MA03 Myth Directions

by Robert Asprin

  “A fight which he won, as I recall,” Tananda observed.

  “The second time we went out,” Aahz continued undaunted, “I left him at a fast-food joint where he promptly recruits half the deadbeats at the Bazaar for a fighting force.”

  “They won the war!” I argued.

  “That’s not the point,” Aahz growled. “The point is, every time the kid here hits another dimension, he ends up in trouble. He draws it like a magnet.”

  “This time I’ll be there to keep an eye on him,” Tananda soothed.

  “You were there the first two times,” Aahz pointed out grimly.

  “So were you!” she countered.

  “That’s right!” Aahz agreed. “And both of us together couldn’t keep him out of trouble. Now do you see why I want to keep him right here in Klah?”

  “Hmm,” Tananda said thoughtfully. “I see your point, Aahz.”

  My heart sank.

  “I just don’t agree with it,” she concluded.

  “Damn it, Tananda ...” Aahz began, but she waved him to silence.

  “Let me tell you a story,” she smiled. “There was this couple see, who had a kid they thought the world of. They thought so much of him, in fact, that when he was born they sealed him in a special room. Just to be sure nothing would happen to him, they screened everything that went into the room; furniture, books, food, toys, everything. They even filtered the air to be sure he didn’t get any diseases.”

  “So?” Aahz asked suspiciously.

  “So—on his eighteenth birthday, they opened the room and let him out,” Tananda explained. “The kid took two steps and died of excitement.”

  “Really?” I asked, horrified.

  “It’s exaggerated a bit,” she admitted, “but I think Aahz gets the point.”

  “I haven’t been keeping him sealed in,” Aahz mumbled. “There’ve been some real touch-and-go moments, you know. You’ve been there for some of them.”

  “But you have been a little overprotective, haven’t you, Aahz?” Tananda urged gently.

  Aahz was silent for several moments, avoiding our eyes. “All right,” he sighed at last. “Go ahead, kid. Just don’t come crying to me if you get yourself killed.”

  “How could I do that?” I frowned.

  Tananda nudged me in the ribs and I took the hint.

  “There are a few things I want settled before you go,” Aahz declared brusquely, a bit of his normal spirit returning.

  He began moving back and forth through the room, gathering items from our possessions.

  “First,” he announced, “here’s some money of your own for the trip. You probably won’t need it, but you always walk a little taller with money in your pouch.”

  So saying, he counted out twenty gold pieces into my hands. Realizing I had hired a team of demons to fight a war for five gold pieces, he was giving me a veritable fortune!

  “Gee, Aahz ...” I began, but he hurried on.

  “Second, here’s the D-Hopper.” He tucked the small metal cylinder into my belt. “I’ve set it to bring you back here. If you get into trouble, if you think you’re getting into trouble, hit the button and come home right then. No heroics, no jazzy speeches. Just hit and get. You understand me?”

  “Yes, Aahz,” I promised dutifully.

  “And finally,” he announced, drawing himself up to his full height, “the dragon stays here. You aren’t going to drag your stupid pet along with you and that’s final. I know you’d like to have him with you, but he’d only cause problems.”

  “Okay, Aahz,” I shrugged.

  Actually, I had figured on leaving Gleep behind, but it didn’t seem tactful to point that out.

  “Well,” my mentor sighed, sweeping us both with a hard gaze, “I guess that’s that. Sorry I can’t hang around to see you off, but I’ve got more pressing things to do.”

  With that he turned on his heels and left, shutting the door behind him more forcibly than was necessary.

  “That’s funny,” I said, staring after him. “I didn’t think he had anything important to do. In fact, just before you showed up, he was complaining about being bored.”

  “You know, Skeeve,” Tananda said softly, giving me a strange look, “Aahz is really quite attached to you.”

  “Really?” I frowned. “What makes you say that?”

  “Nothing,” she smiled. “It was just a thought. Well, are you ready to go?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” I declared confidently. “What’s our first stop? The Bazaar at Deva?”

  “Goodness no!” she retorted, wrinkling her nose. “We’re after something really unique, not the common stuff they have at the Bazaar. I figure we’re going to have to hit some out-of-the-way dimensions, the more-out-of-the-way the better.”

  Despite my confidence, an alarm gong went off in the back of my mind at this declaration.

  “What were we looking for, anyway?” I asked casually.

  Tananda shot a quick glance at the door, then leaned forward to whisper in my ear.

  “I couldn’t tell you before,” she murmured conspiratorially, “but we’re after a birthday present. A birthday present for Aahz!”

  EVER SINCE he took me on as an apprentice, Aahz has complained that I don’t practice enough. He should have seen me on the shopping trip! In the first three days after our departure from Klah I spent more time practicing magik than I had in the previous year.

  Tananda had the foresight to bring along a couple of translator pendants which enabled us to understand and be understood by the natives in the dimensions we visited. That was fine for communications, but there remained the minor detail of our physical appearance. Disguises were my job.

  Besides flying Aahz had taught me one other spell which had greatly enhanced my ability to survive dubious situations; that was the ability to change the outward appearance of my own, or anyone else’s, physical features. Tagging along with Tananda, this skill got a real workout.

