Rick Cook - The Wizardry Quested

"May I help you?" he said in tones that indicated he probably couldn’t, but he was going to go through the motions anyway.

"Uh, my friend and I need some clothes."

The man looked them up and down. "I’ll say."

"They lost our luggage and all we have left are our costumes. We need something for street wear."

"Hmm," the man said. "Hmm," he said again. "Hey, Meyer, can you come out here a minute?"

Meyer was a wizened old man with thick glasses set low on his nose. His trousers were dusty with chalk and he wore a tape measure draped around his neck like a shawl.

"They need some street clothes," the younger man told him.

Meyer looked them over with an obviously professional eye. "Come on back into the fitting room and let’s see what we can do."

"He keeps me around for color," the old man confided as he led them into the back. "Pfafh! Like I’m a museum exhibit or something."

Like its inhabitant the back room wasn’t nearly as fancy but looked a lot more businesslike. Meyer whipped the tape measure off his shoulders and began to lay it against Jerry’s body. "My nephew. He should have learned his trade at his father’s knee-God rest him- but instead he goes off and gets an MBA. An MBA! Better he should learn tailoring to run a haberdashery, no? But kids, you can’t tell them anything. So, you want suits or what?"

"Something less formal," Jerry said.

"Hmm," the old man said without stopping his measurements. "Pity. I could do some real good things for both of you in suits." He sighed. "But these days, you don’t get a chance to show off what you know. Well, at least it’s not leisure suits any more."

Museum exhibit or no, Meyer knew his business. With hardly a pause he had both Jerry and Bal-Simba measured and the sample book laid out for them to pick the cloth.

"Here you go. Not a thread of polyester in the bunch. Just show me what you want and in two, three days we’ll have you turned out sharp."

"We were hoping for something today. Something we can wear out of here."

"You want miracles too?"

"We can’t go walking around like this."

"I don’t see why not. You look like a bartender from the Excalibur. That’s a hotel," he added at Jerry’s puzzled expression. Then he nodded toward Bal-Simba.

"Him, he’s a problem."

"It can be just about anything. We’re kinda desperate."

He looked at Jerry. "In that case, you I can fit off the rack, almost. Your friend-" He shrugged. "That’s special."

"How long will it take?"

"So you’re in a hurry too?"

"Look, if it’s a matter of money:" The old man waved him to silence. "It’s a matter of possible. A challenge like this I haven’t had in a long time, but even so:" Again the shrug. Then he brightened. "Wait a minute. I do have something a customer never picked up. I can even make you a price on it"

A few minutes later Jerry stepped out of the dressing room the picture of Las Vegas casual. His polo shirt and slacks fit him beautifully. The clothing felt odd after the loose shirts, tunics and breeches he had worn for so long at the Wizards’ Keep. The shoes were stiff and pinched a little after the soft leather boots of the other world, but he could get used to it.

"Are you ready?" he called into the dressing room where Bal-Simba was changing.

"I believe so," Bal-Simba said, somewhat hesitantly.

Bal-Simba emerged wearing a puffy-sleeved pink shirt open to the navel. A fancy vest fitted tightly over the shirt. Tight tan bell-bottoms stretched across his ample rear. He had left his bone necklace around his chest and a snap-brim hat with a leopard-skin band completed the outfit. Meyer fussed around him, pulling down the vest here and tugging the shirt into position there.

Jerry looked his friend up and down. "We don’t have to guess the guy’s profession, do we?"

The old man shrugged. "So who asks? Now come on up front and we’ll get you taken care of."

Jerry gulped when he saw the bill, but he peeled off hundreds without comment.

"The rest of the stuff, four o’clock tomorrow," Meyer admonished. "I swear not a minute sooner."

They found Moira outside by the dolphin pool, posing for pictures with a family of tourists while a couple of bemused security guards looked on.

"Don’t you need a leash for that thing?" one of the guards asked when Jerry came up to rejoin her.

"Audio-Animatronics," Jerry explained.

"No kidding?" one of the guards said. "Like the showgirls?" Jerry wasn’t sure whether he was joking or not so he just smiled.

There was a covered slideway from the lobby to the street, but Jerry led them down the ordinary sidewalk beneath it. He wasn’t sure how his friends would take to a moving walkway and he wasn’t at all sure Moira would be able to keep her tail out of the gears.

"How do we begin our search for this wizard?" Moira asked as the three made their way out to the street.

"First things first. We gotta get registered. We do that at the main Convention Center."

"Where is that?"

"There." Jerry pointed to one of the towers springing up out of the desert.

"It’s further than it looks."

"How will we get there?"

"Walk. I don’t think they would let a dragon on a shuttle bus. Besides, we don’t have credentials so they won’t let us in either."

Bal-Simba nodded and the strangely assorted trio joined the knots of business-suited convention-goers drifting down the sidewalk toward the distant tower.

You would think that a twenty-foot dragon parading down the main street of a major American city would attract at least some attention. You would be wrong. Anyone who’s been in Las Vegas more than forty-eight hours has found stranger things than that on the breakfast buffet. The only interest came from the occasional gawker in a car stuck in traffic, and truth to tell they seemed more taken with Bal-Simba.

"What is all this for?" Moira asked as they walked along. "Wiz compared it to the Winter Fair once, but I never understood."

"It’s a trade show for the computer industry," Jerry said. "All these people are connected with computers somehow."

"And they are here to buy and sell them?"

Jerry shrugged. "Well, they used to be. Then the distribution channels got better established and most of that business moved elsewhere. Then for a while everybody came to see the new products that were being announced. But the show got so big and there were so many announcements that most of the really big ones aren’t made here any more. Then it was the place to meet people. But now it’s so big you have trouble doing that." He fell silent.

"Then why do people come here?" Moira asked.

"I guess," Jerry said slowly, "because it’s here."

The air was cool and the desert sun merely warm rather than blazing. Even so, Moira was showing signs of stress before they reached their destination.

"I am sorry, My Lord, but this body cannot go much further," Moira told them finally. "It is worn out and I, I am feeling unwell."

The way she said it made Jerry wonder about what happened when a dragon barfed. He decided not to be in front of her if it happened.

That’s okay. I told you it was further than it looked " He glanced down the street. " Look, the Convention Center is right down there. Why don’t I go ahead and you two follow when she can? I’ll have to wait in line for a while anyway." Registration was in a big blue-and-white tent erected in the parking lot at the Convention Center. Jerry breasted his way through the thickening crowds around and inside the tent to get a place in line to register.