MA06 Little Myth Marker

by Robert Asprin

  “Let’s see if I’m following you, Bunny. What you’re saying is that just buying nice items, especially ones that catch my eye, isn’t enough. I’ve got to watch how they go together ... try to build a coordinated total. Right?”

  “That’s part of it,” she nodded. “But I think we’d better go back to step one for a moment if we’re going to educate you right. First, you’ve got to decide on the image you want to project. Your clothes make a statement about you, but you’ve got to know what that statement should be. Now, bankers depend on people trusting them with their money, so they dress conservatively to give the impression of dependability. No one will give their money to a banker who looks like he spends his afternoons playing the ponies. At the other end of the scale, you have the professional entertainers. They make their money getting people to look at them, so their outfits are usually flashy and flamboyant.”

  This was fascinating. Bunny wasn’t telling me a thing I hadn’t seen for myself, but she was defining patterns that hadn’t registered on me before. Suddenly the whole clothes thing was starting to make sense. “So what kind of image do I project?”

  “Well, since you ask, right now you look like one of two things: either someone who’s so rich and successful that he doesn’t have to care what other people think, or like a kid who doesn’t know how to dress. Here at the Bazaar, they know you’re successful, so the merchants jump to the first conclusion and drag out every gaudy item they haven’t been able to unload on anyone else and figure if they price it high enough, you’ll go for it.”

  “A sucker or a fool,” I murmured. “I don’t really know what image I want, but it isn’t either of those.”

  “Try this one on for size. You’re a magician for hire, right? You want to look well off so your clients know you’re good at what you do, but not so rich that they’ll think you’re overcharging them. You don’t want to go too conservative, because in part they’re buying into the mystique of magic, but if you go too flashy you’ll look like a sideshow charlatan. In short, I think your best bet is to try for ‘quiet power.’ Someone who is apart from the workaday crowd, but who is so sure of himself that he doesn’t have to openly try for attention.”

  “How do I look like that?”

  “That’s where Bunny comes in,” she said with a wink. “If we’re agreed on the end, I’ll find the means. Follow me.”

  With that, she led me off into one of the most incredible shopping sprees I’ve ever taken part in. She insisted that I change into the first outfit we bought: a light blue open-necked shirt with cream-colored slacks and a matching neck scarf. Markie protested that she had liked the pretty clothes better, but as we made our way from stall to stall, I noticed a change in the manner of the proprietors. They still seemed a little nervous about our presence, but they were bringing out a completely different array of clothes for our examination, and several of them complimented me on what I was wearing ... something that had never happened before.

  I must admit I was a little surprised at how much some of these “simple and quiet” items cost, but Bunny assured me that the fabric and the workmanship justified the price.

  “I don’t understand it,” I quipped at one point. “I thought that accountants were all tight-fisted, and here you are: the ultimate consumer.”

  “You don’t see me reaching for my bankroll, do you?” she purred back. “Accountants can deal with necessary expenses, as long as it’s someone else’s money. Our main job is to get you maximum purchase power for your hard-earned cash.”

  And so it went. When r had time to think, it occurred to me that if Bunny was the Ax, she was working awfully hard to make me look good. I was still trying to figure out how this could fit into a diabolical plan when I felt a nudge at my elbow. Glancing around, I found Aahz standing next to me.

  Now, when I throw my disguise spell, I still see the person as they normally are. That’s why I started nervously before I remembered that to anyone else at the Bazaar he looked like a fellow shopper exchanging a few words.

  “Nice outfit, partner,” he said. “It looks like your little playmate is doing some serious work on your wardrobe.”

  “Thanks, Aahz. Do you really like it?”

  “Sure. There is one little item you might add to your list before we head for home.”

  “What’s that?”

  “About five decks of cards. While he might be impressed by your new image, I think it’ll make a bigger impact on the Kid if you spend a little time learning how to play dragon poker before you square off with him.”

  That popped my bubble in a hurry. Aahz was right.

  Clothes and the Ax aside, there was one thing I was going to have to face up to soon, and that was a showdown with the best dragon poker player in all the dimensions.

  “OGRE’S HIGH, SKEEVE. Your bet.”

  “Oh! Umm ... I’ll go ten.” “Bump you ten.”

  “Out.”

  “Twenty to me? I’ll go twenty on top of that.”

  “Call.”

  By now, you should know that sound. That’s right. Dragon poker in full gallop. This time, however, it was a friendly game between Aahz, Tananda, Chumley, and me. Of course, I’m using the phrase “friendly” rather loosely here.

  Aside from occasional shouting matches, I had never been in a fight with these three before. That is, when there had been trouble, we formed our circle with the horns out, not in. For the first time I found myself on the opposite side of a conflict from my colleagues, and I wasn’t enjoying it at all. Realizing this was just a game, and a practice game at that, I was suddenly very glad I didn’t have to face any one of them in a real life-and-death situation.

  The banter was still there, but there was an edge on it. There was a cloud of tension over the table as the players focused on each other like circling predators. It had been there at the game at the Even-Odds, but then I was expecting it. One doesn’t expect support or sympathy from total strangers in a card game. The trouble was that these three who were my closest friends were turning out to be total strangers when the chips were down ... if you’ll pardon the expression.

