Mything Persons

Chapter Sixteen:

"Don't be fooled by appearances."

—MALLOY

THINGS were pretty much back to normal by the time

Vilhelm returned with our disguises... which was a

good thing as the process of masking-up proved to be a

test of everybody's sense of humor.

Until I had hooked up with Aahz, I had never had oc-

casion to pretend I was anyone but myself. As such, I

had no way of knowing how long it took to don a

physical disguise without resorting to magic. By the time

we were done, I had a new respect for the skills I had

learned, not to mention a real longing for a dimension

... any dimension with a strong force line to work with.

Tananda was a major help, her experiences with the

assassin's guild came into play and she took the lead in

trying to coach us into our new roles.

"Guido, straighten up!" she commanded, exaspera-

tion creeping into her voice. "You walk like a gang-

ster."

"I am a gangster!" my bodyguard snarled back.

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138 Robert Asprin MYTH-ING PERSONS 139

"Besides, what's wrong with the way I walk? It got us to

the jail, didn't it?"

"Half the town wasn't looking for you then," Ta-

nanda argued. "Besides, then you could pick your own

route. We don't know where the opposition's holed up.

We're going to have to walk through crowds on this

hunt, and that walk just doesn't make it. Ninety percent

of costuming is learning to move like the character

you're trying to portray. Right now you move like

you're looking for a fight."

"Try walking like Don Bruce," I suggested. "He's a

gangster, too."

That earned me a black look, but my bodyguard tried

to follow my instructions, rising up on the balls of his

feet and mincing along.

"Better," Tananda said, leaving Guido prancing up

and down the room with a scowl on his face.

"How are we doing?"

"Lousy," she confided in me. "This is taking a lot

longer, than it should. I wish there were more mirrors in

this place... heck, any mirrors would be nice."

It hadn't been until we started gearing up that we real-

ized the Dispatcher had no mirrors at all. He claimed

they weren't popular or necessary among vampires.

This left us with the unenviable job of checking each

others' make-up and costumes, a chore which would

have been Homeric even if less sensitive egos were in-

volved.

"How're my teeth?" Massha demanded, sticking her

head in front of me and opening her mouth.

It was like staring into the depths of an underground

cave.

"Umm ... the left side is okay, but you're still miss-

ing a few on the right. Hang on a second and I'll give

you a hand."

Teeth were turning out to be a special problem. We

had hoped to find some of the rubber fangs so prevalent

in the Bazaar novelty stores to aid in our disguises. Un-

fortunately, none of the shops in Blut had them. The

closest thing they had in stock, according to Vilhelm,

were rubber sets of human teeth designed to fit over

fangs. The vampire assured us that locally they were

considered quite frightening. Faced by this unforeseen

shortage, we were resorting to using tooth-black to

blacken all our teeth except the canines for a close ap-

proximation of the vampires we were trying to imitate.

When we tried it out, it wasn't a bad effect, but the ac-

tual application was causing countless problems. When

one tried to apply the stuff on oneself without a mirror,

it was difficult to get the right teeth, and if one called on

one's friends for assistance, one rapidly found that said

friend was soon possessed by an overpowering impulse

to paint one's tongue black instead of the teeth.

"I don't like this cloak," Guido a

my arm. "I want to wear my trench coat."

"Vampires don't wear trench coats," I said firmly.

"Besides, the cloak really looks great on you. Makes

you look ... I don't know, debonair but menacing."

"Yeah?" he retorted skeptically, craning his neck to

try to see himself.

"You think you've got problems?" Massha burst in.

"Look at what I'm supposed to wear! I'll trade your

cloak for this rig any day."

As you might have noticed, the team was having more

than a little difficulty adapting to their disguises.

Massha in particular was rebelling against her costume.

After having been floated over our escape like a bal-

loon over a parade, we feared that she would be one of

the most immediately recognizable of our group. As

such, we not only dyed her garish orange hair, we in-

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Robert Asprin

sisted that her new costume cover as much of her as pos-

sible. To this end, Vilhelm had found a dress he called a

"moo-moo," a name which did nothing toward endear-

ing the garment to my apprentice.

