Tolomi grasped Aahz’s hand and shook it. “Glad to meet a fellow philosopher,” he said. “My daddy ran the paper before me. He used to say, ‘Just spell the names right, and people will make up the facts to suit themselves.’”
Aahz grinned. “Any Pervects in your history?”
Tolomi grinned back. “Not that I know of, but your teeth look familiar. Come on and see us set up the front page for tomorrow.”
We followed him to the back of the office.
The press, which filled most of the available room, was tended by a dozen or so young Tipps. I had never seen anything like it. The roaring machine rose to the ceiling. Steel traps on every side clattered like a hundred dragons’ jaws demanding food. The Tipps ran around the device with armfuls of paper or rolled-up scrolls. Series of wheels and cogs spun faster than my eye could follow. Huge rolls of paper suspended from brackets above our heads unspooled down into a rectangular maw that sucked them into the bowels of the machine. The constant din of ratcheting noises was loud enough to make me wince, but before long it became a hypnotic drone. Jeweled lights flickered on and off on one face of the monster machine—it did resemble a malevolent face with red eyes and long, glowing yellow teeth. I sensed a tremendous amount of magik running to it from the force lines, enough to power the workings of a dozen or more master magicians. The reporters and press-Tipps didn’t seem worried by the presence of so much magik. In fact, I observed that they had little to worry about. The power was being channeled neatly through bronze pipes bent at right angles that led in and out of the sides of the machine. At a desk that was attached to the right side of the huge contraption, a slightly built female Tipp in a square hat folded from parchment stood with a box of small bronze cubes at her fingertips. She was placing them into a rectangular frame. As she set each one down, it nudged the other pieces on each side until it was comfortable. I saw that the lines of squares formed words. The words formed sentences that grew into paragraphs that spread out and grew until they crowded against the framework. Pictures blossomed in empty spaces like square flowers, filling in with detail in shining bronze.
“Don’t you use Shutterbugs to supply your illustrations?” I asked.
“No,” the typesetter said, her fingers moving faster than I thought fingers could go. Magik filled the room. I felt it surging in from the force lines above and below me. “One picture’s worth a thousand words. For every thousand in the column, the picture draws itself. See?”
As she worked, I saw a tiny square pop up on the form. As she added words, the square grew and took on shape. Before long, I could recognize the figures pictured. One of them was me with mud on my gawking face, occupying a third of the page.
“Do you have to put that?” I asked, sourly.
“It’s all part of the story,” she said, slapping letters into the form. “We can’t let personal feelings get in the way of the facts.”
“Is there anything I can do to persuade you not to put that on page one?”
She shook her head. “Only if a bigger story comes up. Gotta doubt that. This place has been stuck in a rut for years.”
I was annoyed, but there was nothing I could do. As printed papers flew out of the press, they sailed out of the door by themselves. I could have chased down each bundle, but I’d probably get arrested again. Instead, I concentrated on my task and opened the files Mich shoved in front of me.
I found myself grinning over the details of the practical jokes and other ruses the candidates had played on one another. I’d played some tricks on people in my day, but the briefcase that exploded in a bubble of adhesive purple goo, the babble charm that made every word out of their mouths abusive nonsense, and the crowd of simulacra that no one could tell from the actual candidate on the podium all shouting different speeches at once were my favorites. Those took real imagination. It seemed that every time one candidate, Emo or Wilmer, announced he was going to go through with it at last and call for an election, the opposition would commit some form of sabotage. It had never worked out so that both of them had their hands clean at the same time. We had to think five steps ahead of their objections. The island, as I read from the editorials, was on the edge of a revolt against the government.
“It’s time,” Bunny said, standing up. She gathered all the documents together and tapped them neatly on the desk to square them off, then took Bytina out of her shoulder bag. She opened the small red case, rolled up the papers, and held them over it. Bytina swallowed them up and produced a flurry of words on her little round screen. Bunny now had a dossier that no one could read without her permission.
