Robert Asprin's Myth-Fits

by Jody Lynn Nye

  Tananda’s words seemed to be absorbed by the plain gray walls. I could almost hear her, but her voice faded in and out like an echo. She tried again. She still sounded as if she were far away. I lost interest in listening and found my attention wandering.

  Chumley removed a small book from amid the thick fur on his chest and adjusted his glasses on his nose. He opened to the page and peered down at it.

  “I say, the light in here isn’t strong enough for reading.”

  That was something I could help with. I took a small quantity of the magik I had been saving and made a small globe of light. I sent it floating toward Chumley.

  “Thanks, old fellow,” he said. He prodded it so it would sit over his shoulder. With a contented sigh, he settled back to read.

  The light faded out. Chumley glanced up at me. I restored the light, but it faded again. And again.

  I renewed the spell, but each time it took more magik and deeper concentration. Eventually, Chumley shook his head and put the book away.

  “Thanks anyhow, old fellow.”

  “You know what? This place needs some livening up,” Bunny said, forcing her voice to sound perky. “It needs decorating!”

  “You’re right,” I agreed. I started throwing illusions on the walls, big, colorful images of things I had seen in my travels with Aahz. In my mind, I knew what they looked like, though I couldn’t see them with my eyes.

  “That’s so pretty,” Bunny said, looking around. “Look at those red birds! They’re the most beautiful creatures!”

  “I wish I could see them, too,” I said, “but illusions are invisible to the caster.”

  “Allow me,” said Markie. She spread out her small hands. Between them, exotic animals emerged, parading around the room like a circus come to town. Vines crawled up the walls. Snakes and lizards peered out at me from between the leaves. She was much better at lifelike illusions than I was.

  “What’s that?” I asked, pointing to a tall beast with stripes and a long, treelike neck. “Wait a minute, it’s fading!”

  “Hey!” Markie said. “My illusions!”

  The receptionist rose to her feet and peered at us sternly.

  “Please don’t deface the walls and floor,” said the receptionist. “It’s not allowed.”

  “Why not? I’m bored!”

  “At least give us some magazines,” Aahz said.

  “That’s not possible, sir,” the receptionist said. “You’re just going to have to wait. In this room. Here.” She turned to me with a sharp look that reminded me of one of my teachers. “As it is.”

  Aahz sprang up and paced.

  “This is another attempt to get us to give up,” he snarled. “Stuck in a waiting room, waiting for what? Another delaying tactic?” He stormed over to the receptionist. “Get someone out here, now!” he bellowed. In spite of the deadening quality of the walls, his voice rang in our ears. “I’m not paying three gold pieces a day to sit in a blank room with no windows!”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the receptionist said. She still had no expression, either in her voice or face. “Please continue to wait. You will be admitted in due course.”

  “When?”

  Aahz wasn’t the only one who was losing his temper. I hammered on the top of the half wall.

  “Let us in! We have to talk to the authorities! We don’t have much time!”

  “Please wait. It won’t be long.”

  She went back to her paperwork.

  I went back to pacing.

  After a while, I realized that my stomach was rumbling. After days of feasting on first-class cuisine anytime we wanted it, I started to feel the lack of food. I went back to the receptionist.

  “Is there anything to eat or drink around here?”

  “No, sir.”

  I threw up my hands.

  “When can we see the people in charge?”

  “When they are ready, sir. Please be patient.”

  I sat down and shifted. There was no way to sit on those chairs that would let me remain comfortable for more than a few minutes. I pulled two together side by side and sat in the space between them. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad, either.

  “Try this, fellows,” I said. My friends took my suggestion. We ended up sitting closely side by side on each other’s half chairs. I felt a little silly. The authorities had a lot to answer for, when I finally got to speak to them.

  Time ticked away.

  None of us had had any sleep in hours. I drifted off with my head on Chumley’s shoulder.

  When I woke up, there was no way to tell how long we had been there. The room had no clocks and no windows, so I couldn’t see the sky. The others awakened a few at a time. They looked around at the plain gray walls, torn between disappointment and frustration.

  After the lush hospitality we had enjoyed so far, this was an insult. They wanted us to give up and go. I couldn’t let Bunny and the others down that way. I marched up to the desk. The receptionist glanced up at me without interest.

  “I want to see someone!” I said. “You can’t just make me wait here forever.”

  “You can always leave, sir,” she said.

  I smacked my hand on the counter. I used magik to make my voice boom, fighting against the deadening spell that tried to eat my words.

  “No! There is no chance I will leave. Ever. Tell whoever it is back there that the longer I have to wait here”—I raised my voice so it would be audible on the other side of the wall behind her—“the bigger the story I will spread to the rest of the world about how things really are here, starting with Deva! I’ll go on a tour. I’ll write a book! I know an author, Zol Icty. He’ll help me get started. I’ll tell everyone I know what happened! Winslow will go to pieces!”

  For the first time, the receptionist wore an expression. It was dejection mixed with a tiny hint of admiration.

  “It already is.”

  She beckoned to us.

  “The council will see you now.”

