Myth-Chief

TWENTY-ONE

Hermalaya was as gracious as ever as we showed the final set of guests out of the reception room.

"Thank you for working us in at the last minute," said the chief operating officer tot Pangallobank, Interdimensional He shook my hand energetically with five or six of his own spindly little limbs. "I heard about you all from my financial wizard. She watches the Crystal Ether Network on her scrying ball. The write-up was so enthusiastic I had a hard time believing it, but I checked in with a few of my friends. Word on the street, you know, isn't always trustworthy Know your sources, that's what I say. Ruty!"

"Yessir!" A yes-centipede with a go-getting attitude appeared at his boss's side. He handed me a silk envelope that jingled satisfyingly. "Wove it myself, sir! Enjoy it, sir!"

"Thanks a bunch," I said, tucking it into my belt pouch. "And if you give any other thought to what I mentioned earlier...?"'

"I will," said the COO. "We hold paper on a number of small banks across the dimensions—nothing as big as the Gnomes of Zoorik—yet. I'll let you know. Meantime, you tell me if I can help out this lovely lady in any way."

One of Massha's gadgets moped around the floor, picking up glitter and stray crumbs. I drew out the small package and counted up the coins.

"How are we doing, Boss?" Nunzio asked.

"Pretty well," I said. "Another two hundred coins."

"Jolly good, what?" Chumley asked. "Where to next, Massha?"

"Well..." My former apprentice looked embarrassed. "I didn't want to mention this while everyone was getting ready for these visitors, but there aren't any more."

"Why?" I asked. "But we were booming just a couple of days ago! We got all sorts of good interviews in half a dozen dimensions. Hermalaya's diary is about to go into reprint."

"I know," Massha said, unhappily. She thumbed the jewel on her bracelet. A list sprang into view against the wall. I peered at it. All the names on it were crossed off. "I got a bunch of cancellations just this morning. I'm sorry, Skeeve. I have no idea what has gone wrong. Everyone loves her, but it looks like no one wants to do the Cake ceremony anymore."

"Why? I thought that the 'princess in exile' angle was the best draw around."

"It is! The flow's been everything we could have hoped for, up until right about now."

I drummed my fingertips on the chair arm. Good publicity plus good word of mouth couldn't equal no interest. "That means something's actively interfering," I said.

"That would be my assessment, as well," Chumley said. He had suspended his persona of Big Crunch around Hermalaya. It was too difficult to discuss strategy in monosyllables.

"Me, too," said Massha.

"Why, who would want to stop people having Cake?" Hermalaya asked, distressed. "It's so beneficial! Unless it was that rapscallion Matfany!"

"That's it! You think Aahz has anything to do with this?" I asked. "I know he wants to win."

Chumley fixed his odd-sized eyes on me. "I say, Skeeve. could you even think such a thing of him?"

I felt ashamed of myself. "I guess I'm just so fixed on this contest that I'm convincing myself of anything. Sorry."

Chumley guffawed, an unusually crude noise for a refined person like him. "I say, no, that's not it at all. He's convinced he can win this without scuttling you, old chap. Doesn't need to. Good heavens, what? You know Aahz perfectly well. If he thought he had to spike your guns, he wouldn't hesitate for a moment, would he? Has he ever had mercy on a rival?"

I glared. "So he doesn't think I'm much of a rival, huh?"

"Well, pride and all, what? Come, come, Skeeve, When has he ever overestimated you, eh?"

I forced myself to calm down. That was true. He always thought I would goof up, no matter how many times I managed to succeed. Why would this time be any different? "So, if the problem's not Aahz, then there's someone else. Who?"

Massha handed the stack of cancellations to me. "Ask the people who turned us down."

Killinem stood only second to Vaygus as the dimension to visit when you wanted a good time. I passed by the comedy clubs, the circus tents, and hundreds of street buskers. A stilt walker blew a long stream of fire just where I was going to walk. I diverted it with a flick of magik and sent it back to him, to the roar of the crowd gathered to watch. I wasn't in much of a mood for pranks.

"The Overseer of Mirth does not have you on his agenda," a red-nosed clown informed me when I identified myself and my party at the desk.

"He did," I said. Reading upside down was something I had gotten good at during the time I had worked with M.Y.T.H., Inc. "Right there. Princess Hermalaya and coterie."

The clown looked down his round, rubicund nose at me. Unlike in Klah, his wasn't stuck on; it was real. "You've been canceled, friend. Forget it."

