Robert Asprin's Myth-Fits

by Jody Lynn Nye

  I was struck by an uncomfortable sense of familiarity as we passed under a squared-off arch into the crowded torchlit arena. Although it was almost as bright as day, I half expected a big, wooden stage hung with black velvet curtains and Wince stalking back and forth with a sword in his hand. I ran a finger around the inside of my collar. Gleep bumped against my leg and snaked his head up to look me right in the eye.

  “Gleep!” he said, warningly.

  I shook my head, as if to dislodge the memory.

  “You’re right, fellow,” I said. “It’s not the same. We’re here as winners!”

  I gagged at the putrid smell of his breath as he licked the side of my face.

  “Gleep!”

  As each team entered, a young resort employee joined us and took us to an individual small table behind a braided blue rope barrier. Our guide identified herself as Fayva. Her white hair was tied up with blue ribbons in little ponytails that stuck out over her ears. She had a clipboard and a feather pen in one hand. She shook our hands vigorously with the other.

  “Congratulations on finishing the hunt!” she said, beaming. “Now, let me see your items. We have to verify them to see how you did!”

  With a satisfied smile, Bunny opened the white sack and began to take our finds from it. Fayva ticked off the items on her clipboard. I thought our collection looked snazzier than the others, with the dragon breath rocketing around inside the little force globe.

  “. . . Pink sand—everyone found that one,” Fayva said. “. . . Dragon breath. Much rarer! Oh, but you have your own dragon,” she added, as Gleep came to lean against her side. “Aren’t you cute?” He licked her cheek. She didn’t seem to mind. “Troll fur . . .”

  I glanced around while she counted.

  Not all the groups had managed to locate even the twenty non-unique items on the list. A quintet of Kobolds stood with shoulders drooping while the young male Winslovak checked off the twelve that they had brought in.

  “-@%=?” their leader asked.

  “Most people have more than you,” the Winslovak admitted, with a sympathetic smile. “But, hey! It was a fun day, wasn’t it?”

  The Kobolds conferred among themselves.

  “½ . ½ ,” their leader said, at last.

  “Don’t worry! We have new games every day. You’ll win one of them, I’m sure. The day after tomorrow is a mathematics competition! I am sure you’ll beat all of the participants in that one.”

  The Kobolds brightened up. I turned back to my friends.

  “And the last item,” Bunny said, presenting the golden goblet with a little flourish, “the Loving Cup!”

  “Well done!” Fayva said, checking off the final entry on her clipboard. “That makes six of you.”

  “Six?” I asked, puzzled. “There’s seven of us.”

  “Oh, not your team,” Fayva said, laughing. “You found all twenty-one items! Five other teams did, too.”

  “That’s impossible,” Tananda said, pointing to the cup. “There’s only one of those.”

  “Not at all, Miss Tananda,” Fayva corrected her. She pointed to a nearby table. Six Deveels were jumping up and down and hugging one another. To my shock, a standing cup with two handles was among their collection. “They have one, too. There were only a limited number out there, so you were lucky.”

  “Wait a minute,” Aahz said. The ochre veins in his eyes started to protrude with anger. “That’s one of a kind! The others must be fakes! You can’t count them.”

  “Not according to my instructions,” Fayva said, patiently. “But congratulations! You’re one of the finalists for the grand prize!”

  “We should be the only ones to win,” Bunny argued.

  “I’m sorry. You’ll have to wait for confirmation from the judges!” Fayva reached above our heads and pulled on an invisible rope. A blue halo appeared above us. From the stands, a cheer went up.

  “Hang on a minute! Come on, kid!” Aahz said. He grabbed my arm and pulled me over to the Deveel team. They, too, had a halo above them. He pointed to the cup on their table. It looked exactly like the one I had found, jeweled handles and all. “Can we take a look at that?”

  A hefty Deveel woman with dark cosmetic outlining her eyes pushed in between us and the cup.

