Myth-Chief

TWO

A week later, Bunny opened the box the Deveel messenger had dropped on her desk and squealed with delight

"Skeeve, the new business cards are here!"

I nodded without looking up from the fifth revision of the proposed lease for the new building that the two of us now occupied. The tent had even less charm than M.Y.T.H., Inc.'s had had when we first moved in and less than a quarter of the space. The Merchants Association of the Bazaar at Deva had some idea that since it was me, they were entitled to boost the rent for the tent skyward. I was mentally composing the reply I was going to send them, starting with the information that it was still my signature on the first lease and ending with a reminder that they had not disclosed all the hidden flaws in the first tent I had rented from them, most particularly the back door that opened out into the dimension of Limbo, a fact that would have put us off renting the place if we had known. The argument was pure formality among Deveels, who, of all the dimensional inhabitants I have known, are the most fond of negotiating matters to their own benefit, preferably at the top of their lungs. While we were still in Klah, I had thought about changing headquarters to a less potentially haunted location, but after so many years, the old tent was where clients expected to find me. No sense in making people in trouble try to hunt down another address in the Bazaar. I'd had no idea that it would be necessary for the friends I had left behind that I do

so, and promptly.

The Merchants Association had been happy to take us on a midnight magic-carpet tour of available properties. I had rejected outright an otherwise desirable six-room storefront with a courtyard garden inside for Gleep and Buttercup to play in, mainly because it stood directly beside one of the Bazaar's busiest brothels. Not that I had anything against people in professional horizontal work, but the clients waiting to be interviewed by the majordomo had begun to size up Bunny as new talent. I didn't want any misunderstandings, so I had turned the place down on the spot and dragged Bunny away before she could ask why. Only a moment later she came to the same conclusion I had and gave our tour guides a fierce glare. They had the grace to look sheepish, not an easy task for Deveels, who were born with a greater capacity for gall than maybe anyone but Pervects.

The next two showplaces were frankly insults. The property next to the arena selling dragons had fallen vacant, to no one's surprise. It always emptied out at the end of every lease, no matter how desperate the tenant. I couldn't even consider it. The noise and the smell alone would have put off clients, let alone the danger of running into some of the merchandise if it ever got loose. And it would have. Deveels had a tendency to cause havoc among people they see as having money they wish to acquire, and set up "accidents," which they then blame loudly on the moneyed individual, the only remedy for which was a hefty load of cash. It had happened to me enough times to make me wary. I looked over the burn marks on the wall of the stand that faced the dragon lot. "No," I had said flatly.

One of the Deveels showing us the property sulked openly. I assumed he had a financial interest in the dragon booth and had had visions of gold coins dancing in his brain.

The second one, only a block away, had nothing to redeem it either. The modest tent faced away and was invisible from a busy corner not a dozen paces distant.

"Too subtle," Bunny had said. "The Great Skeeve needs a place with more pizzazz. More eyeballs." She had whipped Bytina, her Perfectly Darling Assistant, her handbag, and ordered up a map of the Bazaar. She indicated a few points on the map to the representatives.

"What have you got in these areas?" she asked.

With a sigh, our guides directed the Djinn driving the carpet in an easterly direction, toward the faint fingers of light heralding false dawn.

Location, location, location, as Catchmeier, the real-estate Deveel, kept reciting to us, as if repetition made it truer than anything else he said. Just before the sun came up, we landed in front of a tent I wouldn't have looked twice at if I'd been on my own. To my surprise, it lay across a busy passageway from the Golden Crescent Inn, one of my favorite eateries, a reliable spot for private conferences, and workplace of some of my closest friends in the Bazaar who didn't work for me. The rental property lay just exactly at the angle one's glance would fall on as one came around the corner of yet another throughway, one that even at this early hour was full of carts and foot traffic. It had looked promising, even to my increasingly bleary eyes.

"It's got all the comforts of home," Catchmeier said, holding aside the flap of the tent. I peered inside. The decor in the transdimensional building concealed by the magikal portal hadn't been updated in years, maybe not since the spell was laid, but I couldn't see anything basically wrong with it. I got a glance of tired walls painted in faded designer beige, worn wooden floors, and battered lintels between rooms. '"Skylights in the two main rooms. Outhouse out the back. Regular trash pickup. Safe neighborhood—hardly any murders in the last ten years. Well, the last two anyhow. Last two months," he admitted at last. "What do you think?"

Bunny and I looked at one another. "We'll take it," she'd said. The Deveels and the Djinn driver looked relieved.

