Myth-Told Tales

I took a full survey of my surroundings as the pets holding on to my leash spoke heatedly with King Petherwick of King-Mart. What might in other circumstances have been a warehouse with cashbox desks like most of the other bigger emporia in the Bazaar had been turned into a combination throne room and general store. Situated in the center just behind the checkout desks, where shoppers had to pass him on the way inside, the exiled Klahdish king held court. Attendants of both genders, attired in the brown and teal livery of their lost realm, clustered on both sides of the grand seat. About them on tall standards hung pennants of the king's coat of arms, and tapestries picked out in silk threads depicting valiant battles between fierce and handsomely attired opponents, or fantastic gardens containing plants that could never exist, most of them lacking such necessary parts as sepals, or indeed stems. Such impracticality hinted at a lack of foresight by the makers of the tapestries, which did not surprise me. Klahds were, as a rule, incapable of making plans beyond a certain elementary complexity. All around this small audience chamber, the room was lined with banks of shelves, hanging racks for clothing, and stacks of crates, cartons, and boxes of every size arranged in aisles, through which hundreds of shoppers from a hundred dimensions were pushing wheeled baskets and wearing the bemused looks of the up-to-date hunter-gatherer. No doubt the brush with royalty was one of the attractions of shopping at King-Mart. I fell back to sniffing the area, seeking in vain for a familiar scent that I had expected to find here. No dragon save myself had ever set foot in this space. I was relieved, but left with the puzzle of what had. A jerking of my collar brought me back to the argument going on over my head.

'This mystery beast is pestering my people,' Petherwick said, indignantly. 'Therefore, I expect you to handle it' A large, fleshy Klahd with a florid face and triple-layered bags under his eyes, slumped in his throne. As we watched, a couple of Imp females entered, and curtsied to the throne before picking up wicker baskets from the stack at the head of the first aisle. Petherwick acknowledged them with a curt nod of the head. 'To death, in two cases already! I do not see how is this stuffed toy of yours is supposed to help,' he added, looking down at me with disdain. I opened my eyes as widely as I could, to simulate gentle innocence. 'Hell just make matters worse!'

'He's not a toy,' Nunzio said gently. 'He's young, but he's a real dragon.'

Petherwick looked alarmed. 'You can't trust a dragon!'

'Gleep ain't like other dragons,' Guido said, his thick black eyebrows drawn down over a brow that just missed being Neanderthal in nature. 'He don't wreck things. He's house-trained. And he's smart.' 'Your employer assured me that if I agreed to his contract, internal security in my capital would never be a problem. We would be protected from annoyances, as your employer put it'

'This isn't a typical example of a security problem,' Nunzio pointed out, with some justice. 'Don Bruce meant problems with other people. You say that this is pest control. That makes it your problem.'

'This is not just pest control! I am sure it is sabotage! Someone is attempting to put me out of business. That makes it a security issue. Some of my best men have died! I have lost large sums in gold at least once a week for the last three weeks! And if I start telling other people that Don Bruce had failed to solve a problem that occurred on his watch, that he showed no flexibility in dealing with problems,' King Petherwick said, a sly light shining in his porcine eyes, 'then your other contractees might want to stop doing business with you.'

'That,' Guido sighed lustily, 'is why we are here. The Don is willing to give you one 'gimme* on the basis that you've been a good customer, always payin' up on the dot when the premiums are due. He has noticed this. And you have to admit that we have cleaned up all the other situations that have come around. But you have pushed this contract to limits that the Don did not anticipate.'

The king planted an indignant hand on his overfed chest.

'Do I not have the right to go into business, to support myself and my dependants, now that that harridan has taken over my ancient bailiwick? May I not open a store?'

'Yeah, but no one ever said you were gonna open fourteen of 'em,' Guido said, in frustration.

'Five more opening next month,' one of the courtiers standing by the throne remarked.

