“Well. I have to say that I admit to being a little ner-vous. What if I make a mistake out of this, too?” Bunny put an arm over my shoulders and squeezed. "You're not making a mistake. You're going to be
using your talents for the betterment of everyone, and that's what you are good at. How could that be a mistake?"
“Maybe all of you overestimate my talents,” I grum-bled. “We do not. We know what you are capable of and what you're not capable of,” she added.
Taking one of the cards, I looked at the lines again. “I hope I'm not setting myself up for a fall,” I said. “Offering to find exactly the right answer to a client's problem sounds pretty arrogant.”
“I wouldn't worry.” Bunny said brightly. “If the chal-lenge seems too tough, you'll figure out how to solve it eventually. / trust you”
I sighed. It was a heck of a way to come out of my self-imposed retirement.
The impetus had come from a conversation I had had a couple of months before with Big Julie1, who had once been my opponent on the battlefield though never my en-emy. He had come to be a trusted advisor and good friend.
He had asked me why I left M.Y.T.H., Inc., the highly successful and profitable business I had founded with my former mentor and partner, Aahz. I admitted I felt as though I wasn't living up to the hype surrounding me. I thought it would be better if I went away for a while. I felt that I had had to get out from my all-enveloping support
1. Big Julie's advice to Skeeve can be found in Myth-Told Tales, a not-to-be-missed collection of short adventures that any discerning reader must have.
structure and educate myself so I could live up to the hype that I had enjoyed as Skeeve the Magnificent, Magician to Kings and King of Magicians, Businessman and Problem-Solver Extraordinaire. The truth was not so glorious: at the time I had departed, I could do very little magik. Most of what I had accomplished, Big Julie pointed out to me, was by thinkingno, more by feelingout the correct solu-tion to the problem I had been set. He encouraged me to take that talent and run with it.
From the time I had returned to the inn, I had been on fire for the idea of establishing a new business, one in which I helped people, not necessarily with applications of big-time magik, for, as Big Julie pointed out to me, big-time magicians were a dozen to the silver coin, but with the ap-plication of the kind of attention that I had always given problems without really realizing it. It was a natural exten-sion of my instincts. I felt relieved, since I was never going to be a master magician. I had been getting my magikal butt kicked regularly by the equivalent of six-year-old girls. But when it came to finding a solution that just felt right, and did the most good for the most people, that was what I did best.
Oh, I am no altruist: I intended to get paid for my exper-tise. That was one of the reasons that I let Bunny put the line at the bottom of my card. I had found out a long time ago that people don't prize what they don't pay for. If I of-fered my services for free, I'd be looking for lost firecats and missing spectacles from now until the end of time. I wanted meaty problems, the kind I could really sink my mental teeth into. I loved a challenge. Now was the time to see if I could handle one. And if I didn't, well, I was young. I had time to make a lot more blunders in my lifetime.
I have to admit that it really bothered me that Aahz hadn't been in the Bazaar when I arrived. After all, he had been the one who really taught me about the important things. Not just magik and business, but what's importantin spite of what he would say if I told him. I worried for a moment about his mother, the Duchess. I had met her a while back2; she was a real eccentric, but if Aahz needed any help handling a situation, he knew where to get in touch with all of us.
One of the reasons I had agreed so readily to come out of retirement was Aahz. I missed him. Oh, sure, having a Pervect for a friend wasn't easy. He could be crude, harsh, selfish, greedy, insulting, overbearing, and rude, but he was my best friend. If it hadn't been for him, well, I would still be back in the woods on Klah, trying to eke out a liv-ing asI admit itone of the most inept thieves ever to cut purse strings. Thanks to him I'd rediscovered some basic honesty and decency. Though he was tight with a coin and a sharp bargainer who saw no problem with shaft-ing the other guy, I observed that it was easier to leave a little money on the table because it was a small universe, and you never knew when you were going to be allied with the very person whose shirt you were trying to take the previous day. Without him M.Y.T.H., Inc. would never have been as successful as it was. I should have assumed that once I stepped out of the picture he would take over as president. He was a natural leader. Most of the others had known him long before I came along. I hit myself in the forehead. Why didn't that dawn on me before I blundered into the office and made an idiot of myself?
