TWENTY-THREE

Not surprisingly, being carried by eight beings of less than average strength was bumpy at best. They dropped him again and again on the hard tile floor. Chumley would have protested if his mouth had been free, but two of the Klahds—he refused to call them Skeeve even in his thoughts—had wound sticky tape around it.

He struggled to get free, to no avail. How was it that eight puny beings were able to sap his superior strength? He suspected that it was not their doing; these were the worker drones—the queen, or, in this case, the king of the hive had cast an enfeebling spell and interfered with Massha's magik.

A ninth figure caught up with the group and hoisted Chumley's left shoulder. Chumley's heart leaped. At first he thought Aahz had discovered the subterfuge and was about to rescue him, but it was a Pervert—er, Pervect of the female persuasion.

"Zis is not fair! Why can I not match ze ozzers?" the Pervect asked, in a peevish tone.

"Because you lost your Skeeve card," one of the bland Klahdish faces responded. "The Big Cheese doesn't remake them, remember?"

The Pervect grumbled. The group trotted on, rounding corners. Chumley tried to keep track of all the turns they made, but he was not accustomed to watching the ceiling.

"Whoops," the lead impostor gulped. "Patrol on the way! Hey, you, disguise us!"

Chumley caught another glimpse of green out the corner of his eye, this one dark and smooth. The newcomer was Aahz's friend Chloridia.

"Mmm!" Chumley exclaimed, trying to get her attention. Her four eyes never focused on him. Her expression was one of dazed obedience. He was shocked. She must have fallen at last under the spell of Rattila's card theft.

"There you are," the impostor lugging Chumley's left foot grunted. "We can't let go of him. Put a disguise on us."

At the impostor's order, Chloridia began to chant in unknown words. In a moment the Klahds bearing him became a host of meaty Djinns in coveralls. Chumley shuddered to think as what they might have disguised him.

"Good," the leader stated. "Now, go buy something. We'll call you if we need you."

"Mmmmh!" Chumley blurted, frantic to get her attention, but she had already turned and undulated away.

The Klahd-Djinns hoisted his limbs once more and continued their journey.

A good deal of the ceiling went by, with several more changes in direction, until the disguised horde finally carried him over a threshold. The scent around him was somewhat familiar, that of brimstone and sulfur, along with a sharper odor reminiscent of ammonia. Through the shoulders of the illusory Djinns around him, he spotted tall shelves supporting myriad pairs of the blue trousers that had so captivated the Klahds. Therefore, he was in The Volcano. Where, then, were they taking him?

Row after row after row of dressing rooms flashed past him in peripheral vision. Chumley tried to keep count of the doorways. He recalled from their early orientation that The Volcano was extradimensional. It could be the reason they had never managed to discover the whereabouts of Rattila was that it lay not in this dimension but in another.

The answer, which surprised him, was not long in coming. A few hundred doorways had gone by when his escort made a sharp left through a gaudily dyed curtain and into dank, hot darkness. As soon as they were within, the disguise spell dropped away.

His eyes, more sensitive than many other species', adjusted very swiftly. Chumley became aware that the party trod a downward slope. Feeble lights issued from the ceiling, lending the Klahds a leprous cast. A howl sounded from far ahead.

"Uh-huh!" one of the impostors announced. "Sounds like the Big Cheese is home."

"Well, well, what have you brought me?" a squeaky voice asked with eager menace.

The Klahds dropped Chumley on the floor. The landing was not painful, as his fall was cushioned by an uneven pad of some kind.

A black-furred face imposed itself between Chumley and the ceiling. Before the Troll's eyes was one of the largest vermin he had ever beheld. Nearly the size of Eskina, this creature had a narrow, tapered head terminating in a quivering black nose with long, wiry whiskers that quivered when it talked.

"Welcome to my Rat Hole," the vermin chittered, showing sharp, yellow, rectangular teeth, a startling contrast to the ebon fur. "You've met all of my associates? I am Rattila, Lord of The Mall, and soon to be of all Ratislava. What do you think of my domain?"

The tape was ripped away from Chumley's mouth, painfully pulling out a good deal of facial fur. With his feet still bound, he attempted to stand up and banged his head on the ceiling. He toppled onto a heap of, clothes and noticed that all of the garments still had the price tags attached. He wrenched himself into a sitting position. As far as Chumley could see, the sprawling chamber was filled with clothing, jewelry, books, musical instruments, large appliances, rolled-up rugs, and furniture, all in their original bags or containers, and all piled haphazardly, as if the getting was more important than the having.

"It's rather a tip, what?" Chumley blurted, then felt abashed. "I do beg your pardon. What bad manners, making personal comments like that. I believe it's the heat."

Rattila's eyes glowed red. "You are just jealous," he hissed. "You envy my collection. Well, you're a part of it now. You belonged to M.Y.T.H., Inc. So that makes you an absolutely priceless asset that my Skeeves here have acquired."

Rattila sprang away from Chumley, revealing a long, snaky, hairless black tail, which he cracked like a whip. The impostors scattered out of his way. Rattila ascended one of the heaps, this specimen greasier and more well worn than the others. At the top, Chumley beheld a seat of some kind. It appeared to be made out of items made of precious metals, such as watches and tableware, tied together at random. It could not have been comfortable to sit upon, but Rattila lounged upon it as if it was a throne.

That was it, Chumley perceived. This was the mania Eskina feared: Rattila had set up a kingdom right there underneath The Mall itself!

The gigantic black rat plunged his paw into the heaps of spoil underneath his throne. The paw reemerged, wielding a golden rectangle that gleamed as bright as a torch.

"Behold the Master Card!" the black rat announced. "Bring me the power you have gathered for me. All the identities you used!"

As Chumley watched, the impostors dug through their belt pouches. The Pervect female opened her purse. They all produced piles of cards, much thicker than the collection he and the others had confiscated from their erstwhile captive, and thumbed hastily through them. All of the Skeeve imitators came up with the same blue card.

"One Card to Rule The Mall, One Card to Charge It, One Card to cruise The Mall, and in the darkness Lodge It," they chanted.

As soon as the spell cleared, Chumley spotted their erstwhile prisoner, the black-mustachioed mall-rat, as Parvattani had called him. He had been the Pervect. Chumley recalled the complaint that their captive no longer had a Skeeve identity to employ, and that Rattila wouldn't—not couldn't, but wouldn't—restore that power. Chumley was inwardly pleased. At least they had deprived Rattila of one ninth of his ability to drain Skeeve's identity. Yet, as the transformations went on, he made another surprising discovery.

"You're all mall-rats," he observed aloud.

One of them, a brown rat with white paws, jumped up on his chest. He was half Rattila's size, which made him perhaps a twentieth of Chumley's.

"You got a problem with that?" he asked, showing his long, white teeth.

"Why, no," Chumley insisted mildly. It was a game effort to intimidate, and though it was ineffective against his present target, Chumley respected it. "I'm not speciesist—just commenting. My goodness, my manners have just gone out the window today, what?"