Myth-Chief

THIRTY-SIX

Aahz and Tananda burst into the office not more than three seconds after I did. They had both had a chance to clean up and put on fresh clothes, as I had.

"Aahz, are you all right?" Bunny asked. "We were so worried!"

"I'm fine," he said. "It was sticky, but not insurmountable. You know Pervects. We always come out on top."

"Huh," I said. So he wasn't going to tell her how I rescued him and the others. I was disgusted. I flopped down in a chair and put my head on my hand. Gleep came galloping over to greet me. I scratched his chin. Bunny looked from one of us to the other.

"Where are the clients?"

"I took Hermalaya someplace safe," I said. I didn't want to say any more than that. She had protested when I took her back to Massha's cottage in Possiltum, but I didn't want to take a chance with her well-being, not when we were about to return her triumphantly to Foxe-Swampburg.

Aahz growled. "Matfany is in an undisclosed location until I get a ruling from you on inappropriate behavior from my opponent over there."

Bunny's eyebrows rose sky-high. "Inappropriate behavior from Skeeve? What happened? Didn't he just pull all of you out of a swamp?"

"That's not the point," Aahz said. He leaned over the desk and aimed a finger at me. "He just exiled MY client from his homeland. He can't do that!"

"Why not?" Bunny asked, not at all cowed. "It's fair. Yours did it to his."

Aahz threw up his hands. "But that's a matter of internal politics. Skeeve's an outsider. What about the Prime Directive?"

"What's that?" I asked.

"I'm not here to complete your education anymore." Aahz said sourly. "What about it? Can he do that?"

Bunny turned to me. "How did you exile him?"

"Matfany asked me how he could repay me for saving his life. I told him he could get out of town. It's not my problem what it does to Aahz's mission, is it?"

"Would you have done it if Aahz hadn't been working for him?" Chumley asked. *

"Yes! He deposed a sitting ruler! It's not like she can pull up stakes and go get a job somewhere. She's royalty. She belongs back home."

Aahz snorted. "Big deal. The descendant of someone else who moved in and decided that he was in charge. But does it stand?"

"I don't see why not," Bunny said. "Sounds like he made a fair deal."

"Then the contest's over," I said. "He can't earn any more for his client."

"You're right about that," Bunny agreed. "The contest as we agreed to it is over."

"Then let's see who won?" I pulled the ledger around to look at my total. "Fifteen thousand, six hundred gold coins!

Wow!" With a total like that I had to have won. I was going to be president of M.Y.T.H., Inc. again!

"Lemme see that." Aahz yanked the book away from me. "Fifteen thousand, six hundred ... ? From serving a few lousy little pieces of cake?"

"That's Cake," I corrected him.

"No problem. I have you beaten on numbers."

"You couldn't"

"I could and I do." Aahz turned to the page with his name on it. His face fell. "Fifteen thousand, six hundred." "What?" I asked. "You're tied," Nunzio said.

Aahz gawked at the ledger. "Wait a minute! How could you do that? I put names on almost everything in the country!"

I held up the little clay pot. "We had a Leprechaun." "So neither of you won," Tananda said. "You tied." "We need a tiebreaker," I said.

"Sudden death," Aahz said. I looked blank. He looked disgusted at my ignorance. "One contest, winner take all." "Oh! Okay. I agree."

We turned to Bunny. "What can we do?" I asked.

Bunny looked from me to Aahz and back again with a look of absolute exasperation. I was surprised to see that all the others had the same expression.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"What is the matter with you?" she demanded, her voice rising to glass-breaking tones. "Both of you are missing the point!"

"What point?" Aahz asked. "You set the conditions of the contest. The prize is the presidency of our organization. We tied. We won't both be president, so we need to break the tie."

"Aagh!" Bunny said, scraping the desk with her fingernails. "You men are so dense! The point is that

putting Hermalaya back on the throne means she has to punish

Matfany as a usurper, and she doesn't want to, does she?"

"Not really,' I said, uneasily. The look on her face when I left her in Possiltum reminded me of that shy confession Massha had wormed out of her.

"... And having Matfany in charge isn't tenable because the people like their ruling family, right, Aahz? They take pride in it. Besides, he just had a fit of temper when he tossed her off the throne and condemned her to death if she returned. Skeeve got him to agree to leave out of a sense of honor, so the princess can be in charge again, but she doesn't know that much more about business than she did when all this got started. Both of you are thinking that only one of them is important to the kingdom. It needs both of them. You aren't paying attention to what the clients really need anymore. You forgot what it is that we do."