I wished that he had been around. I would have appreci-ated his input. Maybe he would have been able to smooth out the awkwardness I had caused.
Maybe not. Aahz had never been good at letting anyone else's mistakes go unnoticed. I probably would have been in for a lecture. I deserved one, but I had already given myself a stern talking-to.
2. See that encounter in Myth-Nomers and Im-Pervections in your local bookstore So,Iwasonmyown.
That was okay, I assured myself. I had to take my own baby steps, right? I vowed not to undercut my friends. I was going to stick to what I planned to do, nothing else.
A roaring noise interrupted my thoughts. “Look out!” Bunny called. “Get it, Skeeve!”
I ducked just in time. A huge, striped insect the size of my two fists zoomed overhead. In spite of its bulk, it banked like a swallow off a wisp of air and veered around in a sharp U-turn. I threw a ball of fire at it, but the insect took the full blast of the flame and kept going. Its armored shell would have been the envy of any army in any dimen-sion. No matter what I threw at it, it kept going. It vanished into a hairline
crack in the wall. I ran after it, trying to capture it with a rope of magik. Before I could blink, it was out of reach.
“Gone,” I said grimly. Bunny shook her head. I dashed out the rear door of our tent, stepping into the dimension into which our office extended, and examined the walls. No sign of the Humbee, or a single crack through which it could have escaped. I felt the side of the clapboard house, which was this dimension's face of my building. The walls were only an inch thick, too narrow to conceal the bulky bug. Where had it gone?
One more thing Catchmeier had failed to mention about the new tent was the infestation of Humbees. No one knew where the pesty insects had sprung from, but they were overrunning the Bazaar. Deveel merchants had jumped on the bandwagon already, so to speak, with Humbee repel-lents, traps, and insecticides. As far as I could tell from questioning friends of mine, none of them worked. Hun-dreds, if not thousands, of people were trying to find out what dimension they had come from and who was respon-sible for importing them to Deva. That person, unsurpris-ingly, was lying low, fearing the inevitable lynch mob. The beetles were a nuisance. A blow from a passing Humbee could leave one with a bruise the size of a grapefruit. It had also been discovered that the bees could penetrate solid walls and create a warren the envy of any termite infesta-tion. Because it was common practice to build out into transdimensional locations, the Humbees had no problem spreading to other dimensions. The Merchants
Association was fielding complaints from a number of people who sud-denly found themselves ducking Humbees.
“Their magik is beyond me,” I concluded, returning through the back door.
“Well, there's your first professional question,” Bunny joked, as I threw myself back into my chair. “How do they do that?”
THREE There are no simple questions." DEEP THOUGHT
In between dive-bombings, Bunny and I concentrated on hiring a couple of Deveel youths to distribute my cards to places where customers who had unanswerable questions were likely to turn up. Most of them were targeted to inns
and taverns, but a few stacks went to places like the Mer-chants Association office, the Deveel Tourism Board, and Madam Zizzi's See the Future in Living Color emporium.
Once the first cards went out, the street outside the modest little tent was packed with would-be clients. I peered out through the flap at the crowd. Just behind me, Bunny sat at a modest-looking desk that was actually bolted to the floor with magikal rivets that would withstand even a Troll's charge. I looked again at the gathered mass. My stomach did flip-flops.
“Well?” Bunny asked. “Better than I hoped,” I said. “Remember, most of them won't have a problem that's right for you.”
“I know that.” I took a deep breath. I returned to the inner office and sat at my desk, a secondhand, heavily gilded number that we had picked up for a small handful of silver coins from a traveling circus from Mexumalita. It had the benefit of looking very impressive while being in-expensive enough to be easily replaced if an overwrought client happened to damage it beyond repair. It, too, was bolted down. I had been in this dimension for a good long time.
