“Can I get you anything else?” the barmaid asked, leaning close. “You look lonely. Would you like some company?” She aimed a thumb over her shoulder. A couple of girls waved at me from a table near the back. I looked hastily away.
“Uh, no. Thanks anyhow. I just want to think.”
The barmaid nodded and went off to serve the next customer.
I watched the employees for a while. They seemed as if they belonged in another dimension, a happy one where everyone loved their job and nothing ever went wrong. They were part of the way Winslow functioned. It was a different kind of life than the one I was used to. It wasn’t a bad life, but I knew it wasn’t for me. I liked my dimensions with a little more open dishonesty and the possibility of danger.
A few employees from the Activity Department came through with whistles and clipboards. They tried to get me interested in the contest or race of the day. I really didn’t want to participate in any of the group activities. Looie was due to come and yell at us later. I actually felt sorry for him, not being able to solve his diplomatic problems. He was as out of his depth as we were. We still didn’t have answers, or the Loving Cup. I was more frustrated than ever. And I had no ideas. I sipped my wine, trying to cudgel a plan out of my brain. I felt I was letting Bunny down.
A couple of empty seats separated me from the only other customer on my side of the central bar. I couldn’t place the dimension he came from. He looked like a cross between a Kobold and an Imp—small of stature, with a pinky-orange complexion and little horns on his broad, almost bulbous forehead. He was playing with a series of little rainbow-colored metal links, making them dance around on the counter. With a nudge, they waddled toward one another and linked up in sequence with the colors of the rainbow from red through to purple. He gathered them up, shook them like dice, and they did it all over again. I watched with fascination for a while, until he looked up and smiled at me.
“Sorry,” I said at once. “I didn’t mean to stare.”
“Not offended,” he said. “I just learned this trick. It looks really complicated, but it isn’t.”
I was intrigued.
“Will you show me?”
“I’m Prob,” he said, shaking my hand. “I come from Durk. Have you ever seen anything like this place in your life?”
“No,” I agreed. “I’m from Klah. Winslow’s about as far from my home dimension as they come.”
“Durk doesn’t have a lot of magik, but I have been training hard. I’m only an apprentice.”
“Me, too,” I said. “So, what’s this?”
“A guy I met in here the other night taught me this little trick. Cute, isn’t it? And it’s a lot easier than it looks. The colors naturally fall into their place in the spectrum. You just have to nudge them.”
Prob was right. It wasn’t a hard spell to learn, and it took very little magik to make the cubes line up. We passed the time talking about our lives. He was the son of a vintner, he said. I told him about our business in Deva. I found myself laughing as we passed the time. I realized he was probably one of the local color who worked for the Winslow council, but I didn’t mind. I had relaxed and was actually enjoying myself.
Before I knew it, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I glanced up to see Bunny standing beside me.
“Have you been here all this time?” she asked.
“I guess so. But I’ve only had one glass of wine.”
I glanced through the windows. It was dark. I had been sitting there for hours without coming up with a single idea. Bunny could tell by the look on my face, but she didn’t chide me for it. I knew she was still blaming herself. She gave me a sideways smile.
“Would you like to join the rest of us for dinner?” she asked. “I figure we’ll enjoy one last nice meal before we go back to Deva in disgrace. Looie will be here later on, and we’ll have to give back his expense money.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wish I could have been more helpful.” I noticed Prob gazing at her intently. People couldn’t help staring at Bunny. She was so familiar to me that sometimes I forgot how beautiful she was. I hastened to do introductions.
“Bunny, this is Prob. He taught me this neat little magik trick. Prob, meet Bunny. She’s the president of the partnership I belong to, M.Y.T.H., Inc.”
“Nice to meet you,” Bunny said, offering her hand. Prob clasped it gently.
“My lady.” He stood up hastily and patted me on the back. “Well, Skeeve, gotta go! My wife’s waiting for me. Have to take the sprouts to dinner.”
Haroon wandered up to us and gave me a friendly sniff up and down my pants legs, then moved on to Prob. I started to introduce him, but he stopped dead then scuttled out of the room on his short little legs.
The next thing I knew, Tananda was standing there with a knife to my companion’s throat.
It dawned on me that I knew what was going on, and why. I sensed the disguise spell and realized I had been had.
“You’re not really on staff here, are you?” I asked. “I think we need to introduce ourselves. My name’s Skeeve, and you almost got me killed.”
“I know who you are,” the man said with a sigh. The bulbous forehead and orange skin faded, leaving pale peach skin, long brown hair, and those breathtakingly beautiful blue eyes. Suddenly all of my friends were there surrounding us. None of them brandished armaments, but they never needed to. I ran, I remarked at that moment, with a truly formidable crowd. She, on the other hand, was the enemy. “My name’s Dorinda.”
“I know,” I said. “We’ve been looking for you. You’re really good at hiding.”
Markie held out a palm. A tiny pink flame flickered into life in its center. The fire grew until it was a crackling ball larger than my head.
“Tell me why you shouldn’t get to eat this right here,” Markie said. She still looked like a cute little Klahd girl, but her eyes were as cold and fierce as an adult dragon’s.
