Robert Asprin - Myth-Fortunes

I let go of the tiny wad of papyrus. It lifted up and shot away, joining a stream of other little rapid-moving nuggets of information.

"Will you help me read the reply if she answers?" I asked.

"Certainly," Ay-Talek said. "Look, here it is now." "It couldn't be," I said, disbelievingly, as a small knob of paper dropped into my hands, its wings crisp with heat.

"They only go to the person to whom they are addressed. Let's see what she said."

I unfolded it. All that was on the minute page was the image of a puzzled clock face. "She couldn't read it," I said, crestfallen.

Ay-Talek shook her head. "Not at all. She is asking where and when."

"You choose," I said.

"Not I," said the clerk. "This is your love life, not mine."

"No, I mean, how do I tell her, 'you choose'? Where would she like to go?"

Ay-Talek nodded understandingly. "Ah. You are a nice young man." I followed her quick scribbling on a new sheet. The answer was in my hands almost as soon as my papyrus ball flew out of sight.

The new message had two glyphs on it.

"She says," Ay-Talek told me, pointing at the pictograph of a smiling Ghord with a tweezer-like face under a half-sun, '"come tomorrow at noon. We will visit the lair of Shan-Tun. It will be fun.'"

"And what does that one say?" I asked, pointing to the image of a man who wore a disheveled looking kilt.

'"Don't wear good clothes.' Good luck, young man!"

How odd, I thought, but it was Matt's choice.

Bunny and Tananda were delighted that I had taken their suggestion to approach Matt. I took both of them with me shopping in the Bazaar to find a small present to give her along with the flowers that Tananda insisted I bring. I suggested a little enameled box that kept food fresh, so she didn't always have to trust My-Nah's not very delicious meals for her brief noon breaks.

"A first-date present should be useful but not practical," Bunny said. "If you brought her a lunchbox, she has every right, according to the universal women's charter, to hit you with it."

"Then what should I bring her?" I asked, replacing it on the display with regret.

"Nothing intoxicating, fattening, or intimate," Tananda added. "Just considerate."

"Then, you pick it out," I suggested.

"Oh, no!" they chorused. "This has to be your choice!"

I ended up with a miniature picture frame that captured the images of anything you pointed it at. I figured she could display a picture of the sacred cats. They also insisted I buy a little peach-colored silk bag to carry it in, instead of

wrapping it in the heavy gray paper the Deveel merchant used. He gave me a sympathetic glance as we left.

The local Ghords assured me I couldn't get to Shan-Tun's on Camel-back, but they gave me good directions on how to get there by air.

I found Matt at the appointed hour on a cliff-top about forty miles to the east of the Zyx Valley. A lonely-sounding wind whistled around us, kicking up dust. There wasn't a single plant or a blade of grass for miles. It was the most unappealing site I could imagine for a date. Matt waved to me as I flew in. She had on a pleated white robe like those she wore to the office, but her skirts were divided into trousers. Her long, feathery black hair was braided under her headdress, which was held tightly to her forehead by a red band.

"Hi," I said. I cudgeled my brains to remember my lessons. "Uh, you look nice."

"This old thing?" she asked, looking down at her outfit. "It is comfortable. I am glad that you took my advice." She indicated my clothing. I had followed her instructions with regard to clothes, picking out garments that were good enough to be seen in but not dressy. Both Tananda and Bunny had verified my selection.

"Yes. I, uh . . . " My throat went tight. I thrust the small silk bag at her at arm's length. "Um, this is for you."

Her eyebrows went up in amusement. "For me? That is most kind of you, but unnecessary."

"It's not? I mean, it's just a little gift. I hope you like it. And these are for you, too." I handed her the flowers. She laughed. When she opened the bag and saw the frame, she laughed some more. This wasn't

going as well as I hoped.

"Such formal presentations," she said, tucking the stems of the flowers into the bag on top of the little frame. "I hope that you are going to be able to relax!"

"Relax?" I echoed, my voice rising against my will. "What are we doing?"

"You have never heard of Shan-Tun?" she asked. When I shook my head, she smiled. "It is something that I have always wanted to do. And as you were so generous as to let me choose our activity, I thought you might like to share the experience."

"What is it?"

"Shan-Tun and his partner Bon-Jee have devised a most daring amusement," Matt said. "Come and see."

I followed her over the crest of the barren hill. The hilltop sloped down slightly toward a sheer drop at the far end. There, two enormous creatures like caterpillars but each about the size of a Sphinx hunkered, spinning shining white threads between their hands. I realized that each of them had five or six sets of limbs.

"They are Silkwyrms," Matt said. "Their people make all the clothing for the royal family, but some of them have gone into business for themselves. As here."

A dog-headed Ghord stood between them. The Silkwyrms applied some of those thin white threads around his chest, down between his legs and up again. As soon as they withdrew their touch, the Ghord let out a wild yell.

"Yee-ah!"

With that, he leaped backwards off the cliff. I cried out and ran to try and help him.

"No," Matt said, running after me. She caught my arm to hold me back. "It is what he wanted to do."

"But..." I sputtered. "He came here to kill himself?"

"Not at all," Matt began.

Suddenly, the Ghord came catapulting up out of the void, high over our heads. "Whee-hee-hee-yeah!" he bellowed. He dropped down again. In a moment, he bounded back again, a little lower. I could hear his happy cries echoing down the ravine. When the bouncing stopped, the two Silkwyrms started reeling in the nearly invisible threads until the Chord's head reappeared. They grasped him by the shoulders and pulled him back onto the cliff's edge.

"It is wonderful!" he told us, ears flapping. "You will love

it!"

He joined a knot of Ghords who stood laughing and chattering at a safe distance from the edge. They must all have gone before him, because their headcloths were disheveled and windblown.

"Come, come," the larger Silkwyrm, Shan-Tun, said, gesturing to us. "You must take your turn, so the others can go again."

"This is what you want to do?" I asked Matt, a trifle disbelievingly. "Jump off a cliff?"

"Yes," she said. "Head first. I have been looking forward to this for ages!"

"Why not go first?" Shan-Tun asked me.

I looked down over the edge of the precipice. It was a long way to the valley's bottom. A riverbed cut through the yellow-gray wasteland, but it must have been centuries since any water flowed through it. "How does this work?" I asked.

The smaller worm, Bon-Jee, worked his mouth pincers. "We spin fresh silk for every leap," he said. "We wind it around you. You leap. You bounce. It is refreshing. Hold still, sir, while I measure you." He extended three pairs of arms and wrapped them around my chest, shoulders, and between my legs. It tickled, but I did my best not to flinch.

"That will be one silver piece each," said Shan-Tun. "Do you wish to pay for the lady, too?"

"Uh, yes," I said, taking the money out of my belt pouch. They expected me to attempt suicide, constrained only by threads narrower than a strand of my hair, and they wanted me to pay for it? In advance? But Matt was watching me. I smiled as I paid.