CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“I believe in drowning your problems.”
—THE WHITE WHALE
“May I help you, sir?” asked the motherly Winslovak in the tight dirndl behind the bar.
“A glass of your strongest spirits,” I said. “Something to take my mind off my problems.”
“Coming right up, sir.”
She poured a measure of dark green liquid into a glass, and I knocked it back. The liquor hit the back of my throat like a horde of Trolls taking down a stone wall. I staggered backward and stumbled into an obstruction. I glanced around to apologize and found myself looking down at Haroon. I was abashed at my own rudeness.
“What are you drinking?” I asked, hooking one hip onto the nearest bar stool.
“My usual,” the Canidian said to the barmaid.
“Of course, Mr. Haroon,” she said, with a smile. “One beef-sheep soup, coming up.
“Don’t you want something stronger?” I asked.
“Maybe later, son,” the Canidian said. He put his front legs up on the tall seat next to me and hopped up. The server placed a deep crystal bowl before him, partly filled with a savory-smelling, rich brown liquid. He lapped at it. “Mm-mm! This place does pour a tasty potation.”
“Same again.” I tapped my empty glass. The barmaid refilled it. “And keep it coming for me and my friend.”
“Of course, sir,” she said, with a saucy wink.
The familiar warmth filled my throat and stomach. It started to radiate outward, stopping the blare of my nerves. They settled down. The next glass relaxed them so much that I felt the muscles in my neck loosen. Then I started to hear tiny voices singing in my head. I glanced around and saw miniature winged creatures hovering next to my ears, playing lyres and singing. I waved an irritable hand at them.
“Get lost!” I snapped. The little fliers looked startled. They buzzed away, muttering irritatedly in their high-pitched voices.
“Sorry, sir,” the barmaid said. “I thought you wanted the Green Fairies. They’re very good at distracting people.”
“That’s not what I wanted!” I said. I couldn’t tell her exactly what I did want, but like any good bartender she had a lot of experience in translating frustrated hand waves and pent-up expressions.
“Let me pour you something else.”
“Uh, yes,” I said. “Sorry.” It wasn’t her fault I had expressed myself badly. “Maybe something a little less, uh, occupied?”
She placed a clean glass in front of me and filled it with a dark brown liquid from a square bottle. It smelled like grease from a cart axle mixed with a handful of cooking herbs. I sipped it. It tasted worse than it smelled and hit me like a dire portent. I gulped down the rest. It had a vile aftertaste, too.
“Perfect,” I said, once I caught my breath. “Another, please.” I downed the next draught before the flavor could catch up with me. My eyes watered, but I beckoned, and she refilled the glass. Haroon waited patiently for her to ladle more soup into his bowl and took a meditative lap. He looked up at me.
“That was one heck of a situation we were in, wasn’t it?” the Canidian asked. “That Wince, and all his henchmen? And the band!”
“I’ve been in tougher places,” I said, turning the glass in my hand. It wasn’t bravado to say so. It was true. But why did it sound so defensive when I said it? “Lots of times. Many.”
“So, what’s botherin’ ya about this time, son?”
I sighed and put the glass down.
“I don’t know.” I tried to put my finger on exactly what was bothering me. “It never hit me this hard before. I just got up and kept going. Maybe this was just one time too many. Maybe I should quit.”
“Maybe,” Haroon said, tasting his soup. His long, pink tongue swept around his chops, cleaning away every drop. “So, what would you do instead?”
“Why would I have to do anything?” I countered. “I have lots of money. I own an inn. I could go back there . . . Again.”
My voice trailed away. The thought of sitting out by myself in that lonely hostelry in Klah made a shiver go down my spine. My previous self-imposed exile was meant to let me do some serious thinking and revising of my opinion of myself. I had done all that. I didn’t really want to do it again. Haroon gave me a wise look.
“Sounds kinda borin’ to me. Seems like it wouldn’t be long before you’d be lookin’ around for an occupation.”
He was right.
