Robert Asprin's Myth-Fits

by Jody Lynn Nye

  “It’s a terrific stress reliever, too,” Swush said. “I’m an economist, but I spend my vacations scaring tourists. It makes me a lot more productive when I go home.”

  Benjy nodded agreement. “Once I retire from the university, I plan to keep my position here for the busy season. The hours are long but rewarding. You’d recognize a number of our old friends. Tim-Tim takes nights and weekends in the Hinge. Harrowby Minor has a lovely gig sitting under a wooden bridge upriver, scaring passersby. He’s been working on a book of poetry in his spare time.”

  I admit I goggled at the thought of a Troll writing poetry.

  “Harrowby’s here?” Chumley said. “My goodness, if that old fussbudget is happy in Winslow’s employ, I should think about it very seriously, though I have been equally stimulated by working as part of M.Y.T.H., Inc. It accords me rather more freedom than it seems you have.”

  Benjy smiled. “I envy you. It’s not all garlands and champagne, or rather, cards and beer. The oversight can be a bit onerous. All of us have the rules hammered into us from the moment we come to work here, but it becomes ingrained in our very souls: The customer must always be happy, all of the time, and some of them are very hard to please.”

  “Well, we’re not happy,” I put in.

  “I did notice, my friend. Why are you not happy?” Benjy asked, with sympathy. “I hate to sound like the brochures, but Winslow is here to fulfill every yen, regardless of complexity. Is there anything we can do?”

  I explained our mission as briefly as possible.

  “We had the Loving Cup in our hands, but we had to surrender it briefly to get credit for the find in the Scavenger Hunt,” I concluded, careful not to embarrass Bunny. “We should have gotten it back right away.”

  “Sounds like a simple request,” said Swush, flicking his finned tail.

  “It is,” Benjy said, lowering his brows. “There is no good reason why the cup shouldn’t have been brought back at once. You say Servis took it?”

  “Yes. He insisted on taking it. He stole it right from under our noses!”

  “Not Servis!” exclaimed Swush, appalled. “He is one of the workers who is always being held up to the rest of us as a sterling example. He mentored me during my first season. There must be some mistake!”

  “I’m sorry, but there’s no mistake,” I said. “We’ve been waiting ever since. We have to get it back before our client returns here the day after tomorrow. If we don’t get it, we’re on the hook for the expenses we’ve already laid out.”

  “Are the stakes that insurmountable?” Benjy asked.

  “Two hundred gold pieces,” Bunny said, grimly. Swush’s lower jaw dropped, showing all his teeth.

  “My goodness, that is a virtual fortune!” Benjy said.

  Aahz shrugged, polishing his nails nonchalantly on his tunic front, though I know the thought of surrendering that much money irked him.

  “You gamble big, there’s always a chance you lose big,” he said.

  “Well, you must have ice water for blood, my good sir,” Benjy said, with a respectful glance for Aahz. “I couldn’t afford such a loss.”

  “It’s not just the money,” I said. “We have a reputation as the best in the business. We took on this job and we don’t want to fail. I’d find it hard to look at myself in the mirror if I let Looie down.”

  “Is there anything we can do to help you?” Swush asked.

  “You work behind the scenes here. Can you help find Servis, or see if there’s a lost-and-found where the cups might have ended up?” I asked.

  The Landshark and Benjy exchanged glances.

  “No can do, I am afraid,” Benjy said. “We’re not permitted to take official notice of requests that have been submitted through the Central Help Desk. As you may have seen in other walks of life, the customer’s wish is the only one taken into account by the great powers-that-be. You have no idea how I tire of the off-key rustic music that is piped through the inn—it is part of the ambience! But if a customer complains, the matter is resolved as swiftly as possible.”

  “Why don’t you complain until they change it?” I asked.

  Benjy and Swush exchanged nervous glances.

  “It’s not really a good idea, you know. Chronic complainers don’t prosper here.”

  “What can they do?” Aahz asked. “I wouldn’t put up with a situation that drove me crazy.”