"Just come with me," Catchmeier had said. "We'll have the paperwork drawn up for you in no time. No trouble."

No trouble. Hah. I turned over the second-to-last page, to make sure all the changes we had agreed on were present—this time. A scurry of thin black lines caught my eye. I turned back the page in haste. A clause in very fine print was trying to avoid my eye. I slapped my hand down on it and read through my fingers, shifting them so I could finish without it getting away. Catchmeier had inserted a transitive clause, one that would make me liable for damages for any accidents within a live-hundred-yard radius of the building. Not a chance. I growled a little as I reached for my quill pen to scratch it out.

"Skeeve!"

"Huh?" I asked, brought suddenly back to the present, as the curvaceous redhead waved a sheaf of small, colorful pasteboards in my face.

"Lookie, lookie!" Bunny squealed.

Skeeve, it said in gold across the middle of the shiny, wine-colored card, without title or other qualification. The Right Answer. By Appointment Only. And at the bottom, in small but unmistakable print: Fee schedule available upon request. That last had been Bunny's idea. As she had always had a much better grasp of business than I had, I acceded. The result was a pretty professional-looking card.

"I like it," I said. Bunny's shoulders relaxed. "Why are you so surprised? I trust you."

"I know, Skeeve," she said, giving me a brilliant smile. "But it still surprises me when someone takes my word for something without hesitating. What do you think? I'm so excited!"

I had to admit I was, too. A new beginning, I hoped. One in which I would give myself the chance I had not before.

If we had decided upon the tent in haste, we more than made up for it in the time we took to work out what my new business was going to be. Every time I thought about the look on my friends' faces when I had said that I was back ... I had gone away for my own good—for everyone's good, or so I convinced myself. My return had been a spectacular failure, through my own thoughtlessness. No, my lack of insight. I would not make that kind of misstep again.

"Do you know what, Bunny?" I asked, looking up from the cards. "I've changed my mind. I don't think I want to do this. Let's just go back to the inn. I think I left something on the stove."

Bunny looked down at me. "After all that discussion— after all our planning ..." She paused and looked at me. "You're kidding, aren't you? Thanks for giving me a heart attack. You can't possibly be thinking of backing out now. It's the best possible outlet for you. You know that, don't you?"

I did. The two of us had spent long nights talking it over. I was bored and lonely, and I knew she was, too. We needed to get back into the heart of things. I was never going to be a great wizard, but that was never really how I'd made my name. I was a problem-solver. If I confined myself to finding solutions to knotty questions for my clients, it wouldn't cut into my friends' business. I gave Bunny a sheepish grin.

"Well. I have to say that I admit to being a little nervous. What if I make a mistake out of this, too?"

Bunny put an arm over my shoulders and squeezed. "You're not making a mistake. You're going to be

using your talents for the betterment of everyone, and that's what you are good at. How could that be a mistake?"

"Maybe all of you overestimate my talents," I grumbled.

"We do not. We know what you are capable of and what you're not capable of," she added.

Taking one of the cards, I looked at the lines again. "I hope I'm not setting myself up for a fall," I said. "Offering to find exactly the right answer to a client's problem sounds pretty arrogant."

"I wouldn't worry." Bunny said brightly. "If the challenge seems too tough, you'll figure out how to solve it eventually. I trust you"

I sighed. It was a heck of a way to come out of my self-imposed retirement.

The impetus had come from a conversation I had had a couple of months before with Big Julie1, who had once been my opponent on the battlefield though never my enemy. He had come to be a trusted advisor and good friend.

He had asked me why I left M.Y.T.H., Inc., the highly successful and profitable business I had founded with my former mentor and partner, Aahz. I admitted I felt as though I wasn't living up to the hype surrounding me. I thought it would be better if I went away for a while. I felt that I had had to get out from my all-enveloping support structure and educate myself so I could live up to the hype that I had enjoyed as Skeeve the Magnificent, Magician to Kings and King of Magicians, Businessman and Problem-Solver Extraordinaire. The truth was not so glorious: at the time I had departed, I could do very little magik. Most of what I had accomplished, Big Julie pointed out to me, was by thinking—no, more by feeling—out the correct solution to the problem I had been set. He encouraged me to take that talent and run with it.

