Free MA04 Hit or Myth by Robert Asprin Page A

appeared in the room. Looking round, he spied the two bodyguards sprawled on the floor and gripped the sides of his face with his open hands in an exaggerated expression of horror.
    “Mercy!” he wheezed in a voice so hoarse I could barely understand him. “Shai-ster, you bad boy. If there was trouble, you should have called me sooner. Oh, those poor, poor boys.”
    The Mob spokesman’s face was once again blank and impassive as he addressed me.
    “Skeeve, Lord Magician of Possiltum, let me introduce Don Bruce, the Mob’s fairy godfather.”

“OH! This is simply marvelous! Who would have ever thought ... another dimension, you say?”
    “That’s right,” I said off-handedly. “It’s called Deva.”
    Of course, I was quite in agreement with Don Bruce. The Bazaar on Deva was really something, and every time I visited it, I was impressed anew. It was an incredible tangle of tents and displays stretching as far as the eye could see in every direction, crammed full of enough magical devices and beings to defy anyone’s imagination and sanity. It was the main crossroads of trade for the dimensions. Anything worth trading money or credits for was here.
    This time, however, I was the senior member of the expedition. As much as I wanted to rubberneck and explore, it was more important to pretend to be bored and worldly ... or other-worldly as the case might be.
    Don Bruce led the parade, as wide-eyed as a farm-kid in his first big city, with Shai-ster, myself, and the two bodyguards trailing along behind. The bodyguards seemed more interested in crowding close to me than in protecting their superiors, but then again, they had just had some bad experiences with magic.
    “The people here all look kinda strange,” one of them muttered to me. “You know, like foreigners.”
    “They are foreigners ... or rather you are,” I said. “You’re on their turf, and a long way from home. These are Deveels.”
    “Devils?” the man responded, looking a little wild-eyed. “You’re tellin’ me we’re surrounded by devils?”
    While it was reassuring to me to see the Mob’s bully-boys terrified by something I had grown used to, it also occurred to me that if they were too scared, it might ruin the deal I was trying to set up.
    “Look ... say, what is your name, anyway?”
    “Guido,” the man confided, “and this here’s my cousin Nunzio.”
    “Well look, Guido. Don’t be thrown by these jokers. Look at them. They’re storekeepers like storekeepers anywhere. Just because they look funny doesn’t mean they don’t scare like anybody else.”
    “I suppose you’re right. Say, I meant to thank you for the drink back there at the castle.”
    “Don’t mention it,” I waved. “It was the least I could do after bouncing you off the ceiling. Incidentally, there was nothing personal in that. I wasn’t trying to make you two look bad, I was trying to make myself look good ... if you see the difference.”
    Guido’s brow furrowed slightly.
    “I ... think so. Yeah! I get it. Well, it worked. You looked real good. I wouldn’t want to cross you, and neither would Nunzio. In fact, if we can ever do you a favor ... you know, bend someone a little for you ... well, just let us know.”
    “Hey, what’s that?”
    I looked in the direction Don Bruce was pointing. A booth was filled with short painted sticks, all floating in midair. “I think he’s selling magic wands,” I guessed.
    “Oh! I want one. Now, don’t go anywhere without me.”
    The bodyguards hesitated for a moment, and then followed as Don Bruce plunged into negotiations with the booth’s proprietor, who gaped a bit at his new customer.
    “Does he always dress like that?” I asked Shai-ster, “You know, all in light purple?”
    The Mob spokesman raised an eyebrow at me.
    “Do you always dress in green when you travel to other dimensions?”
    Just to be on the safe side, I had donned another disguise before accompanying this crew to Deva. It occurred to me