“I’m an old servant of the people,” Wilmer drawled, putting a thumb behind the shoulder of the vertical straps that held his trousers up over his potbelly. He looked as if he had been an athlete in his youth, but his body had gone soft since. Not his mind. His eyes followed me and Bunny with shrewd intelligence. “Long time. Don’t see that it’s necessary for us to indulge ourselves in expensive consultants.” He said the word consultants in the same tone I would use for poisoners. “But if you take the question to the people, I might consider calling the election soon. I want to represent their government; therefore, it is their money I’d be spending on you and your company. They have the final say! Otherwise, not a penny wasted! Did you get that, my dear?” he asked a slender, pretty Tipp with fair, golden-brown fur seated on a stool at the side of the large, sunny office. She was jotting rapidly in a small, blue-bound notebook. A rakish hat sat aslant on her fluffy hair. A small white card was stuck in its band.
“Yes, Mr. Weavil-Scuttil,” she said, without looking up.
“According to your opponent,” I said, “it’s your, uh, subterfuges that have caused the delay in the first place. We just want to ensure a fair election so it can go ahead.”
“That’s a vile lie!” Wilmer thundered. “My opponent is causing all the difficulty. If he wants a fair election, then he has to stop his infernal tricks and come out fighting fair and square!”
“You know, he told us the same thing about you,” I said, with an innocently bland expression on my face. Wilmer lowered his false brows fiercely.
“If I were guilty of half the ruses, subterfuges, and downright dirty trouble that he has engineered against me and my campaign, then I deserve to go to prison, not the governor’s mansion! What makes you think that my opponent will give over and allow a fair election?”
“Because he came to us,” I said, spreading my hands. “If he wasn’t serious, then he’s foolish to involve M.Y.T.H., Inc. We’d find out soon enough if he were the one stalling the election.”
“Well, I’m doing no more than is necessary to get my message out unobstructed to the electorate!” Wilmer declared, one finger in the air. “I want the people to know that I am the best candidate, bar none!”
“Our job is to make sure the election goes smoothly,” I said. “We’ll get to the bottom of the tricks.”
“See that you do!” Wilmer said, shaking a majestic finger at me. “I should have been governor years ago! I can’t wait forever . . . a Tipp of my, er, maturity, you understand.”
“Of course. So, if we get a consensus, you will pay half of our fee?” Bunny asked, fluttering her eyelashes at him. “And expenses?”
A male of any species would have to be dead not to respond to Bunny’s flirting. Wilmer’s fierce expression melted into benevolence.
“Why, certainly, my dear! If the people speak, then I as a faithful servant will have to answer. Did you get that?” he asked the reporter.
“Yes, Mr. Weavil-Scuttil.”
“Make sure it hits the front page, if you would be so kind,” he said, with a slight inclination of his head that was meant to be a bow but came off as patronizing. “Thumb position, of course.”
“That’s up to my editor, Mr. Weavil-Scuttil.” The reporter sounded slightly peeved but kept a pleasant smile on her face. I guessed he always asked for preferential treatment, and she always had to remind him it wasn’t her job to offer it. Wilmer was unperturbed. He turned back to us.
“Best of luck to you!” he wished us. “I look forward to facing a fair fight. That’s the only kind worth fighting. Did you get that?” he asked the reporter.
“Yes, Mr. Weavil-Scuttil.”
We shook hands with the candidate and set out into the sunshine. I was about to ask Bunny where she thought we should start, when the reporter circled around to get in front of us.
“Just a few questions,” the young female said. She grabbed our hands and shook them vigorously. “Ecstra Talkweather, Morning Gossip. Do you really think you can break the deadlock that has kept Bokromi from holding an election for five years?”
“That’s what we’re here to do,” Bunny said evenly.
“The money’s the reason you came, isn’t it?” Ecstra asked, a skeptical eyebrow raised.
“No! Our reputation for fairness is worth more than mere money,” I said.
“But who is going to believe that?” Ecstra asked. “This is just another ploy by Emo Weavil to get the voting going so he can stuff the ballot boxes, isn’t it?”
