Robert Asprin's Myth-Fits

by Jody Lynn Nye

  “Five cards, odd Elves wild,” I said, flicking cards out to each of the other players. They gathered and sorted their hands.

  The Vampire pushed a chip forward with one sharp nail.

  “One silver,” she said.

  The wormlike fellow clutched his cards nervously. He plunged forward as though he were going to fall into the table and shoved all his chips into the pot.

  “Nine silver,” he declared.

  “No way! Bad play!” the Troll bellowed. The little male recoiled, but he kept his cards clutched against his chest.

  “Don’t yell at him,” I said. “Call him.”

  The Troll slammed a handful of chips into the center of the table, making everything else on it jump.

  “Ten blue, call you.”

  The wormlike fellow quivered nervously, then shoved his cards into the center. He folded.

  I read my cards again. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had the ace, three, five, and nine of Elves, with a dragon joker. Four wild cards meant I had five jokers. It was the highest hand possible for the day and time. I kept my face straight until the betting came to me.

  “Eleven blue,” I said.

  The Troll threw chips into the center. They bounced and danced, but landed in the pot.

  “Bad call! Show all!”

  “You’re betting out of turn,” I said.

  The moonlike eyes widened until I thought they would pop out. The Troll rose to his feet.

  “You dare! No fair!”

  “I dare because you’re not being fair!” I said, rising in my turn. If I started an argument with him, it was my best chance to get away from the table and examine that cup.

  “Aaarrrrggghhhh!” The Troll didn’t like being questioned. He grabbed the front of my shirt and hauled me across the table. He raised his fist, the cards still clutched in it.

  “Look,” I whispered to him, as he shook me. “I have a friend who is a Troll, Big Crunch. Will you take it easy on me?”

  The Troll’s left eyelid lowered a fraction. Then he twisted his grip and flung me across the room.

  I scrambled to capture some of the magik in the line below the inn, but I came up almost empty. With only a fraction of the power I needed, I used my magik to soften my fall, but I couldn’t change my trajectory. I crashed into a table of Deveels. They had just been served drinks by the barmaid. Their steins of beer went flying. Heads of white foam splattered their red skins, not to mention my clothes and hair. I sprang to my feet.

  “Sorry!” I said, brushing off the nearest Deveel with a cloth napkin.

  “Klahd!” one of the Deveels exclaimed. He rose to his feet, dripping beer. He put his fists together. A ball of energy hit me under the jaw. I flew up in the air, my ears singing from the blow. I grabbed for one of the rails that surrounded the gallery but missed. I pushed down against the ground with what little magik I had left, but it wasn’t enough. I plummeted down toward the Deveels.

  “Oh, no,” said a female Deveel. With one finger, she arrested my fall. “You want him, you take him!” She tossed him back toward the Deveel who had hit me.

  That Deveel snarled and ducked. I slammed into the wall behind him and slid to the floor.

  “You owe us a round of beers, Klahd!” he bellowed, as I climbed uneasily to my feet.

  “I’ll order it!” I promised.

  “I mean this order!”

  I frowned at him.

  “You want me to clean this up and serve it to you again?” I asked, unbelievingly.

  “No! Just clean it up!”

  And with that, I found myself being swiped back and forth like a rag across their table and chairs and over the floor underneath. One of the Deveels even used me as a towel to dry off. My clothes became saturated with ale. I fought to free myself from their influence, but they had much more magik than I did. All I could do was think myself out of the situation. I let my head go limp as they passed me around the table.

  “Oooh,” I said, clutching my stomach and putting a hand over my mouth. “I’m getting dizzy! I think I’m going to . . .”

  “No!” one of the females shrieked. “You’re not going to get sick on me!”

  She grabbed me by the foot and heaved me over her shoulder. I flailed at the air, unable to catch myself. One of my arms struck an obstruction. I looked up from the floor when I landed. A Titan with a faceful of foam glared down at me. I had hit him just as he was taking a drink.

  “Clumsy Klahd!”

