“Yes, there she is, your queen of love! Oshleen!”
The Pervect returned to the center of the stage, and the Deveel took her hand and Bunny's.
Well, that was that.
“Now, we have a special presentation to make. You all know about our grand prize. The great and powerful Bub Tube!” He pointed to the plinth above the judges' table. “Now, there are always a few irregularities in a contest of this size. There are many rules, and many of them are broken by accident, but in other cases, they are openly defied to gain an unfair advantage. To be blunt, contestants cheat. We know that you, the audience, would feel it was wrong to give our grand prize to someone who skirted the regulations under which our contest was run. The judges have been keeping a running tally of tricks and subterfuge, magikal and otherwise, and subtracted these totals from the overall scores. They have come up with a winner. They are unanimous on this decision. It is not Oshleen.”
“What?” the Pervect bellowed, trying unsuccessfully to free her hand. The Deveel must have had a pure heart because his strength was as the strength of ten. She stayed where she was, as if bound there.
“Yes, indeed,” the Deveel continued, smoothly. “And so, for cheating less than any of the other contestants, the citizens of Trofi are pleased to award the Bub Tube to Bunny! Take a bow, Bunny!”
Startled, Bunny lurched forward a pace, and offered a deep curtsy to the audience, then another one to the judges. By the time she stood fully upright the truth had dawned on her at last. She began beaming.
The pillar sank into the floor until the Bub Tube was within arm's reach of the stage. The Pervect stretched out a hand to take it, but the Deveel beat her to it. He snatched it off the plinth and, with a deep bow, handed it to Bunny. “Congratulations, you lovely lady! Would you like to say a few words?”
The truth had also dawned upon her fellow contestants. The last-place loser was getting the prize! Outrageous! In a mass, they started to move in on Bunny.
No one was paying attention to me. I dashed back to her dressing room, snatched up the D-hopper, and shoved my way through the crowd. I would never make it before they would be on her in a mob.
“Bunny!” I shouted, hoping to be heard. “Catch!”
She looked up at the sound of my voice, and held up a hand just in time to catch the short baton. Then I was knocked off my feet by the rush of furious women. I'd never make it to her. Dropping to my hands and knees, I crawled back through the sea of threshing legs to her dressing room and locked the door behind me. The cubicle was too small to lie down, but I huddled against the wall to nurse my bruises.
Unperturbed by the chaos going on around him, the Deveel host put his arm around Oshleen and began to sing. “There she is! / How beautiful! / Your queen of love! / How magikal! / How beautiful and magickal! / Your queen of love she is.”
I scrabbled backward as a body appeared in the middle of the small space. It was Bunny, clutching both the D-hopper and the Bub Tube.
“Hurry,” she said. “They're tearing the place apart.”
“You don't have to tell me twice,” I said, springing to my feet and putting my hand on her arm so the spell would carry both of us out of Trofi for good. In a moment I felt the wrenching sensation that accompanied any trip by D-hopper.
“Whew!” I said, as I looked around at familiar surroundings. We were back at the inn, with my string of laundry drying across an open window, dirty dishes on the table, Gleep and Buttercup bearing down on us as if we were the last sausages at a picnic. I staved off my dragon's slimy tongue, but I was smiling. “This is the most beautiful thing I've seen in three days — present company excepted, of course.”
“Thank you for helping me,” Bunny said, giving me a big kiss on the cheek. “Uncle Bruce is going to be so pleased to get the Bub Tube. You saved my life.”
“Well, you saved mine just now,” I pointed out, enjoying the sensation. “A favor for a favor. Let's call it even. What are friends for?”
“You haven't gotten off scot-free,” she said, with a coy smile. “You’ll have to listen to my acceptance speech.”
“Sure,” I agreed, stretching gratefully in a chair front of the fireplace in the old inn's kitchen, and pouring myself one — just one — well deserved cup of wine. “Just one thing: what's a scot?”
M.Y.T.H. INC. INSTRUCTIONS
By Robert Asprin and Jody Lynn Nye
First down the long white aisle came the flower girls, ten of them dressed in green organza tossing handfuls of petals into the air. I got a faceful of their perfume and sneezed. That expression caused me to bare my teeth involuntarily, causing an equally involuntary back step by the six people standing nearest to me in the great hall of Possiltum Palace. I never expect Klahds to really appreciate Pervect teeth like mine.
I tugged at the tight collar of the formal tunic I'd let Massha talk me into wearing. If she hadn't become such a valued associate of mine and Skeeve's, I would tactfully have arranged to be elsewhere on this, her special day of days. But if you are smart you will never say “no” to a woman about to get married, unless you're planning on finishing the sentence with “of course I don't mind you dressing me up like an organ grinder's monkey.” Which, naturally, leads your former apprentice and present partner to ask what an organ grinder is. When I explained he said it sounds like a devious torture device that, now that I come to think of it, isn't all that far from being accurate, if you consider your inner ear an organ.
The horde of little girls was succeeded by a host of little boys dressed up like pages. Every one of them looked like I felt I know Massha has a somewhat garish color sense, but I'd have done a little better for these kids than coral-and-pink striped satin breeches and caps, and bright aqua tunics. All around me I could see optic nerves shorting out, and the bridal attendants hadn't started down the aisle yet.
Before I'd finished the thought, here they came in a bevy. A lot of the bridesmaids were of Massha's globular body type, though none of them matched her in sheer magnificence (this is her wedding day — it behooves me to be more than my usual tactful self). Her confidence and warmth brought out the best in fellow large ladies of the Possiltum court, who sought her out as a friend and role model, helping them to like themselves as they were. She had plenty of friends there. Even Queen Hemlock, whom I would have voted “Girl Least Likely to Have Friends of Her Own Species,” had gotten on to cordial, even warm terms with her.
In an unusual display of insecurity Massha had run color choices for the ladies' gowns past Bunny, who has a good eye for fashion. Instead of a wallow of wild hues, which is what I would have expected, the bridesmaids were all dressed in pale pink silk. In spite of the vast differences in complexions and sizes, the pink served to flatter rather than draw attention. Bunny herself looked glorious and demure in her gown. The pink even looked good against the green of Tananda's hair. She resembled some species of orchid, shapely and exotic. I'd never before seen bridesmaids' dresses that didn't look like bedspreads or horror costumes. Mentally, I awarded points to Bunny for skill, and Massha for knowing when to ask for help. It just showed what kind of trust the team inspired.
Subtlety ended with the arrival of an entire marching band. Two women in pink and aqua skirts, shorter than anything Tanda had ever worn on a job, catapulted into the room and began to turn flips down the white carpet. Behind them, a drum major in bright orange and blue came to a halt at the door and blew a sharp blast on a whistle. He hoisted his baton on high and marched forward, leading the Possiltum army's music corps in full dress uniform, playing Honywagen's “Wedding March.” This was a discordant dirge that had become traditional for weddings across the dimensions, to the everlasting regret of real music lovers. Since the band was a little heavy on bagpipes and horns, the effect was as hard on the ears as their outfits were on the eyes. Since we Pervects have more sensitive ears than Klahds, I was ready to kill someone by the time they finished mauling Honywagen and struck up “A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody.”