"What do you think you've found?" I said politely. "Has someone sold you an ancient map, perhaps, or a book with a sealed section? You can't believe everything you buy in the Nightside. Some of these cons go way back. Oh, all right, go on, astound me. What have you found, Polly?"
"Word is, you have a special interest in Arthurian artefacts," said Polly.
I brightened up, despite myself. "What is it, the sword in the stone?"
"Even better," she said. "The sword's original owner. Ah, I thought that would make you sit up and take notice. I know where we can find the Lady of the Lake, frozen for centuries in a block of ice. Preserved against the ravages of Time, since the days of King Arthur. Frozen in her own lake, after Excalibur was returned to her, after the fall of Camelot. Imagine the possibilities if she could be released from her icy tomb! The things she could tell us, of the Age of Arthur. Think of our place in History!"
"Think of how much money we could make!" I said.
"That, too!"
"How did you…?"
"Please," said Polly. "Allow a girl a few secrets. The point is, I don't feel entirely… safe, going after this on my own. I need a partner. And I chose you! Say you're grateful."
"I'm grateful," I said. "Really. But why me? There are any number of other treasure-hunters, far more experienced, who'd be only too happy to help you out."
"I want a partner, sweetie, not someone who'd cut me out first chance he got, or fob me off with a percentage," said Polly. "Besides, I like a man with a lean and hungry look. A man who'll go the distance in pursuit of the big prize. You provide the brawn, and I'll provide the brains. Do we have a deal?"
"You want someone to hide behind when the bullets start flying," I said.
"Exactly!" She clapped her little hands together and gave me a smouldering glance. "We're going to have such fun together… So, are you in? Or do I have to go looking for someone with bigger… dreams?"
I wasn't entirely stupid, or completely besotted by her charms. Like all good cons, this was just too good to be true. I knew there was a real chance she wanted someone to do all the hard work, then hang around to take all the blame while she disappeared with the prize. But she was pretty, and I was young, and I thought I could hold my own when it came to treachery and back-stabbing. Part of me… wanted it to be true. Wanted her to be true.
And I was so very keen to make my name with a really major find.
"To get to the Lady of the Lake," said Polly Perkins, as we left the Bar Humbug and tripped lightly through the dark and sleazy streets, "we need to open a very old, and very specialised, dimensional gate. And for that we need several specific, and very rare, items. Think of them as tumblers in a lock."
"A dimensional gate?" I said, trying not to sound too appalled. "No wonder you didn't want to do this alone. Make even one mistake in opening that kind of gate, and we could end up staring into other dimensions, other realities… even Heaven or Hell. If half the old stories are true, and you'd be surprised how many are."
"I'm not an amateur," said Polly, a bit frostily. "I have done this kind of thing before. Present the gate with the right items, in the right order, and it'll roll over and play nice like a dog having its tummy tickled. So, ready for a little scavenger hunt? Jolly good! First, we need a magic wand. An elven wand, to be exact."
"Oh, this is getting better and better," I said. "An elf weapon? You are seriously loop the loop! The elves never sell, barter, or give up any of their weapons, so they only ever turn up as lost, stolen, or strayed. They are incredibly dangerous, insanely powerful, and nearly always booby-trapped. You can usually tell when someone's found one because bits of him are flying through the air. There are those who say the best way to rid yourself of a troublesome rival is to make him a gift of an elven weapon."
"If you've quite finished hyperventilating, can I point out that you're not telling me anything I don't already know? You wanted into the big league, Larry, and it doesn't get much bigger than this. You have to risk some to get some. Or is my big bold treasure-hunter afraid of a little fairy magic?"
"Too right I am! So is anyone with two working brain-cells to bang together! I do not want to end up transformed into something small and squishy with eye-balls floating in it. But I said I'm in, so I'm in. Where's the wand?"
She grinned, and batted her eye-lashes coyly at me. "How do you feel about a little tomb robbing?"
"Just call me Indy," I said resignedly. Some rides you have to follow all the way to the end.
She took me to the Street of the Gods, and we strolled down the middle of the Street, giving all the churches and temples, their Beings and their supporters, plenty of room. There was a light rain of fish, a brief outbreak of spontaneous combustion among the gargoyles, and ball-lightning rolled down the street like tumble-weeds. Typical weather for the Street of the Gods. An evicted god sat miserably on the pavement outside what used to be his church, clutching at his few possessions. The laws of the Street are strict; if you can't raise enough worshippers, make way for a Being who can. So the grey little man with the flickering halo would now have to make his own way in the world, as something else. A god no more. A lot of his kind end up doing the rounds on chat shows, selling their sob stories. And even more end up sleeping in cardboard boxes in Rats' Alley, begging for spare change on street-corners. And it's a wise man who'll stop to drop a little something into their outstretched hand, because the wheel of karma turns for us all, and cosmic payback can be a real bitch.
"I don't recognise him," said Polly, as we walked past. "I don't even know his name. Isn't that sad?"
"Half the Beings on this Street are celestial con men, fakes, and posers," I said, with youthful certainty and arrogance. "There's more preying than praying here."
"They can't all be deceivers," said Polly. "Some of them must be the real thing."
"Those are the ones you give plenty of room. Just in case."
She laughed. "Am I to take it that you're not in any way religious?"
"I deal in facts, not faith," I said. "I hunt for treasure, not miracles. There's enough in this world to keep me interested without bothering about the next. Where are we going, exactly?"
"Egyptian royalty had themselves buried in pyramids, to be sure their remains would be protected and revered for all the years to come," Polly said briskly. "We all know how that worked out. But one particular Pharaoh went that little bit further, and used ancient Egyptian magic to send his Tomb through Space and Time, to a place where it would be safe for all eternity. It ended up here, on the Street of the Gods, its original protections boosted sky-high by centuries of accumulated faith from all those who worshipped the God within the Pyramid. This being the Nightside, a lot of people have tried to break in, down the centuries, including a few Beings who fancied its preferred position on the Street. No-one has ever found a way in."
"Hold it," I said. "What has all this to do with an elven wand?"
She looked at me pityingly.
"Where do you think the Pharaoh found a magic powerful enough to do all this? The elves got around, in the old days."
"Cool," I said. "I've always wanted to meet a mummy. And rob it of everything but its underwear."
"The Tomb stands alone these days, unworshipped and uncared for, almost forgotten. Taken for granted, as one of the sights. Tourists take photos, and then move on to more interesting things. And no-one has noticed that the Tomb's magical protections have slowly faded away, along with the worship. We can get in now, provided we're very, very careful."
"How do you know all this?" I said bluntly.
"You're not the only one who likes to do research in libraries. I found this information while looking for something else, which is often the way. And then I found a Looking Glass in Strange Harald's Junkshop." She gestured fluidly, and the Looking Glass was suddenly in her hand. It looked like an ordinary everyday magnifying glass, but I had enough sense not to say that. Polly favoured me with a brilliant smile for my tact, and continued. "He didn't know what this was, or he'd never have let it go so cheaply. This is an ancient Egyptian artefact, and it can lead us right to the centre of the Tomb."