What else would I do? My future had been a serious point of argument between my parents. My mother saw a budding scholar in me. My father, a farmer, the latest in probably a thousand generations to work the land. Neither poring over old manuscripts and teaching youngsters as ungrateful as I had been or backbreaking labor from dawn until after dark suited me. Nor, I had to admit, did thievery, which had been my own chosen profession until I came across the magician Garkin. When he convinced me to sign on as his apprentice, I had nothing better on my agenda. For all the complaints I had made, and I had always been complaining, Garkin had been a considerate master, and I liked practicing magik. Being part of M.Y.T.H., Inc., had given me a chance to be the best magician I could, while surrounded by friends who could fill in when I fell short. I wasn’t ever going to be a master mage, but I could probably hack out a living as a small-town spell-caster.
Not that magik was the least hazardous career out there. A stint as a court magician, where my duties were largely ceremonial at best, had still been fraught with life-threatening situations. Still, I had had Aahz to advise me, as well as the people we had met, from whom I had learned other lessons. I drummed on the counter with impatient fingertips.
“I really don’t know,” I said. “My previous choices were made pretty much under pressure. I like working with my friends. I like to think I’m good at what I do.”
“Then what’s stoppin’ ya keepin’ on the way you been goin’?”
I shrugged, feeling sheepish, but I let the words come out.
“I’m scared of dying,” I said.
“Aren’t we all?” Haroon asked. “You’re a Klahd, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” I went on the defensive for a moment. “So what?”
“Well, your friends are worried about you, too. Every one of them comes from longer-lived stock, and that’s just a cold fact. They want you around as long as possible. They really care about you. I can smell it.” He tapped his nose with one blunt-clawed paw. “And this smeller is never wrong, my friend.”
My heart swelled with pride, and shame, since I hadn’t been so good a friend to all of them as I could have been. I’ve made some mistakes. I regretted all of them.
“I never want to feel I let them down. Or you. I did in Maire.”
Haroon cocked his head. “And how did you let us down, son?”
The wave of shame rolled over me again. I could hardly meet his honest brown eyes.
“I panicked! I should have kept my head clear and figured a way to get us out of there. I made a fool of myself!”
“But we got out.”
I snorted.
“Only because Aahz tricked me.”
“Your friend Aahz is a mighty smart fellah, isn’t he?”
“Much smarter than I am,” I said. Sometimes I resented it, but at that moment, I was proud of it.
“Well, you trust him, like he trusts you. He told you somethin’ and you believed it.”
“But it wasn’t true!”
“’Zat really matter, young’n? It was the thing you needed to hear that minute. Somethin’ we all needed to hear that minute. It got you outta yer slump. You rose to the occasion, son, and handsomely, too. He knew you could do it. He trusted you. You came through. You worked together and saved us all. What’s still twistin’ yer tail?”
I was reassured by his confidence, but that confidence caused the seething resentment
in me to boil over.
“How come the others didn’t fall apart like I did?” I demanded. “How come they aren’t here with me, drinking the inn dry? Why aren’t you?”
Haroon shrugged. “When you get to be my age, son, any day where you wake up breathin’ is a good day. Any situation you walk away from don’t matter the minute you turn your back on it. It’s over. You win because you get to go home. Way I read yer friends, they see that. You oughta learn to understand that, or you’re gonna tear yerself apart.” He studied me and shook his floppy ears. “Maybe you just need a vacation. Ye’re in the right place for it, y’know. Have the time of your life. These Winslovaks are the nicest people you could ever meet. They’d take good care of ya.”
“Maybe after we find the Loving Cup,” I said. “We accepted a job. I don’t like the client. Looie’s a tough guy to warm up to. But Aahz agreed to his terms. The way I see it, we just have to come through for him. And it’s the only way we’ll get paid. Then I’ll relax.”
“Y’all need to relax now, son, or you aren’t gonna be too good at looking. You’re holdin’ yerself back, to my way of thinkin’.”
I shrugged. “I can’t, Haroon. Maybe at the moment, I just don’t know how.”
