She nodded but clearly couldn’t trust herself to speak. Her nose grew pink. I felt in my belt pouch for a clean handkerchief, but I didn’t have one. A vine growing down from a tree next to the bench twisted to display several overgrown buds. One of them burst open to reveal large white petals of tissue thinness. I plucked one and handed it to Bunny. She buried her face in it. I sat helplessly as she cried. I didn’t know what else to do. I never did know what to do when she was unhappy.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It won’t happen again. I can handle myself. I will handle myself.”
She wiped her eyes with the petal and raised her face to mine. The sorrowful expression she wore tore at my heart.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said. “I didn’t mean to take it out on you. I feel guilty that all of you got into trouble in Maire. This is all my fault.”
If I was confused before, I was baffled now.
“No, it isn’t. Why do you say that?”
“Because I insisted we stay on the job. We don’t have to. I’ll figure out a way to . . .”
“To what?” I asked. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“No,” she sighed. She looked around for a place to put the petal. A blue-winged bird swooped out of the sky and plucked it out of her hand. She rose and began walking again. “Not exactly. I was so worried about you when you didn’t come back last evening. And then to see you in that fountain . . .” She giggled. “Actually, you looked silly.”
“I felt pretty silly, too,” I said. “It’s the first time that ever happened to me.”
“It’s a wonder you didn’t drown.”
I stood up and extended a hand to her.
“I was safe,” I said. “Winslow took good care of me, even when I didn’t take good care of myself.”
* * *
“Where was he?” Aahz asked. He lay in a hammock swinging between two palm trees. The fronds fanned him gently. He had a tall glass in his hand filled with bright pink liquid and topped with skewered fruit and a stick with an eyeball on it.
Bunny pursed her lips and shot a cautionary glance at me.
“In a fountain. Asleep. With six Titans.”
“Sounds more like me than you, tiger,” Tananda said, coming over to enfold me in a cuddly embrace. To most people, it was a wildly passionate kiss. To a Trollop, it was just a morning peck on the cheek. I enjoyed it even while it overwhelmed me. Gleep came racing over to give me a happy slobbery slurp of his long tongue. I enjoyed that, too, but not as much. The slime he left on my face smelled of rotten meat.
“Gleep?” he asked.
“I’m all right,” I assured him. He whacked my leg playfully with his tail and galloped in a circle around me. He jumped away and bounded over to Haroon. The two of them sniffed one another’s tail regions.
So we weren’t going to mention my failure to keep sober. At least at that moment, if I read Bunny’s expression correctly.
“Like my nails?” Tananda asked, brandishing a full set of inch-long claws. They were painted emerald green. Rainbow sparks flew out of them every time she moved.
“Gee, I like the effect,” I said.
“Thanks, big guy,” she said, running the sharp tips down the side of my face. I quivered. She laughed.
“Has the Loving Cup shown up yet?” I asked, to cover my embarrassment.
Tananda unwound herself from me and sashayed over to a hammock tied at one end to one of Aahz’s trees. She swung into it and patted the netting invitingly.
“Not yet. Come and lie down. I’m sure it’ll be along in a while.”
I shook my head.
“No. I’d rather concentrate on our mission. I’ll keep looking.”
“Why?” Markie asked. She toasted me with her bright orange beverage, garnished with a cherry, a paper parasol, and long strands of silver tinsel. “They’ll come and get us when they find it.”
“I’m tired of waiting,” I said.
“So go ask again,” Aahz said.
I didn’t want to sit still, so I went.
* * *
“Not yet, sir.” Turista was off that morning, so I spoke to a new Help Desk helper, Porta. She checked the crystal ball and several notes that she pulled out of the air, then shook her head. “So sorry, Mr. Skeeve. I don’t have a record of it being here in Winslow.”
“But it was here,” I insisted.
“Did you see it?” Porta asked.
“Well, no . . .” And again, I didn’t want to go into details of the magician-thief we had found ransacking the room. “But my friend Haroon followed the scent to the last place it had been.”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Haroon!” Porta said, and smiled. An enormous gold-trimmed ledger appeared in her hands. “Yes, I see. He investigated a room that subsequently had to have several repairs done to it.”
“Uh, I’m sorry about that,” I said. “I said we’d pay for the damage.”
She waved away my offer, as all her colleagues had done.
“The magik mirror in that room had to go in for counseling, so I can’t ask it what became of the room’s contents until it comes back. But I promise you, Mr. Skeeve,” she said, fixing large, sincere eyes on mine, “we are looking for the right cup, and it will be in your hands just as soon as we can find it.”
“Thanks,” I said. What else could I say? No news was . . . well, no news. I planned to keep looking, just in case. I returned to my friends.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Everything on this list is important!”
—MOSES
“Owwww!” Chumley bellowed, as a group of young Deveels raced away, a tuft of his purple fur clenched in one of their hands. “Crunch punch!” But they were out of reach in an instant. We had just emerged into the sun from the Winslow Museum of Hospitality. My notion that the Loving Cup might be on display there turned out to be a false hope. All of us were caught off guard by the sudden attack.
