"Oh, your vacation!" Kelsa said, turning the Pervect face to me. She beamed, showing rows of razor-sharp teeth. "Why, you won't have to worry about your vacation. Not at all."

"Good," I said. "Okay, Ersatz, say your piece and let's get out of here."

"Fair Kelsa," Ersatz began, "I have suffered idleness for the last many months. I wish to return to battle in the hands of warriors, but I have also heard a disturbing rumor concerning the fate of our fellow Hoard members. Is it true?"

"But, which rumor, dear?" Kelsa asked, switching her attention to him. Her face changed from scales to steel, but the glasses were still in place on her now razor-sharp nose. "Did you hear the one about the Cup? He was said to have been offered as a prize in a school games day competition. That one is true. He was won by an eight-year-old Klahd for the twenty yard dash! Second place! He sits on a shelf between a collection of toy soldiers and a box of stale Milk-Duds. He's livid! What a comedown for the goblet that held the Wine of Peace between the Comdails and the Lenoils of Perosol!"

"Not that," Ersatz said.

"Or—here's one that made me laugh—I'm supposed to have been secretly transformed into a bowling ball in the Imper League Championships!" Kelsa let out a trill of laughter. "Picture me rolling down a lane toward a group of clueless pins to score a mere ten points."

"I can, no problem," I growled.

"About the rest of us, Kelsa," Ersatz urged. "I heard that the others are being stolen one by one, by a collector!'

"Oh, that" Kelsa said. "That's not nearly so amusing as the one I picked up the other day from the ether. You just wouldn't believe it! I hear that the ring is living in..."