“Uh-huh.” The Canidian took a long drink of gravy. “You’ll learn.”
A heavy arm fell across my shoulders. I looked into the silver-gray face of a Titan. He grinned down at me. I gawked up at him. Titans were dangerous. They were so strong they could tear most other beings apart without really trying too hard. He blew a sodden alcoholic gust in my face. I coughed.
“Sing me a drinking song, Klahd!”
“Sorry, but I don’t know any,” I said, trying to edge away. He grabbed me with one huge hand that encircled my neck and hauled me back.
“Ya don’t? Then sing one of mine! Iss real good,” he said, his voice slurring. He leaned on me. I had to use a handful of magik to keep my spine from collapsing under his weight. “Hey! How come I can’t see the bottom of the bottle? / Because there’s too much liquor in the way! / So I think I better drink a lottle! / My drinking will help clear it all away!” He hoisted a clear bottle and held it to my lips. It was full of blue fluid. The sharp, sweet smell went right up my nose and cleared my sinuses all the way to the top of my head. “Thiss iss the chorus. And, glug, glug, glug! Glug, glug, glug! . . . ! Drink, Klahd!” He tipped the jug, flooding my mouth with the azure potion.
I had no choice but to swallow or drown. Rivers of liquor ran out of the corners of my mouth. I gulped down the most I could. The Titan finished the chorus and reclaimed the bottle. I gasped in a deep breath of air. With the back of my hand, I dashed the side of my mouth to dry it. I missed a couple of times but eventually cleared my face. The blue liquor was hot enough to burn my skin.
“Now you sing it, and I’ll drink!” the Titan said.
“Uh, bayme not,” I said. My words were starting to mix themselves up. I tried to clarify. “I’m sing much of a notter. I mean, a mucher not of sing.” I heard low growling behind me. I turned around. The bar was full of Titans, all of them swaying as much as or more than my new companion. They showed their teeth. While not as fearsome as Aahz’s four-inch choppers, these were sufficiently threatening to sober me halfway up. “All right. Sure! Um. Hey! How come I can’t see the bottom of the bottle . . . ?”
To my surprise, I found that the Titan’s tipple had improved my singing voice. The more I drank, the better I sounded. When I finished caroling the chorus, with the help of all his Titan friends, I grabbed the jug and gulped another mouthful on my own. The liquor didn’t burn so much that time. In fact, it tasted pretty good.
“Thass right, Klahd!” the Titan said, slapping me on the back so hard my chest bounced against the edge of the bar. I gasped, but I didn’t let go of the bottle. He held it up to my mouth and started pouring. “I’ll verse the singond seck. Won’t you join me in another joyous skinful? / There’s plenty more booze in the jug to share / Leaving this much liquor would be sinful / Come drink with me and wash away your care!”
Haroon sat on his bar stool and grinned at me.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.”
—H. JEKYLL
A piercingly shrill sound went through my head. I sat bolt upright and looked around. Water trickled down my face. I wiped it away, but it kept coming. I tilted my head up, and a cascade of water poured down on me. I sputtered. It took me a while to figure out exactly where I was.
I sat astride a gigantic marble frog, which also spat an arc of water from its wide, pursed lips into the twelve-foot-wide stone pool of a massive ornamental fountain. Somewhere in my memory, I recalled seeing it not far from the entrance to the Noisy Toddler. But why was I sitting in it? The thought baffled me. All the noise wasn’t helping while I tried to clear my mind.
Barely an arm’s length from me were the six Titans, now draped against one another’s shoulders and snoring deeply, chest deep in the pool, not at all disturbed by the water raining down on their heads. The first one still had the big bottle clutched to his chest, though it was upside down now. All of them wore wreaths of pink and yellow flowers on their broad foreheads. I ran my hand through my hair and came away with a handful of pink petals. I guess I had one, too.
I didn’t remember exactly how we had ended up in the ornamental stone fountain outside the Noisy Toddler, but it must have seemed like a good idea at the time.
Not to my friends, however.
“Skeeve!” The high-pitched noise resolved itself into words. Specifically a word. My name.
