Myth-Chief

TEN

My new office was off and running. I didn't expect to be inundated by old friends and former employees, the latter a happy subset of the first category, but Bunny and Tananda must have spread the word that I was starting out slowly, and I would ask for help if I needed it. Many people who had worked for or with M.Y.T.H., Inc. stopped by to offer support, but no one was pushing. Exactly. Yet. I had a feeling that the dam would burst at some point, and I had to work out precisely where I was going with my new business before I started hiring. I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but I needed to have the right answer for myself, first. In a way, I was my own first and ongoing client, and I had to report that no progress had been made yet on MY question.

Bunny started talking about advertising me on the Crystal Ether Network through her PDA, or Perfectly Darling Assistant, a little red disk of a gadget that she called Bytina. What about rewriting my card, or taking out ads, hiring a flying dragon to write my name in the sky?

"It's too soon," I insisted. "One success in a row is not an indicator of a viable business."

But I found myself drumming my fingers on my desk, waiting for something to happen.

I was so relieved that the others weren't upset with me that the fact I wasn't doing much business didn't bother me as much as it might have. I had made peace with my friends, and I was happy about that, but it wasn't going to be smooth sailing yet. I still had to figure out how to describe my new profession so it wouldn't lead to so much confusion.

"... But they keep asking me, what do you do with an in-between skill? A talent no one knows how to harness?"

"What?"

I startled out of my daydream. The minute girl in the blue dress on the guest chair twisted a handkerchief between her fingers. She gave me a shy smile, which made her small oval face lovely.

"I'm sorry. I know my voice isn't very loud," the girl said. She was a Pixie, a denizen of Pix. "I mean, my parents think I should just train harder, but I don't want to be a flower fairy. Flowers make me sneeze. Oh, I know there are spells to counteract that, but I don't... I don't like flowers," she said, with a defiant scowl, as if daring me to contradict her. Her little nose turned pink. "I just could never be as good as my friends. My mother is the foremost rose sculptor in all of Pix. I can't equal her, but she wants me to follow in her footsteps. I just want to make my own way. I just don't know how."

"So," I said slowly, feeling as if I was asking myself, "what is it you do?"

She looked happy, as though no one had ever voiced the question before. She fluttered her tiny hands. From between her fingers, a flash of red appeared. A brilliantly colored bird took shape and took wing. It soared up over my head, then angled off, circling the ceiling of my office.

Gleep's head sprang up from his forepaws, and he bounded after it.

"Gleep, no!" I said, jumping up. I lunged for his collar.

Too late. His jaws snapped shut on the bird. He landed, his blue eyes wide. His tongue snaked out, as though tasting the air. I was aghast. I turned to Flinna.

"Gee, I'm sorry about your pet," I said. "Gleep doesn't usually misbehave like that."

Flinna smiled at me. "It's all right. It wasn't real."

"Wasn't real?" I realized I was echoing her. "What was it?"

"It's a kind of fairy illusion," she explained. "I can do hundreds of them, all completely accurate. They feel real, but you can't keep them. Once you touch them, they go pop."

"Really?" I asked. So that was why Gleep was casting around and looking confused. "Wow. That is a special talent."

"But useless," Flinna said, hanging her head. "I don't know how to do anything but flower magik and illusionary birds. I can't make a living at either one. What can I do with—well, what I can do?"

"Let's see if I can find someplace for you," I said, rising and extending my hand. "I know a lot of people here in the Bazaar."

The Geek stroked his chin. The wily Deveel and I had been on opposite sides in several deals. As far as I could tell, he still owed me for some shady dealing that nearly killed some students of mine.4

"I don't know, Skeeve," he said, watching Flinna put varied and colorful waterfowl in a row, each a masterpiece of magikal art. "I mean, don't get me wrong—they're great ducks, but my new show, Teal or No Teal,' is only in the planning stages. It could be months before I could use the girl."

Flinna looked devastated. "Oh," she said.

"Do you know anyone who is hiring?" I asked, feeling just as dismayed but refusing to show it. "She's willing to travel."

"Hmm," he said, and resumed chin-stroking. "Well, you could talk to Hyam. He's got a variety show heading for the provinces. The pay's so-so, but you get expenses and meals."

"We'll try him," I said, rising and offering my hand. "You still owe me, but thanks."

"Hey, glad to help, glad to help," the Geek said. "Don't hurry back, huh?" He leaned out and pinched the plumply pretty Deveel at his reception desk on the cheek. "Marlys, send in my next appointment."

We sat in the second row of the huge, echoing theater. Flinna watched openmouthed as act after act mounted the stage and performed. Illusionists, fire-eaters, high-wire walkers, prestidigitators, ventriloquists, and almost all of them doing their tricks without benefit of magik. I was impressed.

