magician of some kind. Tanda made me into a fellow master magician of the local species, formidable yet approachable. I'd suggest a trade, or barring that, a contest to win the Book from him. I was prepared to cheat my way to success under any circumstances. She and Calypsa were dressed as a couple of attractive acolytes carrying my magikal impedimenta, namely the Golden Hoard. I hoped that we could make some sort of peaceful arrangement. We had little more than a week left, and Calypsa was getting antsier by the day.
I rapped on the door with a stick I had picked up from the woodpile, now doing double-duty as a wizard's staff.
"Anyone home?" I asked.
No answer. I realized the door was ajar. That was never a good sign. That could mean anything from a bucket of water to a thermonuclear grenade armed to go off when we passed over the threshold.
"Oh, Aahz," Kelsa said. "One thing you really should know..."
"Not now," I said. "Stand back."
I stepped around to one side of the frame, and shoved the door open with the end of my staff. The hinges protested like a dozen banshees with hangovers, and the door slammed against the inner wall.
Tortured souls poured out of the house in a cloud of chartreuse smoke. They screamed woe and sorrow, pointing bony fingers at us. Their empty eye sockets gleamed red as they swooped down at us. Mouths opened on multiple sets of fangs.
Calypsa screamed. I grabbed her hand and towed her behind me, her toes scraping the ground. As soon as she got her wits moving, she shook loose from my grip, and took off ahead of us like an Olympic sprinter. Tananda wasn't too far behind her. That left me in the rear. The ghouls flowed after me in a wave. I kept glancing back at them over my shoulder. What could I do? I didn't have any magik to dispell them. They were catching up. The ghouls grinned. Their claws were inches from scalp. They could tear me apart. I put on a burst of speed.
The going on the marshy path was heavy. I felt something grab my foot. I saw the root as I went flying. I rolled over, claws and teeth pointing upward, ready to fight to the death.
The cloud of ghouls kept flowing past me, wailing and screaming. They paid no attention to me. Within a few yards, they dissipated into a haze of burnt yellow smoke.
"Party howlers," I said, with disgust. I got to my feet and brushed myself off. "Pretty tasteless color combination, too."
"That was one undignified sprawl," Asti observed, from her case. I retrieved her from where she'd fallen in a swampy pool at the path's edge. "Ugh! And all over my nice leather, too. Make sure you get all the dirt off, Pervect. I can't believe you fell for that!"
"Zip it," I told her. I started trudging toward where the rest of my party had disappeared.
At that moment, Tananda came rushing back over the crest of the hill, knives drawn in each hand. I suspected, but couldn't see, that at least one of them was enchanted against magikal attack. Behind her, Calypsa came up holding Ersatz, drawn, in both hands. They saw me standing there, unhurt but muddy. I waved a hand.
"I appreciate the effort," I said. "It was nothing. Party favors. Our friend in there has a sense of humor. I'll remember that when we negotiate with him." I bent down to peer eye to eye with Kelsa. "I thought you said the house wasn't booby-trapped. I could have broken my neck trying to get away from those cartoon ghosts!"
"Oh, well, I'd put that little outburst in the same category with practical jokes," she said. "Booby-traps are usually meant to be fatal, you see. At least, that is my understanding..."
"Never mind," I said, cutting her off. "Come on. If that's the worst he's going to throw at unexpected visitors, then he's a pushover. Let's get the book and get out of here."
I retrieved my staff from where I had thrown it, and poked it in the front door. I waggled it around, checking for electric eyes, tripwires, or deadfalls. Nothing else happened. Cautiously, I peered around the doorpost. The front room was empty.
I went in for a closer look. The room seemed to have been abandoned recently. I could see dust on the floor that outlined a bedstead, a chest, and four small squares which were probably the feet of a table. Similar lines on the shelves built into the wall suggested the room's owner had had a substantial library, which had also gone. A handful of papers were scattered on the floor. I picked one up. It was a past due bill from a stationer's store.