Myth-Told Tales

"Hey, youse," he said, bringing a shard-toothed mouth close. "Take girl and go home! Not go, you be sorry!"

I knew from long association with Chumley, a friendly Troll who worked under the nom de guerre Big Crunch, that most Trolls were more intelligent than they sounded. I kneed him in the nose and braced myself as he dropped me.

"Do you know who I am?" I hissed, glaring up at him. "I'm the Great Skeeve. Perhaps you've heard of me? Bu

It worked. The Troll, while not completely stupid, was no dragon-poker player. He'd heard about me, though obviously not the latest news.

"So sorry," he said, backing away. "I... don't hurt me, huh?"

Behind him was a Trollop, the female of the species, in a moss gray-velvet bathing suit, who gave me a glare. I kept my guard up, not wanting her to get close enough to read me. Tananda, Chumley's sister, was a powerful magician in her own right. This Trollop could probably wipe up the floor with me. I counted on my reputation, plus the fact that she was going to have to go onstage in a moment. We locked eyes, but I won. She dipped her gaze, and turned away, pretending she didn't see me. "Awww!"

The cry from the audience told me I'd missed something. Bu

"I'm so sorry," I apologized, escorting her hastily past her gri

Bu

"I should have warned you," she said. "No one's fighting fair. If they're not using spells to puff themselves up, they're using them to knock others down."

I frowned. "What do the rules say?"

"Strictly forbidden," she told me. "No magik of any kind to enhance your talent or beauty, or to attack others.

But they're not stopping it In fact, I think the judges are enjoying it"

"What about protective spells'?" I asked.

"Not mentioned," Bu

"Well, if they're not enforcing the rule, then we're free to use magick, too," I said. "Ill do everything I can, and leave you free to concentrate on wi

"Touuuuu-cccchhhh meeeee, it's so eeeasy to leeeee-eeve meeeee ..."

An Imper female in a tight evening dress belted out the climactic melody of her song, sounding like a dragon in heat. The sound went right through my head and out the other side. I gritted my teeth but applauded politely, because her entourage was watching the audience carefully, and I didn't want to draw negative attention to Bu

"Cats," Bu

"Not a chance," I whispered back. They never sound as horrible as that."

Day Two was the talent contest. So far we'd seen contestants juggle—fire, plates, clubs, balls, and themselves— dance, in every style from slow country dancing to spastic jerking that I thought signaled mass magikal attack on the woman onstage; art; acting; declamation; twirling a shiny metal stick; bird song imitations; bird flight imitations; standup comedy; dragon-taming; knife-throwing; and a thinly disguised striptease act in which the Pervect female started a seductive dance fully clothed while a salamander crawled along the hem of her dress, burning it away in a spiraling strip. The Gnomish female did conjuring, an act that caused smug grins among the contestants until the judges determined that she wasn't using any power at all. Each of her tricks was pure prestidigitation, sleight of hand. I was really impressed. If anyone was serious competition for Bu

The judges were as stone-faced a group as I'd ever met on the other side of a card table, or, I ought to say, metal-faced. Trofians resembled Klahds but with shiny skin in metallic hues. A copper man, a bronze woman, a silver man, and a platinum woman flanked a slender gold-ski

This competition wasn't free of sorcerous interference, either. Just as the Imper woman reached her high note, she developed a cough, and the orchestra had to finish the maudlin tune without her. She looked furious as she stalked off the stage. The gold judge shook her head and made a mark on her sheet. The silver man and platinum woman exchanged glances and entered their own scores. The next act went on.

Bu

Bad will escalated from there. The next Imper woman attempted to draw caricatures of the judges. First her paintbrushes caught fire, then the lines she produced with a charcoal pencil rearranged themselves into such scurrilously rude drawings that the judges' faces glowed with embarrassment. So did the contestant's. She burst into tears and fled off stage. She was succeeded by a multi-limbed creature with a small dummy that she set on one of her many knees and tried to throw her voice. By the look on her face, the things it said were not in the script. A tiny Salamander girl writing poetry in flames on the air was extinguished by the sudden descent from the catwalk of the fire bucket and its contents. It hissed its way off stage while the judges scribbled their notes down.

Bu

"It was the closest to boys we had at Madam Beezel's Academy for Girls," she said apologetically. "My parents were very strict." I thought it was a terrific act, and I told her so. She squeezed my arm for good luck before the host called her name.