Dorinda and I glanced at one another in alarm.
“We won’t take any foolish chances,” I said.
“I know,” she said.
We walked along together, keeping an eye on the edges of the empty line deep underground. I kept trying to think of things to say to her. It was difficult. Half my sentences started with, I still have nightmares because of what you did to us, and the others with, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. She was as pretty as I had remembered. When she smiled, those big blue eyes lit up like sapphires. She was taller and slighter than either Bunny or Tananda, with long hands that had square palms but thin fingers. Her long, light-brown hair waved over her shoulders. I admired the slender neck and the small ears that occasionally peeped out. Compared with Bunny or Tananda, her dress was modest to a fault. Her hooded robe was belted around a small waist, but its long skirt and long sleeves concealed everything in between.
A large white rabbit hopped out of the undergrowth. It had a bunch of flowers with tiny pink blossoms in its jaws. It padded up beside me and kept pace as we walked.
“Were your parents magicians?” I asked.
“No,” she said, with a shy laugh. “My father’s a blacksmith. My mother is one of the dowager queen’s embroiderers. What about yours?”
“My mother’s dead,” I said. “My father is a farmer.”
“So both of us are the first generation of magicians in our family. What does your father think of that?”
“I haven’t been home since I started my training,” I said truthfully.
The rabbit made a strange noise, as if it was clearing its throat. I glanced down. It tilted its head up to me as if it were trying to say something, but its mouth was full. I shrugged. It rolled onto its back and kicked me.
“Hey!” I said, glaring down. The rabbit jumped to its feet and held its head up to me. Feeling like an idiot, I took the bouquet from its mouth. The rabbit gave me a disappointed look and hopped away into the woods. Sheepishly, I offered the bouquet to Dorinda.
“Thank you,” she said, with a shy smile. “Windflowers are my favorites.”
“Uh, good!” I babbled. “I mean, I didn’t know that. It’s not me, it’s Winslow. They’re pretty amazing here for picking up on likes and dislikes. Um.” I paused, realizing I had just given Dorinda a bunch of flowers. That was a courting move if there ever was one. Was I moving too fast? My mind blanked as I tried to think of something clever to say. “. . . Uh, do you like being a magician?”
“It’s not the easiest path,” she said. “But yes, I know it’s my destiny. And you?”
“I’m better off than I would ever have been if I stayed home,” I said. “I’ve had great experiences, and I have made the best friends any fellow could have.”
“Gleep!” said my dragon, rushing up to shove his head under my hand. I scratched it, scattering green scales all over. He gave me confidence. I grinned down at him.
Dorinda’s eyes went from Gleep to Aahz to Markie, who was nonchalantly pretending she wasn’t listening.
“You’re lucky,” she said simply.
“I know.”
“You make your luck,” Aahz said, brusquely. “Smell that?”
I inhaled.
“Just the usual scents you’d come across in a forest,” I said, puzzled. “Plants, animals, water, stone.”
“Wrong, sonny,” Haroon said, his large black nose in the air. “Sour. Old. Not just stale, but rotten. I never smelled anything like this here. Winslow always smells fresh and clean!”
“I can’t smell any of that,” Dorinda said.
Haroon regarded her with pity in his large brown eyes.
“Well, lass, you could if you’da been born Canidian, ya pore thing. Them’s bad stuff up there. Still quite a ways ahead, but close enough to be spreadin’ its poison.”
“Sounds like we aren’t far from Meeger’s hideout. Did you ever come across a place where the force line surfaces?” I asked Nurgin.
The old Winslovak raised his palms. “If there was, I never found it. I always thought of the line as being under the earth, never above it. I was always able to draw magik from it by reaching down.”
“Well, Meeger couldn’t block it if he wasn’t right in the middle of it,” I reasoned.
“Haroon, this is where you come in,” Aahz said. “We’re looking for a cave of some kind.” He thrust out a forefinger. “Follow that smell!”
Haroon took a few deep breaths and shot off across the forest floor.
“Haroooooon!” the Canidian cried.
In moments, he was out of sight in the undergrowth. Gleep thundered after him, crashing among the branches and jungle plants. We ran along behind.