  “Sometimes people just . . . disappear,” Swush said. “There one day, and Help Wanted the next.”

  Haroon nodded.

  “Seen it happen myself. Werewolf gal in Gift Demo, great at her job, but she had issues about how the management wanted the goods displayed. Not arranged to her likin’, and said so a lot. I walked in to see her once, and fft! Gone. No idea she was on her way out.”

  I was puzzled.

  “Were they fired?”

  Swush raised his lateral fins.

  “We have no idea. All I know is I tried to get in touch with a fellow Landshark who worked here when I was home two seasons ago, but no one had seen him for months. So, we don’t push too hard. Anyone can quit if he’s unhappy.” Benjy looked up toward the ceiling. “Mind if we drop this subject? We have a measure of privacy here, but . . . you never know.”

  I felt those eyes on my back again, so I was happy to drop the subject.

  “Well, look,” I said, “what if I asked specifically for you to help us?”

  “Ah, would that we could. If you were to see me on the street and ask for my assistance, I would be able to aid you, but”—Benjy held up a finger to forestall my outburst—“you will never see me on the street because that is not my assignment. I am terribly sorry not to be helpful. The onus toward excellent service does become ingrained after a few seasons.”

  “You make it sound hopeless,” I said.

  “I wish we could be of more direct aid,” Benjy said. “But it is not hopeless. If you are certain that the item is still here, you have power.”

  “What power?” Bunny asked, eagerly.

  “The power to insist,” Swush said. “They’re stalling you.”

  “We know,” I said grimly.

  Benjy bent close to us and dropped his voice to a murmur, scarcely audible over the hum of conversation in the room.

  “It’s worse than you realize. I don’t want to be heard saying this, but it seems that you have been the victims of a massive kerfuffle, not to mention a bit of bollixing,” Benjy said, “but I suggest you insist. Insistently. Your Pervert friend here . . .”

  “Per-VECT!” Aahz snarled. A few of the employees looked up from their conversations. Benjy peered at him over his glasses.

  “So sorry, old man. My job in the Rusty Hinge is to offend. My apologies for letting my anima de guerre slip over into my off-hours. This good Pervect, then, nearly made them fold, but he let them give him the boot, so to speak, before they reached the breaking point.”

  Aahz glared at him, the veins standing out in his eyes.

  “I let them kick me out? Me? Are you out of your mind?”

  “You left of your own volition, didn’t you, sir?” Benjy asked. “They never used magik or force to make you go forth from the Central Help Desk? Just gentle persuasion, insistence on fulfillment of your request, and a deeply hurt expression?”

  The words worked themselves reluctantly out of Aahz’s mouth.

  “Well, yes.”

  “They are really good at that,” Swush said. Benjy nodded agreement.

  “I must tell you that to have you give in, or go away, or both, is a success for the management. Most visitors feel that they must have been the unreasonable ones if they do not accomplish perfect relaxation or obtain that one experience that they yearn for. And, as you mentioned, the delay when a request is particularly difficult does mean most people run out of time. Their vacation is over, or the fees
are straining the pocketbook too greatly to remain. Winslow never has to do anything really hard. When one is told one can have everything here, one really runs out of requests long before reaching that point where a wish would be difficult for the management to accomplish. Thus the perception of perfection is maintained.”

  “That is some deeply diabolical psychology,” Markie said. “Mind if I make notes?”

  “Not at all,” Benjy said. “Let me send you a copy of the treatise I am writing about it.”

  “But everything has not been perfect,” I said. “Things have fallen between the cracks that shouldn’t have. Servis seemed surprised that the Loving Cup had gotten onto the Scavenger Hunt list, but Campfya, his assistant, really was.”

  “Insufficient briefing,” Swush said. “That’s not like the management. That never happens. We always get thorough documentation before events. Some of these games are planned a year in advance. To slip one over on the Activities Department takes some serious chutzpah.”

  “And the magik,” I continued. “If you’re not magicians you may not read the force lines like we do, but if they’re the source of all that powers Winslow’s hospitality industry, something is going to break down, and soon. The force lines are stretched to their limit. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “How so?”

