Myth 13 - Myth Alliances, Asprin, Robert [microsoft ebook reader TXT] 📗

“Ye-​ees?” I croaked.

“Hello!” the man beamed. "Do you have a room for the

night?“ As he glanced over my humped shoulder at the ruin of the room his face changed. ”I mean ... er... do you know of a nearby hotel where we could spend the night?"

“Come in, come in,” I urged them, beckoning with a gnarled hand. The man backed away. Gleep chose that mo?ment to stick his head around the door. I changed his scaled visage from dragon to large and mangy dog. There was no need to alter his breath, which was bad enough to send maggots packing. The man and woman stepped back another pace.

“We'll just be going,” the woman said weakly. The two of them, apologizing hastily, sprang back onto their cart. The man whipped up their horse, who lurched into a trot. I waited until they were out of sight, and had a good laugh.

“Thanks, Gleep,” I praised my dragon, patting him on the head. His tongue lolled. I let the disguise drop, restoring his large, round eyes to their normal baby blue. The tongue snapped up and slimed me across the face. I gagged. He romped away a few paces, then thundered back to me, mak?ing the floor wobble under his weight. He looked hopeful.

“Skeeve ... play?”

“Not now. I'll play with you later,” I promised. “I've got to keep working. Why don't you find Buttercup?”

“Gleep!” He thundered off, his passage shaking dust down from the rafters.

I turned away from the door. Bunny emerged from the shadows. The beautiful woman with luxurious red hair had a figure that made it hard for men to remember to look up at her face ... which, by the way, was well worth the ef?fort. She resembled a wood nymph appearing suddenly from a copse of trees. I let the illusion fade away, to be re?placed by the ordinary walls and furniture.

“Thanks,” she sighed. “I just knew when I saw those tourists pulling up they weren't going to take no for an an?swer from me.”

“No problem,” I assured her. If we'd been back in the

Bazaar at Deva there was not a soul who'd give trouble to the niece of Don Bruce, the Fairy Godfather, or to a mem?ber of M.Y.T.H. Inc, for that matter, but Klahds, denizens of my own dimension, were notoriously unable to appreci?ate subtleties. It took a good scare to send them off.

I was a Klahd, too, but I knew I'd changed in the years I'd associated with my friends, especially Aahz. Looking back, I finally understood what the Pervect meant when he said, “You can't go home again.” In the past I'd been puz?zled by that, since all I had to do to go home was unlock the door of the tent in the Bazaar, and there I was. This was the home I couldn't come back to. I knew I didn't belong here any longer, but this was the appropriate place to do what I'd come here to do.

“Lunch in ten minutes,” Bunny said, heading back to?ward the kitchen. I snapped back to reality long enough to lift my head and sniff the air. Bunny's cooking was much better than mine. It was an unexpected bonus when I'd asked her to come back to Klah to be my secretary. I had had visions of endless meals of squirrel-​rat stew, some?thing I could prepare with my limited culinary skills. Now I still hunted for most of our meat and cut herbs from the wild tangle of weeds that surrounded the inn, but she pre?pared those simple ingredients with a gourmet's hand. She had numerous unheralded talents, and was always surpris?ing me with the things she knew or was studying. I had a sneaking feeling that she'd be a much better magician than I, though she seemed to have as little interest in the Arts Magikal as she did in going into her own Family's business.

I sighed, glancing back into my study. The candle still sat on the table unlit. Drawing the lines of force that ran through the earth deep under the inn into my body, I formed a hot spark in my mind and sent it to the wick. The

candle blazed brightly into life. Too easy, I thought sadly, as I turned toward the kitchen. The lesson no longer taught me anything. I'd have to look elsewhere for inspiration.

“Massha sent a new collar for Gleep,” Bunny bubbled, as she dipped a ladle into the simmering pot of soup. “It was a present from her friend, Princess Gloriannamarjolie. It's there on the table.” She pointed with the non-​dripping side of the spoon. I unwrapped the package. The collar, made of a thick hide I hoped was fireproof, had been dyed a soft baby blue that would match Gleep's eyes. It was studded with cabochon jewels, also light blue, each bigger than the last joint of my thumb. Automatically a part of my brain calculated the value of the gems. If fortune did not go my way, each of them could feed us all for a year. Dis?gusted at myself, I shook my head, to chase away the thought. I had plenty of money, countless times more than I deserved for the work for which I'd earned it.

Bunny must have noticed that I was in a dark mood. Never a prattler under other circumstances, she began to talk cheerfully about other subjects at random.

“My uncle