With a flick of magik, I caused the outer tent flap to lift and darkened my office so I could see what was going on without being observed. A group of Deveels crowded in, each trying to be the first in line. Bunny stopped them with an upheld palm and a devastating smile.
“Do you have an appointment?” she asked, pertly. The cluster of red-skinned beings came to a halt and shuffled uncomfortably. “Uh, no,” one of them finally admitted.
“The Great Skeeve sees people by appointment only,” she went on. She opened a datebook that she had filled up with names and times. “I have three openings now, then another one in an hour and a half. Would any of you care to make an appointment?”
The Deveels started yelling at once. That didn't alarm me. Deveels usually do business at the top of their lungs. Bunny kept smiling as she jotted their names down. A skinny specimen named Rokra, who had managed to get his name in first, grinned triumphantly at the others as Bunny gestured him toward my door. Three of the others followed him. One of them yanked Rokra back and scrambled to take his
place. “Just a moment!” Bunny said. “Will the rest of you please sit down?” A free-for-all started, as the four each tried to push past one another. Time for my secret weapon. “Gleep!”
My pet dragon shot from the fireproof pad where he had been lying in the corner of Bunny's reception room to in-terpose himself between the Deveels and my doorway. I smiled to myself. He might still be a baby of his kind, no more than fourteen feet long from nose to tail tip, but a dragon was a dragon. The Deveels paled to dirty pink and backpedaled. As neatly as a sheepdog, Gleep cut Rokra out of the quartet and herded him in my direction. The rest started to follow, but he whipped his head around on his long neck.
“Hissss!”
A baby dragon's flame is modest in size, but his breath could knock a charging rhinopotomos unconscious. The Deveels halted in their hoofprints.
“Uh, we'll just come back later,” the Deveels agreed. They pushed their way out through the throng gathered around Bunny's desk.
Rokra still looked nervous as he walked through the illusionary darkness and emerged into my office.
“Greetings,” I said, making my voice echo hollowly off the walls. The Deveel gulped, but he sat down in the thickly padded leather chair I gestured him into. “Now, what can I do for you?”
It took seconds for Rokra to get over his shock at find-ing a youthful, blond Klahd behind the massive desk. I waited, poised, eager to give my first new client the benefit of my experience and wisdom. What would he ask me? I could hardly wait. I hoped it was something deep. I had been doing a lot of thinking recently on why there was an “up” and a “down.”
The Deveel glanced around as if to make sure the room wasn't bugged. It wasn't; I had swept it again for Shutter-bugs and Earwigs just a few moments before.
“You don't have to worry,” I said austerely. “Our conference is private. Tell me what kind of problem I can help you solve.”
Rokra leaned forward with an oily smile on his face.
“Well, Skeeve, I can tell you're the kind of guy who likes to get right down to business. I need you to help me take out my business partners. We started this ... er, im-port business together, and now I think they're planning to freeze me out. So, I want to dispose of them first.”
“Murder?” I sputtered. “I don't kill people!”
“Okay, okay, don't think of it as killing them,” Rokra said, hastily. “Maybe as a surprise departure from this life? Or how about thisdump them off in a dimension without magik. That'd make us both happy. They don't die, but they won't be around anymore to bollix up my busi-ness. How about it?”
“Sorry,” I said, coldly, standing up. “I can recommend a couple of Guild assassins I know. Standard rates. You don't need me.”
“But they're sneaky!” Rokra insisted. “Look, I heard you're the best. I need the best.”
“Sorry,” I repeated, a little more firmly. I beckoned, and Gleep strode into the room, preceded by an almost visible exhalation of sulfur-scented breath. “That's not what I do.”
“No one knows what it is you do do,” Rokra said. “Maybe so,” I agreed, “but what you want is not it. Thanks for dropping in.”
Rokra tried holding on to the arms of the chair, but Gleep was good at winkling grubworms out of stumps on Klah. He wriggled his nose under the Deveel's tail and heaved upward.
