to the problem seemed to be disappearing faster than a
snowball on Deva.
“I don’t get it,” I said “I always thought Djins were
supposed to be heavy hitters in the magik department.”
Kalvin shook his head sadly.
“That’s mostly sales hype,” he admitted regretfully.
“Oh, some of the big boys can move mountains . . . literally.
But those are top-of-the-line Djins and usually cost more
than it would take to do the same things non-magikally.
Small fry like me come cheaper, but we can’t do whole
bunches, either.”
“I’m sorry, Kalvin. None of this makes any sense. If
Djins actually have less power than, say, your average magi-
cian for hire, why would anybody buy them at all?”
The Djin gestured grandly.
‘ ‘The mystique . . . the status … do you know anything
at all about Djinger?”
“Ginger? As in ginger beer?”
“No, Djin-ger . . . with a ‘D’ . . . As in the dimension
where Djins and Djeanees come from.”
“I guess not.”
“Well, once upon a time, as the story goes, Djinger had
a sudden disastrous drop in its money supply.”
This sounded a little familiar.
“An economic collapse? Like on Deva?”
The Djin shook his head.
“Embezzlement,” he said. “The entire Controller’s of-
fice for the dimension disappeared, and when we finally
found someone who could do an audit, it turned out most
of the treasury was gone too.
18 Robert Asprin I
“There was a great hue and cry, and several attempts to
track the culprits, but the immediate problem was what to ‘
do for money. Manufacturing more wouldn’t work, since
it would simply devalue what we did have. What we really
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