  The procedure was simple enough. We would arrive at some secluded point, then creep to a spot where I would observe a few members of the local population. Once I had laid eyes on them I could duplicate their physical form for our disguises and we could blend with the crowd. Of course, my nerves had to be calmed so I wouldn’t jump out of my skin when catching a passing glance of the being standing next to me.

  If from this you conclude that the dimensions we visited were inhabited by people who looked a little strange ... you’re wrong. The dimensions we visited were peopled by beings who looked very strange.

  When Tananda decides to tour out-of-the-way dimensions, she doesn’t kid around. None of the places we visited looked normal to my untraveled eyes but a few in particular stand out in my memory as being exceptionally weird.

  Despite Tananda’s jokes about rental agencies, Avis turned out to be populated with bird-like creatures with wings and feathers. In that dimension I not only had to maintain our disguises, I had to fly us from perch to perch as per the local method of transportation. Instead of traversing their market center as I had expected, we spent considerable time viewing their national treasures. These treasures turned out to be a collection of broken pieces of colored glass and bits of shiny metal which to my eye were worthless—but Tananda studied them with quiet intensity.

  To maintain our disguises, we had to eat and drink without hands—which proved to be harder than it sounded. Since the food consisted of live grubs and worms, I passed on any opportunity to sample the local cuisine. Tananda, however, literally dove into (remember—no hands!) a bowlful. Whether she licked her lips because she found the fare exceptionally tasty or if she was attempting to catch a few of the wriggly morsels that were trying to escape their fate was not important; I found the sight utterly revolting. To avoid having to watch her, I tried the local wine.

  The unusual drinking s
tyle meant that I ended up taking larger swallows than I normally would, but that was okay as the wine was light and flavorful. Unfortunately, it also proved to be much stronger than anything I had previously sampled. After I had nearly flown us into a rather large tree Tananda decided it was time for us to move to another dimension.

  As a footnote to that particular adventure, the wine had two side effects: first I developed a colossal headache and second I became violently nauseous. The latter was because Tananda gleefully told me how they make wine on Avis. To this day I can’t hear the name Avis without having visions of flying through the air and a vague twinge of air-sickness. As far as I’m concerned, when rating dimensions on a scale of ten, Avis will always be a number two.

  Another rather dubious dimension we spent considerable time in was Gastropo. The length of our stay there had nothing to do with our quest. Tananda decided, after relatively few stops, that the dimension had nothing to offer of a quality suitable for Aahz’s present. What delayed us were our disguises.

  Let me clarify that before aspersions are cast on my admittedly limited abilities, the physical appearance part was easy. As I’ve said, I’m getting quite good at disguise spells. What hung us up was the manner of locomotion. After flying from tree to tree in Avis, I would have thought I was ready to get from point A to point B in any conceivable way. Well, as Aahz has warned me, the dimensions are an endless source of surprises.

  The Gastropods were snails—large snails, but snails nonetheless. Spiral shells, eyes on stalks—the whole bit. I could handle that. What I couldn’t get used to was inching my way along with the rest of the local pedestrians—excuse me, pod-estrians.

  “Tananda,” I growled under my breath. “How long are we going to stay in this god-awful dimension?”

  “Relax, Handsome,” she chided, easing forward another inch. “Enjoy the scenery.”

  “I’ve been enjoying this particular hunk of scenery for half a day,” I complained. “I’m enjoying it so much I’ve memorized it.”

  “Don’t exaggerate,” my guide scolded. “This morning we were on the other side of that tree.”

  I closed my eyes and bit back my first five or six responses to her correction. “How long?” I repeated.

  “I figure we can split after we turn that corner.”

  “But that corner’s a good twenty-five feet away!” I protested.

  “That’s right,” she confirmed. “I figure we’ll be there by sundown.”

  “Can’t we just walk over there at normal speed?”

  “Not a chance; we’d be noticed.”

  “By who?”

  “Whom. Well, by your admirer, for one.”

  “My what?” I blinked.

  Sure enough, there was a Gastropod chugging heroically along behind us. When it realized I was looking at it, it began to wave its eye-stalks in slow, but enthusiastic, motions.

  “It’s been after you for about an hour,” Tananda confided. “That’s why I’ve been hurrying.”

  “That does it!” I declared, starting off at a normal pace. “C’mon, Tananda, we’re getting out of here.”

  Shrill cries of alarm were being sounded by the Gastropods as I rounded the corner, followed, shortly, by my guide.

  “What’s the matter with you?” she demanded. “We could—”

  “Get us out—now!” I ordered.

  “But—”

  “Remember how I got my dragon?” I barked. “If I let an amorous snail follow me home, Aahz will disown me as his apprentice. Now, are you going to get us out of here, or do I use the D-Hopper and head for home?”

  “Don’t get your back up,” she soothed, beginning her ritual to change dimensions. “You shouldn’t have worried though, we’re looking for cargo—not S-cargo.”

