MA06 Little Myth Marker

by Robert Asprin

  I haven’t thrown a punch at anyone since I started practicing magic, but I was sorely tempted to break that record just this once. Instead, I turned to the little girl.

  “Get your things, Markie. Daddy’s taking you to your new home.”

  * * *

  My partner and I were currently basing our operations at the Bazaar at Deva, which is the home dimension of the Deveels. Deveels are reputed to be the sharpest merchants, traders, and hagglers in all the known dimensions. You may have heard of them in various folk tales in your own home dimension. Their fame lingers even in dimensions they have long since stopped trading in.

  The Bazaar is the showcase of Deva ... in fact, I’ve never seen a part of Deva that wasn’t the Bazaar. Here the Deveels meet to trade with each other, buying and selling the choicest magiks and miracles from all the dimensions. It’s an around-the-clock, over-the-horizon sprawl of tents, shops, and barter blankets where you can acquire anything your imagination can conjure as well as a lot of things you never dreamed existed ... for a price. Many inventors and religious figures have built their entire career from items purchased in one trip to the Bazaar. Needless to say, it is devastating to the average budget ... even if the holder of the purse strings has above-average sales resistance.

  Normally I enjoy strolling through the booths, but tonight, with Markie beside me, I was too distracted to concentrate on the displays. It occurred to me that, fun as it is for adults, the Bazaar is no place to raise a child.

  “Will we be living by ourselves, or do you have a girlfriend?”

  Markie was clinging to my hand as we made our way through the Bazaar. The wonders of the stalls and shops dispensing magic reached out to us as they always do, but she was oblivious to them, choosing instead to ply me with questions and hanging on my every word.

  “‘No’ to both questions. Tananda lives with me, but she isn’t my girlfriend. She’s a freelance assassin who helps me out on jobs from time to time. Then there’s Chumley, her brother. He’s a troll who works under the name of Crunch. You’ll like them. They’re nice ... in a lot of ways they’re nicer than I am.”

  Markie bit her lip and frowned. “I hope you’re right. I’ve found that a lot of nice people don’t like little kids.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “But I’m not done yet. There’s also Guido and Nunzio, my bodyguards. They may seem a little gruff, but don’t let them scare you. They just act tough because it’s part of their job.”

  “Gee. I’ve never had a daddy who had bodyguards before.”

  “That’s not all. We also have Buttercup, who’s a war unicorn, and Gleep, who’s my very own pet dragon.”

  “Oh, lots of people have dragons. I’m more impressed by the bodyguards.”

  That took me aback a little. I’d always thought that having a dragon was rather unique. I mean, nobody else I knew had a dragon. Then again, nobody else I knew had bodyguards, either.

  “Let’s see,” Markie was saying. “There’s Tananda, Chumley, Guido, Nunzio, Buttercup, and Gleep. Is that all?”

  “Well, there’s also Massha. She’s my apprentice.”

  “Massha. That’s a pretty name.”

  Now, there are lots of words to describe my apprentice, but unfortunately ‘pretty’ isn’t one of them. Massha is huge, both in height and breadth. There are large people who still manage to look attractive, but my apprentice isn’t one of them. She tends toward loud, colorful clothes which invariably clash with her bright orange hair, and wears enough jewelry for three stores. In fact, the last time she got into a fight here at the Bazaar was when a nearsighted shopper mistook her for a display tent.

  “Aahh ... you’ll just have to meet her. But you’re right. Massha is a pretty name.”

  “Gee, you’ve got a lot of people living with you.”

  “Well ... umm ... there is one more.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “His name is Aahz. He’s my partner.”

  “Is he nice, too?”

  I was torn between loyalty and honesty.

  “He ... aah ... takes getting used to. Remember how I told you not to be scared of the bodyguards even if they were a little gruff?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it’s all right to be scared of Aahz. He gets a little upset from time to time, and until he cools down it’s best to give him a lot of room and not leave anything breakable—like your arm—within his reach.”

