Princess Hermalaya is personally going around the dimen-sions and inducting people into a secret society!"'
“No!” her friend exclaimed. I aimed an ear in their di-rection. “What do they do?”
“I don't know! I heard about it from my sister-in-law. Her aunt's father travels in dry goods. He said he was in a dimension where the entire royal family was inducted. It was a big secret, held in a dark room with candles and chanting and glitter!”
“How did he hear about it?” the friend asked, suspi-cious. “Oh, well, all the servants knew. They told him when he made his delivery. It just sounds so romantic!” “Oh, it does,” the friend said. “Ooh, I wish I could join!” So that was what Skeeve was up to.
“Excuse me,” I said, favoring them with my most ingra-tiating smile. They backed away a couple of paces, so I held up my copy of the book to show I was in the princess-admiring club along with them. “What dimension was that your uncle went to? I was just visiting a place, and I heard rumors about this society. Was it Imper?”
“Oh, no!”' the first female said. “It was Octaroo. Did she go to Imper, too? Oh, I wish I could travel all around like she does. I bet she has a fancy car and servants and a ti-ara!”
Glamour and mystery, I mused, moving away from them. You can't fight against a couple of concepts like that. If I knew Skeeve, he had figured out a way to make money, substantial money, from it.
Thinking of herd instinct gave me an idea. I edged to-ward the clerk and bought the little pink book.
I had to counteract Hermalaya's appeal somehow. I ought to set a backfire, or at least start some rumors, get a little negative chat going. Secret societies are great for making feebleminded people do things they'd be too em-barrassed to unless they had drunk at least sis beers. I grinned. Exclusivity was only desirable unless it wasn't any longer. Maybe I could make her more popular still. Too popular, in fact.
In the meantime, I had some unreal real estate to move.
Myth 18 - MythChief
TWENTY -ONE
“Nothing else is like dining with the original.” COUNT DRACULA Hermalaya was as gracious as ever as we showed the final set of guests out of the reception room.
“Thank you for working us in at the last minute,” said the chief operating officer tot Pangallobank, Interdimen-sional He shook my hand energetically with five or six of his own spindly little limbs. “I heard about you all from my financial wizard. She watches the Crystal Ether Net-work on her scrying ball. The write-up was so enthusias-tic I had a hard time believing it, but I checked in with a few of my friends. Word on the street, you know, isn't al-ways trustworthy Know your sources, that's what I say. Ruty!”
“Yessir!” A yes-centipede with a go-getting attitude ap-peared at his boss's side. He handed me a silk envelope that jingled satisfyingly. “Wove it myself, sir! Enjoy it, sir!”
“Thanks a bunch,” I said, tucking it into my belt pouch. “And if you give any other thought to what I mentioned earlier...?”'
“I will,” said the COO. “We hold paper on a number of small banks across the dimensionsnothing as big as the Gnomes of Zoorikyet. I'll let you know. Meantime, you tell me if I can help out this lovely lady in any way.”
One of Massha's gadgets moped around the floor, pick-ing up glitter and stray crumbs. I drew out the small pack-age and counted up the coins.
“How are we doing, Boss?” Nunzio asked.
“Pretty well,” I said. “Another two hundred coins.”
“Jolly good, what?” Chumley asked. “Where to next, Massha?”
“Well...” My former apprentice looked embarrassed. “I didn't want to mention this while everyone was getting ready for these visitors, but there aren't any more.”
“Why?” I asked. “But we were booming just a couple of days ago! We got all sorts of good interviews in half a dozen dimensions. Hermalaya's diary is about to go into reprint.”
“I know,” Massha said, unhappily. She thumbed the jewel on her bracelet. A list sprang into view against the wall. I peered at it. All the names on it were crossed off. “I got a bunch of cancellations just this morning. I'm sorry, Skeeve. I have no idea what has gone wrong. Everyone loves her, but it looks like no one wants to do the Cake ceremony anymore.”
“Why? I thought that the 'princess in exile' angle was the best draw around.” “It is! The flow's been everything we could have hoped for, up until right about now.”
I drummed my fingertips on the chair arm. Good pub-licity plus good word of mouth couldn't equal no interest. “That means something's actively interfering,” I said.
“That would be my assessment, as well,” Chumley said. He had suspended his persona of Big Crunch around Her-malaya. It was too difficult to discuss strategy in monosyl-lables.
“Me, too,” said Massha.
“Why, who would want to stop people having Cake?” Hermalaya asked, distressed. “It's so beneficial! Unless it was that rapscallion Matfany!”
“That's it! You think Aahz has anything to do with this?” I asked. “I know he wants to win.” Chumley fixed his odd-sized eyes on me. “I say, Skeeve. could you even think such a thing of him?”
I felt ashamed of myself. “I guess I'm just so fixed on this contest that I'm convincing myself of anything. Sorry.”
Chumley guffawed, an unusually crude noise for a re-fined person like him.