“Another ploy?” I asked, and wished I hadn’t. I bit my tongue. Never let a reporter think he, or in this case she, knows more than you. If Aahz had been there, he would have slapped his forehead in disgust. Or mine. Ecstra’s eyes narrowed craftily.
“So you are being scammed as well? Wow. Maybe you had better pull out now before your reputation gets dragged through the mud, and I mean mud!”
“We’ve heard about the mud,” Bunny said, her own eyes narrowing. “Sounds like you’re working for Wilmer. Isn’t that a violation of journalistic integrity?”
Ecstra’s brows drew down over her petite nose. “Who said I was?”
Bunny raised a chestnut eyebrow. “I infer it from the fact that you believe what he tells you about Emo Weavil.”
I watched in admiration. Bunny was much better at being interviewed than I was.
Ecstra waved her arm. “I don’t have to believe him! I’ve seen the dirty tricks myself! We all have. I hardly have to work to find stories for the Morning Gossip. There’s a new prank every single day, no matter what you heard. Some of them are really rotten,” she added with glee.
Bunny and I looked at one another. I raised a brow meaningfully. There seemed to be a lot that Emo hadn’t told us. Bunny’s eyes told me that she would find out what at the earliest opportunity.
Ecstra shook her head. “I should tell you, I’m fluent in Glance. And Innuendo.”
“Would you care to bring us up to date on the Weavil cousins?” I asked, hastily breaking off my silent conversation.
“In exchange for what?” Ecstra countered. “The free press runs on information.”
“We’ll answer questions related to our business here,” Bunny said. “Reserving the right to refuse to discuss anything proprietary.”
“Okay,” Ecstra said, cheerfully. “Sounds good. Come on back with me to the newspaper. The editor will want to meet you!” She set off at a brisk trot down the cobblestoned street, dodging carts and foot traffic.
I had never seen a town like this one. Instead of houses and shops, it had big glass windows and doors set into the wall of a high, steep, raked cliff and the lines of uneven foothills facing it. Magik was strong here. Some of the carts were beast-drawn, but just as many ran with nothing between the traces or hooked to the yoke pulling them. I saw several force lines both overhead and underground, a white-hot line running right up the middle of the street, a jagged red line. Beneath us was a wavy blue line, crossing the red line near Wilmer Weavil-Scuttil’s office and another point in the distance that I couldn’t see yet. Ecstra seemed as unaware of them as Bunny, so I didn’t mention them. I filled up my internal batteries with magik, just in case.
However, we couldn’t miss the colorful posters and pictures that were plastered on most vertical surfaces throughout the town. They were campaign posters for both Wilmer and Emo, featuring poses of both men in heroic, sage, or exaggeratedly friendly expressions. At least some of the images were colorful. Others had faded in the sun or fallen victim to vandalism, in some cases pretty creative vandalism. A mustache drew itself over and over again on a picture of Emo Weavil, making him look sinister and foolish at the same time. The largest image of Wilmer had been similarly defaced. His eyes crossed and uncrossed, and his tongue protruded off the surface of the poster. Passersby didn’t notice or even look up. I could tell the broadsheets had been there a long while, possibly the entire five years that this campaign had been going on. Shiny, translucent purple and green dots the
size of my palm decorated walls everywhere.
In the gutter were the scraps of more posters and pamphlets, some torn to shreds. The Tipps around us seemed to be divided among three groups: those wearing Emo’s green campaign rosette attached to their clothes or fur, those sporting Wilmer’s purple ribbon, and the last and largest with no insignia at all. I stopped a mature male Tipp in the third category.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said. “I notice that you don’t seem to be affiliated to either of the candidates running for governor. May I ask why?”
“Because I can’t stand this fliffing-floffing election one more day!” the Tipp said with a fierce expression. “Are you tied up with either one of those fools running for office?”
“I’m with M.Y.T.H., Inc.,” I said. “We’re an independent concern from Deva trying to facilitate getting the voting under way.”
“You are?” the man said, seizing my arm. “Bless you, stranger!” He grabbed me around the neck and kissed both my cheeks. He bestowed the same salute on Bunny, who blushed prettily. Then he hurried away whistling, a spring in his step.
