Myth 08 – Myth-Nomers by Aspirin, Robert

The bellhop unlocked a door and ushered me into my

room with a flourish. The first view of my temporary head-

quarters almost reversed my mind all over again.

The room was what could only be politely referred to as

a hole . . . and I wasn’t in a particularly polite mood. For

openers, it was small . . . smaller than most of the closets

in my place back at the Bazaar. There was barely enough

space to walk around the bed without scooting sideways,

and what little room there was was cramped further by a

small bureau which was missing the knob on one of the two

drawers, and a chair which looked about as comfortable as

a bed of nails. The shade of the bedside lamp was askew,

and the wallpaper was torn with one large flap hanging loose

except where it was secured by cobwebs. I couldn’t tell if

the texture of the carpet was dust or mildew, though from

the smell I suspected the latter. The ceiling had large water-

stains on it, but you couldn’t tell without looking hard be-

cause the light in the place was dim enough to make a

vampire feel claustrophobic. All this for a mere hundred in

gold a night.

“Great view, isn’t it?” the bellhop said, pulling the shades

aside to reveal a window that hadn’t been washed since the

discovery of fire. At first I thought the curtain rod was

sagging, but closer examination showed it had actually been

nailed in place crooked.

“This is what you call a great view?”

That comment kind of slipped out despite my resolve. I

had just figured out that it wasn’t that the window was so

58 Robert Asprin