  “For how much?”

  Aahz snarled.

  “What do you mean, for how much? All we want to do is look at it!”

  “If you want it that badly, it must be worth something to you.” She put out her palm. “One gold piece.”

  “Not a chance!” Aahz bellowed.

  “All right, two!”

  “Two! My offer is zero!”

  “Then you don’t get to look!”

  “Never mind, Aahz,” I said, tapping him on the shoulder. “I’m sure that one’s a fake anyhow.”

  The female rounded on me. “A fake! We found it fair and square, you Klahd! Here! See for yourself!” She snatched up the gold cup and shoved it into my hands.

  Trying not to smile, I closed my eyes and tried to picture the aura around the cup. In my mind’s eye it glowed with a golden light, just like the one that we had.

  “Congratulations!” I said. I was reluctant to give it back to the Deveel, but she snatched it out of my hands. “Looks like you found the right one! C’mon, Aahz, let’s go back.”

  “Well?” Aahz demanded as soon as we were out of earshot.

  “It’s magikal,” I said. “But I can’t tell what its spell is.”

  He frowned. “This whole setup is fishy. We’d better take a look at the other so-called winners.”

  We had ample opportunity to size up the competition. Soon, six haloes hovered above the crowd of contestants. Aahz and I pushed through the mob toward the hovering symbols and had a look at their collections. As Fayva had said, there were six groups who had finished the whole list. All of them had a gold cup in their possession identical to ours. All of them gave off the same aura as the one we had. We reported back to Bunny.

  “That’s impossible!” she said, looking worried. “Are you sure we have the real Loving Cup?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “There’s no way to make sure.”

  “How can there be six of them?” Bunny asked.

  “Maybe the wizard who crafted them made several,” I said. “Diplomacy is a necessary art in all the dimensions. I mean, if there can be thousands of novelty Genuine Fake Doggie Doodle with Real Fake Smell That Really Sticks to Your Hands, why not six useful cups that can help forge accord between warring parties?”

  “Novelties are one thing,” Aahz said. “Complicated magik items are different. That cup’s the work of years of crafting. You’re not going to see a single magician devoting the rest of his life to making identical copies of one piece, and I’ve never heard of a sweatshop that made major artifacts in bulk, not even in Deva.”

  “But which one does Looie want?” I asked.

  “Does it matter?” Aahz asked. “We’ll collect them all and hand them to Looie. Let him figure it out. He’ll get six for the price of one.”

  “Well, well, congratulations!”

  A balding and distinguished Winslovak appeared at our side. He favored us with a jovial smile.

  “How nice to see you all again!” Servis said. “Congratulations on being one of our finalist teams!”

  “There’s been some kind of mistake,” I said.

  “Oh?”

  I pointed to the cup. “We thought there was only one Loving Cup. It looks as if there are six. Some of them might be fake.”

  “Well, there was only one real one,” Servis said. “I did check with the Central Help Desk. You do have first claim on it. But we have all these people we have to make happy! Our panel of independent judges has to verify all of the finds to determine who is the winner of the contest. Then you can take it wherever
you wish.”

  “I guess that will be all right,” Bunny said.

  “Good! I’ll be back just as soon as I can,” Servis said. He vanished.

  “Hey!” Aahz bellowed. I turned. The table where our collection of scavenged items had been was empty. A general outcry arose around us. All the artifacts had disappeared.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

  —HENRY VIII

  I turned to Fayva. “We can’t let that cup out of our sight!”

  “It’ll be back soon, sir,” she said, patting my hand reassuringly. “The judges rarely take more than a few minutes to make their decisions. In the meantime, why don’t you enjoy the dance?”

  “What?”

  A band struck up and began to play lively dance music. Fayva swayed to the beat. She held her arms out to me. The other resort employees encouraged the contestants and the audience to join them. I backed away.

  “I’m not much of a dancer,” I said.