  He threw a punch at me. By this time I had regained my feet. I ducked to avoid his blow. By chance, the biggest of the wet Deveels was right behind me. The Titan’s fist hit him square in the chin. The Deveel staggered backward, a circle of little red birds twittering around his head. His eyes rolled back in his head. He sagged to the floor. The Deveel’s friends rushed to confront the Titan.

  “You owe him for damages!” the first female screamed. “He just got his chin fixed!”

  “I don’t owe him or any Deveel a single copper piece!” the Titan shouted, towering over them. His voice echoed in the enclosed room.

  “And interest!” the injured Deveel yelped, picking himself up painfully from the floor. “Look at these bruises! I shall have to go back for more quackery, I just know it!” He pointed to his jaw. It was dark purple on one side.

  “Then I’ll even it out!” the Titan said. He raised his fist and smashed the Deveel in the other side of his jaw.

  “He did it!” the second Deveel female shrilled, pointing at me. “That Klahd! First he spilled our beer, then he hit you!”

  I was already backing away, but the room was so crowded that I didn’t have much room to maneuver. Instead, I took what small measure of magik I could glean and disguised myself as an elderly Imp in pants pulled up to my chest and a loud yellow shirt that clashed with my bright pink skin.

  “What Klahd?” I asked, in a quavering voice.

  “You’re hiding him!” the Titan boomed. He grabbed for my belt but got only a handful of my tunic instead. I could change my appearance, but not the reality beneath it. The Titan’s eyebrows went up, then down. He swept his hand past my face. I could feel the disguise spell lift. He raised his fist.

  “Now, wait a minute,” I said, holding my hands up to forestall the punch I knew was coming. “There’s no need for violence!”

  “Klahd cheat! Me beat!”

  The Troll thundered over. He showed his tusks in a fearsome snarl and loomed over the Titan.

  “You give, you live!”

  “Are you threatening me?” the Titan demanded, leaning close to the purple-furred face. They were almost as strong as Trolls.

  “Now, fellows,” I said, trying to extract myself from the Titan’s grip. “There’s no need to fight. I’ll just be on my way . . .”

  The Troll took hold of my right arm. “No way! Klahd play!”

  “You want half?” the Titan said. “No problem!”

  The Titan seized my left arm. He pulled. I yelped as my arms were extended almost to the point of popping out of their sockets. The Troll picked up the nearest chair and battered the Titan on the head with it. The Titan fought back, grabbing cups and platters off the tables and throwing them at the Troll. I danced, trying to avoid getting hit by the missiles. I couldn’t soak up enough magik to protect myself or pull free from my captors.

  “Gleep!” I shouted, looking around for my dragon. “Help me!”

  “Hey!” said the big Deveel, with bruises evident on both sides of his face now. “Are you ignoring me? You’d better make good on these injuries. Look at me!”

  Without letting go of me, the Titan shot out with his free fist. The Deveel took the punch full on the jaw and measured his length on the sticky wooden floor. The rest of the Deveels mobbed the Titan, scratching and kicking and employing every dirty move I’d ever seen in a bar fight.
He pointed a finger at each in turn, knocking them several feet away. A few of them retreated, but the others closed in again, screaming threats.

  “Hey, let go, let play!” the Troll demanded, shaking me like a rag doll.

  “Shut up!” the Titan bellowed. The Deveels threw spell after spell at him, covering him in red-hot Scorpion Flies and raining down Blue Slime. The Deveel who had been punched in the face climbed unsteadily to his feet and fell on top of me. Under his bulk I could see legs of red, gray, or purple scuffle around. I danced to avoid getting kicked. Suddenly, a loud voice interrupted the argument.

  “All right! Enough! Break!”

  The bruised Deveel staggered back. I hauled in a huge gasp of air and looked over to see a Winslovak no taller than I was regarding the combatants with his hands on his hips. He wore a plaid shirt and heavy blue-Djinn trousers under a white apron.

  “Who started this?” he asked.

  The Titan and the Troll looked at one another sheepishly. Then, as one, they pointed at me.

  “He did,” the Titan said.

