MYTH-Interpretations: The Worlds of Robert Asprin (24 page)

"Lord Dragon? Are you here? It's Stiller Gulick and Ibble."

The great reptile turned his head toward the source of the sound.

"Stiller?" he said. "Are you back so soon? Does this mean you're ready to start my poker lessons?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," the warrior said. "But first, I have a surprise for you."

He gestured to the dwarf, who reached into the gunnysack he was carrying and withdrew a sword with a glowing blade.

"
Stiller
." Schmirnov's voice was heavy with warning and menace. "I thought I already made my feeling on the subject of that sword
very
clear."

Stiller seemed to ignore him completely.

"Set it there, Ibble," he said, pointing to a spot a mere three paces from the cavern's entrance.

"
STILLER!
"

"Now, then, Lord Dragon," Stiller said calmly. "As I understand it, your concern is that some misguided or overconfident person will take that weapon and attempt to use it on you. Is that correct?"

"I told you before, I won't have Mothganger in my cavern. It's too dangerous."

"But Schmirnov, if someone tried to use that sword against you, they would be in for a very rude surprise. You see, that isn't Mothganger."

"Nonsense," the dragon growled. "I'd know that accursed sword anywhere."

"That's what any interloper would think," the warrior agreed. "But they would be wrong."

He nodded again at Ibble, who withdrew a second glowing sword from the gunnysack.

"
This
is the real Mothganger," Stiller announced triumphantly. "It would be hidden safely in this sack in the depths of your cavern. The one by the door is a forgery
.
.
.
powerless except for a harmless light spell. Anyone who attempted to use
that
weapon against you would be committing suicide."

Schmirnov craned his neck forward, swaying his head first one way, then the other as he examined the two weapons.

"Very clever," he said at last. "Of course, your kind always excelled at treachery. I'll admit I can't tell the two swords apart. Are you sure the one by the door is the forgery?"

The dragon was so busy with his inspection, he missed the startled glance the two comrades exchanged.

"Trust me," Stiller said smoothly, signaling Ibble to return the second sword to the sack. "So, with this added refinement, do we have a deal?"

"Well," the dragon said, "you are very persuasive and I would very much like to learn poker, but I don't feel precisely safe about having the sword laying around in my hoard. Even stashed in a gunnysack, it is still Mothganger. I am not immune to the irony of being slain by a sword the wielder believes is second-rate."

Stiller and Ibble exchanged despairing glances. Then the dwarf perked up.

"Our visit to Anken reminded me that the elves are not the only masters of magic." He let his voice drop mysteriously. "Dwarves know how to make stone!"

"That's really nice, Ibble," Stiller said, "but what does that have to do with our finding a guardian for Mothganger?"

Ibble puffed up happily. "We imbed both swords in stone. Mothganger gets buried in a slab—I can wrap it beforehand so that it won't get gritty—and the false Mothganger gets imbedded partway in a showy pedestal."

Stiller picked up the thread of his comrade's thought. "Then you set the false Mothganger up as a sort of a decoration and lure. The real Mothganger gets stowed, one more block of stone in a stony cave! That's beautiful, Ibble!"

"Thank you," the dwarf said modestly.

The dragon's voice rumbled with appreciation. "What do you need to make your magic rock?"

"Oh, just some sand, gravel, lime, and clay," the dwarf said. "The ingredients are common. The real magic is in the combination. I'll needs some planks to make the form into which I'll pour the stone."

"Oh, can you make it into any form you choose?" Schmirnov asked.

"Pretty much," Ibble said proudly, hastening to add, "but making an elaborate form takes longer."

"I didn't want anything elaborate. I was just thinking that a slab of stone about this high," he gestured with a taloned foot, "would make a perfect card table."

"I can do it," Ibble promised.

"Now," Stiller said, hiding his eagerness, "with this new added refinement, do we have a deal?"

"We do indeed," Schmirnov said. "Now we can start our poker lessons."

"Excellent!" the warrior said, rubbing his hands together. "I thought we'd start with five card draw."