From the time I had returned to the inn, I had been on fire for the idea of establishing a new business, one in which I helped people, not necessarily with applications of big-time magik, for, as Big Julie pointed out to me, big-time magicians were a dozen to the silver coin, but with the application of the kind of attention that I had always given problems without really realizing it. It was a natural extension of my instincts. I felt relieved, since I was never going to be a master magician. I had been getting my magikal butt kicked regularly by the equivalent of six-year-old girls. But when it came to finding a solution that just felt right, and did the most good for the most people, that was what I did best.

Oh, I am no altruist: I intended to get paid for my expertise. That was one of the reasons that I let Bunny put the line at the bottom of my card. I had found out a long time ago that people don't prize what they don't pay for. If I offered my services for free, I'd be looking for lost firecats and missing spectacles from now until the end of time. I wanted meaty problems, the kind I could really sink my mental teeth into. I loved a challenge. Now was the time to see if I could handle one. And if I didn't, well, I was young. I had time to make a lot more blunders in my lifetime.

I have to admit that it really bothered me that Aahz hadn't been in the Bazaar when I arrived. After all, he had been the one who really taught me about the important things. Not just magik and business, but what's important—in spite of what he would say if I told him. I worried for a moment about his mother, the Duchess. I had met her a while back2; she was a real eccentric, but if Aahz needed any help handling a situation, he knew where to get in touch with all of us.

One of the reasons I had agreed so readily to come out of retirement was Aahz. I missed him. Oh, sure, having a Pervect for a friend wasn't easy. He could be crude, harsh, selfish, greedy, insulting, overbearing, and rude, but he was my best friend. If it hadn't been for him, well, I would still be back in the woods on Klah, trying to eke out a living as—I admit it—one of the most inept thieves ever to cut purse strings. Thanks to him I'd rediscovered some basic honesty and decency. Though he was tight with a coin and a sharp bargainer who saw no problem with shafting the other guy, I observed that it was easier to leave a little money on the table because it was a small universe, and you never knew when you were going to be allied with the very person whose shirt you were trying to take the previous day. Without him M.Y.T.H., Inc. would never have been as successful as it was. I should have assumed that once I stepped out of the picture he would take over as president. He was a natural leader. Most of the others had known him long before I came along. I hit myself in the forehead. Why didn't that dawn on me before I blundered into the office and made an idiot of myself?

I wished that he had been around. I would have appreciated his input. Maybe he would have been able to smooth out the awkwardness I had caused.

Maybe not. Aahz had never been good at letting anyone else's mistakes go unnoticed. I probably would have been in for a lecture. I deserved one, but I had already given myself a stern talking-to.

So, I was on my own.

That was okay, I assured myself. I had to take my own baby steps, right? I vowed not to undercut my friends. I was going to stick to what I planned to do, nothing else.

A roaring noise interrupted my thoughts.

"Look out!" Bunny called. "Get it, Skeeve!"

I ducked just in time. A huge, striped insect the size of my two fists zoomed overhead. In spite of its bulk, it banked like a swallow off a wisp of air and veered around in a sharp U-turn. I threw a ball of fire at it, but the insect took the full blast of the flame and kept going. Its armored shell would have been the envy of any army in any dimension. No matter what I threw at it, it kept going. It vanished into a hairline crack in the wall. I ran after it, trying to capture it with a rope of magik. Before I could blink, it was out of reach.

"Gone," I said grimly. Bunny shook her head. I dashed out the rear door of our tent, stepping into the dimension into which our office extended, and examined the walls. No sign of the Humbee, or a single crack through which it could have escaped. I felt the side of the clapboard house, which was this dimension's face of my building. The walls were only an inch thick, too narrow to conceal the bulky bug. Where had it gone?

One more thing Catchmeier had failed to mention about the new tent was the infestation of Humbees. No one knew where the pesty insects had sprung from, but they were overrunning the Bazaar. Deveel merchants had jumped on the bandwagon already, so to speak, with Humbee repellents, traps, and insecticides. As far as I could tell from questioning friends of mine, none of them worked. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people were trying to find out what dimension they had come from and who was responsible for importing them to Deva. That person, unsurprisingly, was lying low, fearing the inevitable lynch mob. The beetles were a nuisance. A blow from a passing Humbee could leave one with a bruise the size of a grapefruit. It had also been discovered that the bees could penetrate solid walls and create a warren the envy of any termite infestation. Because it was common practice to build out into transdimensional locations, the Humbees had no problem spreading to other dimensions. The Merchants

Association was fielding complaints from a number of people who suddenly found themselves ducking Humbees.

"Their magik is beyond me," I concluded, returning through the back door.

"Well, there's your first professional question," Bunny joked, as I threw myself back into my chair. "How do they do that?"