  I explained the difficulty I had had in pulling magik out of them when I needed it.

  “I’ve been running short at some pretty inconvenient moments,” I added. “And it’s happened in other places.” I told them about the dirty dishes and the mixup with the drinks. “Haven’t you noticed any discontinuities?”

  Swush flipped a fin.

  “Sure we have. I nearly drowned the other day when riptides started erupting off the coast. I got yanked down sixty feet before the magik came back on.”

  “How could you drown?” I asked, looking at his fins and tail in surprise.

  “Landshark, Klahd,” Swush said, with a pained expression. “Land. Shark. I’m an air breather. I’m just a natural-born swimmer.”

  “It has been a bit worrying,” Benjy said. “Central management seems to have its mind elsewhere these last few weeks. The problem has been growing ever more obvious to the staff. Customers, with the very notable exception of you, have not yet noticed, but I fear for Winslow if it continues. But you think it is connected to the disappearance of the Loving Cup?”

  “We don’t believe in coincidences,” Aahz said.

  “So what’s your advice?” I asked. “How do we get the Loving Cup back?”

  “No other choice, old man. Make a fuss,” Benjy said. “Refuse to take no for an answer. It will be an effort on your part, because it is difficult for a nice chap like you to maintain an obdurate attitude. Once the management notices that you are unhappy, they will try various subterfuges to balk you. Escalate when necessary. But do not give up. Otherwise, you won’t succeed. They can help you, but they need to be made to focus.”

  “No problem,” Aahz said. “I might even enjoy it.”

  “No, Aahz,” Bunny said. “They know how to push your buttons now. Let me try.”

  “You think you can be pushier than me?” Aahz asked, clearly incredulous. Bunny put her chin up.

  “I know how high the stakes are. I can do it.”

  “I’ll do it,” Markie said. “In my other job I test the stress point of systems to the breaking point.”

  That was one way to look at Markie’s main profession. But I shook my head.

  “I’m the one who seems to have been the most immune to Winslow’s effect from the beginning. It had better be me.”

  “Gleep!” said my dragon. We stood up, as did our hosts.

  “Good luck, old fellow,” Benjy said. “Dearly as I would like to see your efforts, I had better not be nearby when you begin. Otherwise, I would be contractually obligated to try to make you stop, and one of us could get hurt. For really obvious troublemakers, my instructions are to throw one through a wall. After a spell in our infirmary, they wake up in their own dimension, completely uninjured but with little to no memory of the last moments they spent in Winslow. All a regrettable accident, you know—the conflict seemed so real, we thought one was enjoying oneself. Many come back for a second visit, invariably better behaved. But you must be focused.”

  “I will.”

  “Good to see you, old man,” Chumley said, shaking Benjy’s hand.

  The Troll took my hand in a solid grip, but it was only a friendly clasp, not a bone-crushing squeeze.

  “I wish you good luck, Mr. Skeeve. By Marmel’s candy kitchen, I wish I could watch.”

  “It will undoubtedly be a show,” Chumley said.

  Benjy guided us to one pristine, white wall of the canteen.

  “Let me see, which door would be best to drop you into the action?”

  “Wherever we will get maximum exposure,” Aahz suggested.

  “Right you are.” Benjy walked about a third of the way along the wall and opened a hidden door. On the other side was a ring of green flame. He waved us through. “Good luck, chaps.”

  Tananda stood on tiptoes to kiss him.

  I stepped through first. It was hard to steel myself not to enjoy the tickling sensation. I had to be hard. Resolute. Implacable.

  I shoved open the plain door that appeared before me.

  “Ayiee!” a female server said, as I nearly walked into her. “Oh, I am so sorry to be surprised! May I offer you a drink, Mr. Skeeve?”

  I had emerged into twilight in the middle of the main street. All around me, shoppers strolled in and out of the stores, while dozens of others sat lazing in lawn chairs or in hammocks, glistening cocktails and other beverages in hand. She had obviously just come out of the same door. I almost bumped her.

