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

“I say, no, that's not it at all. He's convinced he can win this without scuttling you, old chap. Doesn't need to. Good heavens, what? You know Aahz perfectly well. If he thought he had to spike your guns, he wouldn't hesitate for a moment, would he? Has he ever had mercy on a rival?”

I glared. “So he doesn't think I'm much of a rival, huh?” “Well, pride and all, what? Come, come, Skeeve, When has he ever overestimated you, eh?”

I forced myself to calm down. That was true. He always thought I would goof up, no matter how many times I man-​aged to succeed. Why would this time be any different? “So, if the problem's not Aahz, then there's someone else. Who?”

Massha handed the stack of cancellations to me. “Ask the people who turned us down.”

Killinem stood only second to Vaygus as the dimension to visit when you wanted a good time. I passed by the com-​edy clubs, the circus tents, and hundreds of street buskers. A stilt walker blew a long stream of fire just where I was going to walk. I diverted it with a flick of magik and sent it back to him, to the roar of the crowd gathered to watch. I wasn't in much of a mood for pranks.

“The Overseer of Mirth does not have you on his agenda,” a red-​nosed clown informed me when I identified myself and my party at the desk.

“He did,” I said. Reading upside down was something I had gotten good at during the time I had worked with M.Y.T.H., Inc. “Right there. Princess Hermalaya and cote-​rie.”

The clown looked down his round, rubicund nose at me. Unlike in Klah, his wasn't stuck on; it was real. “You've been canceled, friend. Forget it.”

I leaned confidentially over the desk. “Look, our ap-​pointment was for this afternoon. I see that he hasn't got anything else at the moment. This is Princess Hermalaya herself.” I nodded over my shoulder. Hermalaya wiggled two fingers at him. The clown grinned uneasily at her. “Let me just ask him a couple of questions? For the fun of it.”

No humorist in Killinem was going to let a challenge like that go by.

“All right, friend. I'll see what I can do.” He mounted a foot-​high bicycle and rode toward the brightly colored doors at the rear of the room. A trunklike nozzle reached out of the ceiling and whoosh! He was sucked up off the floor like a house in a windstorm. I stared at it in delight.

Just as I was wondering how I could incorporate that trick into my own office, the nozzle reappeared and spat the clown and his bicycle back into the room.

“The Overseer will give you a minute of his most valu-​able time,” the clown informed us.

“I don't know why you bothered to come,” the Overseer said. His red nose was more patrician in shape than his secretary's, and his floppy suit and shoes were all made of white silk. “We have our own cheap acts here in Killinem. I don't need to import any.”

“Cheap!” I sputtered. “You cried when I let you hear the princess's own words.”

“The tears of a clown are sacred to us,” the Overseer said. “Yes, I was moved by her plight. I was even willing to give you an audition to see if your act was something I wanted to give wider attention across this dimension. But then I see it's just a derivative. Commonplace. You trifled with my emotions. That's a crime here in Killinem. You will be fortunate if we don't have you publicly beaten with a slapstick!”

“Cheap?” Hermalaya demanded, her eyes round. “Derivative?” I echoed.

“No one is delivering any beatings to Mister Skeeve or anyone else,” Nunzio said, putting his hand into his breast pocket.

“Hold on,” Massha said, intruding her large presence into the midst of all of us like an orange thundercloud block-​ing out the sun. “Don't all of you get your panties in a braid. Just what changed your mind?” she asked, fluttering her wealth of false eyelashes at the Overseer.

“Not long after you visited me, I heard thousands of citizens here were offered invitations to a Cake ceremony. I received one myself. I thought it was rather ... tacky.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Who else could be offering the same experience so soon?”

The Overseer matched me lift for lift. “I see you don't believe me.” He turned to a page in harlequin tunic and belled cap.

“Pidrol, go get those flyers.”

A page in a harlequin tunic and belled cap went run-​ning out of the room. He returned in a moment with a couple of scrolls in his hand. One I recognized as ours, on cream-​laid parchment with embossed calligraphy, a copy of the cover of The Princess's Diary with a really good im-​age of Hermalaya in the corner holding her Cake server. The other had been run off by some handbill press or a shutterbug printer. Superficially, they resembled the letters we sent out requesting interviews, but they were more on the order of handbills.

“Cheap,” Massha said. “Looks like ads for a bordello.” The Overseer nodded. “I agree. That is why I rejected both.”

I pressed him. “But you can see that Princess Herma-​laya offers the real thing. So why not come and enjoy her ceremony?”

“Well,” he said, as if reluctant to embarrass me. “It didn't seem so ... exclusive any longer. Not when it was being held in the Bazaar. And these” he added, looking less like anyone associated with mirth