  “Oh, come on, Mr. Skeeve,” she encouraged me. “Anyone can dance to this music!”

  Chumley came to my rescue. He moved in and swept the dainty Winslovak off her feet.

  “Crunch prance, great dance!” he exclaimed. They whirled away in step to the music. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that the enormous Troll was light on his feet. After all, he had worked in covert security. But he showed skill that impressed some of the people near us into applauding. I was grateful for his intervention.

  Servers plied their way through the enormous gathering with trays full of drinks and bite-sized canapés. Three eager waiters crowded around me, each enjoining me to try the treats on their platters.

  “You cannot go wrong with donk eggs filled with caviar!” the first one said.

  “Skewered gingerfish!” the second said, waving bits of bronze-colored meat on a small metal spike in front of my nose. The savory aroma interrupted my worries over the cup. I started to reach for one.

  “Oh, Mr. Skeeve, these are the ones for you!” insisted the third, elbowing his companions aside. “Lizard-bird dressed with woodland berries! A taste of your own home dimension!”

  I looked at the last-named with bemusement. The components of that dish would have described pretty accurately the results of woodland foraging I used to bring back to Garkin’s hovel in the woods. I took one, to the delight of its purveyor, and chewed it thoughtfully. The lizard-bird had been barbecued over a charcoal fire. The flavor brought back memories of my life before Aahz had appeared in Garkin’s magik circle. No one could possibly have known what that time was like for me. How things had changed! Instead of starvation fare, those foods were being presented to me here as gourmet delicacies. It just proved I didn’t understand fine cooking.

  “Take more!” the waiter said.

  “No, try mine!” said the first server.

  “You will really love gingerfish,” the second said. “It’s like nothing you’ve ever tried before.”

  My stomach rumbled. I didn’t realize that I was so hungry. How long had it been since I had breakfast? Platter after platter revolved before my eyes, each offering me morsels so delicious that I couldn’t wait to try the next one. Gleep sat next to me, his eyes shining, as I tossed him samples from the plates. He chomped each out of the air and licked his chops.

  “It’s been long enough!” Aahz said, breaking into my thoughts. I put the last tiny skewer back on the nearest tray. He tapped Fayva on the shoulder. She turned away from Chumley and began to dance with him. “Cut that out! Where’s our stuff?”

  She beamed. “I will go and check how the judges are doing,” she said. Just then, a shrill noise sounded over the arena. “Wait! It’s happening now, Mr. Aahz!”

  The dance music died away. A high platform appeared in the middle of the roped-off area. Several Winslovaks appeared on the stage. A handsome male of mature years whose white hair was combed straight back over his head, giving him the look of a Klahdish noble, held up his hands for silence. He wore a waist-length white tunic, short trousers that revealed muscular legs, and a golden whistle around his neck on a ribbon, the source of the blast that I had just heard.

  “I hope you are all having a good time!” he said. His hearty voice carried to the far edges of the gigantic enclosure. “Many of you lovely people already know me. I am Discus, the head of the Activities Center here in Winslow!”

  A cheer went up from the crowd, probably from past visitors.

  Discus acknowledged the applause.

  “Thank you all for making today’s Scavenger Hunt such a success! Our panel of judges”—here he nodded to the others with him on the platform—“have made their decisions! Let me get the formalities over with, and you can get back to the dance! We have six teams who all brought back every one of the twenty-one items on the list. Let’s give a big hand to them now!”

  Although no one near me was clapping, I heard the sound of wild acclaim.

  “Canned applause,” Aahz said out of the corner of his mouth.

  I wondered how noise could be preserved in a tin. It was probably a spell like the one I had used to seal up a sample of Gleep’s breath.

  “. . . Our sixth-place winners earn a purse with fifteen gold pieces! Will the team from Caf come on up here? Yes!” Discus and his fellow judges clapped enthusiastically.