“I’ll get them,” I said. With determination, I took to the air. Then I saw a plump, slightly balding but rather distinguished-looking Winslovak male in a white jacket. I thought it would be better if the local authorities handled the matter. I flew over to him and explained what had just happened.
“I’m sorry,” he said. His name tag read Servis. “They should not have troubled you, Mr., er, Crunch. It’s all part of the Scavenger Hunt we have going on today. Wouldn’t you like to play?”
“Scavenger Hunt?” I asked. He turned to me eagerly.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Skeeve the Magnificent! We have several group competitions going on. Everyone loves them.”
“Crunch despise. Game not wise,” Chumley warned, shaking a gigantic fist under Servis’s nose. The Winslovak bowed deeply.
“I’m so sorry about that, sir. The Troll who was supposed to be the source of fur today is in the middle of town. Those Deveels shouldn’t have troubled you, sir. I offer you our deepest, most heartfelt apologies!”
Chumley allowed himself to be mollified.
“Deveels lazy, drive me crazy.”
“It’s all in good fun, sir. Come and play!” Servis looked around at my friends. “You have a large enough team to qualify. Except for you, Mr. Haroon. You have an unfair advantage, since you are a professional investigator who works with our staff now and again.”
“That’s no problem,” the Canidian said, easily. “I won’t help look, but I might just hang around with my friends here.”
“That’s allowed,” Servis said, with a smile. “Campfya!”
A cheerful female in white shorts and a bandanna top rushed over to me and handed me a blue-tinted parchment scroll and a large white sack.
“What’s all this?” I asked her.
“It’s simple. Find all the items on this list by midnight tonight and win a prize!”
“Big deal,” Aahz said, holding up his hand and beckoning
. A waiter appeared out of thin air and presented him with a bucket-sized goblet sloshing with beer. He glugged down half the brew and let out a sigh of pleasure. “What do we get? A T-shirt? No, thanks.”
“No, sir!” Campfya said. “Winslow offers only attractive prizes to our honored guests! One hundred gold pieces!”
Bunny’s big blue eyes shone. “A hundred gold pieces?”
“Yes, Miss Bunny!”
“We don’t have time for a distraction like that,” I protested. “It would be better to keep looking for the cup.”
Bunny turned to us.
“No! We need to win this. It would be great to earn an extra hundred.”
The rest of us looked at one another. I was more determined than ever to get to the bottom of her concerns about money.
“We’re overqualified,” Aahz said, with a yawn. He handed the empty pail to the server, who promptly vanished. “But it might be entertaining to shellac the competition while we’re waiting for the cup to turn up.”
“So you will enter?” Servis asked. His face creased in a delighted smile.
“Yeah, why not?” Aahz said. “What are we looking for?”
Campfya tapped the parchment in my hand. I unrolled the scroll and read down the list.
A handful of Troll fur
A Deveel’s hoofprint
A Klahdish expression
Two ounces of pink sand
A blank look
Some blue air
A pair of dice
Dragon breath
I skimmed down. I wasn’t sure what a few of the items were, but I was sure the others would know. Then I read the final entry:
The Loving Cup
“What?” I demanded. I pointed to the final item. “Why is this on the list? It’s one of a kind. That’s supposed to be ours! We’re waiting for it to be delivered.”
Servis looked at the list. His kindly brows drew down.
“Oh, my. That wasn’t on the original list. There should be only twenty items. I have it here.” He reached into the air and pulled a purple-rimmed scroll out of nothingness. “You see?—Oh, my courteous aunt, it is there! That’s not right!”
“How many groups are on this Scavenger Hunt?” I asked.
“About a hundred and fifty,” Servis said. He looked worried, but no more worried than I felt. “Someone has tampered with the list!”
“But who?” I asked.
“Your girlfriend,” Markie said, in a flat voice.
“She’s not my girlfriend!” I exclaimed. But the expressions on my friends’ faces told me they didn’t believe me. “Look, Servis, we put in a request with the Central Help Desk. They promised to deliver it right away. They can’t do that if it’s part of a resortwide game.”
“I will try to get to the bottom of this, madams and sirs,” Servis said. “I will research the matter thoroughly, I promise you!” He and Campfya trotted away.
Bunny took the scroll out of my hands.
“We have to win this now,” she said.
“But why would she, I mean the other magician,” I corrected myself hastily. “Why would she need other people to find the cup for her? She found it before, or at least where it had been.”
“Simple,” Aahz said. “Because she can’t take it from where it is by herself. She has got to be privy to the inner workings of Winslow’s operation. So, what’s the problem?”
“The problem is,” I said, “that if you invoke the cup, it vanishes. Everybody working for Looie knows that. But there’s nothing in the instructions to keep anybody from who finds it from testing it out to see if it works.”
Tananda clicked her tongue.
“She can’t be that stupid,” she said. “We know she isn’t. So what’s her game?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But it means we have to get to the cup before anyone else, or we won’t know where in the dimensions it went.”