  “What gets him upset?”

  “Oh, the weather, losing money, not making money ... which to him is the same as losing money, any one of a hundred things that I say ... and you! I’m afraid he’s going to be a little upset when he meets you, so stay behind me until I get him calmed down. Okay?”

  “Why would he be upset with me?”

  “You’re going to be a surprise to him, and he doesn’t like surprises. You see, he’s a very suspicious person and tends to think of a surprise as a part of an unknown plot against him ... or me.”

  Markie lapsed into silence. Her brow furrowed as she stared off into nothingness, and it occurred to me that I was scaring her.

  “Hey, don’t worry,” I said, squeezing her hand. “Aahz will be okay once he gets over being surprised. Now tell me about yourself. Do you go to school?”

  “Yes. I’m halfway through Elemental School. I’d be further if we didn’t keep moving around.”

  “Don’t you mean Elementary School?” I smiled.

  “No. I mean...”

  “Whoops. Here we are. This is your new home, Markie.”

  I gestured grandly at the small tent that was our combination home and headquarters.

  “Isn’t it a little small for all those people?” she frowned, staring at the tent.

  “It’s bigger inside than it is outside,” I explained. “C’mon. I’ll show you.”

  I raised the flap for her and immediately wished I hadn’t.

  “Wait’ll I get my hands on him!” came Aahz’s booming voice from within. “After all the times I’ve told him to stay away from dragon poker!”

  It occurred to me that maybe we should wait for a while before introducing Markie to my partner. I started to ease the flap down, but it was too late.

  “Is that you, partner? I’d like to have a little chat, if you don’t mind!”

  “Remember. Stay behind me,” I whispered to Markie, then proceeded to walk into the lion’s den.

  AS I TOLD Markie, our place at the Bazaar was bigger on the inside than on the outside ... lots bigger! I’ve been in smaller palaces ... heck, I’ve lived and worked in smaller palaces than our current domicile. Back when I was court magician at Possletum, to be exact.

  Here at the Bazaar, the Deveels think that any display of wealth will weaken their position when they haggle over prices, so they hide the size of their homes by tucking them into ‘unlisted dimensions.’ Even though our home looked like just a humble tent from the street, the inside included multiple bedrooms, a stable area, a courtyard and garden, etc., etc. You get the picture.

  Unfortunately for me, at the moment it also included my partner, Aahz.

  “Well, if it isn’t the Bazaar’s own answer to War, Famine, Death, and Pestilence! Other dimensions have the Four Horsemen, but the Bazaar at Deva has the Great Skeeve!”

  Remember my partner, Aahz? I mentioned him back in Chapter One and again in Chapter Two. Most of my efforts to describe him fail to prepare people for the real thing. What I usually forget to mention to folks is that he’s from the dimension Perv. For those of you unfamiliar with dimension travel, that means he is green and scaly with a mouth big enough for any other three beings and teeth enough for a school of sharks ... if shark teeth got to be four inches long, that is. I don’t deliberately omit things from my descriptions. It’s just that after all these years I’ve gotten used to him.

>   “Have you got anything at all to say for yourself? Not that there’s any acceptable excuse, mind you. It’s just that tradition allows you a few last words.”

  Well ... I’ve almost gotten used to him.

  “Hi, Aahz. Have you heard about the card game?”

  “About two hours ago,” Massha supplied from a nearby chair where she was entrenched with a book and a huge box of chocolates. “He’s been like this ever since.”

  “I see you’ve done your usual marvelous job of calming him down.”

  “I’m just an apprentice around here,” she said with a shrug. “Getting between you two in a quarrel is not part of my game plan for a long and prosperous life.”

  “If you two are quite through,” Aahz growled, “I’m still waiting to hear what you have to say for yourself.”

  “What’s to say? I sat in on a game of dragon poker...”