"Actually, I'd prefer it if you started with stud instead."

"Excuse me?" Stiller blinked.

"I think stud would be easier for me to learn because the cards are quite small for me, and hole cards would be easier to manipulate than an entire handful of cards. Five or seven would be satisfactory."

The warrior's eyes narrowed with suspicion.

"I though you said you didn't know how to play poker."

"Just because I don't know how to play doesn't mean I never
heard
of the game," Schmirnov explained.

"Hmmm," Stiller said thoughtfully.

"Trust me." The dragon smiled.

"It was only by the strangest sequence of coincidence that it came into my possession," Anken was saying. "But I won't bore you with that. All that's important is that it goes to a proper warrior who will put it to good use while keeping its location a secret."

His customer continued to study the glowing blade with a mixture of awe and skepticism.

"So this is really the legendary Mothganger," he said. "It's actually very ordinary looking, isn't it? You're sure there's no mistake?"

"Trust me." Anken smiled.

The elf waited for the warrior's first offer, trying to decide how hard he should haggle. He had three more copies he could sell to others, but that shouldn't affect the price of this one.

A Gift in Parting

Robert Lynn Asprin

The sun was a full two handspans above the horizon when Hort appeared on the Sanctuary docks; early in the day but late by fishermen's standards. The youth's eyes squinted painfully at the unaccustomed brightness of the morning sun. He fervently wished he were home in bed
.
.
.
or in someone else's bed
.
.
.
or anywhere but here. Still, he had promised his mother he would help the Old Man this morning. While his upbringing made it unthinkable to break that promise, his stubbornness required that he demonstrate his protest by being late.

Though he had roamed these docks since early childhood and knew them to be as scrupulously clean as possible, Hort still chose his path carefully to avoid brushing his clothes against anything. Of late he had been much more attentive to his personal appearance; this morning he had discovered he no longer had any old clothes suitable for the boat. While he realized the futility of trying to preserve his current garb through an entire day's work in the boat, newly acquired habits demanded he try to minimize the damage.

The Old Man was waiting for him, sitting on the overturned boat like some stately sea-bird sleeping off a full belly. The knife in his hand caressed the stray piece of wood he held with a slow, rhythmic cadence. With each pass of the blade a long curl of wood fell to join the pile at his feet. The size of the pile was mute testament to how long the Old Man had been waiting.

Strange, but Hort had always thought of him as the Old Man, never as Father. Even the men who had fished these waters with him since their shared boyhood called him Old Man rather than Panit. He wasn't really old, though his face was deceptive. Wrinkled and crisscrossed by weather lines, the Old Man's face looked like one of those red clay river beds one saw in the desert beyond Sanctuary: parched, cracked, waiting for rain that would never fall.

No, that was wrong. The Old Man didn't look like the desert. The Old Man would have nothing in common with such a large accumulation of dirt. He was a fisherman, a creature of the sea and as much a part of the sea as one of those weathered rocks that punctuated the harbor.

The old man looked up at his son's approach then let his attention settle back on the whittling.

"I'm here," Hort announced unnecessarily, adding, "sorry I'm late."

He cursed himself silently when that remark slipped out. He had been determined not to apologize, no matter what the Old Man said, but when the Old Man said nothing
.
.
.

His father rose to his feet unhurriedly, replacing his knife in its sheath with a gesture made smooth and unconscious by years of repetition.

"Give me a hand with this," he said, bending to grasp one end of the boat.

Just that. No acceptance of the apology. No angry reproach. It was as if he had expected his reluctant assistant would be late.

Hort fumed about this as he grunted and heaved, helping to right the small boat and set it safely in the water. His annoyance with the whole situation was such that he was seated in the boat, accepting the oars as they were passed down from the dock, before he remembered that his father had been launching this craft for years without assistance. His son's inexpert hands could not have been a help, only a hindrance.

Spurred by this new irritation, Hort let the stern of the boat drift away from the dock as his father prepared to board. The petty gesture was in vain. The Old Man stepped into the boat, stretching his leg across the water with no more thought than a merchant gave his keys in their locks.