"Ya gotta be able to do it either way," the green-skinned Sittacommedian at my side informed me. "We travel to all the dimensions, Klah, Perv, Imper, Kobol. If there's no force lines, you still gotta be entertaining. I don't fancy bein' run out of town on a rail. Had it happen enough times." He extended a forearm, and I could see pucker marks in his green skin. I guessed they had been caused by hot tar and feathers being applied.

"Well, I don't know much about show business," I admitted.

"No kiddin'," Hyam said, stubbing his cigar out on the back of the chair ahead of him. He bent forward to yell at the voluptuous female on the stage. "Honey, either shake it or get out of here! I'm a busy man!" He leaned back. "If you knew anything, you wouldn'a gone to the Geek for advice. He don't know nothin'."

"He seems to be successful," I said.

"Smoke and minors," Hyam said. "Just don't invest money with him." He turned to Flinna. "Okay, honey, wow me."

Flinna looked delicate and lost in the huge beam of the spotlight. She hesitated, and I gave her an encouraging gesture. She shot me a quick smile and raised her hands. I crossed my fingers. Success here would validate her faith in mc, and I could use the shot of confidence.

The flower fairy started producing her illusions. I heard murmurs from the other acts sitting in the dark behind us that rose to startled exclamations of pleasure as wrens, robins, jays, finches, canaries, and juncos flew from her hands. She moved on to bigger species: owls, falcons, gulls and a huge, brown-winged pelican. The air was full of them. She spread her hands farther apart. I was agog as Flinna made a blue heron, a phoenix, three different eagles, six parrots, and an ostrich. We had discussed her grand finale. Mentally, I wished her good luck. Hyam gave a puzzled grunt as she moved over to one side of the stage and opened her arms as far as they would go. A gigantic beak appeared between them. She walked backward through the spotlight toward the other side of the stage, moving her fingers all the time as the enormous roc took shape. Red feathers the size of her body came into being. As soon as it was finished, the illusory bird sat up and let out a squawk that shook the theater. The other performers behind me burst into applause and cheers. Trembling with shyness, Flinna came downstage and clasped her hands together and waited.

I turned to Hyam, who was trembling, too. but with rage. His face had turned an ugly purple. He glared at Flinna.

"For that, the Geek sent you to me?" he bellowed. "That's all you do? Bird imitations?" He stood up and leveled a finger toward the exit. "Geddada here!"

"I don't believe it," I said, trying to cheer her up as we trudged out of the theater. "I think he was just jealous. I have never seen anything like that. And did you hear the others? They loved it."

"They don't matter," Flinna said, miserably. The little female's wings drooped low. "He hated it. I'll never find a place."

"Oh, yes, you will" I said, giving her a pat on the shoulder. "We just haven't made the right connection yet."

I took her back to my office. I left her petting Gleep and went to talk to Bunny.

"I admit that there probably isn't a lot of call for insubstantial bird images," Bunny said, but she flipped Bytina open and set the little PDA to work. "I'll check the Crystal Ether Network for want ads."

Thanks to advances in magik, most of them pioneered by the Kobolds, reading crystal balls was no longer reserved for people with their own talent, or even in magikal dimensions. Crystals and related philosophical devices like Bytina seemed to generate their own auras. As a result, a virtual industry had sprung up to provide readers with something to look at when they weren't predicting the future. Theatrically minded wizards put on plays. People of every race with way too much time on their hands made images of themselves or their pets. Naturally, Deveels and Perverts figured out a way of promoting commerce through the ether. Practical as ever, the Kobolds themselves began to solicit lists of needs and wants, gathered across the dimensions, which one could read as clearly as a scroll on one's own tabletop. It was through these want ads that we read now.

"Wouldst thou see the universe as more beautiful? Become a traveling peddler in Avalon goods and render those you encounter more fair."

"Troll seek pretty girl. Marry and have babies."

"Earn five hundred gold coins every week in your spare time! Send a nonrefundable twenty-coin deposit for information and a free kit to Evondell, the Bazaar, Deva."

"... Here we go," I said, pointing to an image in crabbed green handwriting in one corner of the image.

The ad read, "Ecologically minded game warden to oversee target range on royal estate. Must love animals. Preserve endangered species for the sake of the royal hunt."

I frowned. "Gee. it sounds like they don't know what they want."

"Don't you know this name?" Bunny asked. "Prince Bosheer of Whelmet."

I frowned, it sounded familiar. Yes, Massha had told me about him. She had borrowed Gleep to do a favor for a friend, who had ended up married to Prince Bosheer.5

"Yes. I do," I said. "Massha said he's a good guy."

"Should we answer this ad?"

"Oh. I don't know," Flinna said, timidly.

I gave her an encouraging smile.

"Why not? It's worth a try. He can always say no. Well cheek with Massha to see what she thinks."

Massha was enthusiastic about the idea of introducing Flinna to Prince Bosheer.

