Mything Persons

Chapter Twenty:

"There's no accounting for taste!"

—COLONEL SANDERS

"BUT Skeeve...."

BANG!

"...I told you before...."

BANG! BANG!

"... I could never abandon Matt...."

BANG!

"... he's my partner!"

BANG .'BANG!

"ButLu...."

BANG!

"... excuse me. HEY, PARTNER! COULD YOU

KNOCK OFF THE HAMMERING FOR A MINUTE?

I'M TRYING TO HAVE A CONVERSATION

HERE!"

"Not a chance," Aahz growled around his mouthful

of nails. "I'm shutting this door permanently before

anything else happens. But tell you what, I'll try to ham-

mer quietly."

169

170 Robert Asprin MYTH-ING PERSONS

171

If you deduce from all this that we were back at our

place on Deva, you're right. After some long, terse con-

versations with the citizens of Blut and fond farewells to

Vilhelm and Pepe, our whole crew, including our three

captives, had trooped back to the castle and through the

door without incident.

I had hoped to have a few moments alone with Lu-

a

able to manage was this conversation in the reception

room under the watchful eyes of Aahz and Matt.

Matt, incidentally, turned out to be a thoroughly

unpleasant individual with a twisted needle-nose, acne,

a receding hairline, and the begi

For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what Lua

saw in him.

"But that was when you thought he was in a jam," I

said, resuming the argument. "Aahz and I have already

promised to help defend him and Vic when they go

before the Merchants Association. There's no need to

stand by him yourself.''

"I don't understand you, Skeeve," Lua

shaking her head. "If I wouldn't leave Matt when he

was in trouble, why should I leave him when things look

like they're going to turn out okay? I know you don't

like him, but he's done all right by me so far ... and I

still owe him for getting me away from the farm."

"But we're making you a good offer," I tried again

desperately. "You can stay here and work for Aahz and

me, and if you're interested we could even teach you

some real magic so you don't have to...."

She stopped me by simply laying a hand on my arm.

"I know it's a good offer, Skeeve, and it's nice of you

to make it. But for the time being I'm content to stay

with Matt. Maybe sometime in the future, when I have

a little more to offer you in return, I'll take you up on it

... if the deal's still open."

"Well," I sighed, "if that's really what you

want...."

"Hey! Don't take it so hard, buddy," Matt laughed,

clapping his hand on my shoulder. "You win some, you

lose some. This time you lost. No hard feelings. Maybe

you'll have better luck with the next one. We're both

men of the world, and we know one broad's just like

any other."

"Matt, buddy" I said through clenched teeth, "get

that hand off my shoulder before it loses a body."

As I said, even on our short trip back from Limbo I

had been so underwhelmed by Matt that I no longer

even bothered trying to be polite or mask my dislike for

him. He could grate on my nerves faster than anyone I

had ever met. If he was a successful con artist, able to

inspire trust from total strangers, then I was the Queen

of May.

"Matt's just kidding," Lua

between us.

"Well I'm not," I snarled. "Just remember you're

welcome here any time you get fed up with this slug."

"Oh, I imagine we'll be together for quite some

time," Matt leered, patting Lua

"With you big shots vouching for us we should be able

to beat this swindling rap... and even if we lose, so

what? All it means is I'll have to give them back their

crummy twenty gold pieces."

Aahz's hammering stopped abruptly ... or maybe it

was my heart.

I tried vainly to convince myself that I hadn't heard

him right.

"Twenty gold pieces?" I said slowly.

"Yeah. They caught on to us a lot quicker here at the

Bazaar than I thought they would. It wasn't much of a

172 Robert Asprin

haul even by my standards. I can't get over the fact that

you big shots went through so much trouble to drag us

back here over a measly twenty gold pieces. There must

be more to this principle thing than I realized."

"Ummm... could I have a word with you, part-

ner?" Aahz said, putting down his hammer.

"I was about to ask the same thing," I admitted,

stepping to the far side of the room.

Once we were alone, we stared at each other, neither

wanting to be the first to speak.

"You never did get around to asking Hay-ner how

much was at stake, did you?" Aahz sighed absently.

"That's the money side of negotiations and I thought

you covered it," I murmured. "Fu

right there the whole time and heard every word that

was said, and neither of us caught that omission."

"Fu

"Not as much as you will if word of this gets out," I

warned. "I vote that we give them the money to pay it

off. I don't want to, but it's the only way I can think of

to keep this thing from becoming public knowledge."

"Done." Aahz nodded. "But let me handle it. If

Matt the Rat there gets wind of the fact that the whole

thing was a mistake on our part, he'd probably black-

mail us for our eyeteeth."

"Right, "I agreed.

With that, we, the two most sought-after, most

highly-paid magicians at the Bazaar, turned to deal with

our charges, reminded once more why humility lies at

the core of greatness.