Myth 18 - MythChief Asprin, Robert (urban books to read TXT) 📖

seeming to make the otherwise ordinary confection glow. Even I gasped. Bowing her head, Hermalaya handed me the plate with both hands. I accepted it, and sat wondering how I ate it, while Bunny was given her Cake. Hermalaya then handed us beautifully wrought silver forks, and offered us crystal goblets brimming with white. I followed Bunny's lead, mashing the ice cream and whipped cream into the cake and cutting bites with the side of the fork. Once we had all been served, Hermalaya wiped the server on an embroi-​dered cloth, returned it to the table, and sat patiently with her paws folded on her knees.

“How's this different from a Klahdish birthday party?” I asked Bunny in a whisper. “Shh!” my assistant said. “A Cake Master studies for years to get everything exactly right.”

I shrugged and ate my cake ... er, Cake. I had to admit it was the best I had ever eaten, in any dimension. It tasted at least three times as good as it had smelled, and the ice cream reminded me of my own childhood. The glass was full of pure white, sweet, ice-​cold milk that made the Cake taste even better.

After we ate, Hermalaya rose gracefully to her feet and held out a hand to me. I rose, feeling awkward and out of place. She led me to a line on the floor drawn in glitter and handed me a long piece of green cloth cut into a long, thin triangle with a long pin attached to the top. She took the cloth from around her ears and made to tie it over my eyes.

“Oh, no,” I said. “No, thanks.” “Skeeve!” Bunny admonished me. “It's part of the cer-​emony!” “All right,” I said. I turned to my hostess. “Sorry.” “It's all right,” she assured me in her soft voice. “You're just not an initiate?”

I allowed myself to be spun in a circle live or six times, then I staggered forward, feeling my way toward the em-​broidered wall hanging. My hand touched cloth, and I plunged the pin into it. I heard snickers come from behind me. I snatched off the blindfold and looked at the wall. The dragon now had a tail on its head. Gleep, crouched under-​neath my desk out of the way, gave me a sorrowful look.

Each of my friends took their turn, in solemn silence. Bunny, with a little more foreknowledge of the culture than the rest of us, did better at all the rituals. I admired her skill so much that I didn't feel bad when Bunny got to the only empty chair ahead of me to win that game. Her-​malaya oversaw everything with an austere eye, guiding us with a little magik here and there.

When it was all through, Hermalaya gave me a small box she had wrapped in colored paper. It contained a pinch of the sprinkles that had been on the cake. I felt as if I had been given a treasure chest.

“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for coming,” Hermalaya said, formally, urging us out into Bunny's foyer.

Came back in again, Hermalaya sat exhausted on the lone chair. Bunny and I started to clear up. There was little in the way of leftovers, but Chumley crammed the remain-​ing half of the Cake in his mouth with every evidence of

Trollish enjoyment, and I only wished I had thought of get-​ting to it first. Nunzio carefully took down the dragon tap-​estry, now well pinned, and I gathered up all the glitter and spilled sprinkles with a handful of magik. The swamp vixen didn't protest at all until I reached for the silver server. She swooped down on that and her ice-​cream knife.

“No one touches the tools of a Cake Master,” she said apologetically. She cleaned them off and placed them in a small fitted case covered with mother-​of-​pearl. “I'm sorry to seem discourteous.”

“Not at all,” I said. “I'm the one ignorant of your cus-​toms.” “That was beautiful,” Bunny said. “I'm so moved. I never saw the real thing.”

“Few have,” Hermalaya said, with a shrug of her nar-​row shoulders. “There are pale approximations all through the dimensionsyou alluded to one yourself. It's a shame, because I think it's so uplifting?”

The mental candle that had been trying to light itself over my head finally burst out in a flare of brilliant flame.

“Would you consider introducing more people to the joys of Cake?” I asked.

“Why, what do you mean?” Hermalaya asked. Bunny raised her eyebrows warily, but let me explain.

“I was really impressed by how skilled you are at the ceremony,” I said. “Like Nunzio said, you need to get im-​portant people on your side. I think that if you offered to host a high-​end experience for honored guests, guests with a lot of influence and money, we might be able to get you home again and refill the treasury. You should be unique with this kind of approach.”

“That's true,” Nunzio said. “Big gestures are lost on important people. I like this because it's a subtle ap-​proach.”

“But I couldn't ask people for money,” Hermalaya said, looking distressed. “That would be vulgar.”

I frowned. “You're right. We don't want to lower the tone of the ceremony by making it about money instead.”

“Ask offering?” Chumley asked. It was difficult for him to express complex concepts in his persona as Big Crunch, but he was good at conveying what he wanted in a mono-​syllabic fashion.

“That might