much confusion.
'... But they keep asking me, what do you do with an in-between skill? A talent no one knows how to harness?'
'What?'
I startled out of my daydream. The minute girl in the blue dress on the guest chair twisted a handkerchief between her fingers. She gave me a shy smile, which made her small oval face lovely.
'I'm sorry. I know my voice isn't very loud,' the girl said. She was a Pixie, a denizen of Pix. 'I mean, my parents think I should just train harder, but I don't want to be a flower fairy. Flowers make me sneeze. Oh, I know there are spells to counteract that, but I don't... I don't like flowers,' she said, with a defiant scowl, as if daring me to contradict her. Her little nose turned pink. 'I just could never be as good as my friends. My mother is the foremost rose sculptor in all of Pix. I can't equal her, but she wants me to follow in her footsteps. I just want to make my own way. I just don't know how.'
'So,' I said slowly, feeling as if I was asking myself, 'what is it you do?'
She looked happy, as though no one had ever voiced the question before. She fluttered her tiny hands. From between her fingers, a flash of red appeared. A brilliantly colored bird took shape and took wing. It soared up over my head, then angled off, circling the ceiling of my office.
Gleep's head sprang up from his forepaws, and he bounded after it.
'Gleep, no!' I said, jumping up. I lunged for his collar.
Too late. His jaws snapped shut on the bird. He landed, his blue eyes wide. His tongue snaked out, as though tasting the air. I was aghast. I turned to Flinna.
'Gee, I'm sorry about your pet,' I said. 'Gleep doesn't usually misbehave like that.'
Flinna smiled at me. 'It's all right. It wasn't real.'
'Wasn't real?' I realized I was echoing her. 'What was it?'
'It's a kind of fairy illusion,' she explained. 'I can do hundreds of them, all completely accurate. They feel real, but you can't keep them. Once you touch them, they go pop.'
'Really?' I asked. So that was why Gleep was casting around and looking confused. 'Wow. That is a special talent.'
'But useless,' Flinna said, hanging her head. 'I don't know how to do anything but flower magik and illusionary birds. I can't make a living at either one. What can I do with—well, what I can do?'
'Let's see if I can find someplace for you,' I said, rising and extending my hand. 'I know a lot of people here in the Bazaar.'
The Geek stroked his chin. The wily Deveel and I had been on opposite sides in several deals. As far as I could tell, he still owed me for some shady dealing that nearly killed some students of mine.4
'I don't know, Skeeve,' he said, watching Flinna put varied and colorful waterfowl in a row, each a masterpiece of magikal art. 'I mean, don't get me wrong—they're great ducks, but my new show, Teal or No Teal,' is only in the planning stages. It could be months before I could use the girl.'
Flinna looked devastated. 'Oh,' she said.
'Do you know anyone who is hiring?' I asked, feeling just as dismayed but refusing to show it. 'She's willing to travel.'
'Hmm,' he said, and resumed chin-stroking. 'Well, you could talk to Hyam. He's got a variety show heading for the provinces. The pay's so-so, but you get expenses and meals.'
'We'll try him,' I said, rising and offering my hand. 'You still owe me, but thanks.'
'Hey, glad to help, glad to help,' the Geek said. 'Don't hurry back, huh?' He leaned out and pinched the plumply pretty Deveel at his reception desk on the cheek. 'Marlys, send in my next appointment.'
We sat in the second row of the huge, echoing theater. Flinna watched openmouthed as act after act mounted the stage and performed. Illusionists, fire-eaters, high-wire walkers, prestidigitators, ventriloquists, and almost all of them doing their tricks without benefit of magik. I was impressed.
'Ya gotta be able to do it either way,' the green-skinned Sittacommedian at my side informed me. 'We travel to all the dimensions, Klah, Perv, Imper, Kobol. If there's no force lines, you still gotta be entertaining. I don't fancy bein' run out of town on a rail. Had it happen enough times.' He extended a forearm, and I could see pucker marks in his green skin. I guessed they had been caused by hot tar and feathers being applied.
'Well, I don't know much about show business,' I admitted.
'No kiddin',' Hyam said, stubbing his cigar out on the back of the chair ahead of him. He bent forward to yell at the voluptuous female on the stage. 'Honey, either shake it or get out of here! I'm a busy man!' He leaned back. 'If you knew anything, you wouldn'a gone to the Geek for advice. He don't know nothin'.'
'He seems to be successful,' I said.
'Smoke and minors,' Hyam said. 'Just don't invest money with him.' He turned to Flinna. 'Okay, honey, wow me.'
Flinna looked delicate and lost in the huge beam of the spotlight. She hesitated, and I gave her an encouraging gesture. She shot me a quick smile and raised her hands. I crossed my fingers. Success here would validate her faith in mc, and I could use the shot of confidence.
The flower fairy started producing her illusions. I heard murmurs from the other acts sitting in the dark behind us that rose to startled exclamations of pleasure as wrens, robins, jays, finches, canaries, and juncos flew from her hands. She moved on to bigger species: owls, falcons, gulls and a huge, brown-winged pelican. The air was full of them. She spread her hands farther apart. I was agog as Flinna made a blue heron, a phoenix, three different eagles, six parrots, and an ostrich. We had discussed her grand finale. Mentally, I wished her good luck. Hyam gave a puzzled grunt as she moved over to one side of the stage and opened her arms as far as they would go. A gigantic beak appeared between them. She walked backward through the spotlight toward the other side of the stage, moving her fingers all the time as the enormous roc took shape. Red feathers the size of her body came into being. As soon as it was finished, the illusory bird sat up and let out a squawk that shook the theater. The other performers behind me burst into applause and cheers. Trembling with shyness, Flinna came downstage and clasped her hands together and waited.
I turned to Hyam, who was trembling, too. but with rage. His face had turned an ugly purple. He glared at Flinna.
'For that, the Geek sent you to me?' he bellowed. 'That's all you do? Bird imitations?' He stood up and leveled a finger toward the exit. 'Geddada here!'
'I don't believe it,' I said, trying to cheer her up as we trudged out of the theater. 'I think he was just jealous. I have never seen anything like that. And did you hear the others? They loved it.'
'They don't matter,' Flinna said, miserably. The little female's wings drooped low. 'He hated it. I'll never find a place.'
'Oh, yes, you will' I said, giving her a pat on the shoulder. 'We just haven't made the right connection yet.'
I took her back to my office. I left her petting Gleep and went to talk to Bunny.
'I admit that there probably isn't a lot of call for insubstantial bird images,' Bunny said, but she flipped Bytina open and set the little PDA to work. 'I'll check the Crystal Ether Network for want ads.'
Thanks to advances in magik, most of them pioneered by the Kobolds, reading crystal balls was no longer reserved for people with their own talent, or even in magikal dimensions. Crystals and related philosophical devices like Bytina seemed to generate their own auras. As a result, a virtual industry had sprung up to provide readers with something to look at when they weren't predicting the future. Theatrically minded wizards put on plays. People of every race with way too much time on their hands made images of themselves or their pets. Naturally, Deveels and Perverts figured out a way of promoting commerce through the ether. Practical as ever, the Kobolds themselves began to solicit lists of needs and wants, gathered across the dimensions, which one could read as clearly as a scroll on one's own tabletop. It was through these want ads that we read now.
'Wouldst thou see the universe as more beautiful? Become a traveling peddler in Avalon goods and render those you encounter more fair.'
'Troll seek pretty girl. Marry and have babies.'
'Earn five hundred gold coins every week in your spare time! Send a nonrefundable twenty-coin deposit for information and a free kit to Evondell, the Bazaar, Deva.'
