"How could you see an invisible wall?" Calypsa asked.
I shook my head. "I should have asked to see Froome in public, gotten Polka to bring him out where we could jump him."
The Cup rolled her engraved eyes. "Hah! Then he would have cried for help. While you were dealing with the enforcers, he would have run back into the safety of the members' rooms, where you couldn't follow. Still a failure. Utter lack of preparation, and in a locale that you claimed to know well. You should have recalled that there would be protective spells. You could have come up with a much better cover story. They could tell right away you didn't have any magik, apart from us and that ancient bauble in your pocket. You could have come up with a much better story. I could have come up with one in my sleep!"
"Then why didn't you, sister?" I snarled, holding her up eye to eye with me. 'You're so free and easy with the criticism. I thought you were in on this mission. But you'd rather carp at me than help!"
Asti's engraving looked as if it was etched into granite instead of gold. "Mortal, you fail or succeed on your own. You can ask us for help, but we're not going to jump in and rescue you from your pathetic lack of strategy. Buirnie offered to be of assistance, but you turned him down. Under those circumstances, I felt no need to offer."
"I thought that his approach was the correct one," Ersatz put in.
"Thanks," I said.
The Sword wasn't finished critiquing me. "But even so, you did not push hard enough. You have a forceful personality; why did you not use it?"
"Or charm!" Buirnie said. "A little more friendliness would have helped."
"All right, that's it," I said, cutting them off with one hand. "I've had enough of you riding me. I don't have to justify my actions to you. So this attempt failed. We're not dead yet, and neither is Calypso. Unless I want your input, keep your comments to yourself. I'm going back in there if I have to take on the whole room. I'm going to get Froome." I cracked my knuckles. "Come on."
"No point," Kelsa said cheerfully. "He's gone. He blinked out when the argument started."
I gawked. "Why didn't you say something?"
"Well, you get so cross when I interrupt you, but I do think, dear Aahz, you ought to relax that stricture, since it often runs counter to what you need to know at certain psychological moments..."
"Never mind," I snarled.
"Do you see?" Asti said. "Calypsa, child, in future be guided by us. We have millennia more experience to draw upon. This Pervert has led you astray over and over. There is little time left. Do not waste any more of it."
"That's it," I said. "I can take it when you four argue among yourselves, but I am tired of being needled when I'm doing my best. Forget it. I don't want any part of you, except Kelsa."
The Crystal Ball blinked huge yellow eyes. "I'm honored!"
"Don't be. If you weren't useful I wouldn't bother with any of you." I swapped the case containing Asti with Tananda for Kelsa's bowling bag. I'm going after Froome on my own without you. I'll meet you back in the inn on Ori," I told Tananda.
She tucked her hand into my arm and eased close to me. I eyed her with suspicion. I had a good mad on now, and I didn't want to waste it.
"You can't go, Aahz," she said.
"Yes, I can," I said. "I've got the D-hopper. All I need is a guide to catch up with this guy. I work better alone." I yanked the device out of my pocket.
"No, you haven't," Tananda said.
"What?" I bellowed. "I've always worked alone."
"But not better," she said, with a little smile quirking the corners of her mouth. She took Kelsa away from me and handed her off to Calypsa, who stood in the blaze of Klik's spotlight. Tananda drew me aside.
"This isn't just about how much nagging you've been getting from the Hoard, is it?" she said in a low voice. "I miss Skeeve, too. But I never saw you think harder or work more effectively than when you were trying to live up to the image he has of you in his mind."
"Dragon dung," I snarled. "Maybe I'm just fed up with having everything I do being criticized. Women always have to have a deeper explanation for things."
The smile became a broad grin. "Maybe. Dragon dung is real, and so is what I'm saying. You know why he went back to Klah."
"He got tired of us," I said, tossing a hand casually. "I know how he feels. I got claustrophobia working too closely with everyone. I'm not used to it. He probably felt like he couldn't take the pressure any more. I'm feeling like that now."
She shook her head. "You don't have to lie to me. He went back so he could work on becoming worthy of hanging
out with us. As if we could live up to his standards. Admit it' Skeeve makes you feel proud and small at the same time. He's more of a realist than I ever would have thought, after that first moment in the Bazaar, when I could have stolen the bones out of his body without him catching on, but he has this shining image of us as the ultimate companions. Partners. That word has a special meaning for me, now. Except for Chumley I hardly ever trusted anyone I work with, but I learned to trust all of you, and I learned that you were worth trusting, because Skeeve opened my eyes. You don't even believe you're trustworthy, because you keep going back to how greedy you are. Asti's playing on that, and it stings, doesn't it? But it's natural for Pervects, nothing to be ashamed of. Skeeve took that into consideration, and so do I. You're pushing us away, even though we're perfectly good companions, because if you think Skeeve told us to take a hike, then no one is worth hanging around with. But he didn't. He told himself to leave. I think he hoped the rest of us would stay together, but, admit it, Aahz, he was the glue. In my business you can't get too attached to anyone, but I'm attached to him. He's family, and so are you. So, cousin, are you going to reopen your brain and take us with you, or are you going to march in there alone?"
I don't like having my private feelings dredged up and smashed into my face like wedding cake, but as Tananda said, she's an old friend who knows me pretty damned well. It had bugged me when Ersatz implied no mortals could have a fellowship as good as theirs—which didn't seem so terrific to me, the way they fought all the time.
"All right," I said, keeping up the show of reluctance. "But if you're coming with me, no screwing up."
"I'll try." She grabbed my ears and planted a solid kiss on my lips. "Attaboy, Aahz," she said. "Come on, Calypsa, we've got to get moving!"
BAMF!
The contrast between Vaygus and Tomburg was so marked that I thought we had jumped from a color set to black-and-white. Where neon had decorated not only the buildings but the clothes of the people of Vaygus, those of Tomburg's denizens I could see hunched over reading at desks in cubicles around me were dressed in drab, natural colors, matching the musty-smelling books on nearby shelves. We were in pretty close quarters. Tanda and Calypsa were jammed in tight.
"Where is he?" I asked Kelsa.
"Shh!" A round face was thrust into mine, a finger held vertical against its lips. I jumped back.
Only long experience kept me from smashing the face in with my fist in surprise, but I felt like doing it anyhow once I had my bearings. I didn't think that round a face could compress into that many wrinkles of disapproval. The guy behind it was cylindrical in shape, with at least nine pairs of arms and legs running down his body.
"What the hell is your problem, Bub?" I snarled.
The forefinger moved away from the fat little face, and pointed at a sign on a pillar between two tall cabinets filled with books.
SILENCE, it said. The forefinger stabbed toward it several times for good measure.
'What is this, a monastery?"