  “WHO’S BEEN TEACHING YOU TO PLAY DRAGON POKER? That’s what there is to say! Was it Tananda? Chumley? How come you’re going to other people for lessons all of a sudden? Aren’t I good enough for the Great Skeeve anymore?”

  The truth of the situation suddenly dawned on me. Aahz was my teacher before he insisted that I be elevated to full partner status. Even though we were theoretically equals, old habits die hard and he still considered himself to be my exclusive teacher, mentor, coach, and all-around nudge. What the real problem was that my partner was jealous of someone else horning in on what he felt was his private student! Perhaps this problem would be easier to deal with than I thought.

  “No one else has been teaching me, Aahz. Everything I know about dragon poker, I learned from you.”

  “But I haven’t taught you anything.”

  “Exactly.”

  That stopped him. At least, it halted his pacing as he turned to peer suspiciously at me with his yellow eyes.

  “You mean you don’t know anything at all about dragon poker?”

  “Well, from listening to you talk, I know about how many cards are dealt out and stuff like that. I still haven’t figured out what the various hands are, much less their order ... you know, what beats what.”

  “I know,” my partner said pointedly. “What I don’t know is why you decided to sit in on a game you don’t know the first thing about.”

  “The Geek sent me an invitation, and I thought it would be sociable to...”

  “The Geek? You sat in at one of the Geek’s games at the Even-Odds to be sociable?” He was off again. “Don’t you know that those are some of the most cutthroat games at the Bazaar? They eat amateurs alive at those tables. And you went there to be sociable?”

  “Sure. I figured the worst that could happen would be that I lost a little money. The way things have been going, we can afford it. Besides, who knows, I might get lucky.”

  “Lucky? Now I know you don’t know anything about dragon poker. It’s a game of skill, not luck. All you could do was throw your money away ... money we’ve both risked our lives for, I might add.”

  “Yes, Aahz.”

  “And besides, one of the first things you learn playing any kind of poker is that the surest way to lose is to go in expecting to lose.”

  “Yes, Aahz.”

  Out of desperation, I was retreating behind my strongest defense. I was agreeing with everything he said. Even Aahz has trouble staying mad at someone who’s agreeing with him.

  “Well, what’s done is done and all the shouting in the world won’t change it. I just hope you’ve learned your lesson. How much did it cost you, anyway?”

  “I won.”

  “Okay. Just to show you there’re no hard feelings, we’ll split it. In a way it’s my fault. I should have taught you...”

  There was a sudden stillness in the room. Even Massha had stopped with a bon-bon halfway to her mouth. Very slowly, Aahz turned to face me.

  “You know, Skeeve, for a minute there, I thought you said...”

  “I won,” I repeated, trying desperately not to smile.

  “You won. As in ‘better than broke even’ won?”

  “As in ‘twenty thousand in gold plus’ won,” I corrected.

  “But if you didn’t know how the game was played, how could you...”

  “I just bet the people, not the cards. It seemed to work out pretty well.”

  I was in my glory now. It was a rare time indeed that I managed to impress my partner, and I was going to milk it for all it was worth.

  “But that’s crazy!” Aahz scowled. “I mean, it could work for a while, but in the long run...”

  “He was great!” Markie announced, emerging from behind me. “You should have seen it. He beat everybody.”

  My “glory” came tumbling down around my ears. With one hand I shoved Markie back behind me and braced for the explosion. What I really wanted to do was run for cover, but that would have left Markie alone in the open, so I settled for closing my eyes.

  Nothing happened.

  After a few moments, I couldn’t stand the suspense anymore and opened one eye to sneak a peek. The view I was treated to was an extreme close-up of one of Aahz’s yellow eyes. He was standing nose to nose with me, apparently waiting until I was ready before launching into his tirade. It was obvious that he was ready. The gold flecks in his eyes were shimmering as if they were about to boil ... and for all I knew, they were.

  “Who ... is ... that?”

  I decided against trying to play dumb and say “Who is what?” At the range he was standing, Aahz would have bitten my head off ... literally!

