Myth-Told Tales

Tananda looked up at her without fear. "Blackmailers, that's who. Scaly ones, at that"

"Why, you pipsqueak!" Charilor heaved her up over her head and flung her at the mirror, cracking it across. Two silver coins' replacement value! Tananda dropped to the floor.

"Oh, I say!" was surprised out of me. Charilor turned her attention on me, grabbing the fur of my upper arm in a perfectly manicured claw. With the amazing strength that was one of the Pervish people's advantages, she heaved me over the table, and began to pummel my back and head. I twisted, wrenching my arm loose. She merely swung a leg up and planted it on my back, continuing to pound. Her blows hurt!

"Chumley!" Guido stood up to come to my aid. Vergetta, feeble as she seemed, was still a Pervect. As he rose, she swept her cane out and around in front of him, snagging an ankle. He tripped. She hauled him up into her lap like a toddler and held him helpless around the shoulders and body, while shouting encouragement at Charilor.

"*&A% you!" Guido snarled. "Lemme go!"

"Such language!" Vergetta snapped, shocked. She opened up her befanged mouth and roared. "Nobody uses that kind of language around me!" Guido's hair blew over his ear from the blast.

In the meanwhile, at the cost of a hank of my fur I worked free and sprang up out of reach. Charilor charged after me. Tananda leaped to her feet and launched herself at the back of the Pervect.

"You leave my big brother alone!" she yelled. She landed on Charilor's back as the Pervect reached for my throat. I knocked her arms apart and made to put my hands around her neck and face, closing off her airways. Against the combined might of an Assassin-trained Trollop and a Troll trained in the martial arts, the contest should have been over at that moment.

It was not. Charilor used the last minim of space remaining between her mighty jaws to draw in a pinch of the palm covering her mouth, and chomped down.

"Ow!" I bellowed. I am ashamed to say that I lost my grip. Blood dripped from my hand. My wits regained, I threw my shoulder at her body. Tananda applied her arms in a nerve-blocking hold that ought to have disabled Charilor.

It only seemed to make her angiy. She went into a whirlwind frenzy, striking out with arms and legs. For a time I could see nothing but a green blur, then the maelstrom drew us in. The room revolved around and around us. I recall punching, kicking, even biting, but when the scene resolved itself, Tananda was draped over a chair, panting, and Charilor was literally wiping up the mess on the floor using yours very truly as a mop. Guido, sporting an eye in several colors that would have done credit to his palette, was lying face down yelping across Vergetta's lap. She spanked the mob enforcer's backside again and again, punctuating each blow with a syllable.

"You must never use that kind of language in front of a lady!"

If I had not been resolved already to discredit and drive these females from my purview, I was now. How dared she humiliate my friend! Charilor let go of my chest fur and let me stagger uneasily to my feet. I went to my little sister's aid, raising her from the chair across which she was draped.

"I'm okay," she croaked, though her face was as colorful as Guido's. I imagine that if one were to part my fur I would be as battered as she. She clung to me for a while, then tottered away. "Look at this place!"

I surveyed the ruin of our erstwhile establishment, then looked back at her. "Place mess," I said.

Vergetta looked up from the punishment she was dealing Guido. "Why, you're right Charilor, this will never do!" She sprang up, spryly for her appearance. "We must clean up this tent at once."

"You bet," the younger Pervect said. As readily as they had set about destroying it, they began to tidy it With a wave of her hand the elder Pervect reunited the shards of our shattered mirror, heaving it back into place on the hook on the wall. Charilor picked up all the scattered bottles and jars, and sorted them into various shelves and boxes.

"No, they don't go there," Tananda said, ru

Charilor paid no attention, though Tananda pounded on her back with all her strength. I went to take her by the shoulders. They were shaking with fury. Her eyes blazed up at me.

"No wonder Vineezer didn't want them in his shop anymore!"

"Take it easy, Little Sister," I whispered. "Calm. Keep control. We're nearly there."

Stifling her anger, she watched as the two females transformed the ruin they had created into a perfectly neat and incomprehensible whole.

"There!" Vergetta said, dusting her hands together. "All better. Now, there's just the little matter of the last quarter gold coin that you owe us for this week."

This was it. I held myself tense as Tananda went humbly forward, her hands working together.

"I told you, we just don't have it. You've got all the money we took in. We're even talking about food money."

"Now, now, chicken, it's not so bad," Vergetta said, picking up Tananda's chin with a cocked finger. "You'll eat tomorrow. What about bookings?"

Tananda showed her the appointment ledger. "We didn't make any more for today. We didn't know when you were coming, and frankly, you scare the other customers."

"So?" Vergetta asked, raising a scaly eyebrow. "How do you plan to pay off the rest of your debt?"

"Service?" Tananda asked, hopefully. Only I saw the glint in her eye. "If youll let us give you the works ... I mean, our best beauty treatment, everything, exfoliation, styling, manicure, makeup. I promise youll get your money's worth. It'll be more than a quarter gold coin's value."

The two Pervects conferred for a moment "It's not so standard, but why not?" the elder said. "Just this once, maybe."

"Yeah," Charilor agreed. "You do a pretty good job on the others. Okay." She swung into the nearest, most recently repaired chair and settled back. The works. Careful, though. I'm ticklish."

I moved in on her, ringers outstretched, to begin the scalp massage. I hoped neither of them could see the tremble in my hands.

It took longer than we expected, since none of us could find a thing in the rearranged shelves. Tananda kept up a pleasant line of meaningless chatter as she filed the tips off the Perverts' claws and varnished each one a shimmering hue.

"The gold goes with your eyes," she assured them. "All my Pervert customers like yellow, but this is a special shade I save for the best clients."

Like every being who had sat, crouched, or hovered in those chairs during the last few weeks, Vergetta and Charilor preened and bridled when they beheld their gradual transformation in the glass.

"And now," Tananda said, winding cotton batting in between their fingers so the top coat of the polish wouldn't smear, "our cosmetician, Mr. Guido, will put the crowning touches on your beauty treatment."

We both held our breath. Guido didn't look at all tense. He knew the job he had to do.

"Okay, ladies," he said, loading a brush with pigment "Tell me if it tickles."

In all his days as a reluctant beauty consultant he never had a finer hour. His strokes were ones of genius, drawing subtle tones of red, ochre, and more gold up to the tips of the Perverts' large, pointed ears, down to the sides of their cheeks and over their brows. Curlicues of jewel hues decorated their eyelids and around their cheekbones. An orange-red that did not shock against the green of their scales was applied to their lips. As they admired their reflections, Guido took up his fluorescent palette and added very subtle enhancements here and there, decorating the backs of their heads in a Baroque and complicated design. When at last he put down his brushes, Vergetta rose and picked him up in an enveloping hug.