Robert Asprin - Mything Persons

me you're willing to let my partner sit on a murder rap

just so you can watch me go through my paces."

"I already explained about that," she said fiercely,

stepping forward to lay a hand on my arm.

I stared at it pointedly until she removed it.

"Well," she said in a small voice. "I can see that

there's nothing more I can say. But, Skeeve? Promise

me that you won't follow me when I leave? You or your

friends? I took a big risk finding you. Please don't make

me regret it."

I stared at her for a long moment, then looked away

and nodded.

"I know you're disappointed in me, Skeeve," came

her voice, "but I can't go against my partners. Haven't

"you ever had to do something you didn't want to do to

support your partner?"

That hit home ... painfully.

"Yes, I have," I said, drawing a ragged breath. "I'm

sorry, Luanna. I'm just Worried about Aahz, that's all.

Tell you what. Just to show there're no hard feelings,

can I have a token or something? Something to remem-

ber you by until I see you again?"

She hesitated, then pulled a gossamer-thin scarf from

somewhere inside her outfit. Stepping close, she tucked

it into my tunic, then rose on her tiptoes and kissed me

softly.

"It's nice of you to ask," she said. "Even if I don't

mean anything to you at all, it's nice of you to ask."

With that, she turned and sprinted off down the road

into the darkness.

I stared after her.

"You're letting her go!?"

Suddenly Massha was at my side, flanked by Guido.

"C'mon, Boss. We gotta catch her. She's your

partner's ticket off death row. Where's she goin'?"

"To meet up with her partners in crime," I said.

"Including a surprisingly lively guy named Vic ...

surprising since he's the one that Aahz is supposed to

have killed."

"So we can catch 'em all together. Nice work, Hot

Stuff. Okay, let's follow her and...."

"No!"

"Why not?"

"Because I promised her."

There was a deathly silence as my assistants digested

this information.

"So she walks and Green and Scaly dies, is that it?"

"You're sellin' out your partner for a skirt? That

musta been some kiss."

I slowly turned to face them, and, mad as they were,

they fell silent.

"Now listen close," I said quietly, "because I'm not

going to go over it again. If we tried to follow her back

to their hideout, and she spotted us, she'd lead us on a

wild goose chase and we'd never catch up with them ...

and we need that so-called corpse. I don't think her

testimony alone will swing the verdict."

Robert Asprin

78

"But Boss, if we let her get away...."

"We'll find them," I said. "Without us dogging her

footsteps, she'll head right back to her partners."

"But how will we...."

In answer, I pulled Luanna's scarf from my tunic.

"Fortunately, she was kind enough to provide us with

a means to track her, once we recruit the necessary were-

wolf."

Guido gave my back a slap that almost staggered me.

"Way to go, Boss," he crowed. "You really had me

goin' for a minute. I thought that chickie had really

snowed you."

I looked up to find Massha eyeing me suspiciously.

"That was quite a kiss. Hot Stuff," she said. "If I

didn't know better, I'd think that young lady is more

than a little stuck on you... and you just took

advantage of it."

I averted my eyes, and found myself staring down the

road again.

"As a wise woman once told me," I said, "sometimes

you have to do things you don't like to support your

partner. ... Now, let's go find these Woof Writers."

"My colleagues and I feel that independ-

ents like ElfQuest are nothing but sheep in

wolves' clothing!"

-S.LEE

THE Woof Writers turned out to be much more pleas-

ant than I had dared hope, which was fortunate as my

werewolf disguises were some of the shakiest I'd ever

done. Guido was indeed allergic to werewolves as feared

(he started sneezing a hundred yards from their house)

and was waiting outside, but even trying to maintain

two disguises was proving to be a strain on my powers in

this magic-poor dimension. I attempted to lessen the

drain by keeping the changes minimal, but only suc-

ceeded in making them incredibly unconvincing even

though my assistants assured me they were fine. No

matter what anyone tells you, believe, me, pointy ears

alone do not wolf make.

You might wonder why I bothered with diguises at

all? Well, frankly, we were getting a little nervous.

Everyone we had talked to or been referred to in this

dimension was so nice\ We kept waiting for the other

shoe to drop. All of our talks and discussions of pos-

80 Robert Asprin

sible traps had made us so skittish that we were now

convinced that there was going to be a double-cross

somewhere along the way. The only question in our

minds was when and by whom.

With that in mind, we decided it would be best to try

to pass ourselves off as werewolves until we knew for

sure the Woof Writers were as well-disposed toward

humans as Vilhelm said they were. The theory was that

if they weren't, the disguises might give us a chance to

get out again before our true nature was exposed. The

only difficulty with that plan was that I had never seen a

werewolf in my life, so not only was I working with a

shortage-of energy, I was unsure as to what the final

result should look like. As it turned out, despite their

knowledgeable advice, my staff didn't know either.

While we're answering questions from the audience,

you might ask, if neither I nor my assistants knew what

a werewolf looked like, how I knew the disguises were

inadequate? Simple. I deduced the fact after one look at

real werewolves. That and the Woof Writers told me so.

Didn't I tell you they were great folks? Of course, they

let us sweat for a while before admitting that they knew

we were poorly disguised humans all along, but I myself

tend to credit that to their dubious sense of humor. It's

Massha who insists it was blatant sadism. Of course, she

was the one who had to eat a bone before they acknowl-

edged the joke.

Anyway, I was talking about the Woof Writers. It

was interesting in that I had never had much opportu-

nity to watch a husband-wife team in action before (my

parents don't count). The closest thing to the phenom-

enon I had witnessed was the brother-sister team of

Tananda and Chumley, but they spent most of their

conversational time trying to "one-down" each other.

MYTH-ING PERSONS 81

The Woof Writers, in contrast, seemed to take turns

playing "crazy partner-sane partner." They never asked

my opinion, but I felt that she was much better at play-

ing the crazy than he. He was so good at playing the

straight that when he did slip into crazy mode. it always

came as a surprise.

"Really, dear," Idnew was saying to Massha,

"wouldn't you like to slip out of that ridiculous disguise

into something more comfortable? A werewolf with

only two breasts looks so silly."

"Idnew," her husband said sternly, "you're making

our guests uncomfortable. Not everyone feels as easy

about discussing their bodies as you do."

"It's the artist in me," she returned, "And besides,

Drahcir, who was it that set her up to eat a bone?—and

an old one at that. If you were a little more conscien-