  I stayed at her heels as she walked to the wall and opened yet another of Winslow’s invisible doors. I pushed into the room beyond before she could change her mind.

  Eight Winslovaks looked up at me. The four males and four females wore long blue robes that pooled on the floor like waterfalls and necklaces of round white beads, each with a silver whistle on the end. They sat at an oval table made of blue glass spread with what looked like a complex but translucent tapestry of tiny, colorful threads. Each of the Winslovaks had the dignity of a king, the bearing of statesmen and powerful leaders, magicians and world-beaters.

  Each of them looked absolutely exhausted.

  “Another ploy,” Bunny said, grimly.

  “More tests,” Aahz said.

  “No,” I said. My heart went out to the people at the table. They were bent and worn with weariness and desperation. “This is real.”

  The eldest and most august of the Winslovaks looked up at me.

  “How can we help you, Mr. Skeeve?”

  I pulled an empty chair from beside the wall and sat down beside him.

  “I think I’d better ask how we can help you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “Come on back behind the curtain.”

  —THE WIZARD OF OZ

  “How did you know?” asked the first Winslovak, once introductions had been made and the rest of my friends found seats around the table.

  “Stood to reason,” Aahz said, his chair tilted back and his feet up. “The merry-go-round is winding down. Last time I was here, I didn’t even know there was a Central Help Desk. When we got here a few days ago, you could just walk in and talk to one of your reps without waiting. When Skeeve threw his fit out on the pavement a while ago, the line stretched out the door. People aren’t getting the Fantasy Island dream they expected. Ours is an unusual situatio
n. We’re not here to enjoy ourselves. We need just one thing, then we go. We had to escalate on purpose to get to see you. But the ordinary tourist shouldn’t be affected.”

  “You’re right,” the first Winslovak said. His name was Olk. “We want everybody to have a good time here! We do our best to make certain that the days you spend with us are unparalleled! This should be the vacation of a lifetime! Enjoyment is our product and we want everyone to have all they need.”

  “But you’re not having a good time, are you?” Tananda asked, shrewdly. “You do all this for other people, and you don’t get anything for yourself.”

  “One needs to be pleased with one’s own accomplishments,” said Kurtsie primly. The number six councilor had a long face and a long nose under a firmly controlled crown of braided white hair.

  Markie let out a derisive snort.

  “Aren’t we past the brochure ad copy?”

  “Truthfully?” said Relags. The third councilor was an older Winslovak with thinning hair and a paunch. “No. We’re not enjoying ourselves anymore! No matter how much you give someone, they always want another thing more outrageous than the last!”

  “The requests that people come up with,” said Helfa in the fourth chair, throwing her hands up. “You cannot believe what some of them want! We have to work day and night to find enough magik to make their dreams come true. That’s our original mission statement, sir. What if you could have anything you ever wished for? It means that Winslow has become a transdimensional wonder! People spend all they have to come here and enjoy themselves. They tell all their friends! Our dimension has become wealthy beyond our most distant imaginings. We have as much business as we can handle! Far more than we can handle, in fact. It has become a millstone around our necks.”

  “That’s easy. Say no,” I said.

  “We can’t!”

  “Our reputation rests on keeping everybody happy,” Olk said. “Saying no is out of the question.”

  “But you’re miserable,” Bunny said.

  “And the force lines are being depleted,” Aahz said. “How is that even possible?”

  The councilors looked at one another.

  “Do I have to have my friend Chumley there shake it out of you?” Aahz asked. “What could drain force lines like that?”

  “We’re overextended,” Olk said. “All that we do to maintain the climate and the protective spells . . .”

  “. . . And the portals, and the food service . . .” added Relags.

  “. . . Not to mention moving equipment and furniture hither and yon . . .”

  “. . . And manufacturing treats and treasures to satisfy every whim our customers have . . .”

  “. . . The amusement rides, the casinos, the lights . . .”

  “. . . Is why I could hardly glean a decent supply of magik from what looked like powerful sources,” I finished. I looked from one pinched face to another. “I got the impression that this shortage of power is recent. Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

  Olk sighed deeply.

  “A dark force is trying to destroy our beautiful Winslow.”

  “Who? Does it have something to do with the Loving Cup?”

  “Oh, no,” said Savva. “The Loving Cup has been here in Winslow for some time. We bless its presence. It helps us. Its very aura helps promote agreement. You must have noticed that yourselves.”

  “So you did make Servis take it!” Bunny exclaimed.

  “No, no, you had requested it,” the fifth councilor, Dure, insisted. “Your happiness takes priority over our concerns. We would never keep it longer than to assure you that it was the real thing. All six of them.”

  “We have no idea how it multiplied like that,” Mannurs said. He occupied the seventh seat. “Most bewildering.”

  “Nor why Servis has taken it and not returned it,” Savva said. “He has always been more than trustworthy.”

  “You should have received it back within moments of confirmation,” Nurgin said, from the last chair on Olk’s other side. He was the most elderly of the council.

  “Where did he go?” I asked.

  “We don’t know that,” Helfa said. “He wasn’t even involved in the judging phase.”