Rokra shot out of the chair. “You guys, living on your reputations!” he raged. That's all I have, I thought, as my dragon escorted him out. The next would-be client had a proposition. Cardenilla, a tall, willowy Deveel, fluttered red eyelids at me. “You look like the kind of guy who would understand a girl's problems,” she said. “I'll try,” I promised. “What kind of question do you need answered?”
“Well,” she began breathily, leaning forward so I got a generous glimpse of cleavage, “All I want is a little peace and quiet. I made a mistake, I admit it. I rented out my roof to a Gargoyle. Whenever I go past him, he dumps water on me. He's a pain in the tail. I want him gone.”
“Have you tried talking to him?” I asked. This started to sound intriguing. I had a buddy who was a Gargoyle. The solid-stone guys always struck me as pretty easygoing. I wondered what had set him off. Could Gargoyles go in-sane? Was he interested in Cardenilla?
“Talk to him? Of course I've talked to him!” the woman said. “Big, ugly oaf. He just says that that's what Gargoyles do. He said he thought I knew. I can't stand it anymore. Please, pretty please, Mr. Skeeve. Get that beast off my roof.”
“Er. ..” It was tempting. It would give me a chance to get to know a little more about Gargoyles. But, no. “Let me give you a referral, no charge. Try M.Y.T.H., Inc. They're really good at that kind of job. They're right here in the Bazaar. I can give you directions.”
Cardenilla waved a hand. “I already talked to them.” “You did? Then what are you doing here?”
She opened large, outraged eyes at me. “They had the nerve to quote me four gold coins for the job. Four! So, I came to you.”
I shook my head. “Well, my price for the job is ten.” “Ten! You're just one Klahd! Why do you cost more than twice what they're asking?”
“You pay for my time and experience,” I said severely. There was no way I was going to undercut my friends.
“Well, forget it,” the Deveel woman said, rising to her hooves. I could see steam trickling out of her pointed red ears. “I'm going back to them! You've got some kind of nerve! Ten gold coins, just for throwing one big, fat Gargoyle off one roof!”
She stormed out past Gleep. I sighed. His big blue eyes fixed me with a puzzled look. “Skeeve ... okay .. . ?” he asked. Did I mention that my dragon can talk?
Gleep may only be a baby, but he's far more intelli-gent than anyone else realized. Even I didn't know he was that smart for a long time. Now we keep the secret between us. Not even Bun
ny knew. That made him my real secret weapon.
“Yes, I'm okay,” I said. He lolloped over to me and slimed my face with a swipe of his long tongue. “I miss my friends.”
“Still.. . friends,” Gleep assured me. I scratched vigorously behind his ears with both hands, which caused his eyelids to droop happily. “I know. I just hope that they know it.”
Myth 18 - MythChief
FOUR
“Who cares what people think?” G. GALLUP
The next few days brought would-be clients with most of the same requests as the first few. Most of them wanted me to undertake dangerous adventures, mostly treasure retrieval type or disposal of former friends or business as-sociates type. Pretty straightforward adventuring. None of them was what I was interested in doing. A few I just turned away, but the profitable-sounding prospects I tried to steer back to my friends. I wasn't going to tread on their territory if there was any way to avoid it.
I sat with my head propped on my palm, trying not to look bored, as my sixth visitor of the day went through his “simple plan.”
“. .. So all you have to do is go to the Temple of the Six Temptations in Harbold, pry the big yellow stone out of the idol on the center altar, and bring it back to me. Perfectly easy,” Oobloo, a hearty Orkta told me, leaning back at ease, or, rather, sprawling all over my guest chair. The boneless beings had eight limbs and two huge eyes. They
slithered rather than walked, and people were always sur-prised that invertebrates like that were intelligent. I cleared my throat.
“There are a lot of other people who undertake that kind of mission. Not me. You sound like you already have all the details. All you have to do is go ahead and follow the in-structions you gave me. It sounds pretty straightforward. You could do it yourself.”
Myth 18 - MythChief Page 2