“Wow,” I said.
At my side, Ecstra had taken out her notepad and was scribbling avidly.
“If everyone wants the election to be over with, then why are Emo and Wilmer holding back on setting the date for Voting Day?” Bunny asked.
“They don’t want to take a chance on losing. The job’s for life if you can get it,” Ecstra explained, putting the notepad back into the pouch hanging at her side. “Incumbents tend to get reelected over and over again. And there are all kinds of perks, like plenty of patronage jobs to hand out to friends and relatives, like unrestricted access to the treasury—Bokromi’s wealthy, if you can believe it.”
I scanned the littered streets and ill-maintained walkways. Piles of stinking garbage and animal dung were heaped in the gutter. Passersby had to veer to avoid them. Even the beasts of burden stayed clear of the debris.
“You couldn’t tell to look at it.”
Ecstra shrugged.
“Well, with no one in charge of government, no one’s handing out city contracts. Even the maintenance wizards weren’t getting reimbursed for their time, so they quit en masse a couple of years ago. Tipps who can do it fix their own sidewalks, but the rest of us fall in potholes all the time. It’s the press’s editorial conclusion that neither Emo nor Wilmer wants to declare a date unless he’s absolutely sure of winning. I wouldn’t. Come on. I want you to meet my boss.” Ecstra beckoned us to follow her.
CHAPTER FOUR
“The police are not here to create disorder; they’re here to preserve disorder.”
—R. J. DALEY (THIS IS A REAL QUOTE)
On the corner outside the newspaper office on the street at the foot of the cliff was the first activity I’d seen in town. Two large groups of Tipps faced off against one another, shouting slogans and brandishing signs. One group waved green Vote for Emo banners in the faces of purple-streamer-carrying Elect Wilmer devotees. They clearly disliked one another, but the animus had a weariness about it, like relatives who never got along but were forced to deal with each other for decades at family parties. After five years, I couldn’t blame them. I wondered if our other associates polling in other parts of the town were running up against the same attitude.
“Emo, no! Emo, no! Emo, no!” one group chanted. “Weavil-Scuttil’s the only way to go!”
“Wilmer Scuttil’s out-of-date! Vote for Emo! Now! Don’t wait!”
A heavyset and prosperous-looking male Tipp in a chalk-striped charcoal-gray jacket and a bow tie sat on a wooden chair propped up on its back legs in the doorway of the glass-fronted office. He grinned at the crowd through a haze of cigar smoke. Ecstra brought us over and introduced us.
“Skeeve, Bunny, this is my boss, Tolomi Papirus, editor in chief of the Morning Gossip.” He shook our hands and gestured us to a couple of empty chairs.
“What are they doing here?” I asked, nodding toward the crowd. “Why aren’t they rallying near the candidates’ offices?”
“Who’d see them there?” Tolomi asked, with a casual wave. “This is where they get covered by the press.”
I glanced behind him. Other Tipps were hard at work in the office, but none of them were standing by with pencil and paper. “I don’t see any reporters.”
Tolomi waved a hand.
“Oh, my people are already writing up the story. We know what’s going to happen. There’s the copy of the speeches they’re giving.” He gestured to the cluttered table behind him. I picked one of them up. The parchment was dog-eared and creased. The date at the top right of the page had been crossed out and rewritten several times.
“This looks like they’ve used it before,” I said.
“There’s not much new to say about the election,” Tolomi said. “This has got to be some kind of record, for the time between declaration and voting.”
“You don’t seem upset about that,” I said.
“It sells papers, my boy! History in the making!” he said, leaning back. He pointed at the middle of the crowd. “Wait, here comes some action.”
Two Tipps hauled an upturned wooden box onto the pavement, and a middle-aged female dressed in green clutching a large handbag stood up on it.
“My friends, I want to ask for your support for my friend and colleague, Emo Weavil! You can trust him with your vote. He will make an excellent governor. I have listened to everything he has said about his plans, and they will be good for all of us!”
“You’re his mother!” one of the purple-wearing Tipps yelled. “Of course you believe him! But why should we?”
