Mything Persons

Corp's a' Corp's into a Unicorn Flush showing,

you know? Well, I was a little low on funds just then,

Guido was getting restless again.

"Boss, how much longer are we go

MYTH-ING PERSONS 111

"Not much longer," I interrupted. "Get hold of the

rope. We're about to move."

"... now I was holding Ogres back-to-back ... or

was it Elves? No, it was Ogres. I remember because

Tananda had Elves wrapped up. Of course, we didn't

know that until the end of the hand. Anyway, as soon as

the Geek opened, I bumped him back limit, and Tan-

anda ..."

That did it. I should have known a hand-by-hand,

bet-by-bet description of dragon poker would do the

trick.

Without any warning at all, the dragon yawned...

long and wide.

Aahz broke off his narration, a momentous event in

itself, and blinked his surprise.

"Quick, Aahz! Jump for it!"

Bewildered as he was, there was nothing wrong with

my partner's reflexes. He was out of the dragon's

mouth in a flash, diving through the air to catch the

rope below Guido.

As soon as his hands closed on our lifeline, several

things happened at the same time.

With the extra weight on Massha's levitation belt, our

whole formation started to sink at an alarming rate...

my apprentice lost her grip on me, giving me minor rope

burns as I clutched madly for the rope, almost too late

to follow the advice I had been so freely giving to every-

one else ... and the dragon closed his mouth.

I caught one last glimpse of the beast before we sank

from sight, and I honestly don't think he even knew we

were gone. His eyelids were at half-mast, and the eyes

themselves were out of focus from boredom. Aahz's

stories tended to have that effect on even vaguely-intelli-

gent beings. I had simply found a practical application

for the phenomenon.

Robert Asprin

112

"I've gotta change the controls, Hot Stuff!" Massha

called, alerting me once more to our current situation.

The ground was rushing up to meet us with frighten-

ing speed.

I remembered the faulty controls that held all of us at

their mercy.

"No! Wait, Massha! Let me try...."

Exerting my last ounce of reserve power, I worked at

levitating our whole crew. Under normal circumstances,

I could lift three people easily and four or five in a

pinch. Here in Limbo, using everything I had with

Massha's belt assisting me, I barely managed to slow

our descent to a moderate crawl.

"What happened there, partner?" Aahz called.

"How did you know that thing was going to yawn?"

"Call it a lucky guess," I grunted, still concentrating

on keeping us from crashing. "I'll explain later."

"Check the landing zone," Guido warned.

I sneaked a peak.

We had been at our task longer than I thought. The

sidewalk below was crowded with vampires strolling

here and there as Blut's legendary nightlife fired up.

"I don't think we can bluff our way through this

one," Aahz said calmly. "Any chance you can steer us

around the corner into the alley? There doesn't seem to

be as much of a crowd there."

Before I could answer, something flashed past us

from above with a flutter of leather wings.

"JAILBREAK!" it screamed, banking around the

corner. "Murderer on the loose! JAILBREAK!"