  “I did not!” I yelped.

  “Who spilled our beer?” the Deveels demanded.

  “Who hit me in the back?” snarled the Titan.

  “Well, I . . .” I began.

  “Sorry, sir,” the Winslovak said, in a calm but implacable voice. “You’ll have to leave now.”

  I glanced up toward the ceiling. “But I . . . it’s not my fault! No. I’m not going . . . !” I sat down in the nearest chair and attempted to look casual.

  The Winslovak waved a hand. Suddenly, I felt myself dangling by magik by the back of my collar and the seat of my pants. He marched toward the swinging double doors with me floating helplessly behind him. The doors parted. I protested, but the invisible hands tossed me easily out into the street. The Winslovak surveyed me with deep regret as I lay on the blue flagstones in front of the Rusty Hinge.

  “It probably would be a good idea not to come back in here until you’ve learned some manners, sir,” he said. The Winslovak dusted his hands together and turned away, and the doors closed behind him.

  My bag was still inside! I picked myself up and pushed with both hands at the double doors. They wouldn’t budge. I summoned up all the magik I could muster from the yellow line overhead, though I admit it wasn’t much, pictured the doors swinging open, and flung it and myself at them.

  The doors opened, all right, but outward, not inward. I went tumbling backward. Suddenly, my bag and scroll came hurtling out of the door. They skidded several yards into the public footpath. I scrambled to retrieve them before it was trampled by a horde of children led by two cheerful employees wearing whistles around their necks. I brushed myself off, trying to regain some of the dignity I had just lost.

  I was annoyed but at the same time oddly proud. In all the time I had been in Deva, I’d never been thrown out of an inn. I had passed a milestone. Too bad none of my friends had been here to see it.

  Speaking of my friends, where was Gleep?

  As if he could hear my thoughts, the doors of the inn parted. My dragon came galloping out. In his mouth was an object that twinkled in the sunlight. Gleep dropped it on the ground with a clang and slurped me with his long pink tongue.

  “Gaaaah,” I protested, scrambling to my feet. “Stop that!”

  Gleep looked hurt.

  “I’m sorry, fellow,” I said, scratching him between the ears. “But why didn’t you come and help me?”

  “Gleep!” he said, with a wise look in his eyes. He bent his long neck and nudged the object on the ground toward me with his nose. It was the golden cup. I dove for it. My dragon was so smart! When I couldn’t retrieve it, he had! I grabbed Gleep’s head and massaged between his ears, admiring the prize he had brought me.

  “Good boy!” I exclaimed. “So you spotted it when I took the disguise off?”

  “Gleep!”

  “It did kind of stand out, didn’t it? I hope no one else saw it.”

  “. . . Gleep . . .”

  Gleep made a noncommittal noise. I guessed what he was thinking. I shrugged.

  “So someone else spotted it, too. But you got to it first.”

  “Gleep!” my dragon said, his blue eyes wide with innocence.

  Something in his voice worried me. I crouched down and took his muzzle in my hands so he couldn’t look away.

  “You did get to it first, didn’t you?” I asked him, staring him straight in the eyes. “You took it fair and square, right?”

  Instead of answering, he slurped me with his long pink tongue. When I let go of him to wipe the noxious slime off my face, he pulled away and raced off down the street. I glanced at the door of the Rusty Hinge. I hoped that no one had gotten badly hurt, especially not by my dragon. I would probably never know. Gleep only spoke when he wanted to. I felt a trifle guilty.

  But I had the cup! I tucked it into the bag and sat down to wait for my friends.

  * * *

  “So this is the Loving Cup,” Aahz said, turning my prize over in his hands. Since I was temporarily banned from entering the Rusty Hinge, we had taken the recommendation of a friendly young male Winslovak at the Central Help Desk to try the Skewer and Corkscrew, a popular restaurant several blocks further inland. I had asked for a private room where we could talk without being disturbed. Except for the waiters in knee-length trousers sashaying in and out of the room with a dozen kinds of roast meat on long metal pikes who were completely immune to my warding spell, it was pretty quiet. “Doesn’t look like much.”

