One thing is sure. If you want a magic good-luck charm, you must either steal one (which is difficult, since a real good-luck charm preserves itself for its owner, and thus tends to be more than a little theft-resistant), or you must find a lode of felixite in the bowels of the earth and fashion one for yourself. You might think that all the natural felixite would be gone by now, since dwarves have been looking for it (among other things) under the earth for as long as mankind has been on the face of it; but you would be wrong; felixite is so lucky that even the earth feels blessed by it and tends to produce more of the stuff from time to time, ecstatically, as it were, but always in small amounts.

"Felixite!" Rognir gave a small, unconvincing laugh. "What makes you think there's any around here?"

"A little mouse told me," Azzie said, making a clever al­lusion to Hermes' former occupation as Mouse god, before he was abolished or transformed along with the rest of the Olym­pians. This was completely lost on Rognir.

"There's no felixite around here," Rognir said. "The place was mined out long ago."

"That hardly explains what you are doing here."

"Me? I was just taking a shortcut," Rognir said. "This place happens to be on the underground great circle route from Baghdad to London."

"If that's the way it is," Azzie said, "you won't mind if I look around?"

"Why should I mind? Dirt's free for everybody."

"Well put," Azzie said, and started nosing around. His keen fox's nose soon picked up the faintest strand of a smell that once, not long ago, might have been associated with some­thing else, itself associated, perhaps only fleetingly, with felixite. (Demons have great powers of smell in order to render their time of service in the Pit all the more onerous.)

Sniffing like a fox, Azzie followed this elusive scent around the cavern and directly to the lemur-skin bag that rested at Rognir's feet.

"You don't mind if I take a look in this, do you?" Azzie asked.

Rognir minded very much, but since dwarves are no match for demons in equal contest, he decided to let discretion reign and to hell with valor.

"Help yourself."

Azzie emptied out the bag. He kicked aside the rubies which Rognir had garnered in Burma, ignored the Colombian emeralds, pushed aside the southern African diamonds with their sinister future connotations, and picked up a small piece of pink-colored stone, shaped in a cylinder.

"Looks like felixite to me," he said. "Would you mind if I borrowed this for a while?"

Rognir shrugged since there was nothing he could do about it. "Just be sure to give it back."

"Don't worry," Azzie said, and turned to leave. Then he looked again at the precious stones scattered underfoot. He said, "Look here, Rognir, you seem a good sort for a dwarf. How about if you and I strike a bargain?"

"What did you have in mind?"

"I have a certain enterprise afoot. I can't say much about it now, but it has to do with the upcoming Millennial celebra­tions. I need the felixite and your jewels, because without money a demon can do nothing. If I get the backing I expect from the High Evil Powers, I will be able to repay you tenfold."

"But I was planning to take these home and add them to my heap," Rognir said. He stooped down and began to pick up his jewels.

"You probably have a pretty big heap already, haven't you?"

"Oh, it's nothing to be ashamed of," Rognir said, with the complacency of a dwarf whose heap could bear comparison with the best.

"Then why not leave these stones with me? Your heap at home is plenty big already."

"That doesn't stop me from wanting it to be bigger!"

"Of course not. But if you add them to your heap, your money won't be working for you. Whereas if you invest this with me, it will."

"Money working for me? What a curious concept! I hadn't known money was supposed to work."

"It is a concept from the future, and it makes very good sense. Why shouldn't money work? Everything else has to."

"That's a good point," Rognir said. "But what assurance do I have that you will keep your word? All I'll have is your word that your word's good if I take this offer, whereas if I don't take the offer, I'll still have all my gems."

"I can make this offer irresistibly attractive to you," Azzie said. "Instead of following normal banking procedure, I am going to pay you your profit in advance."

"My profit? But I haven't even invested with you."

"I realize that. Therefore, as an inducement, I am going to give you the interest you will make in a year's time investing with me."

"And what do I have to do?"

"Just open your hands."

"Well, all right," said Rognir, who, like most dwarves, couldn't resist a profit.

"Here you are," Azzie said. He gave Rognir two of the smaller diamonds, one ruby with the tiniest flaw, and three perfect emeralds.

Rognir accepted them and looked at them uncertainly. But aren't these mine?"

"Of course! They are your profit!"

"But they weremine to begin with!"

"I know. But you loaned them to me."

"I did? I don't remember."

"You remember accepting the profit, don't you, when I offered it?"

"Of course. Who turns down a profit?"

"You did quite right. But your profit was based on loaning me the stones so I could make your profit from them. Now you have several of them back. But I still owe you those that I returned as well as the rest. They are principal. In a year you will get them all back. And you have already gotten the profit."

"I'm not so sure of this," Rognir mused.

"Trust me," Azzie said. "You've made a wise investment. It has been a pleasure to do business with you."

"Wait a minute!"

Azzie scooped up the rest of the stones and, not forgetting the piece of felixite, vanished into the upper world. Demons are able to vanish, of course, and this generally gives them a working sense of theater.

Chapter 6

It was long since Azzie had visited Rome. This city was an especial favorite of demons, and they had long been ac­customed to travel there for sight-seeing, sometimes indi­vidually, often in groups of hundreds, complete with women and children demons, and accompanied by guide demons who lectured on what had gone on in this place or that. There was no lack of good things to see. Above all, the cemeteries were high on the list of attractions. Reading the tombstone inscrip­tions afforded much amusement and cemeteries were good mel­ancholy places for reflection, what with their tall dark cypresses and ancient moss-covered monuments. And, too, Rome was an exciting place to be in those days, what with the continual electing of this Pope and excommunicating of that Pope, as well as the opportunity to help things go a little worse.

And it was especially exciting because this was the Mil­lennium, the year A.D. 1000. Otto III was Holy Roman Em­peror, and there was much contesting between his German followers and the Italians who supported the local candidates. The Roman nobles were regularly up in arms against Otto, and there was continual attack and rout. It wasn't safe for a human to walk the streets after dark, and there were perils even by day. Bands of lawless mercenaries roamed the streets, and woe to man or maid who fell into their hands.

Azzie flew in just at dusk, when the sun was setting over the Adriatic, illuminating the domes and towers of Rome with brightness while the terra-cotta rooftops were already darkened with evening gloom. He flew low over the twisted streets, dip­ping down to take an appreciative look at the Forum and the Colosseum. Then he gained altitude again and soared to the Palatine. Here there was a very special cemetery, the Narbozzi, and this was the place where the demons, since time out of mind, had been holding their annual poker games. With luck, the game would be held here again this year.