“If you exile my client, I can't win.”
“You can't win anyhow,” I said, trying not to gloat and failing. “We beat you six ways from feastday. I just won. My client's got her job back, and yours has just lost his. Besides, we have the moral victory.”
“Moral? This is purely a numbers game, pal.” Aahz stuck his face in mine. I didn't back down. I thrust my chin forward. “Then we'll take it back to Bunny, and ask her,” I said. “All right?” “All right!”
Myth 18 - MythChief
THIRTY -SIX
“Okay, so maybe winning IS everything.”
KING DARIUS OF PERSIA
Aahz and Tananda burst into the office not more than three seconds after I did. They had both had a chance to clean up and put on fresh clothes, as I had.
“Aahz, are you all right?” Bunny asked. “We were so worried!”
“I'm fine,” he said. “It was sticky, but not insurmount-able. You know Pervects. We always come out on top.”
“Huh,” I said. So he wasn't going to tell her how I res-cued him and the others. I was disgusted. I flopped down in a chair and put my head on my hand. Gleep came gal-loping over to greet me. I scratched his chin. Bunny looked from one of us to the other.
“Where are the clients?”
“I took Hermalaya someplace safe,” I said. I didn't want to say any more than that. She had protested when I took her back to Massha's cottage in Possiltum, but I didn't want to take a chance with her well-being, not when we were about to return her triumphantly to Foxe-Swampburg.
Aahz growled. “Matfany is in an undisclosed location until I get a ruling from you on inappropriate behavior from my opponent over there.”
Bunny's eyebrows rose sky-high. “Inappropriate behav-ior from Skeeve? What happened? Didn't he just pull all of you out of a swamp?”
“That's not the point,” Aahz said. He leaned over the desk and aimed a finger at me. “He just exiled MY client from his homeland. He can't do that!”
“Why not?” Bunny asked, not at all cowed. “It's fair. Yours did it to his.”
Aahz threw up his hands. “But that's a matter of inter-nal politics. Skeeve's an outsider. What about the Prime Directive?”
“What's that?” I asked. “I'm not here to complete your education anymore.” Aahz said sourly. “What about it? Can he do that?” Bunny turned to me. “How did you exile him?” "Matfany asked me how he could repay me for saving his life. I told him he could get out of town. It's not
my problem what it does to Aahz's mission, is it?“ ”Would you have done it if Aahz hadn't been working for him?" Chumley asked. *
“Yes! He deposed a sitting ruler! It's not like she can pull up stakes and go get a job somewhere. She's royalty. She belongs back home.”
Aahz snorted. “Big deal. The descendant of someone else who moved in and decided that he was in charge. But does it stand?”
“I don't see why not,” Bunny said. “Sounds like he made a fair deal.”
“Then the contest's over,” I said. “He can't earn any more for his client.”
“You're right about that,” Bunny agreed. “The contest as we agreed to it is over.”
“Then let's see who won?” I pulled the ledger around to look at my total. "Fifteen thousand, six hundred gold coins!
Wow!" With a total like that I had to have won. I was going to be president of M.Y.T.H., Inc. again!
“Lemme see that.” Aahz yanked the book away from me. “Fifteen thousand, six hundred ... ? From serving a few lousy little pieces of cake?”
“That's Cake,” I corrected him.
“No problem. I have you beaten on numbers.”
“You couldn't.”
“I could and I do.” Aahz turned to the page with his name on it. His face fell. “Fifteen thousand, six hundred.” “What?” I asked. “You're tied,” Nunzio said.
Aahz gawked at the ledger. “Wait a minute! How could you do that? I put names on almost everything in the coun-try!”
I held up the little clay pot. “We had a Leprechaun.” “So neither of you won,” Tananda said. “You tied.” “We need a tiebreaker,” I said.
“Sudden death,” Aahz said. I looked blank. He looked disgusted at my ignorance. “One contest, winner take all.” “Oh! Okay. I agree.”
We turned to Bunny. “What can we do?” I asked.
Bunny looked from me to Aahz and back again with a look of absolute exasperation. I was surprised to see that all the others had the same expression.
“What's wrong?” I asked.
“What is the matter with you?” she demanded, her voice rising to glass-breaking tones. “Both of you are missing the point!”
“What point?” Aahz asked. “You set the conditions of the contest. The prize is the presidency of our organization. We tied. We won't both be president, so we need to break the tie.”
“Aagh!” Bunny said, scraping the desk with her finger-nails. "You men are so dense! The point is that
putting Hermalaya back on the throne means she has to punish Matfany as a usurper, and she doesn't want to, does she?"
"Not really,' I said, uneasily. The look on her face when I left her in Possiltum reminded me of that shy confession Massha had wormed out of her.
“. . . And having Matfany in charge isn't tenable be-cause the people like their ruling family, right, Aahz? They take pride in it. Besides, he just had a fit of temper when he tossed her off the throne and condemned her to death if she returned. Skeeve got him to agree to leave out of a sense
