I blinked. “That’s a god.”
The salesman didn’t like my tone. “An ancient being,” he correctly stiffly. “The medieval Japanese peasants didn’t know how else to refer to him.”
“And you keep him in a closet?”
“’Ow deed you obtain ’im?” Francoise broke in. She actually looked like she was buying this.
Then salesman must have thought so, too, because he brightened. “The soldier of fortune I mentioned acquired him some years ago in Fukushima,” he explained. “I believe he stole him from another traveler. It was believed that if you took a statue of Daikoku from its previous owner, it would grant you good fortune in the form of a wish—as long as you weren’t caught in the act. The old folk tradition probably arose from stories of the real statue’s exploits.”
“Like a génie.” Francoise was regarding the little thing thoughtfully.
“Indeed. Except djinn are not known for benevolence. That is a dangerous old wives’ tale. Should you ever come across a trapped djinn, I strongly advise you to leave it so.”
“Shouldn’t we leave Daikoku alone, too?” I asked skeptically.
“Oh, no,” the salesman hurried to explain. “He isn’t trapped. Not at all. This is simply the form he uses to carry out his mission.”
“And that would be?”
“To bring abundance, wealth and happiness into the world.”
“Then why don’t you make a wish and get wealthy?” Marco asked pointedly.
We all looked at the shopkeeper. “Er, well, because Daikoku doesn’t always understand . . . That is, you have to be extremely cautious about how you phrase your request. There have been instances in which miscommunications have taken place.”
“Like what?” I didn’t know a lot about magic, but I was beginning to learn that everything always had a catch.
“Simply that he does grant the wish but perhaps not always in the way the wisher intended. The person from whom I acquired the item had such an experience. The former owner of the statue hired a group of mercenaries to retrieve his property, and they trailed the adventurer to a village in Tibet. They surrounded it and were closing in when, on the theory that it couldn’t hurt, the man asked Daikoku to help him get out of there.” The salesman broke off, looking vaguely uncomfortable.
“Did it work?” I prodded.
“Of course it worked. After a fashion. He was alive to sell it to me, wasn’t he?”
“So what was the problem?”
“Well, you see, the mages knew what the man looked like. Daikoku therefore reasoned that changing his appearance would be an easy way of fulfilling his wish. But merely laying a glamourie or some such on him wouldn’t work because the men chasing him were mages, with the knowledge needed to strip such a thing away.”
“What deed ’e use?” Francoise asked, her forehead wrinkling prettily.
“Nothing. Or, rather, no mere disguise. He actually changed the man’s form. And considering that the consequences would be death if the man was discovered, he made the change as . . . dramatic . . . as possible.”
“Meaning what?” Marco demanded.
“He changed him into a woman,” the salesman admitted in a rush. “An old Tibetan woman, to be precise. And of course, once the wish was granted, there was no way to change him back. There were no more wishes and the man, er, the former man, hadn’t specified any conditions, so . . .”
“He was stuck?” Marco sounded horrified.
“I’m afraid so.”
“And what ees so bad about being ‘stuck’ as a woman?” Francoise demanded. “Eet was preferable to dying, non?”
“Speak for yourself.” Marco self-consciously adjusted himself. “I got things I would miss!”
“Just for the sake of argument, how much?” I asked the salesman. I needed to know what price range I was looking at here, or discussing any of the other objects was a waste of time.
He named a price that had my jaw dropping in shock. “How much?” I asked in disbelief.
“With the war on, prices have increased substantially,” I was told. “Everyone wants to be properly armed.”