"Ah!" Eskina nodded. "This is more sense. The Barista, of course. I will take you to the coffee shop."
I began to get a better idea of how The Mall was laid out as we walked. Big stores formed anchor points at intersections, with strings of small, smaller, and downright tiny establishments linking them. According to the map most of them were as modest as they appeared. Not many had taken the transdimensional route as The Volcano had.
The parallels between The Mall and the Bazaar became more obvious the farther we went. I noticed a delicate little Gnome female weighing out gems for a pair of burly horned-and-hooved travelers at the booth of the currency exchange she ran. Behind them, out of their line of vision but fully in sight of the Gnome were a couple of Trolls from the bar next door, each holding a club in case the travelers got rowdy. The transaction came to. an end, the customers thanked her and departed, and the Trolls melted unobtrusively back into their establishment. Eskina was right: neighbors, looking out for one another.
A sign pinned to the wall read "Rub My Belly, two silver pieces." Underneath it, on the floor, a large dog lay on his back, wiggling seductively. He lifted his nose and sniffed, then whined. "Eskina!"
The Ratislavan hurried over to fondle the dog's belly.
"How are you, Radu?" she asked.
"Very well. No sniff of the scent you seek."
"Ah, well." The female sighed. "Thank you for being vigilant."
"How about you?" Radu looked up at us with big brown eyes. "Reduced rates for friends of my friends?"
Massha smiled. "Why not?" She stooped to tickle the dog's hairy stomach. "Reminds me of my Hugh." Radu writhed all over with pleasure. "That reminds me of Hugh, too."
I groaned. "Too much information, Massha." I strode on.
"Hey, friend," a whinnying voice hailed me. I glanced in that direction. A huge, dappled gray horse stood at the door of a well-lit shop with a swinging sign emblazoned shire oat meals hanging horizontally on a pole over his head. Inside I could see a host of customers of several species, including Klahds, standing at a high bar, dining with spoons or eating right out of the dish. He tossed his head, making his long white mane dance. "Come in and try a bowl! Best oatmeal you'll ever taste! Today's special is whole grain cereal, with a bright red pippin on the side."
"No, thanks," I called back. "I like my food a little more active."
"Perverts," whispered his coworker, a smaller black steed.
It was meant to be an aside, but my species has very keen hearing. I don't take that kind of abuse from anybody.
"Do you want to be the main course?" I bellowed.
"Neigh!" she whickered in alarm, backing into the diner with a clatter of hooves.
The gray rider blew out his lips at me. "There's no need to be offensive," he chided.
"Maybe you'll remember next time: it's Pervect!"
"Aahz!" Massha poked me in the head with a finger. She was floating above our heads. "Say, Eskina, is it always this warm in here?" "Not really," Eskina replied. "Normally the climate is very well controlled. The volcano underneath the mall generates geothermal energy to run the technology that .many of the shops are selling. And it keeps us very warm in the winter. But this is summer, and it is much too hot. The building engineer is falling behind in his job. Ah, here he comes! Jack!" She jumped up and down, waving to a fair-haired male in a pointed red cap with a bobble on the end.
I saw him skimming toward us as the crowd parted to let him by. He stood about my height, clad in a red jacket and breeches. Effortlessly, he nipped in and out of clusters of shoppers, gliding smoothly on one foot, then the other.
He didn't have skates on. I realized, as I saw vapor condensing around his body in the hot air, that he had to be a weather wizard or something equally powerful. As he got closer I saw a trail of ice form where his feet touched the floor. With his heels together and feet pointing outward in a straight line from toe to toe, he skimmed around us in ever-decreasing circles until he came to a halt directly in front of the Ratislavan.
"Eskina!" he exclaimed, sweeping her up in his arms. He had the features of a well-fed elf, with light blue eyes and strawberry blond hair framing an agreeably round face, pink on the apples of the cheeks and the tip of his sharp nose, but pale everywhere else. His ears, unlike the locals', had only one point each.
"Put me down," Eskina chided him, tapping him on the chest. "You will freeze me."
"Sorry." He grinned. "I don't know my own BTUs, sometimes."
"Let me present new friends," she offered, introducing us each by name. "You have probably heard of Jack Frost?" she asked me.
I received a solid handshake and drew back a hand chilled to the bone.
"The Jack Frost?" I asked. "The elemental?"
"Yup!" that dignitary replied cheerfully. "Nice to meet you! Are you shopping for something special today?" "No, they are not," Eskina corrected him, before I could speak. "They are going to help me find Rattila."
"Wait a minute, I didn't say that," I argued.
The pale blue eyes met mine sincerely. "That's really good of you. Eskina's kept her nose to the ground, but she's only one person. This is an awfully big place. It's too easy for an interdimensional criminal to hide out here. I'm only a contractor, so Mall administration doesn't listen to me, but things are really heating up around here, and I do not mean the temperature. Speaking of which," he added, raising his nose as though sniffing the air, "it is too warm. Stand back a bit, folks."
Jack inhaled deeply, then blew. His breath shot outward in a white cone, and the whiteness radiated outward to the walls. I prefer a cool room to a hot one, but this was one abrupt change. If there'd been a bag of peas hanging in front of him it would have been flash-frozen. My teeth chattered hard enough to hurt my jaw. Massha pulled her flimsy garments more snugly around her. So did the hundreds of shoppers in the hall. Some of them shot dirty looks at the elemental. Only Chumley and Eskina, clad in their own lush fur, were unaffected.
"Sorry, folks," Jack apologized, after taking a second breath. "It'll even out in a moment. Got to keep on top of things, or it'd be the end of The Mall as we know it!"
"Wait a moment," I exclaimed, as a thought struck me. "You say this place is on top of a live volcano? The steam rising above the mountain outside isn't an effect?"
"Nope! The Volcano, the clothing store, is named for it. You've seen the floor? My work," he announced modestly. "Living art, I call it. Free-flowing lava. Really pretty. You should go and take a look."
"Maybe later," I suggested, promising myself never to set foot in that store again. I remembered the orange-and-black floor, but I thought it was a piece of magik intended to impress the shoppers. A live volcano! These people were definitely crazy.
"So you'll be around for a while?" Jack asked, sticking up a finger to test the atmosphere. The temperature had dropped to a pleasant level. Elemental magik was some of the most powerful around.
"Not one minute more than we have to," Massha answered, cheerfully. "We want to help our friend, then I've got to get back to my job."
"They are staying," Eskina insisted. "They have a friend who is being thieved from. Only if they help me catch Rattila will they solve their friend's problem."
"We'll see about that," I glowered.
"Hey, hey, then, welcome to the neighborhood," Jack Frost boomed. "Gotta go." He offered each of us a hand again, then shot off down the corridor.
"You had to tell him everything?" I asked, moodily.
"Everyone knows everything about each other," Eskina acknowledged. "I have had to become acquainted with so many because the administration is so bad in not helping me. I will introduce you to all my good friends. They are all very nice, giving me food and places to sleep. Some are not so kind, like the proprietor of The Volcano and his cousins. That is why you see me sneaking in and out of there, but I must patrol where my nose leads me." She tapped that small feature. "Come with me! I will take you to die Barista."