The girl’s large eyes darted from one to another of us.
“I am so sorry,” she said. “You surprised me when I was going through Meeger’s room. I only meant to send you to a far dimension so I could go on searching in peace. I had no idea that you’d end up in Maire.”
“Lie,” Markie said, never changing expression. “No one can get past those dimensional defenses by mistake. I tried it myself after I got over the shell-shock. I bounced. I could get in because I have been there, but a random travel spell only gets you to the barrier.”
“It was an accident!” the girl protested. She turned to me. When those lovely eyes met mine, I almost melted. “Please, won’t you let me explain?”
“What about it, Skeeve?” Bunny asked. She flipped Bytina, her Perfectly Darling Assistant, a small red-shelled device, open in her hand and aimed toward Dorinda. Bytina’s miniature magik mirror glowed with a brilliant light similar to the flames Markie wielded. I had no idea that the PDA doubled as a weapon.
“Come on,” I said. I stood up and held out my hand to the other magician.
“Where are we going?” Dorinda asked. Her hand trembled as I took it.
“Our suite. We have a pretty good liquor cabinet and the chairs are comfortable.”
“Do I have a choice?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“It’s better if we work together.”
—IAGO
Tananda and Chumley’s room was the largest, so we went in there. Tananda hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door and bespelled the lock closed.
“Would you like a drink?” I asked. Bunny had pushed Dorinda into the chair that had kept her from getting up a few nights before.
“No, thanks,” the girl said, folding her hands together. “If I’m going to die, I would rather do it on an empty stomach.”
“Why didn’t you tell me who you were?” I asked.
“I
was working up to it,” she said, with an apologetic smile. “I wanted to apologize.”
“Apology accepted,” Markie said, rolling a crackling, silver lightning bolt between her hands. “Prepare to die.”
I pushed in between her and Dorinda, risking electrocution. “Wait a minute. I want some information from her first.”
“All right, it’s your funeral.”
Markie lowered her hands, but the ball of lightning bounced up and down by itself, as if impatient to cause havoc.
“What do you want to know?” Dorinda asked.
“Where’s the Loving Cup?” I asked.
“I don’t have it!” she exclaimed. “If I did, I wouldn’t still be here!”
“You’re not working with Servis?” Aahz asked. She turned to him.
“No! I’ve been looking for him for days. I’ve been everywhere. I’ve covered even more ground than you have, over and over again. I don’t know where he is, either.”
“Then he still has it. We need to find him and get it.”
Dorinda looked panic-stricken.
“You can’t have the Loving Cup! I need it!”
Bunny regarded her coldly.
“Who cares what you want?”
“I do,” I said suddenly. “Looie hired you, too, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” Dorinda said. She held out her hands in supplication. “Look, I really need this job!”
“You’re doing too many jobs, honey,” Bunny said, folding her arms. “You hunt for missing persons, you retrieve valuable magik items, you hunt down blackmailers—Do you do birthday parties, too?”
“I would if I could!” Dorinda declared. Her nose turned red, and those beautiful eyes filled. She burst into sobs. I reached into my pouch for a handkerchief. I couldn’t get the pouch open.
“No!” Markie said. She held her thumb and forefinger pinched together, and I assumed that it was keeping my pouch shut. “Let her cry.”
But Dorinda had her own linen square, in a pocket inside her long sleeve. She didn’t cry long. She shed a few tears, then pulled herself together. I had to admit, I was impressed by her aplomb, even when confronted by people who had every reason to be her enemies. “I’m so sorry. I usually have better control than this. I’m tired. I don’t think I’ve slept in days.”
I felt sorry for her, but I didn’t know what to do. My friends had been teasing me for days about her being my girlfriend. I had not really thought of her in that light, until that moment, and then I couldn’t get away from the thought. Her eyes fascinated me. I wanted to stare into them again.
“Are you from Klah?” I asked. She lifted her chin, and the sapphire irises met mine. I felt a quiver.
“No, but our dimensions are sisters. You find dimensions in groups and pairs like that, Wyv and Draco, and so on. I’m from Imbolk in Zaf.”
I pulled up a chair and sat down beside her.
“They said you were a court magician,” I said, trying to put her at ease. “I did that for a while.”
“I know,” she said, wringing her handkerchief in her fingers. “I know all about you. You’ve done some amazing things.”
Bunny tapped her foot on the floor impatiently.
“Can we break up this little mutual admiration society? Why are you looking for the Loving Cup? Why have you been stealing missions from us?”
“Frankly,” Dorinda said, “we need the money. The budget is tight.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” Bunny asked.
“Imbolk has money,” Tananda said. “I, er, paid a visit there once.”
“Yes, I know,” Dorinda said, with a smug look. “That was before my time. You won’t get in through that chimney hatch again. I had it bricked up and spelled shut.”
“Shrewd,” Tananda said. “But what happened to the rest of the gold?”
