"02 Myth Conceptions (e)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Asprin Robert)

arranged the scene for our guest's arrival, and I hated
to disrupt it for such a minor thing as personal com-
fort.

I had used the disguise spell liberally on Buttercup,
Gleep, and myself. Gleep now looked like a unicorn,
a change that did not seem to bother Buttercup in the
slightest. Apparently unicorns are less discriminating
about their playmates than are dragons. I had made
them both considerably more disheveled and un-
kempt-looking than they actually were. This was
necessary to maintain the image set forth by my own
appearance.

Aahz and I had decided early in our stay that the
best way to handle unwanted guests was not to
threaten them or frighten them away, but rather to be
so repulsive that they left of their own accord. To this
end, I had slowly devised a disguise designed to con-
vince strangers they did not want to be in the same
inn with me, no matter how large the inn was or how
many other people were there. In this disguise, I
would greet wayward travelers as the proprietor of
the inn.

Modestly, I will admit the disguise was a screaming
success. In fact, that was the specific reaction many
visitors had to it. Some screamed, some looked ill,
others sketched various religious symbols in the air
between themselves and me. None of them elected to
spend the night.

When I experimented with various physical de-

10 Robert Asprin MYTH CONCEPTIONS 11

fects, Aahz correctly pointed out that many people
did not find any single defect revolting. In fact, in a
dimension such as Klah, most would consider it nor-
mal. To guarantee the desired effect, I adopted many
of them.

When disguised, I walked with a painful limp, had
a hump-back, and a deformed hand which was no-
ticeably diseased. What teeth remained were twisted
and stained, and the focus of one of my eyes had a
tendency to wander about independently of the
other. My noseЧin fact, my entire faceЧwas not
symmetrical, and as a masterstroke of my disguise
abilities, there appeared to be vicious-looking bugs