  We were in another dimension before I could ask her to explain why she was giggling. So it went, dimension after dimension until I gave up trying to predict the unpredictable and settled for coping with the constants. Even this turned out to be a chore. For one thing, I had some unexpected problems with Tananda. I had never noticed it before, but she’s really quite vain. She didn’t just want to look like a native—she wanted to look like an attractive native.

  Anyone who thinks beauty is a universal concept should visit some of the places we did. Whatever grotesque form I was asked to duplicate Tananda always had a few polite requests for improving her appearance. After a few days of “the hair should be more matted,” or “shouldn’t my eye be a bit more bloodshot?” or “a little more slime under the armpits,” I was ready to scream. It probably wouldn’t have been so annoying if her attention to detail had extended just a little bit to my appearance. All I’d get was—“You? You look fine.” That’s how I know she’s vain; she was more interested in her own appearance than mine.

  That wasn’t the only thing puzzling about Tananda’s behavior. Despite her claim that we were on a shopping trip, she steadfastly avoided the retail sections of the dimensions we visited. Bazaars, farmers’ markets, flea markets and all the rest were met with the same wrinkled nose (when there was a nose) and “we don’t want to go there.” Instead she seemed to be content as a tourist. Her inquiries would invariably lead us to national shrines or the public displays of royal treasures. After viewing several of these we would retire to a secluded spot and head off for the next dimension.

  In a way this suited me fine. Not only was I getting a running, flying and crawling tour of the dimensions, I was doing it with Tananda. Tananda is familiar with the social customs of over a hundred dimensions and in every dimension she was just that—familiar. I rapidly learned that in addition to beauty, morality varied from dimension to dimension. The methods of expressing affection in some of the dimensions we visited defy description but invariably make me blush at the memory. Needless to say, after three days of this I was seriously trying to progress beyond the casual friendship level with my shapely guide. I mean, Tananda’s interpretation of casual friendship was already seriously threatening the continued smooth operation of my heart—not to mention other organs.

  There was a more pressing problem on my mind, however. After three days of visiting strange worlds, I was hungry enough to bite my own arm for the blood. They say if you’re hungry enough you’ll eat anything. Don’t you believe it. The things placed before me and called food were un-stomachable despite starvation. I know; I tried occasionally, out of desperation, only to lose everything else in my stomach along with the latest offering. Having Tananda sitting across from me, joyfully chewing tentacled things that oozed out of her mouth and wriggled didn’t help.

  Finally I expressed my distress and needs to Tananda.

  “I wondered why you hadn’t been eating much,” she frowned. “But I thought maybe you were on a diet, or something. I wish you’d spoken up sooner.”

  “I didn’t want to be a bother,” I explained lamely.

  “It isn’t that,” she waved. “It’s just that if I had known that two dimensions ago there were half a dozen humanoid dimensions nearby that we could have hopped over to. Right now, there’s only one that would fit the bill without us having to go through a couple of extra dimensions along the way.”

  “Then let’s head for that one,” I urged. “The sooner I eat the better off we’ll be.” I wasn’t exaggerating. My stomach was beginning to growl so loudly it was a serious threat to our disguises.

  “Suit yourself,” she shrugged, pulling me behind a row of hedges that tinkled musically in the breeze. “Personally, though, it’s not a dimension I normally stop in.”

  Again the alarm sounded in the back of my head, despite my hunger. “Why not?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Because they’re weird there—I mean, really weird,” she confided.

  Images flashed across my mind of the beings we’d already encountered. “Weirder than the natives we’ve been imitating?” I gulped. “I though
t you said they’d be humanoid?”

  “Not weird physically,” Tananda chided, taking my hand. “Weird mentally. You’ll see.”

  “What’s the name of the dimension?” I called desperately as she closed her eyes to begin our travels. The scenery around us faded, there was a rush of darkness, then a new scene burst brightly and noisily into view.

  “Jahk,” she answered, opening her eyes since we were there.

  YOU RECALL my account of our usual modus operandi on hitting a new dimension? How we would arrive inconspicuously and disguise ourselves before mingling with the native? Well, however secluded Tananda’s landing point in Jahk might be normally—it wasn’t when we arrived.

  As the dimension came into focus it was apparent that we were in a small park, heavily overgrown with trees and shrubs. It was not the flora of the place which caught and held my attention, however; it was the crowd. What crowd? you might ask. Why, the one carrying blazing torches and surrounding us, of course. Oh—that crowd!

  Well, to be completely honest, they weren’t actually surrounding us. They were surrounding the contraption we were standing on. I had never really known what a contraption was when Aahz had used the word in conversation, and being Aahz he wouldn’t define the word when I asked him to. Now that I was here, however, I recognized one on sight. The thing we were standing on had to be a contraption.

  It was some sort of wagon—in that it was large and had four wheels. Beyond that I couldn’t tell much about it, because it was completely covered by tufts of colored paper. That’s right, I said paper—light fluffy stuff that would be nice if you had a cold, runny nose. But this paper was mostly yellow and blue. Looming over us was some kind of monstrous, dummy warrior complete with helmet—also covered with tufts of blue and yellow paper.

  Of all the things that had flashed across my mind when Tananda warned me that the Jahks were weird, the one thing that had not occurred to me was that they were blue-and-yellow-paper freaks.