Dorinda sighed. “Imbolk is broke. Our current king has been on the throne for only two years. His father was widowed about five years ago and married a princess to ally with Haren, her mother’s kingdom. He spent almost everything in the treasury to seal the alliance and impress his in-laws. He died heavily in debt. The new king really is trying to straighten out the budget, but everyone wants everything right now.”
“So why are you trying to make up the whole shortfall by yourself?” I asked.
“It’s not just me,” Dorinda said. “Lord Ralf, the chancellor of the exchequer, is squeezing every budget to the last copper piece. He makes everybody who has any marketable talents take outside missions to defray expenses for each of our departments. He hires out our chefs for feasts at the guild halls, and our best scribes have been doing illustrated books for sale in foreign markets. Some of the departments have no useful skills outside the kingdom, so I’m trying to earn money for them, too. Things fall apart and they don’t get replaced. I can’t tell you how many potholes I skirt in the side yards. The stairs to my tower are coming to pieces, and there are holes in the roof, but I’m not as bad off as some of my friends. Lord Ralf keeps up the main courtyard and the king’s audience and personal chambers so that His Majesty has no idea how really bad things are.”
“What about all the regalia?” Tananda asked. “There was also a massive collection of fantastic magikal treasures, most of them solid gold and studded with gemstones . . . I mean, I’ve heard stories about them.” Tananda fluttered her eyelashes innocently. “You could auction any one of them off and it would support the entire kingdom for a year!”
“That’s the king’s blind spot,” Dorinda said, flipping a hand. “He won’t let us sell any of them. He loves to go and visit them, and hear the old stories from the keeper of the treasure. He said they’re the kingdom’s patrimony. But things do go missing once in a while. That’s my third job here,” she added resentfully. “I’ve got to find a cursed item that disappeared from the treasury before the king notices it’s missing.”
Aahz pushed a palm toward her. “Don’t tell me. The Nix Pyx? You didn’t bring it here, did you?”
“No. Lord Ralf sold it, even though I warned him it was a bad idea to let that one go, but the king’s mother-in-law was coming on a royal progress, and we had to have the visitor’s apartments renovated, not to mention uniforms and supplies for the army. When I find it, I can destroy it and have a harmless, nonmagikal copy made.”
“Sounds like our blackmailer,” I said. “Who did Lord Ralf sell it to?”
“A magician named Meeger,” Dorinda said. “He’s from Haren, too. Frankly, he scares the Pixy dust out of me. No matter how carefully I ward my tower, I always find him sniffing around in there. He’s been after the Nix Pyx for years. He finally made Lord Ralf an offer so high he couldn’t turn it down.”
“Did you know he was blackmailing the council here in Winslow?”
“It took me a while to figure it out. Looie hired me to find the Loving Cup. He said it was here. I hired myself out to the council as a freelance troubleshooter to afford the resort fees. Then things started to go wrong. I knew I wasn’t handling the situation,” Dorinda admitted, with a downcast look. “I needed help.”
“So why didn’t you come to us instead of undercutting us for minor assignments?”
Dorinda’s eyes flashed when she turned to meet mine.
“Yes, I’m out of my depth, but without my fee for finding the Loving Cup I can’t afford your services, either. You’re pretty pricey, you know.”
“Our rates are . . . negotiable,” I said. “We can talk about that later.”
“Skeeve, you’re not thinking of helping her, are you?” Markie asked, horrified.
“I, er, um . . .”
I fidgeted as my partners glared at me. The truth was, I would have done anything for Bunny, but I wanted to help Dorinda. Something about her just appealed to me.
“The Loving Cup is ours!” Bunny said. “I need that on the books!”
&
nbsp; “But we can both collect from Looie,” I said. “There are six Loving Cups now, remember?”
“What?” Dorinda asked.
I explained what had happened the night of the Scavenger Hunt. Her lovely eyes widened.
“That’s wonderful!” she cried. She threw her arms around my neck and kissed me. My friends exchanged glances, some satisfied; others, especially Markie, wary. Dorinda appealed to the rest of my partners. “Please, let me help. I’ll do anything to show you how sorry I am.”
“Where’s Meeger now?” I asked.
Dorinda shook her head. “I have absolutely no idea. He’s always been three jumps ahead of me. I just don’t think that way.”
“Well, we do,” Aahz said. “And it doesn’t really matter where Meeger is.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because he might be steering the problem, but it’s the Nix Pyx that is causing all the trouble. And I think I know where it is.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Really. It’s not what we see here in Winslow, but what we’re not seeing that’s important,” Aahz said. I could tell he was working up to one of his long lectures. “What’s missing from this place?”
Enlightenment dawned like a summer sunrise.
“Magik,” I said. “This place ought to be awash in magik, and it isn’t.”
Aahz beamed. “Exactly, partner. We need to find out where it used to be.”
“How do we figure that out?”
“We ask the council.”
“Oh, no,” Bunny said. “I’m not walking down that endless corridor again!”
“You don’t have to,” Dorinda assured her, with a wave. “That’s just for disgruntled tourists. I can get you there in five minutes.”
Robert Asprin's Myth-Fits Page 23