I rubbed my temples, where a headache was starting to grow inward. Aahz and I looked at each other.

"So what if he's unpopular now?" Aahz asked. "Matfany's a good administrator. The people will get used to the idea eventually. If Skeeve rescinds the exile order."

"Not the Old Folks," I said. "They will never allow him in the throne room, and everyone knows it. They just tried to drown him, unless you're forgetting. Besides"—I glanced back at Massha, who gave me an encouraging look—"the princess is kind of in love with him. She wants to go back, but she wants him, too."

Guido cleared his throat. "I kind of see that sort of interaction from Mr. Matfany also. He is stuck on the doll, as who of his species wouldn't be?"

"Thought so!" Bunny crowed. "When those two passed each other in the waiting room, you could have lit a cigar off the sparks. Well?"

"Well, what?" Aahz and I asked at the same time.

"It's no longer about the money."

"It's always about the money," Aahz said.

"How are you going to bring the kingdom back together?" Bunny asked, patiently.

"I don't know," Aahz said. "Matfany's pretty much soiled the nest. Everybody's going to think it's fishy if he suddenly brings Hermalaya back and reinstalls her. It'll look desperate. Could throw the whole kingdom into a tailspin."

"She'll lose all credibility if she brings him in as her prime minister after he threw her out," I mused.

"So, you need something different," Bunny said. "Use your imagination. How do we get the fairy-tale wedding without breaking the newly solvent bank?"

I frowned.

"Why don't you ask them?" Tananda asked, reasonably.

"Ma'am?" Matfany said, rising to his feet and bowing as I escorted Hermalaya in. Guido, Nunzio, and Chumley all rose. After a stern look from his client, Aahz grudgingly hoisted himself out of his chair.

For her part, the princess looked as nervous as Matfany did. After her bravery in the swamp, she had gone shy on me when I proposed a meeting. She held herself with dignity. I pulled out a chair for her. I thought that neither one of them was going to talk at first, but the princess managed to break the ice.

"I hope you are recovered from your misadventure?" she asked. "It's just like the Old Folks to resort to old-fashioned barbarian tactics when they are upset?"

Matfany bowed. "I am well, ma'am, thank you for asking. I trust I find you in health?"

"You do," Hermalaya said. "Though for the life of me I did not think of that as being uppermost in your mind these last weeks."

Matfany cleared his throat awkwardly. "Ma'am, you don't need to be difficult about it. I have regretted the harshness of the way I spoke to you on that day."

"Of the way you spoke to me? Isn't it what you said that took me aback? You have some nerve, even pretending that you are even concerned about me, when it seems that all along you must have had some designs on taking my place!"

The prime minister's brows went down. "Now, ma'am, you know that isn't so! If I might be so bold to ask you to examine your own behavior in those days leading up to, yes, my outburst, you might think that I was justified in expressing my concern with regard to the smooth running of the kingdom and my concern at your seeming ignorance of its problems!"

"But not with such rancor!" Hermalaya said. "If you only knew how much it hurt me for you to burst out like that. I could have taken any kind of a scolding—I was brought up to assume responsibility for my actions—but to have you even refuse to listen to me, then to banish me forever from my beloved country just broke my poor heart?"

Matfany dropped his eyes. "Forgive me, ma'am. And I have since learned, in your own words, that you did have the kingdom's welfare in mind."

"I did! Only I was thinking more of the here and now? Not what came later. I should have asked your advice. That was wrong of me. I didn't let you do what you do so well."

"That makes me even more ashamed. I'm sorry. I have just got to curb my awful temper."

"I am so sorry, too," Hermalaya said. "You know I just don't have much head for business? I shouldn't have given away all the money without asking you."

"Well, you did it for the right reason," Matfany admitted. "I could've held off the bills another several months if I knew."

"If I'd explained," she said.

"If I'd listened," he said.

"Oh, no, it was my impatience ..."

"My impetuousness ..."

They were out of their seats and moving toward one another without even knowing they were doing it. Matfany took one of her hands gently in both of his and gazed down deeply into her eyes.

"I wonder, ma'am, if you might consent to sit with me one of these evenings and enjoy the moonlight? In a purely respectful context, of course."

"Why," Hermalaya sounded breathless, "I believe that would be a pleasure, sir."