"He'll think it's a hoot," she promised, so we bamfed over to Whelmet.

The Crown Prince and Princess were a big hearty couple. I liked them immediately Gloriannamarjolie had thick blond braids bleached lighter by the sun surrounding a sun-browned face in which twinkled very intelligent blue eyes. Her husband, a Whelt, was big. handsome, and friendly, like most of his kind. The throne room, a huge beamed hall, was hung with as many hunting trophies as royal banners. Weapons of every description and some that defied description hung along the walls.

"Massha has told us so much about you," Gloriannamarjolie said, kindly gesturing to us to sit down. I boosted Flinna into a chair made of the foot of some huge bird and sat down in an armchair made of immense curving tusks.

"I am honored to meet the Great Skeeve," Bosheer boomed at me. "So where did you say you kept game before?"

"I have never been a gamekeeper," I said.

Bosheer frowned. "Massha sent us a note saying you were coming by. Couldn't understand why you wanted the job anyhow. I thought you liked wizarding."

"He retired," Glory murmured to him, closing her hand around his wrist. I noticed that she had two thumbs on each hand, one on either side of the palm.

"That's right. I'm launching a new career," I said proudly.

"Ah. So what about the job appeals to you?" Bosheer asked.

"I like to solve problems for people."'

'"How does being a game warden solve problems'?" Bosheer looked puzzled. I was beginning to realize that Gloriannamarjolie had married him more for his looks and personality than his brains.

"I answer questions," I said. ""Flinna here asked me to help her find a job. I think she'd be ideal for your purposes." I indicated the Pixie.

"Her?" Bosheer asked. His voice was making the little girl recoil. "What does she know about hunting?"

"Nothing ... sir," the Pixie admitted in an almost inaudible tone.

"Really?"

"Well, I like animals."

"I do, too! Especially birds. They make good sport!"'

"Bosheer ..." Glory said warningly. "Not everyone likes to hear about that. Such as me."

"And that is exactly why we're here" I said, moving into what Aahz used to call "closing the deal." "In your ad you said you wanted someone who could help conserve species. Flinna does really wonderful illusionary birds."

"Illusions? What do I want with illusions? I like shooting real birds."

The wince from his wife told me that Massha's assessment of her former charge and her new mate had been spot on. Having once been the quarry of the Wild Hunt, Gloriannamarjolie liked the idea of illusionary birds so the real thing wouldn't be targeted unnecessarily.

"It's hardly as if we need to eat songbirds, darling," Glory added pointedly. "A wild boarotamus feeds the entire castle for a week."

"But I like shooting at them," Bosheer said. His handsome lip drooped in a pout.

"And you can, all you want," I said. "The same one several times over, if you like, if Flinna comes to work for you. She can manifest any kind of bird you want. I bet she can make them die really dramatically. In all different ways "

"Oh, yes," the Pixie said, her eyes shining.

"Really?" Bosheer asked, brightening. "I say, that would be fun. Can I see?"

Flinna sat up on her chair and put her tiny hands together. From the shelter of her palms, a pointed beak poked out, followed about a foot later by beady black eyes. The head gave rise to a neck, then a body about the size of a melon with a long pointed wing on each side. Two very long legs escaped next, until a blue storkron was walking around the room

"Terrific! Where is my crossbow!"

A Whelf servant ran to the nearest wall and returned with a loaded weapon. The Prince took it from him

and sighted down the quarrel at the bird. It squawked and tried to fly away, but Bosheer tugged the trigger. The quarrel smacked into the storkron, which staggered back and forth melodramatically a few times across the room before it collapsed to the floor and vanished. Bosheer was overjoyed.

"Tally ho!" he caroled. "You're hired, young lady!"

"I miss having Massha around," Princess Glory said. "I got used to having magik around the palace. We would love to have you here. Flinna."

Prince Bosheer strode over and picked the Pixie off the ground. "Marvelous!" he exclaimed. "Infinite numbers of birds to shoot, and not endanger the breeding population? That will be just jolly. Could start a new trend! We could have really big shooting parties. We both love parties. We'll do it. Thank you, Master Skeeve."

"Just Skeeve," I said, modestly.

"Thanks," Glory whispered to me.

I collected my fee and left Flinna with her new employers. Everyone was happy. I'd found the best possible outcome.

Not a bad start, I thought, wandering out of the castle. Between Flinna and Marmel, I had been successful twice. Two for two. A few gold coins in the kitty. Whistling, I bamfed out of Whelmet and back into my own office.

To my surprise, there was someone in the office besides Bunny. The curtain to my private office had been pulled back, and someone was sitting in my desk chair. Someone with green scales and yellow eyes and four-inch pointed teeth.

"Aahz!" I cried.

He scowled at me.

"Where the hell have you been?" he asked.