'Lord Dalhailey,' Petherwick said, by way of cursory introduction. 'My Minister of Marketing, just newly returned from a buying trip. I believe you two have not met before?' The Klahd dipped his head slightly, noblesse oblige. Guido tipped him a casual salute with two fingers off the brim of his fedora hat.

'Pleased to meetcha. Look, there's gonna be some renegotiatin' come the expiration of this current contract,' he said, turning back to the king. 'I just want to warn you what is in the Don's mind.'

'There will be no renegotiation if this is not solved, because I will refuse to renew your service contract if you don't help me,' Petherwick said, majestically. 'We have so far successfully explained to shocked shoppers that the dead or dismembered bodies they have come upon unawares as being part of Slay Days, a period of deep discounts symbolized by models of fierce beasts being dispatched by knights and wizards.' He gestured to a pair of displays that flanked his throne room. Cardboard cutouts of reptiles snarled at bay as Klahds in silver mail pierced them with swords or spears.

'I thought you said that these were armored knights that they were finding,' Nunzio said.

Petherwick shrugged. 'The dragon doesn't always lose, my friend. But my customers have been most understanding, and we have responded with generosity if they do not overreact. If they find a dead body in the aisle, they are entitled to a twenty percent discount off one item that day.'

'Thirty percent, if the item comes from that aisle,' Lord Dalhailey added. 'We call it our 'Blue Blood Special.' I added that clause myself. As a service to the consumer, of course. We don't want them thinking that we are bloodthirsty vultures interested only in the bottom line.'

'Even if you are bloodthirsty vultures interested in the bottom line,' Guido said.

Dalhailey looked as indignant as Petherwick had. 'Sir, I resent your implication! We have mouths to feed, thousands of them. Almost a third of the population of Shoalmirk followed his majesty into exile.' Here he bowed toward Petherwick, who waved a hand in acknowledgment. 'You have no idea how difficult it has been to keep them convinced that this move to Deva is in their best interests.'

'But the chief concern is the depletion of the treasury. This beast is managing not only to attack my people, but to rob us of our legitimate proceeds,' Petherwick said, dragging the enforcers' minds back to what I believe was his main point all along. 'We have been holding a one-week special on luxury dry goods that has proved surprisingly profitable. The proceeds from all the stores are brought in and amassed here in our flagship location. I do not wish to lose any of the gold we have earned from those sales. Do you think that two of you and this ... this lizard can succeed before we are robbed again?'

'That would be our intention,' Guido said, carefully keeping his tone level.

I felt it incumbent upon me to make a comment at this stage.

'Gleep!'

Everyone turned to look at me. King Petherwick sneered.

'Not too impressive, is he? I thought your employer would send the wizard he's got working for him. Sneeze, I think he said the name is?'

'Skeeve,' Nunzio said, restraining Guido with a palm to the chest. 'He's on vacation. This is his dragon.'

'Hardly a substitute.' Petherwick waved an imperious hand. 'Well, get on with it. The sooner you find what happened to my gold, the sooner we can talk about the next contract.'

'I knew it,' Guido exploded the moment we were out of earshot of the retail monarch. 'I knew this mook would be trouble. When we was signin' up prospects, once I heard he was from Klah and checked him out a lit-tie with Big Julie, I said skip this place. But no, the Don says he's gotta have a hundred percent subscription in the area. This guy calls us in for all kinds of petty stuff that are none of our Business, and I sez this with a capital B, as you can tell.'

'Are you questioning our boss?' Nunzio asked, with a lifted eyebrow that was the sole skepticism he showed his much larger cousin.

'Not officially, no,' Guido sighed. 'The Don tells us to do somethin' and we do it. I just don't think this penny-ante loser is worth our time.'

'The Don says he is, so he is. Our allegiance is to our boss, not to King Petherwick. I agree he's not much of a king, though he's turnin' into some kind of hot-shot retailer.'

'Still, there are elements of rank deception involved here. How many times we been called out to one or