  “And by the way, congratulations on winning the contest,” Savva said, kindly. “You did really well. You finished more swiftly than we expected.”

  “Thank you,” Bunny said, with a sweet smile. “But we are experts. Get back to the point! What happened? Why is Winslow falling apart?”

  The council shifted uncomfortably in their blue glass chairs.

  “Come on,” I said. “You’re used to being infallible. It’s understandable, but it’s not working anymore. We can’t help you if we don’t know what’s going on.”

  Helfa took a deep breath.

  “The problem,” she said, “is the Nix Pyx. The Cup of Discord!”

  “Seriously?” Aahz asked, disgusted. “There’s a magik cup called the Nix Pyx? Is there a rhyming wizard who comes up with these stupid names? Every magik sword I’ve ever seen has a name that would make those trendy parents who give their children weird monikers envious because they didn’t go far enough.”

  “I promise you, it’s real,” Olk said. “It’s dangerous, very powerful, and very negative. The diametrical opposite to Winslow!”

  Savva added, “It is causing us to have to redouble our efforts and solve problems that come up where there shouldn’t be any problems!”

  “If it’s just an ordinary magik cup, why don’t you just hunt it down and destroy it?” Bunny asked. “You have powerful enough force lines here to do almost anything you want.”

  “But this Nix Pyx is pouring out discord wherever it lands and causing us the greatest havoc. It forces us to use magik we don’t have to keep up with its damage!”

  “How?” I asked. “Why don’t you just find it and stop it?”

  “It’s not in our control,” Savva said.

  “It’s an inanimate object,” Aahz said. “All you have to do is get your hands on it and either turn it off or move it to another dimension.”

  “We can’t!” said Helfa.

  “It’s in the hands of another . . . concern,” said Relags. “A concern that does not have the best interests of Winslow in mind.”

  “But why would anyone do such a thing?” Bunny asked.

  The council hesitated. I cleared my throat impatiently.

  “They want something,” Dure spat out at last.

  “That’s Winslow’s big deal, isn’t it?” Aahz asked. “Give it to them. Then they’ll be happy and go away. Isn’t that what you want?”

  “It’s not so simple, sir.” Olk let out a deep sigh, and he seemed even more blue than his garment. “They’re blackmailing us.”

  “Who is?” I asked.

  “We don’t know. And we are used to knowing everything about everybody who visits our dimension.” His eyes were huge with worry. “You have no idea how distressing that is to us!”

  “How do you know they are there, then?” Bunny asked.

  “We received scrolls from them. Requests, in the usual way.” I knew what he meant, having watched Turista and the other clerks at the Central Help Desk tuck rolled-up papers into the air. “But these were threats. And if we ignored the demands . . .”

  “. . . Things would happen,” said Kurtsie. They all looked unhappy. “We didn’t believe it. But they did happen.”

  “Why didn’t you try to deal with the blackmailer then?” I asked.

  “We had everything under control,” said Mannurs.

  “How?”

  He beckoned me to look closer at the table. I realized the tapestry spread over its top was magikal. The images within it weren’t static. They moved and changed like a living thing. With thumb and forefinger, he pulled up a thread and spread it along hi
s fingers for me to see.

  “Normally, we manage events by using these threads. Most of the time, Winslow’s magik keeps everything moving along by itself. When it needs a hand, we intervene.”

  I peered closely. In the midst of a cheering crowd, a group of Kobolds was scribbling mathematical formulae on a big board with a bright blue pen. When they completed a line of incomprehensible figures and numbers, a massive check mark appeared beside it. The math contest that I had heard about on the night of the Scavenger Hunt was under way. The Kobold team filled the air with cheerful symbols.

  “What’s wrong with this one?” I asked. Helfa grimaced.

  “Nothing! It’s this one that is going wrong.”

  She plucked another one up and held it toward me. It looked oddly dark against the rest of the woven picture. I had a brief look at an Imp toddler sitting in the middle of the street, holding a handful of strings. At the end of each was a blob of color. “All her balloons burst at once. That never happens. It never should have happened!” Helfa closed her eyes and concentrated. As I watched, the blobs grew into translucent spheres. The child stopped crying and laughed happily.

  “And this!” said Olk.

  He showed me a roomful of teenaged Whelf girls sitting at an elaborate party table. They sat with their arms folded, looking grimly at a clown with a round red nose and a painted smile dancing around with a wooden hoop. “This is a sweet sixteen party. There should have been three of our finest aestheticians giving them manicures.” He pointed as the clown vanished, and three Winslovak women appeared. “There they are at last! But this poor fellow had a bad ten minutes. And so did our guests!”

  “It doesn’t look so bad,” Aahz said. “So they suffered a momentary disappointment. They’ll live.”

  “But it all adds up!” Olk cried. “It makes us take our attention from elsewhere. When things are going well, we can manage everything by ourselves. When it goes bad in several small ways at once, we have to turn our attention to it, and our enemies are there, waiting for our inattention.”

  “We are being pushed too far,” Helfa said. “We’re afraid that we’ll miss something important, and our enemy will take advantage of it.”