Bunny stood at the edge of the rimmed pool, alternately glaring at me and Haroon. The Canidian reclined nearby on a park bench. He looked cheerful and well rested.
“What is the matter with you?” Bunny asked him, her voice shrill. “How could you let those Titans take advantage of him?”
“No advantage taken at all, little missy,” Haroon said, jovially. “He just needed to have a little downtime. I kept an eye on him all the while, you know. As a friend.”
“But he’s drunk!”
“No,” I said. I staggered to my feet, unsteady because the bottom of the fountain was slippery. I splashed over to her. “I’m not, honest. In fact, I feel pretty good!”
“How much did you have to drink?” Bunny asked, narrowing her eyes at me.
“A lot,” I admitted. “I lost control. But whatever that barmaid served me didn’t act like Deveelish liquor. I feel as though I didn’t drink anything at all.”
Bunny looked at the state of my clothes. I probably didn’t look too good.
“How is that possible?” she asked.
“Local brew,” Haroon said, with a wise nod. “About ninety proof magik. Tole ya Winslow would take care of ya, my friend. You ready to get back to work?”
I grinned because I felt like smiling. I stepped out of the fountain, grabbed up a double dose of magik from the nearest force line, and dried my hair and clothes instantly. In spite of sleeping under a cataract, I didn’t have a cold, or a headache, or the bad-tasting dry mouth I used to get when I drank too much wine. I felt as if I had had a month’s vacation overnight. No wonder people loved to visit this place.
“You bet I am.”
* * *
“Your nails look nice,” I said. I strode beside Bunny. For all that my legs were much longer than hers, I struggled to keep up. Haroon galloped along behind us, his long ears flapping. “Is that a new outfit? It goes really well with your polish.”
“Hmph!” Bunny kept her chin high and her eyes on the graveled path ahead. She didn’t look at me. Nor did she look down at her dress, a form-fitting garment of deep sapphire blue that matched the shade of her nails and set her hair off becomingly. She was very angry. I tried again to open a neutral-sounding conversation.
“Did Gleep behave himself?”
“Hah!”
“Did you have a good time?” I asked.
“Mmph!”
“Why are you angry with me?”
Bunny whirled to a stop and grabbed a handful of my shirt collar. She yanked it down hard, bringing me nose to nose with her. I found it hard to face her glare.
“After all the time it took to get you to put yourself back together, you throw it away and try to drown yourself in a bottle!” she said.
My shoulders drooped.
“I’m sorry. I’m not proud of myself. I . . . I just couldn’t stop thinking about being back in Maire. I’m better now.”
“Are you going to do that again?” she asked.
“No! Honestly!”
“I just want to know,” Bunny began, with tears starting in her wide blue eyes, “if this is going to keep happening. I can’t keep caring about you if you are going to do that to yourself. It’s too hard!”
I was horrified at how hurt she looked but angry at her lack of trust.
“I’m not! Why would you assume that one slip means I’m going back to the way I was?”
“Because . . . because I’ve seen it happen! I can’t go through that time again!”
I caught her wrists and held them.
“You don’t have to! I promise!”
A Deveel woman with a huge blue shoulder bag over her arm passed us at that moment. She glanced at Bunny’s hands.
“Hey, love your manicure! Where’d you have it done?”
Bunny, startled, smiled at the stranger.
“Thank you,” she said. “I went to Doot’s, down near the beach.”
“Well, they did a great job,” the Deveel said, looking at her claws as though comparing them with Bunny’s. “I ought to get an appointment. Who was your stylist?”
“Um, I think her name was Concertina.”
“Thanks!” The Deveel hoisted her purse and walked off. Bunny glanced back at me. I faced her with the most sincere expression I possessed.
“I’m not going to drink too much anymore,” I said. I drew her over to the nearest bench. She resisted, but I made her sit down and alit beside her. “I promise. This was just one time. It hasn’t happened since . . . well, you remember.”
Robert Asprin's Myth-Fits Page 11