“Because my son is a good, decent boy!” Mrs. Weavil shrilled, shaking a forefinger at the sky. “You all do such terrible things to him! Especially that Wilmer! Setting fire to his lectern while he’s speaking the other day! That’s just plain dangerous!”
“That’s a lie!”
The voice came from the midst of the Weavil-Scuttil contingent. A bulky male got up on another soapbox. He wore a white suit and a bow tie.
“That’s my daddy you’re maligning!” he said, puffing out his cheeks. “He never did any such thing!”
“Well, one of his friends, then,” Mrs. Weavil said, not backing down an inch. “Every single time Emo tries to get up and tell the public what he plans to do, something awful happens to him!”
Almost at the moment she said the word awful, a gray glob came hurtling out of the crowd and splattered in the female Tipp’s face.
“Why, you wretches! How dare you do that to a lady!” Mrs. Weavil gasped in horror and dove for her purse. From it she took a cloth and a round mirror and tried to wipe off the dirt. To my astonishment, it refused to budge. It formed a gluey mask on her face. Weavil-Scuttil Junior laughed. Mrs. Weavil looked furious. She reached into the air and came up with a handful of mire. She hurled it at her opponent. Alarmed, Weavil-Scuttil tried to duck, but the missile followed him. It hit him square in the mouth. He goggled and sputtered, dribbling globules down the front of his immaculate white suit. I raised an eyebrow. Mrs. Weavil had used magik. Beside me, Tolomi nodded. I frowned. He had expected that to happen. Was this all being staged?
The Weavil party cheered their leader, but the Weavil-Scuttils weren’t beaten yet. Out of buckets, purses, pockets, or knapsacks came a barrage of mudballs and rotten vegetables, which they hurtled at the opposing party. The Weavils responded by reaching into their own reticules for ammunition. Battle was joined. Missiles flew messily in every direction, splashing people, streetlights, and buildings with adhesive gray ooze and reeking streaks of color. One rotten tomato hit the doorway right beside us and exploded into orange slime. Alarmed, Bunny jumped out of her chair and hid behind it.
“Don’t worry, Bunny,” Ecstra said easily. “They’d never attack the press.”
“But I’m not the press!” she said.
As if to prove that the journalistic shield did not extend to us, a dripping missile came arcing toward me.
I reached into my internal batteries and set up a shield of magik. The first mudball splattered across empty air like an overripe melon. I braced myself as a barrage hammered after it. I held the magik firmly in place as blow after blow rained on it. A wall of gray concealed my view of the crowd. I let the goo drip to the ground so I could see what was going on.
PLOP! In that instant, a stinking handful of cold, wet mire hit me in the left ear. It dribbled into my collar and down inside my shirt, in cold, wet rivulets. Hoots of laughter erupted from the crowd. More missiles followed, decorating me in shades of gray.
I saw red.
My hands started to move, gathering power from the force lines above and below me.
“Skeeve . . .” Bunny’s voice was a warning in my ear.
“Don’t worry, Bunny,” I said, my own voice tight. “I’m just returning the property that these fine people dropped.”
Amusement turned to alarm as I used magik to peel the gobs of sticky mess off my skin and round each into a ball that floated lightly around my head. I couldn’t swear to each individual who had launched mud in our direction, but I could spot furtive expressions. I chose the guiltiest-looking Tipps, aimed, and fired.
WHIFF! WHIFF! WHIFF!
One after another, the mudballs sped toward the crowd. My first target was a burly young male Tipp who saw it coming and tried to run away. He fell to the ground bellowing.
“My back! I’m hit!”
Ecstra leaped up, notepad in hand, scribbling away, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth.
“What a baby!” hooted a female with purple-dyed hair. Coincidentally, she was my second target. The words were barely out of her mouth before she got a faceful of muck. I grinned at her indignant glare as the mud dripped down. The last, and I hated to attack a lady, was Mrs. Weavil herself. I wound up and pushed the power back toward her, carrying what part of the sticky mud I could detach from my clothes and skin.
Robert Asprin's Myth-Quoted Page 3
