Myth-ion Improbable by Robert Lynn Asprin

A man with a white hat and a big shovel was slowly pick­ing up fresh horse leavings and tossing them onto the piles. I wanted to ask him what debt he was trying to pay off, or what he was trying to buy, because whatever it was, the price was too high.

When we reached the main area of town we stepped up on the sidewalk on the left side and into the shade. Sud­denly I realized just how hot our walk from the cliff had been, and how lucky it was these people wore hats. The sun hadn’t seemed that hot at first, after coming from Vor­tex #6, but now that we were in the shade, I realized how bad it was.

We strolled along the wooden sidewalk, trying to look as if we belonged. Of course, in a town that couldn’t have more than a few hundred full-time residents, four newcom­ers stood out like a bad blister in new shoes.

“Howdy,” the first man we passed said to us. He tipped his hat and just kept right on moving.

By the time I tipped my hat back, he was past us.

A woman in long skirts and a flower-patterned blouse walked past us a few moments later.

“Howdy,” she said.

I tipped my hat, as did Aahz.

She smiled at us, showing some pretty strange-looking teeth.

After she was past us I glanced down at my neck to make sure the Translator Pendant that Tanda had given me was still there. It was, but it couldn’t be working, because I had no idea what “howdy” meant.

I glanced at Tanda who just shrugged.

About a quarter of the way up the street into the town we stopped and leaned against a wooden wall and tried to look as if we were relaxed. No one was bothering us, or even paying us much attention. Across the street, high-energy music was coming out of the door labeled Audry’s. I could see a number of people through the open door sitting at tables. It looked like a bar or restaurant of some sort.