  I had to agree with him. The bowl, although beautifully wrought, was plain gold. The jewels inlaid on both handles were plain precious and semiprecious stones. On the whole, I doubted whether it would bring more than four gold pieces in any curio shop in Deva.

  Tananda took hold of one of the ear-shaped handles. “Should we try it out to make sure it’s the right one?”

  Chumley adjusted the pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez he had balanced on his rather large nose and peered down at the cup.

  “Better not, Little Sis. I say, I believe we have confirmation,” he said.

  “Where?” I asked, eagerly. “Does it say so? Is it etched in the metal?”

  Chumley chuckled. “Not at all, old fellow. I refer your attention to the scroll that you were careful enough to bring back with you, along with your, er, sack of swag. Peruse the final item on the list.”

  I unrolled the sheet of parchment. All five items that I had searched for had big blue check marks beside them, including the final one: The Loving Cup.

  “That just seemed too easy,” Bunny said. She examined the cup as if she were afraid it was going to change shape in front of her. “I can’t believe that Skeeve just spotted it hanging on the ceiling.”

  “Why?” Aahz said. “I told you we were overqualified for the game. We’ve got experience unmatched across the dimensions, and this contest was set up for bored accountants on vacation who want to burn off a few of the calories they’ve been eating at the buffet. The important thing is Skeeve found the cup.”

  “Gleep!” my dragon protested.

  “I found it, but Gleep got it,” I corrected Aahz.

  “Whatever,” Aahz said, impatiently. “When we’re finished eating, we can pop over to Looie’s dimension and get rid of it.”

  “No!” Bunny protested. She set the cup down in the center of the table. “Let’s collect the prize first. A hundred gold pieces is a substantial sum.”

  We couldn’t argue with that.

  “Why not?” Markie said. “We got all twenty-one things on the list, probably broke a few records doing it. I don’t mind rubbing the other teams’ noses in our victory. Then we can blow this pop stand.”

  “Well, cheers to ya, friends!” Haroon said, raising his face from his bowl full of soup. “Y’all done right well gettin’ done so quick. Wi
nslow contests always have a little bit of a twist in ’em.”

  “Well, we saw through their disguise spell,” I said, toasting the Loving Cup with my wineglass. “That wasn’t much of a twist.”

  “I told you, partner,” Aahz said, pouring himself another huge mug of ale. “Bored accountants and vacationers.”

  “Gleep!” exclaimed my dragon.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Good staff is hard to find.”

  —DR. F. N. FURTER

  According to a little scroll delivered to us with dessert, contestants in the Scavenger Hunt were invited to a party at Winslow Center at the stroke of midnight. In no kind of hurry, we finished our meal and complimented the restaurant staff on their skill.

  As we departed, the servers lined up and created an arch with their swords between us and the door. I proceeded down it, feeling a bit like a successful general after a hard-won campaign. And since I knew a successful general, Big Julie, now retired, of Possiltum, I understood why he regarded the end of a battle with regret, exhaustion, a little annoyance, some embarrassment for the praise he received, and relief that it was all over. I couldn’t wait to get back to Deva. Who knew how many assignments we had missed while we were in Winslow? And I hadn’t checked on Buttercup since we had left. I was sure the war unicorn was fine in his pasture behind our auxiliary office. I had a standing agreement with the little curly-nosed girl who lived next door in the dimension into which that building extended to feed and curry him daily. She was as thrilled to have a unicorn to care for as I was to find someone so devoted to looking after him. But I liked to sit in the field and watch him graze, play with Gleep, or pretend to charge and skewer invisible enemies.

  The way to Winslow Center was well marked with torches that burned with blue flame. Hundreds, if not thousands, of holidaymakers crowded the path with us, not all carrying the official collection sacks denoting them as Scavenger Hunt teams. I suppose that the rest just wanted to watch the prize-giving and celebrate a little. I preened as I went along, listening to them speculate among themselves. They didn’t know yet that my friends and I were the grand-prize winners.