  “Hold that thought,” I said. I picked her up by the elbows, tray and all, and stepped to one side. We moved just in time before the rest of my friends came tumbling through the glittering portal. I put her down.

  She looked past us. The door had closed invisibly behind us.

  “How did you get in there?” she asked me.

  “Got lost trying to find the . . . you know,” I said, trying to look embarrassed.

  “Oh! Please do ask next time,” she said. “Any of us would be delighted to help you!”

  “I know you would,” I said. I took a couple of glasses off her tray and offered one to Bunny.

  “So that’s how they do it,” Bunny said, admiringly. She clinked her glass with mine.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “Who says tantrums don’t work?”

  —TSAR I. THE TERRIBLE

  I felt eyes on my back again from the moment we appeared in the square. Not only that, I was more aware than ever of a cloying sense that there was something wrong with me. I ought to let myself relax and be happy. I couldn’t do that, not if we were to get the cup back. I had to be the biggest pest that Winslow had ever seen.

  It wasn’t going to be easy. It was a beautiful evening. Everything conspired to make me feel happy and content. I had to concentrate. This couldn’t be harder than trying to light a candle with Garkin looking over my shoulder. I took a few deep breaths.

  “Can you pull this out, partner?” Aahz asked.

  “I think so. Whatever is in the air doesn’t seem to agree with me. I like it here, but I can feel the magik. I know what’s real and what isn’t. I’m tired of the unreality. I want to get what we came for and go home.”

  “Who says you’re not much of a magician?” Aahz said, with a sideways glance at me. “What the heck. Hey, waiter!” He raised an arm and beckoned broadly.

  A blue-skinned attendant appeared out of nowhere at our side. This muscular and mustachioed gent had a tray full of beers on his arm, which he distributed among us. For Aahz and Gleep, another server walked into existence with a couple of buckets
in hand. Gleep put his face in his and started gulping it noisily.

  “Thanks,” Aahz said, accepting his refreshment. “But that’s not what we were going to ask for.”

  The attendant beamed. “A request? It would be my great pleasure. What can I bring you?”

  “The Loving Cup,” I said. “I really want it. I don’t think I can go on being happy without it.”

  His pale white eyebrows rose high on his round forehead. He looked deeply troubled.

  “Not be . . . not be happy? I . . . I will see what I can do, sir.” He turned, and in two steps vanished from sight.

  “That rattled their cages,” Markie said.

  In a moment, the waiter was back. With him was a young, pretty woman with her white hair scraped up on top of her head in a bun. Her name tag said Soona.

  “Sir, I am from the Central Help Desk. Why don’t you come with me and we’ll work on your request?”

  I wasn’t faking the resentment I evinced when I replied to her.

  “You’ve been working on my request for days!” I said. “You kept promising me I could have the Loving Cup. I believed you. Then you sent me a really embarrassing substitute. Then I only found the real thing because you accidentally put it on the list for a scavenger hunt. That meant anybody could have picked it up!”

  “But you did have the cup for a while, Mr. Skeeve,” she said, trying to placate me. “Surely that fulfilled your expectations.”

  “And it was stolen from me. Stolen!” I shouted, making sure all the other tourists within earshot could hear me. They could. Their mouths rounded with horror. A few surreptitiously touched their purses and belt pouches. “I thought Winslow did everything it could for its visitors. So far, you have made big mistakes on every request that I have made. And I still don’t have what I came for!”

  The two Winslovaks looked at me with pleading eyes.

  “Mr. Skeeve, we always do our best. Please give us another chance!”

  “I’ve given you a lot of chances!”

  A call for emergency measures must have gone out. From the hidden doors all around us poured employees with handfuls of balloons, trays of dolls and model cars, drinks, sweets, and meat on a stick. So many people in colorful costumes hemmed us in that I could no longer see the ordinary tourists. Calliopes on rolling platforms and hordes of musicians began to play, drowning out my voice. The sight and sound of a disagreeable customer had been banished from sight. I was being isolated. Winslow was closing ranks against its greatest enemy: displeasure.