  Four Caffiends, beings with Klahdish torsos atop long, sinuous snakelike tails, slithered up the blue-painted staircase. A lovely young Winslovak female met them at the top and escorted them to the judges. Discus handed them a certificate and a dark blue purse tied with a golden cord. The lead Caffiend, a male whose pupils were smaller than the tip of my knife, waved jubilantly to the crowd. The wild cheering erupted again.

  One by one, the teams that had sported blue haloes were escorted up onto the judges’ platform and given their awards.

  The third-place winner was a mixed group like ours, with one very insistent Imp who held their purse of twenty gold pieces up over his head and shook it in triumph. He was so excited that he slid all the way down the steps to the ground. He picked himself up, still grinning.

  “. . . And in second place, Team Deva! Let’s get all those Deveels up here!”

  “I protest!” the female wearing heavy eye makeup complained as soon as she reached the top of the steps. “Why are we the runners-up? We got everything you asked for, and we clocked the fastest time of all!”

  Discus put a chummy arm over her shoulders and turned her to face the crowd.

  “All of the items for which you searched today were locally sourced, madam. Now, since there was nothing about that in the rules given to you by our wonderful staff—let’s hear it for the activities staff!—but that dragon breath you brought us had just a tiny scent of Deva about it, didn’t it? As well as a few of the others? So, please, accept this fine purse containing fifty shining gold pieces!”

  The Deveel woman snatched it out of his hand. Ignoring her Winslovak escort, she stomped down the wooden steps, her hooves raising sparks out of sheer fury. Her group followed sheepishly behind her.

  “I bet they popped back to Deva and collected everything on the list from the Bazaar,” Markie said, with a wicked grin. “I’ve hired some of their personal shoppers. They do all the bargaining for you for a fee. It wouldn’t cost more than a fraction of the prize money.”

  “We should have done that,” Aahz said.

  “No,” Bunny said. “It would have been an extra expense!”

  “And in first place,” Discus said, holding out his hand to us, “also from Deva, Team M.Y.T.H., Inc.!”

  In almost indecent haste, Bunny ran up the steps. I ran to catch up with her. Chumley put on his most fearsome grimace and snarled at the audience. The rest of us just smiled as Bunny collected our dark blue purse; the certificate, which had all our names on it in beautiful gold le
tters; and the congratulations of the judges.

  All the other teams were awarded ornately lettered certificates of participation and a box of blue candies as a consolation prize.

  “One hundred gold pieces,” Bunny said, as we descended into a crowd of well-wishers with a comely young female showing us the way. The band music rose and the canapé servers moved in with fresh trays. The podium, with the panel of judges, vanished silently. Bunny shook the bag. It jingled impressively.

  “That’s a lot of cash,” I said.

  “Gleep!” my dragon said, looking at the bag avidly. I held him back. He liked to eat gold.

  “They can afford it, I dare say,” Chumley said, admiring it through his eyeglasses. “What? Our resort fee rather adds up. Three gold pieces a day per person? It would take very little time for them to recoup even the large prize we have just won.”

  “This is going to look so good on our bottom line!” Bunny exclaimed.

  “It sure is,” I agreed. “Haroon, you earned a share.”

  “You certainly did,” Bunny said.

  The Canidian shook his head until his long ears flapped.

  “That’s right nice of you fellows, but I can’t accept it. Didn’t really help much. Just showed Miss Bunny around the place. She did all the lookin’. Just keep the money. I got plenty buried around.”

  “So, how long until we get our stuff back?” Aahz asked our perky escort. Her name was Grays.

  The girl looked blankly at us. “Sorry, sir?”

  “Servis just took our stuff away with him. We want our items back.”

  Grays smiled and shook her head.

  “Oh, you don’t need them back, Mr. Aahz! None of them are worth anything.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “One of them was unique. The gold cup? The Loving Cup?”

  “That was an ordinary cup, sir. It wasn’t magikal at all.”

  “Yes, it was,” I said. “I know how to detect if an item has magik or not. I’m a magician.”