Once we left the newspaper office, people gave me amused and knowing looks. It was embarrassing. Every time I stopped at a street corner, someone would lean over and ask me the same thing.
“Weren’t you the Klahd we saw in the paper?”
I had to bite off my retort. If I didn’t smile and keep walking, Aahz would grab me by the shoulder.
“Just smile and nod,” he said.
I should have flown.
CHAPTER SIX
“With careful preparation, nothing can ever go wrong.”
—M. STEWART
“Down with corruption! Up with Emo!”
“Wilmer and honesty! We need both!”
The shouting from both sides bombarded our ears as we shoved our way toward the imposing doors of the Hotel Tippmore.
We had rented a small office in the middle of town, halfway between the two campaign headquarters, but we thought it was better to hold a meeting between the candidates and their staffs in completely neutral ground, far from all three locations. Nunzio found the private meeting room in the Tippmore and made detailed arrangements with the management.
Guido stood guard at the main door of the hotel, preventing anyone from entering. Word of the conference had obviously slipped out, probably leaked by both groups to the press, so the hotel was surrounded by a mob. By the banners and signs, the crowd consisted of supporters and protesters from both sides, but Guido looked blank-faced and serene. No one had attempted to pass him, but they might try once the door opened for us.
Nunzio looked grim. “It took a long time to persuade the managers to let us hold the meeting here. They are concerned that the crowd might cause an affray. We’re liable for all damages.”
“This is calm compared with last night,” I said. Having been in a Tipicanoo political exhibition and reading about dozens more, I considered myself a connoisseur of local civil disobedience.
As I said that, I spied a rotten grapefruit at eleven o’clock high. I flicked a thread of magik at it. It collided with the off-yellow globe, causing it to explode in a shower of sour juice. The Tipps who got rained on wailed a protest. They surged toward us, waving their signs.
“Me lead!” Chumley exclaimed. He put himself in front of our small group, rounded both huge purple-furred hands into fists, and showed his teeth. “Grrr!”
The protesters backpedaled hastily. The ones at the front windmilled backward into the faces of the onrushers behind them. A forest of arms and legs stuck out of the mass. The rest of the crowd started tossing mudballs and rotten fruit.
Chumley made way for us by throwing anyone who stepped in his way over his shoulder into the crowd. Making liberal use of the force lines, I ran interference against the hail of gooey missiles. I spotted Mrs. Weavil near the wall with a bucket of dung. She heaved handfuls at us, but I was ready for her this time. I fielded every shot so that not a drop hit any of us. Her final throw smacked into the invisible barrier at my back. It slid onto the pavement with a SQUELCH! I grinned back at her. She looked disappointed.
The door closed behind us, and the elegantly dressed hotel staff rushed to bar and lock it. The last thing I saw before daylight was shut out was Ecstra struggling through the crowd trying to get inside. I threw a handful of magik in her way. The door slammed. She was still outside. I was relieved. I didn’t want to have to watch every word in case it made it into print. Once was e
nough.
The manager, a tall male Tipp in a starched white collar that stood up nearly to his ears, led us down a dim corridor paneled in dark brown wood and with a thick carpet so deep I sank to my ankles at every step. It smelled of oil polish and lemons. He stopped before a set of double doors and clapped his hands. Two of his flunkies hurried to pull the doors open. The manager gestured us in with a flourish. We stepped inside. Aahz looked around.
“Not bad,” Aahz said, with a disdainful curl of his lip. The manager looked crestfallen. “I mean, if it was what you could whip together on short notice.”
“Sir, this is our finest parlor!”
Aahz continued to look unimpressed. “Oh, well. I guess it’ll have to do.”
“I think it looks pretty nice, Aahz,” I said.
Aahz shot me a look and returned to the manager. “Ignore my partner. He’s nearsighted. What’s with the walnut veneer? A place with claims as high as you make them should have nothing but solid wood panels.”
That evidently hit home with the manager. “Our decorating costs increase all the time, sir. I think you will find that our service is what sets us apart. May I offer a complimentary beverage while you wait? A bottle of our best champagne?”