"Awww," the women chorused. I suppressed a little sigh. Massha, Tanda, and Bunny were all correct. They were in love with each other.

"All right already! Let's get back to the point," Aahz insisted. Hermalaya and Matfany looked at each other. The princess's little pink nose turned even more pink. Both of them retreated to their seats.

"So you see what we have to do," Bunny said. "We have to get both of them back where they belong."

Aahz turned to Hermalaya. "Okay. Here's the bottom line. We need to reinstate you, in some kind of realistic fashion, and we need to change your image," he said to Matfany.

"We can't," I said. Everybody turned to look at me. I shrugged. "He condemned a member of the royal house to death, so he can't just quit and say he's sorry. Hermalaya can't marry a traitor. He can't just come back. He has to pay with his life."

Matfany looked taken aback. "I beg your pardon, sir?"

"You can't take him away again?"

I grinned. "Not exactly. We invent a savior for the kingdom, someone who is willing to come in and put the princess back on her throne." I held up my hands dramatically and formed an illusion between them. "From the faraway land of, uh, Goodenrich, at the far south end of Reynardo, comes the handsome prince Fanmat, who will face the usurper and defeat him in a really dramatic duel to the death." The white-furred figure of Princess Hermalaya appeared on a castle parapet, threatened by a black-haired villain. A shining, golden-pelted hero came riding in on a stallion—I immediately nixed the stallion when everybody else in the room gave me a strange look—pushed the villain aside, and took Hermalaya in his arms. "Then he can marry the princess, who gets her throne back, and the two of you can live happily ever after."

"Bravo," cheered Chumley. "Yes, I can see it. It would suit the situation precisely, what?"

"Looks good to me, too, Boss," Guido said. Bunny gave a nod of approval.

The prime minister shook his head in concern. "There's no kingdom of Goodenrich or a Prince Fanmat that I know of," Matfany said, frowning. "And I don't like this idea of dying, sir, even though I admit I've been a fool."

Hermalaya tapped his wrist. "Silly, it's you."

I clapped my hands, and the vision vanished. "I wouldn't be much of a magician if I couldn't create a good illusionary hero. Until you can change your appearance to match it, that is."

"I like him the way he is?" the princess protested.

"Can't do it," Aahz said, flatly.

"Why not?" Tananda asked. "Everybody will love it."

"It'll void all my contracts," Aahz complained. "You're going to destroy my reputation in sixteen dimensions for a lousy love story. Matfany is the one who signed them."

"Not if I confirm them, Mister Aahz," Hermalaya said. "On a modest basis, your idea of sponsoring national land-marks might be a good thing. But no more big old gaudy signs. That destroys the natural beauty, and without that, what have you got?"

Matfany stared at her with dawning admiration. "That's some mighty good business sense, ma'am."

She blushes. "I've learned a thing or two from Mister Skeeve and his friends."

"Any more objections?" Bunny asked Aahz.

"Nope," Aahz said with resignation. "If I don't lose out on anything. I don't care what kind of shenanigans you have to go through to get what you want."

"We'll have to make it dramatic," Tananda said. "Chumley and I staged a fake assassination once. It was great!"

"Indeed," Chumley said. "Owing chiefly to the skill of the dramatis personae, myself included, I might humbly add."

"Oh, that sounds like it will be fun?" Hermalaya said.

"It was," Tananda said. "Have you ever done any skits?"

"Sometimes my ladies and I act out scenes from books," Hermalaya admitted. "But this sounds like it is much more interesting?"

"At least you won't have stage fright," Guido said. "That is the ailment that has caused more than one person of talent to have to forgo a public career in spite of talent."

"Oh, I'm used to public speaking," the princess said, starting to become enthusiastic about the prospect.

Aahz seemed to be getting into the spirit. "Do we have to feed you lines, or can you memorize a script?"

"Sir," Hermalaya said, pretending to be indignant, "I have to make an hour-long speech every year on the anniversary of my ascension? Of course I can remember lines."

"In that, I am afraid I am your weak link," Matfany said. "I am a good public servant, but I am no actor. I do not dissemble."

"In other words, what you see is what you get?" Massha asked.

"What if we act around him?" Tananda asked, eyeing the prime minister with dismay.

"Don't worry," Aahz said, throwing an arm around my shoulders. "We'll take care of that. He doesn't have to do a thing. I have it all worked out."