MA06 Little Myth Marker Read Free Page B

been in smaller palaces ... heck, I’ve lived and worked in smaller palaces than our current domicile. Back when I was court magician at Possletum, to be exact.
    Here at the Bazaar, the Deveels think that any display of wealth will weaken their position when they haggle over prices, so they hide the size of their homes by tucking them into ‘unlisted dimensions.’ Even though our home looked like just a humble tent from the street, the inside included multiple bedrooms, a stable area, a courtyard and garden, etc., etc. You get the picture.
    Unfortunately for me, at the moment it also included my partner, Aahz.
    “Well, if it isn’t the Bazaar’s own answer to War, Famine, Death, and Pestilence! Other dimensions have the Four Horsemen, but the Bazaar at Deva has the Great Skeeve!”
    Remember my partner, Aahz? I mentioned him back in Chapter One and again in Chapter Two. Most of my efforts to describe him fail to prepare people for the real thing. What I usually forget to mention to folks is that he’s from the dimension Perv. For those of you unfamiliar with dimension travel, that means he is green and scaly with a mouth big enough for any other three beings and teeth enough for a school of sharks ... if shark teeth got to be four inches long, that is. I don’t deliberately omit things from my descriptions. It’s just that after all these years I’ve gotten used to him.
    “Have you got anything at all to say for yourself? Not that there’s any acceptable excuse, mind you. It’s just that tradition allows you a few last words.”
    Well ... I’ve almost gotten used to him.
    “Hi, Aahz. Have you heard about the card game?”
    “About two hours ago,” Massha supplied from a nearby chair where she was entrenched with a book and a huge box of chocolates. “He’s been like this ever since.”
    “I see you’ve done your usual marvelous job of calming him down.”
    “I’m just an apprentice around here,” she said with a shrug. “Getting between you two in a quarrel is not part of my game plan for a long and prosperous life.”
    “If you two are quite through,” Aahz growled, “I’m still waiting to hear what you have to say for yourself.”
    “What’s to say? I sat in on a game of dragon poker...”
    “WHO’S BEEN TEACHING YOU TO PLAY DRAGON POKER? That’s what there is to say! Was it Tananda? Chumley? How come you’re going to other people for lessons all of a sudden? Aren’t I good enough for the Great Skeeve anymore?”
    The truth of the situation suddenly dawned on me. Aahz was my teacher before he insisted that I be elevated to full partner status. Even though we were theoretically equals, old habits die hard and he still considered himself to be my exclusive teacher, mentor, coach, and all-around nudge. What the real problem was that my partner was jealous of someone else horning in on what he felt was his private student! Perhaps this problem would be easier to deal with than I thought.
    “No one else has been teaching me, Aahz. Everything I know about dragon poker, I learned from you.”
    “But I haven’t taught you anything.”
    “Exactly.”
    That stopped him. At least, it halted his pacing as he turned to peer suspiciously at me with his yellow eyes.
    “You mean you don’t know anything at all about dragon poker?”
    “Well, from listening to you talk, I know about how many cards are dealt out and stuff like that. I still haven’t figured out what the various hands are, much less their order ... you know, what beats what.”
    “I know,” my partner said pointedly. “What I don’t know is why you decided to sit in on a game you don’t know the first thing about.”
    “The Geek sent me an invitation, and I thought it would be sociable to...”
    “The Geek? You sat in at one of the Geek’s games at the Even-Odds to be sociable?” He was off again. “Don’t you know that those are some of the most cutthroat games at the Bazaar? They eat amateurs alive at those tables. And