  “Umm ... remember I said that I won twenty thousand plus? Well, she’s the plus.”

  “YOU WON A KID IN A CARD GAME!?!!”

  The force of my partner’s voice actually knocked me back two steps. I probably would have gone farther if I hadn’t bumped against Markie.

  “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?? DON’T YOU KNOW THE PENALTY FOR SLAVERY IS...”

  He disappeared in mid-sentence behind a wall of flesh and tasteless color. Despite her earlier claims of valuing self-preservation, Massha had stepped between us.

  “Just cool down a minute, Green and Scaly.” Aahz tried to get around her.

  “BUT HE JUST...”

  She took a half step sideways and blocked him by leaning against the wall.

  “Give him a chance to explain. He is your partner, isn’t he?”

  From the sound of his voice, Aahz reversed his field and tried for the other side.

  “BUT HE...”

  Massha took two steps and leaned against the other wall, all the while talking as if she wasn’t being interrupted.

  “Now either he’s an idiot ... which he isn’t, or you’re a lousy teacher ... which you aren’t, or there’s more to this than meets the eye. Hmmm?”

  There were several moments of silence, then Aahz spoke again in a voice much more subdued.

  “All right, partner. Let’s hear it.”

  Massha relinquished her spot and I could see Aahz again ... though I almost wished I couldn’t. He was breathing hard, but whether from anger or from the exertion of trying to get around Massha I couldn’t tell. I could hear the scales on his fingers rasp as he clenched and unclenched his fists, and I knew that I’d better tell my story fast before he lost control again.

  “I didn’t win her,” I said hastily. “I won her father’s marker. She’s our guarantee that he’ll come back and make his losses good.”

  Aahz stopped making the fists, and a puzzled frown creased his features.

  “A marker? I don’t get it. The Geek’s games are always on a cash-and-carry basis.”

  “Well, he seems to have made an exception in Pidge’s case.”

  “Pidge?”

  “That’s my daddy,” Markie announced, stepping from behind me again. “It’s short for Pigeon. He loses a lot ... that’s wh
y everyone is always so happy to let him sit in on a game.”

  “Cute kid,” Aahz said drily. “It also might explain why you did so well in the game tonight. One screwball can change the pace of an entire game. Still, when the Geek does take markers, he usually pays the winners in cash and handles the collecting himself.”

  “He was willing to do that.”

  “Then why...”

  “...and if Markie’s father didn’t show up in two weeks, he was going to take her off-dimension and sell her into slavery himself to raise the money.”

  From her chair, Massha gave a low whistle. “Sweet guy, this Geek.”

  “He’s a Deveel.” Aahz waved absently, as if the statement explained everything. “Okay, okay. I can see where you felt you had to accept custody of the kid here instead of leaving her with the Geek. Just answer me one question.”

  “What’s that?”

  “What do we do with her if her father doesn’t show up?” Sometimes I like it better when Aahz is ranting than when he’s thinking.

  “Aahh ... I’m still working on that one.”

  “Terrific. Well, when you come up with an answer, let me know. I think I’ll stay in my room until this whole thing blows over.”

  With that he strode out of the room, leaving Massha and me to deal with Markie.

  “Cheer up, Hot Stuff,” my apprentice said. “Kids aren’t all that much of a problem. Hey, Markie. Would you like a piece of chocolate?”

  “No, thank you. It might make me fat and ugly like you.”

  I winced. Up until now, Massha had been my ally on the subject of Markie, but this might change everything. She was very sensitive about her weight, so most of us tended to avoid any mention of it. In fact, I had gotten so used to her appearance that I tended to forget how she looked to anyone who didn’t know her.

  “Markie!” I said sternly. “That wasn’t a very nice thing to say.”

  “But it’s true!” she countered, turning her innocent eyes on me.

  “That’s why it’s not nice,” Massha laughed, though I noticed her smile was a little forced. “C’mon, Markie. Let’s hit the pantry and try to find you something to eat ... something low-calorie.”