There was nothing Aahz liked more than a free drink. “Certainly, my good man,” he said, beaming. “And bring a bottle for my friends, too.”
In spite of Aahz’s scorn, the hotel had gone all out for us. The chamber was elegantly furnished and set up to accommodate both camps. Identical sets of liquor bottles and glasses were arranged at either end of the room. Hors d’oeuvres on trays had been placed in easy reach of both groups so neither would have to approach the wrong side of the room. We would moderate the meeting from the buffer zone in the center.
There was one more feature the room had that no other chamber in the dimensions possessed: my dragon. Gleep yanked his leash loose from Nunzio’s grip and came hurtling toward me as soon as the hotel staff had left. He slimed me with his long, agile tongue.
“Ugh! Gleep, get down!”
“Gleep!” he said brightly.
“Anyone get in here? No surprise installations or listening devices?” Aahz asked Nunzio.
“The place is clean, Aahz,” the enforcer said. His high voice was always surprising in a man of his size. “Gleep found an Earwig under the liquor table over there and two Shutterbugs behind peepholes in the woodwork.”
“Where are they? I want to question them, find out who planted them.”
“Gleep!” my pet said, running his tongue over his chops.
“Sorry, that’s not going to be possible. Gleep ate them,” Nunzio said.
“Figures,” Aahz said, disgustedly. “Stupid dragon.”
I glanced at Gleep. He winked one of his large blue eyes at me.
I stood near the door and closed my eyes. The key to good magik, as Aahz always told me, is visualization. You can do almost anything with strong force lines handy, as long as you remember that magik is not intelligent in and of itself. You have to be very thorough in picturing what you need and intend to have happen. That was one of the reasons that Garkin and other magicians used pentacles and other physical objects, not to mention chanted spells, to perform their feats. They were mnemonics, aids to help one remember what details were needed to accomplish the spell. In this case, the job was pretty straightforward: an uninterrupted meeting among hostile peers. I needed to prevent anything that wasn’t air, electricity, or light from coming into the room. I pictured a very fine mesh of unbreakable energy lining the walls, ceiling and floor.
A-ha, I thought, feeling a slight disturbance in the force line. Someone is trying to get in right now!
I felt toward the intrusion with my mind, but the probing withdrew almost as quickly as it had begun. A subtle spy. Well, whoever it was was destined to be disappointed. I introduced a second layer of force, a fluffy, thick one that would prevent sounds from the room from being heard outside, even if someone had his or her ear to the door. Once I had completed the lining, I drew a door in it to correspond with the way we had come in. I would close the spell as soon as everyone had arrived. There would be no trouble maintaining the spell; the hotel stood over a bright green line of force as thick as my wrist.
Bunny sat in a high-backed chair in the center of the long, oval table and propped Bytina in front of her on its polished surface. I slid into a chair opposite her. Aahz plunked down beside me. He emptied the newly arrived champagne into the bucket and swigged a quarter of it in one gulp. I ran a thread of magik through my glass and was pleased to see it come up bright and clear. The wine was clean: no philters or potions had been introduced. I nodded to the others.
Bunny looked across at us. “Are we ready?” she asked.
I glanced around the room. Guido and Nunzio flanked the door, their arms folded, but with their miniature crossbows handy in their inside breast pockets. Chumley hulked behind Bunny like an overprotective purple mammoth. Gleep lay curled at my feet under the table.
“If you ask me, this is overkill. We have enough muscle here to take over a medium-sized dimension.”
“I want to take control of this situation as early as possible,” Bunny said. “My conversations with the campaign managers last night were . . . unproductive.”
The little disk rang, clattering on the table. Bunny opened it. She lifted it to her ear and talked in a quiet voice. Her feathery brows drew down over her little nose, and a line of concern drew itself across her smooth forehead.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, when she set Bytina down again.
She seemed a little distracted. “Oh, nothing. Family matters. It’s not important. Mother wants me to come and see her on Klah later on when we’re done here.”