"Row that way," came the order to his son.

Gritting his teeth in frustration, Hort bent to the task.

The old rhythms returned to him in mercifully few strokes. Once he had been glad to row his father's boat. He had been proud when he had grown enough to handle the oars himself. No longer a young child to be guarded by his mother, he had basked in the status of the Old Man's boy. His playmates had envied his association with the only fisherman on the dock who could consistently trap the elusive nya—the small schooling fish whose sweet flesh brought top price each afternoon after the catch was brought in.

Of course, that had been a long time ago. He'd wanted to learn about the Nya then—he knew less now; his memories had faded.

As Hort had grown, so had his world. He learned that away from the docks no one knew of the Old Man, nor did they care. To the normal citizens of Sanctuary he was just another fisherman and fishermen did not stand high in the social structure of the town. Fishermen weren't rich, nor did they have the ear of the local aristocrats. Their clothes weren't colorful like the S'danzo's. They weren't feared like the soldiers or mercenaries.

And they smelled.

Hort had often disputed this latter point with the street urchins away from the docks until bloody noses, black eyes and bruises taught him that fishermen weren't good fighters, either. Besides, they did smell.

Retreating to the safety of the dock community Hort found that he viewed the culture which had raised him with a blend of scorn and bitterness. The only people who respected fishermen were other fishermen. Many of his old friends were drifting away—finding new lives in the crowds and excitement of the city-proper. Those that remained were dull youths who found reassurance in the unchanging traditions of the fish-craft and who were already beginning to look like their fathers.

As his loneliness grew, it was natural that Hort used his money to buy new clothes which he bundled and hid away from the fish-tainted cottage they called home. He scrubbed himself vigorously with sand, dressed and tried to blend with the townsfolk.

He found the citizens remarkably pleasant once he had removed the mark of the fishing community. They were most helpful in teaching him what to do with his money. He acquired a circle of friends and spent more and more time away from home until
.
.
.

"Your mother tells me you're leaving."

The Old Man's sudden statement startled Hort, jerking him rudely from his mental wanderings. In a flash he realized he had been caught in the trap his friends had warned him about. Alone in the boat with his father he would be a captive audience until the tide changed. Now he'd hear the anger, the accusations and finally the pleading.

Above all Hort dreaded the pleading. While they had had their differences in the past, he still held a lingering respect for his father, a respect he knew would die if the Old Man were reducing to whining and begging.

"You've said it yourself a hundred times, Old Man," Hort pointed out with a shrug, "not everyone was meant to be a fisherman."

It came out harsher than he had intended, but Hort let it go without more explanations. Perhaps his father's anger would be stirred to a point where the conversation would be terminated prior to the litanies of his obligations to his family and tradition.

"Do you think you can earn a living in Sanctuary?" the Old Man asked, ignoring his son's baiting.

"We
.
.
.
I won't be in Sanctuary," Hort announced carefully. Even his mother hadn't possessed this last bit of knowledge. "There's a caravan forming in town. In four days it leaves for the capital. My friends and I have been invited to travel with it."

"The capital?" Panit nodded slowly. "And what will you do in Ranke?"

"I don't know yet," his son admitted, "but there are ten jobs in Ranke for every one in Sanctuary."

The Old Man digested this in silence. "What will you use for money on this trip?" he asked finally.

"I had hoped
.
.
.
There's supposed to be a tradition in our family, isn't there? When a son leaves home his father gives him a parting gift. I know you don't have much, but
.
.
." Hort stopped; the Old Man was shaking his head in slow negation.

"We have less than you think," he said sadly. "I said nothing before, but your fine clothes, there, have tapped our savings; the fishing's been bad."

"If you won't give me anything, just say so!" Hort exploded angrily. "You don't have to rationalize it with a long tale of woe."

"I'll give you a gift," the Old Man assured him. "I only wanted to warn you that it probably would not be money. More to the left."

"I don't need your money," the youth growled, adjusting his stroke. "My friends have offered to loan me the necessary funds. I just thought it would be better not to start my new life in debt."