  “I think you’re bluffing, big brother. Up another forty.”

  I gulped and pushed another stack of my diminishing pile of chips into the pot.

  “Call.”

  “You got me,” the troll shrugged. “Out.”

  “Well, Skeeve. That leaves you and me. I’ve got an elf-high flush.” She displayed her hand and looked at me expectantly. I turned my hole cards over with what I hoped was a confident flourish.

  Silence reigned as everyone bent forward to stare at my hand.

  “Skeeve, this is garbage,” Tananda said at last. “Aahz folded a better hand than this without his hole cards. I had you beat on the board.”

  “What she’s trying to say, partner,” Aahz smirked, “is that you should have either folded or raised. Calling the bet when the cards she has showing beat your hand is just tossing away money.”

  “Okay, okay! I get the point.”

  “Do you? You’ve still got about fifty chips there. Are you sure you don’t want to wait until you’ve lost those, too? Or maybe we should re-divide the chips and start over ... again.”

  “Lighten up, Aahz,” Tananda ordered. “Skeeve had a system that had worked for him before. Why shouldn’t he want to try it out before being force-fed something new?”

  What they were referring to was my original resistance to taking lessons in dragon poker. I had pretty much decided to handle the upcoming game the same way I had played the game at the Even-Odds rather than try to crash-learn the rules. After some discussion (read: argument) it was agreed that we should play a demonstration game so that I could show my coaches how well my system worked.

  Well, I showed them.

  I could read Aahz pretty well, possibly because I knew him so intimately. Chumley and Tananda,
though, threw me for a loop. I was unable to pick up any sort of giveaway clues in their speech or manner, nor could I manage to detect any apparent relationship between their betting and what they were holding. In a depressingly short period of time I had been cleaned out of my starting allotment of chips. Then we divvied the stacks up again and started over ... with the same results. We were now closing in on the end of the third round, and I was ready to throw in the towel.

  As much as I would have liked to tell myself that I was having a bad run of cards or that we had played too few hands to set the patterns, the horrible truth was that I was simply outclassed. I mean, usually I could spot if a player had a good hand. Then the question was “how good,” or more specifically, if his was better than mine. Of course, the same went for weak hands. I depended on being able to detect a player who was betting a hand that needed development or if he was simply betting that the other hand in the round would develop worse than his. In this “demonstration game,” however, I was caught flatfooted again and again. Too many times a hand that I had figured for guts-nothing turned out to be a powerhouse.

  To say the least, it was depressing. These were players who wouldn’t dream of challenging the Sen-Sen Ante Kid themselves, and they were cleaning my clock without half trying.

  “I know when I’m licked, Aahz,” I said. “Even if it does take me a little longer than most. I’m ready to take those lessons you offered ... if you still think it will do any good.”

  “Sure it will, partner. At the very least, I don’t think it can hurt your game, if tonight’s been an accurate sample.”

  Trust a Pervect to know just what to say to cheer you up.

  “Come on, Aahz old boy,” Chumley interrupted. “Skeeve here is doing the best he can. He’s just trying to hang on in a bad situation ... like we all do. Let’s not make it any rougher for him. Hmmm?”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  “And watch comments like that when Markie’s around,” Tananda put in. “She’s got a bad case of hero-worship for her new daddy, and we need him as an authority figure to keep her in line.”

  “Speaking of Markie,” my partner grimaced, peering around, “where is our portable disaster area?”

  The tail end of our shopping expedition had not gone well. Markie’s mood seemed to deteriorate as the day wore on. Twice we were saved from total disaster only by timely intervention by our spotters when she started to get particularly upset. Not wishing to push our luck, I called a halt to the excursion, which almost triggered another tantrum from my young ward. I wondered if other parents had ever had shopping trips cut short by a cranky child.

  “She’s off somewhere with Bunny and the bodyguards. I thought this session would be rough enough without the added distraction of Markie cheering for her daddy.”

  “Good call,” Chumley said. “Well, enough chitchat. Shall we have at it?”

  “Right!” Aahz declared, rubbing his hands together as he leaned forward. “Now, the first thing we have to do is tighten up your betting strategy. If you keep ... ”

  “Umm ... Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself, Aahz?” Tananda interrupted.

  “How so?”

  “Don’t you think it would be nice if we taught him the sequence of hands first? It’s a lot easier to bet when you know whether or not your hand is any good.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Of course.”

  “Let me handle this part, Aahz,” the troll volunteered. “Now then, Skeeve. The ascending sequence of hands is as follows:

  High Card

  One Pair

  Two Pair

  Three of a Kind

  Three Pair

  Full House (Three of a Kind plus a Pair)

  Four of a Kind

  Flush

  Straight (those last two are ranked higher and reversed because of the sixth card)

  Full Belly (two sets of Three of a Kind)

  Full Dragon (Four of a Kind plus a Pair)

  Straight Flush

  Have you got that?”