I leaned confidentially over the desk. "Look, our appointment was for this afternoon. I see that he hasn't got anything else at the moment. This is Princess Hermalaya herself." I nodded over my shoulder. Hermalaya wiggled two fingers at him. The clown grinned uneasily at her. "Let me just ask him a couple of questions? For the fun of it."

No humorist in Killinem was going to let a challenge like that go by.

"All right, friend. I'll see what I can do." He mounted a foot-high bicycle and rode toward the brightly colored doors at the rear of the room. A trunklike nozzle reached out of the ceiling and whoosh! He was sucked up off the floor like a house in a windstorm. I stared at it in delight.

Just as I was wondering how I could incorporate that trick into my own office, the nozzle reappeared and spat the clown and his bicycle back into the room.

"The Overseer will give you a minute of his most valuable time," the clown informed us.

"I don't know why you bothered to come," the Overseer said. His red nose was more patrician in shape than his secretary's, and his floppy suit and shoes were all made of white silk. "We have our own cheap acts here in Killinem. I don't need to import any."

"Cheap!" I sputtered. "You cried when I let you hear the princess's own words."

"The tears of a clown are sacred to us," the Overseer said. "Yes, I was moved by her plight. I was even willing to give you an audition to see if your act was something I wanted to give wider attention across this dimension. But then I see it's just a derivative. Commonplace. You trifled with my emotions. That's a crime here in Killinem. You will be fortunate if we don't have you publicly beaten with a slapstick!"

"Cheap?" Hermalaya demanded, her eyes round. "Derivative?" I echoed.

"No one is delivering any beatings to Mister Skeeve or anyone else," Nunzio said, putting his hand into his breast pocket.

"Hold on," Massha said, intruding her large presence into the midst of all of us like an orange thundercloud blocking out the sun. "Don't all of you get your panties in a braid. Just what changed your mind?" she asked, fluttering her wealth of false eyelashes at the Overseer.

"Not long after you visited me, I heard thousands of citizens here were offered invitations to a Cake ceremony. I received one myself. I thought it was rather ... tacky."

I raised my eyebrows. "Who else could be offering the same experience so soon?"

The Overseer matched me lift for lift. "I see you don't believe me." He turned to a page in harlequin tunic and belled cap.

"Pidrol, go get those flyers."

A page in a harlequin tunic and belled cap went running out of the room. He returned in a moment with a couple of scrolls in his hand. One I recognized as ours, on cream-laid parchment with embossed calligraphy, a copy of the cover of The Princess's Diary with a really good image of Hermalaya in the corner holding her Cake server. The other had been run off by some handbill press or a shutterbug printer. Superficially, they resembled the letters we sent out requesting interviews, but they were more on the order of handbills.

"Cheap," Massha said. "Looks like ads for a bordello."

The Overseer nodded. "I agree. That is why I rejected both."

I pressed him. "But you can see that Princess Hermalaya offers the real thing. So why not come and enjoy her ceremony?"

"Well," he said, as if reluctant to embarrass me. "It didn't seem so ... exclusive any longer. Not when it was being held in the Bazaar. And these" he added, looking less like anyone associated with mirth I have ever met. He produced a small carton from the box of documents presented to him by his page. "These dolls. Vulgar. I can't believe that anyone of quality could possibly grant their countenance to such things."

"Cake Queen Action Figure," I read off the side of the carton. The cardboard was cut away to show the foot-high doll inside. It resembled a miniature Swamp Vixen with white fur and black markings. She had a miniature Cake server in her hand. When you pushed a button on the back, it slashed its tiny arm back and forth in a pretty good imitation of Hermalaya's impressive Cake-cutting action.

"You have to admit it looks like her," Nunzio said.

"They're selling images of me?" Hermalaya asked. She snatched the box out of my hands and gazed at it with growing horror. "Mister Skeeve, this is outrageous of you! Is absolutely nothing sacred where you are concerned?"

"I didn't authorize this," I said. I flipped it over, looking for a company name or an address. "Asfodeel's Novelties, Paperhanger's Lane. This also came from the Bazaar!"

Massha shrugged. "No surprise. Anything that rips off a good idea is almost guaranteed to be run by Deveels."

I had a sudden inspiration, and I didn't like it. "Or someone tipped off by Deveels," I said. "We'd better go see what's going on. Thanks for your time, Overseer."

"My pleasure," the white-clad clown said, waving us toward the vacuum ejector. "Come see me when you have something really original to show me."