“Oh,” I said. “Do you need any of us to come with you?”
She smiled at me, though she still looked worried. “No, it’ll be all right. But thanks for offering.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Politics makes strange bedfellows.”
—J. EDWARDS
We heard a commotion in the hallway. I stood up as the door swung open. The candidates had arrived, their entourages rushing side by side up the hallway. Emo and Wilmer rushed to enter the room first, but they tied, jamming their shoulders in the doorway. With a hard tug from Nunzio, they popped loose. The candidates glared at one another, brushing at their clothes and fur as if the other had some kind of communicable parasite.
“I’m gonna need a shower when we get through here,” Aahz muttered.
“Me, too.” The feeling of oily dislike that I had experienced when I first met Emo and Wilmer was more than doubled with both present. It seemed to wrap them like a miasma.
Naturally, they had not come alone. Besides their campaign managers, each of them had more than a dozen clerks, secretaries and gofers tagging along behind carrying clipboards, briefcases, or arcane gear and trying to look important. Guido stopped them with a meaty hand in the chest of the first one in line.
“Three henchmen each, no more,” he said. “Dere’s enough of a crowd in here.”
“Three? But what if they get disruptive?” Emo asked, pointing at Wilmer’s entourage.
“You’re a fine one to suggest that we might cause trouble,” Wilmer sputtered. “I need at least six of my staff present! My dignity and”—he coughed delicately—“my advanced years demand the courtesy.”
“Well, I need all of mine! And I might need more!”
Emo and Wilmer each narrowed an eye at one another.
“Enough!” Bunny held up her hands. “Gentlemen, please. We want this to go as smoothly as possible. Three each. No more. Decide now, or my partners will have to decide for you.”
Guido and Nunzio loomed over the candidates. Chumley, behind Bunny, let out a low growl of warning. Wilmer gulped and ran a finger around his collar. Wilmer took an older female and a young, pretty Tipp, then nodded to a couple of middle-aged males, who followed him toward the table.
“That�
�s four. Choose one more to send home,” Bunny said.
“But, Miss Bunny,” he said, with a gallant little bow, “they are my trusted advisors.”
Bunny tilted her head to Guido. He flip-flopped his hand rhythmically between the two males.
“Hasty-tasty-chipolata, veeraswami-bottisatva, eeny-meeny-chili-beenie, you-are-out!” Guido’s finger ended up pointing to the male on the left. He grabbed the Tipp by the shoulders and shoved him toward the door. Nunzio opened it and slammed it in the male’s face.
“That was childish!” Wilmer complained when Guido returned, dusting his hands together.
“Ain’t as childish as pretendin’ you can’t count to three,” Guido said. He folded his arms. He turned to Emo. “How ’bout you?”
Emo beamed at him. “Three’s fine, my dear sir!” He jabbed a forefinger at a tall, skinny female, a stocky, older male, and a younger male with protruding incisors. “The rest of you go on back to the office. We’ll have a strategy meeting later.”
“Yes, Mr. Weavil,” they chorused, except for one male, a dark-furred Tipp going strategically gray at the temples and in the middle of his deep chest. He broke out of the group and walked to Emo’s side. Guido started for him, hands out. Bunny waved him back.
“He’s all right,” she said. “Orlow Suposi is Mr. Weavil’s campaign manager.”
A senior female who had dyed her head-fur scarlet and wearing a stole of luxurious, long-haired rodents stepped forward and presented a long-nailed hand to Bunny. “How nice to see you again,” she said. The rodents around her neck chirped a greeting. The female turned to the rest of us. “I’m Carnelia Vole. I chair Mr. Weavil-Scuttle’s election committee for the Wisdom Party.”
“Won’t you sit down?” Bunny invited her. Wilmer ostentatiously assisted Carnelia into a seat and tossed the stole onto a chair. The rodents let go of one another and curled up in individual balls on the cushion to go to sleep. I closed the seclusion spell.
Robert Asprin's Myth-Quoted Page 5