* * *
All at once, the peaceful mood of Winslow became as wild as a tavern after the tapping of a new keg of Deveelish ale. Instead of lying on the beach, sipping blue umbrella drinks and listening to mediocre musicians plunking away at various forms of stringed instruments, groups of holidaymakers ran from shop to hotel to garden square, looking for the items on their list. They shook sacks already partly filled with finds from the list. My friends and I knew we were starting at a disadvantage.
“Who wants to hold the bag?” Aahz asked.
“I will,” Bunny said at once. “We ought to divide up the list.”
“In a minute. First, number one,” Tananda said. She beckoned to Chumley to hold up his arm. The big Troll cringed.
“But, Little Sis, it hurts when you do that!”
“I’ll try to keep it painless,” she said. Chumley held still with admirable patience while his sister plucked a sizable pinch of fur from the back of his arm and placed it in the bag. A check mark appeared beside the first entry on the scroll.
“Another easy one,” Aahz said. “Dragon breath. I can’t believe they want a dose of halitosis. They must mean fire.”
“But Gleep’s fire will just burn the bag up,” I pointed out.
“Gleep!” my dragon agreed.
“Piece of cake,” Aahz said, with an expansive sweep of his hand. “Remember when I taught you to levitate? Same thing.”
I frowned. “How could it be the same thing?”
“To lift yourself off the ground, you use magik to push against it. The same principle applies here. Take some magik out of the force line. Picture it forming a globe with one arc still open. Like a hollow ball with a hole in it. Imagine all the force pushing inward. Got it?”
“I think so,” I said.
It was easy enough to pick up a small quantity of magik from the wavy blue force line that ran beneath our feet. In my mind, I shaped it as Aahz directed. It formed a bubble about the size of my fist, pale green, right in front of my stomach. I nodded.
“Good,” Aahz said. “Show me where it is.”
I held my hands on either side of the globe.
Aahz turned to Gleep.
“Can you breathe into that?” he asked. “Without causing a massive house fire or giving Skeeve a hotfoot?”
“Gleep!” my dragon protested, hurt in his large blue eyes. But he flared his nostrils and took a deep breath.
I turned my face to one side as Gleep exhaled a narrow stream of bright golden fire directly toward me. The heat was unbelievable, but to my delight and amazement the force bubble absorbed it all.
“Close it, kid!” Aahz bellowed. I turned back to look. The lance of dragon breath bounded around inside the globe, trying to find a way out. A tongue of flame licked out of the one place on the bubble that faced my dragon. Swiftly, I pinched the opening shut. The fire kept ricocheting around, drawing patterns of red light against the magikal surface.
“That’s one neat piece of magik!” I said, turning the small orb over and over. “Thanks, Aahz!”
“It’s nothing special,” Aahz said, with a shrug. “Just doing my job as an instructor. Looks like you still need continuing education, if you never worked out that you can use magik to press against other substances or itself for other purposes on your own.”
My face grew as hot as the bubble.
“Maybe if you’d explained that in the first place, I would have known it!”
“Some people figure it out without being told! I didn’t realize your aptitude was so low you never tried to experiment!”
“You always stressed how dangerous it was!”
“You won’t know how to minimize the danger if you don’t try!”
“Boys, boys,” Tananda said, putting a hand on each of our chests and shoving us away from one another. “Let’s get a move on. There are a lot of things to find!”
“What about
a Klahdish expression?” I asked. “What does that mean?”
Aahz shrugged. “Same thing as a blank look, is my guess.”
“What?” I asked. Suddenly, a pink haze covered my face. It moved outward and shrank to an oval the size of my hand. In it, I could see my own reflection. My mouth was open and my brows were high up. Two check marks appeared on the list.
“Perfect,” Markie said, gleefully. “Just don’t let anybody else get you to make that face, and we’re ahead of the game. And don’t let your dragon breathe fire anywhere else, no matter what.”
I patted Gleep’s head.
“He’s pretty smart,” I said. “He knows not to give help to the other teams.”
“Gleep!” my dragon said.
“What about you?” Aahz asked.
“What about me?” I asked.
“Try not to let anyone surprise you. It’s too easy.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. I couldn’t help feeling resentment that he believed I was so gullible. I stuck up my chin. “I’ll be on my guard from now until the end of the contest.”
Aahz shrugged.
“Let’s cut straight to the chase,” he said. “None of the other stuff really matters. Putting the Loving Cup on the list means it’s somewhere in plain sight somewhere in this resort that Miss Fancy Pants can’t get at without help. Split up and search. We’ll meet for dinner at the Rusty Hinge and compare notes.”
“I say,” Chumley exclaimed. “A practical notion, that.”
“Sounds good to me,” Tananda said.
“What about Skeeve?” Haroon asked. “Seems to me that young lady has targeted our friend here. If she’s really behind this, then he’s vulnerable on his own.”
“I can take care of myself,” I insisted.
“Do you want company?” Tananda asked me. I appreciated her concern as much as I resented it. I waved away the suggestion.
“No. Why don’t you stay with Chumley? He’s in more danger than I am! The rest of the groups will pluck his pelt bald to get item number one!”
Robert Asprin's Myth-Fits Page 12