  Half an hour later, I could almost get through the list without referring to my crib sheet. By that time, my teachers’ enthusiasm was noticeably dimmed. I decided to push on to the next lesson before I lost them completely.

  “Close enough,” I declared. “I can bone up on these on my own time. Where do we go from here? How much should I bet on which hands?”

  “Not so fast,” Aahz said. “First, you’ve got to finish learning about the hands.”

  “You mean there are more? I thought ... ”

  “No. You’ve got all the hands ... or will have, with a little practice. Now you’ve got to learn about conditional modifiers.”

  “Conditional modifiers?” I echoed weakly.

  “Sure. Without ‘em, dragon poker would be just another straightforward game. Are you starting to see why I didn’t want to take the time before to teach you?”

  I nodded silently, staring at my list of card hands that I somehow had a feeling was about to become more complex.

  “Cheer up, Skeeve,” Chumley said gaily, clapping me on the shoulder. “This is going to be easier than if we were trying to teach you the whole game.”

  “It is?” I blinked, perking up slightly.

  “Sure. You see, the conditional modifiers depend on certain variables, like the day of the week, the number of players, chair position, things like that. Now since this match is prearranged, we know what most of those variables will be. For example, there will only be the two of you playing, and as the challenged party you have your choice of chairs ... pick the one facing south, incidentally.”

  “What my big brother is trying to say in his own clumsy way,” Tananda interrupted by squeezing my arm softly, “is that you don’t have to learn all the conditional modifiers. Just the ones that will be in effect for your game with the Kid.”

  “Oh. I get it. Thanks, Chumley. That makes me feel a lot better.”

  “Right-o. There can’t be more than a dozen or two that will be pertinent.”

  The relief I had been feeling turned cold inside me. “Two dozen conditional modifiers?”

  “C’mon, big brother. There aren’t that many.”

  “I was going to say I thought he was underestimating,” Aahz grinned.

  “Well, let’s bloody well count them off and see.”

  “Red dragons will be wild on even-numbered hands ... ”

  “ ... But unicorns will be wild all evening ... ”

  “ ... The corps-a-corps hand will be invalid all night, that’s why we didn’t bother to list it, partner ... ”

  “ ... Once a night, a player can change the suit of one of his up cards ... ”

  “ ... Every five hands, the sequence of cards is reversed, so the low cards are high and vice versa ... ”

  “ ... Threes will be dead all night and treated as blank cards ... ”

  “ ... And once a four-of-a-kind is played, that card value is also dead ... ”

  “ ... Unless it’s a wild card, then it simply ceases to be wild and can be played normally ... ”

  “ ... If there’s a ten showing in the first two face-up cards in each hand, then sevens will be dead ... ”

  “ ... Unless there is a second ten showing, then it cancels the first ... ”

  “ ... Of course, if the first card turned face up in a round is an Ogre, the round will be played with an extra hole card, four face up and five face down ... ”

  “ ... A natural hand beats a hand of equal value built with wild cards ... ”

  “Hey—that’s not a conditional modifier. That’s a regular rule.”

  “It will still be in effect, won’t it? Some of the conditional modifiers nullify standing rules, so I thought we should ... ”

  “ARE YOU PUTTING ME ON?!!”

  The conversation stop
ped on a dime as my coaches turned to stare at me.

  “I mean, this is a joke. Right?”

  “No, partner,” Aahz said carefully. “This is what dragon poker is all about. Like Chumley said, just be thankful you’re only playing one night and get to learn the abbreviated list.”

  “But how am I supposed to stand a chance in this game? I’m not even going to be able to remember all the rules.”

  An awkward silence came over the table.

  “I ... uhh ... think you’ve missed the point, Skeeve,” Tananda said at last. “You don’t stand a chance. The Kid is the best there is. There’s no way you can learn enough in a few days or a few years to even give him a run for his money. All we’re trying to do is teach you enough so that you won’t embarrass yourself—as in ruin the reputation of the Great Skeeve—while he whittles away at your stake. You’ve got to at least look like you know what you’re doing. Otherwise you come across as a fool who doesn’t know enough to know how little he knows.”

  I thought about that for a few.

  “Doesn’t that description actually fit me to a ‘T’?”

  “If so, let’s keep it in the family. Okay?” my partner winked, punching me playfully on the shoulder. “Cheer up, Skeeve. In some ways it should be fun. There’s nothing like competing in a game without the pressure to win to let you role-play to the hilt.”

  “Sure, Aahz.”

  “Okay, so let’s get back to it. Just listen this time around. We’ll go over it again slower later so you can write it all down.”

  With that, they launched into it again.

  I listened with half an ear, all the while examining my feelings. I had gone into the first game at the Even-Odds expecting to lose, but I had been viewing that as a social evening. It was beyond my abilities to kid myself into believing this match with the Kid was going to be social. As much as I respected the views of my advisors, I was having a lot of trouble accepting the idea that I would help my reputation by losing. They were right, though, that I couldn’t gracefully refuse the challenge. If I didn’t stand a chance of winning, then the only option left was to lose gracefully. Right?