"An edge? What is that?"
"Any device that helps you win."
"There are watchers at these games to prevent cheating."
"True enough. But there's no law, heavenly or infernal, against a good-luck charm."
"But they're rare indeed! If only I had one!"
"I can tell you where to get one. But you will have to inconvenience yourself to get it."
"Tell me, then, Hermes!"
"In my nocturnal wanderings around the city of Troyes and its environs," Hermes said, "I have noticed a place at the edge of the woods to the west where a small orange flower grows. The people hereabouts know it not, but it is Speculum, which grows only in the presence of felixite."
"There's felixite around here?" Azzie said, marveling greatly.
"You must find that out for yourself," Hermes said. "But the indications are good."
Chapter 5
Azzie thanked Hermes and took his leave. He walked through a low field, toward the woods that surrounded the city. He found the rare flower, which was low and inconspicuous. Azzie sniffed it (the odor of the Speculum is delicious) and then bent low and put his ear to the ground. His preternaturally alert sense of hearing brought to his senses the presence of something belowground, something 'that moved and thumped, moved and thumped. It was, of course, the characteristic sound a dwarf makes as he cuts a tunnel with his pick and shovel. The dwarves are well aware that the sound of their digging gives them away, but what can they do; a dwarf needs to dig to feel alive.
Azzie stamped his foot and sank into the earth. This is a talent that most European and Arabian demons have. Living in the earth is as natural for them as living on the earth is for men. The demons experience earth as something much like water, through which they can swim, though they much prefer to walk in tunnels.