"I mean, really. High Roller," she said, backing me

toward a corner. "Isn't it bad enough that half the

town's seen me as a blimp? Tell me I don't have to be a

cow now."

"Honest, Massha," Vilhelm put in. "The style is

fairly popular here in Blut. A lot of the ladies wear it

who are ... that is, are a bit...."

"Fat!?"

She loomed over the little vampire.

"Is that the word you're groping for, Short and

About To Become Extinct?"

"Let's face it, dear," Tananda said, coming to the

rescue. "You are carrying a little extra weight there.

Believe me, if there's one time you can't kid yourself

about your body, it's when you're do

anything, that outfit makes you look a little slimmer."

"Don't try to kid a kidder, sweetie," Massha sighed.

"But you're right about the costuming thing. This thing

is so drab, though. First I'm a blimp, and now I'm an

army tent."

"Now that I'll agree with," Tananda nodded. "Trust

a man to find a drab mu-mu. Tell you what. There's a

scarf I was going to use for a belt, but maybe you could

wear it around your neck."

I was afraid that last crack would touch off another

explosion, but Massha took it as a helpful suggestion

and the two of them went off in search of other possible

adornments.

"Got a minute, partner?"

From the tone of Aahz's voice, I knew the moment I

had been dreading had arrived.

MYTH-ING PERSONS 141

Chumley didn't have to worry about a disguise at all,

as trolls were not uncommon in this dimension. Ta-

nanda also insisted that she looked enough like a vam-

pire to pass with only minimal modifications. I hadn't

seen any vampires withgreen hair, but she claimed that

she had, so, as always, I yielded to her greater ex-

perience in these matters. I was also on the "minimal

disguise" list, everyone agreeing that no one in Blut had

gotten enough of a look at me to fix the image in their

mind. While I wasn't wild about being so unmemorable,

I went along with it ... especially when I saw what

Guido and Massha were going through. The problems

with those two notables have already been mentioned:

troublesome, but not insurmountable. Then there was

Aahz....

"Is there something wrong?" I asked i

"You bet your dragon there's something wrong!" my

partner snarled. "And don't try to play i

me! It didn't work when you were my apprentice, and it

sure isn't going to work now."

Aahz's disguise had presented us with some knotty

problems. Not only was he the most wanted member of

our party, he was also easily the most distinctive. After

the trial and his time in jail, it was doubtful that there

was a single citizen of Blut who wouldn't recognize him

on sight. I mean, there just aren't that many scaly green

demons wandering around any dimension... except

possibly his home dimension of Perv. It was therefore

decided... almost unanimously... that not only

would we change my partner's color with make-up, but

that it would also be necessary to change his sex.

"Does this, perchance, have something to do with

your disguise?" I inquired, trying to keep a straight

face.

"Yes, it has something to do with my disguise," he

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Robert Asprin

mimicked, "and, so help me, partner or no, if you let

that smile get away, I'll punch your lights out. Under-

stand?"

With a great effort I sucked my cheeks in and bit my

lower lip.

"Seriously, though," he said, almost pleading, "a

joke's a joke, but you don't really expect me to go out in

public looking like this, do you?"

In addition to the aforementioned make-up, Aahz's

disguise required a dress and a wig. Because of the size

of his head (a problem Vilhelm had wisely down-played

as much as possible) the selection of wigs available had

been understandably small. In fact, the only available in

his size was a number called "Lady Go-GoDiva," which

involved a high blonde beehive style offset by a long

ponytail that hung down to his knees. Actually, the

ponytail turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as the

dark blue dress Vilhelm had selected for my partner

turned out to have an exceptionally low neckline, and

the hair draped over his shoulder helped hide the prob-

lem we had had finding ample or suitable material to

stuff his bosom with.

"As my wise old mentor once told me when I was

faced with a similar dilemma," I said sagely, "what

does it matter what people think of you? They aren't

supposed to know it's you, anyway. That's the whole

idea of a disguise."

"But this get-up is humiliating!"