It would have been hard going if not for Gleep. I stepped over trampled bracken and flattened bushes and ducked below shattered branches that had not survived being crashed into by a dragon’s hard head. A red spider the size of my foot glared at me out of its multiple eyes as I passed between the torn remnants of its web. I used magik drawn hastily from a narrow red force line that corkscrewed overhead to repel vines and plants that draped across my path. Dorinda and Nurgin stayed close to me. I lost sight of Aahz and Markie, though I could hear both of them swearing behind us.
“Where are you, Haroon?” Aahz bellowed.
“Harooooooon!” came the Canidian’s cry, ahead and to my right. I thrashed my way over giant ferns and in between fleshy fungi twice my height.
Suddenly, the smell hit me. Haroon was right: It made me think of rotting, fetid meat—or Pervish cooking. The farther I went, the stronger it grew, until my eyes watered. I glanced back. Dorinda had a handkerchief over her nose and mouth. Nurgin blinked rapidly.
“You can go back to the resort,” I called to him. “It could be dangerous.”
“Not a chance, young man,” Nurgin said stoically. “I’m here to help! I want my dear resort cleansed of filth like this.”
The smell grew stronger. With tears running out of my eyes, it was hard to see the path. I walked straight into a palm tree. A hand grabbed my collar and turned me toward the left.
“That way,” Dorinda said. “You’re veering out of the streambed.”
“Thanks.”
To protect my eyes, I closed them. In my mind, I could see the edges of where the force line used to be and followed the image instead. Gleep’s passage had stayed within the boundaries, so I didn’t bump into anything solid. The air became thick with reeking moisture. I felt as though I were breathing soup.
“There you are, young’un,” Haroon said in a low voice. “C’mon over here.”
I pried my unwilling eyes open. It smelled as though I were standing in the midst of a field of dragon droppings, but it still looked like an ordinary tropical forest. I glanced around, both with normal vision and my mind’s eye.
“The line runs over there,” I whispered, pointing through a thicket of black-and-yellow flowers.
“Yeah, it does, but there’s a cave over yonder. Never smelled like this in all the years I bin here.” Haroon pointed his large nose in the direction of a rise in the ground. The rest of the group caught up with us.
“Why are we stopped?” Nurgin asked.
“Shhhh!” Aahz hissed.
“Why?” the old Winslovak asked in a much lower voice.
“Listen!”
Aahz’s bat-shaped ears were far more sensitive than anyone’s except possibly Haroon’s. I strained to hear. I felt my eyebrows rise at the same time as Dorinda’s when we heard a faint clanking and a distant voice wailing up and down the scales.
“What’s that?” I whispered.
“I think we found Meeger,” Aahz said.
“That’s odd,” Dorinda said, listening with a thoughtful expression on her face. “I would never have thought of Meeger screaming. He moves around our palace so quiet
ly that I never know where he is until I can hear him breathing behind me.”
“You don’t know what he’s like at home,” Aahz said. “Maybe he sings opera while he’s torturing lab mice.” He held out his hands, talons up, and limbered up his fingers. “Get ready. I’d rather sneak up on him than die in some epic battle that will be sung by bards after we’re gone.”
“Gleep!” exclaimed my dragon. He took my sleeve in his teeth and tried to tow me in the direction Haroon had indicated.
“And you!” my partner said, detaching Gleep from my arm and grabbing him by the snout. He looked my dragon straight in the eyes. “You stay behind us and you do what I say. You make one sound, and I’ll have a new dragon skin rug for my den!”
“Glff!” Gleep sneezed explosively into Aahz’s hand. Disgusted, my partner wiped his hand down his pants leg. Gleep looked up at him lovingly and slurped his face. Then he set his haunches obediently on the ground, an all-too-innocent look on his face.
A faint yellow line in the distance was the only source of magik in the area. I let Dorinda go first to fill up her store. What power was free to glean was so sparse that I regretted using any magik on the way there. Markie went next. It took her only a few moments until she had what she needed. I had to wait until the straining force line had replenished itself enough so I could absorb its magik. The council was right to be concerned. Every line flowing into or through the resort was at capacity. When I sensed that my internal supply was full, I nodded to Aahz.
“Let’s go,” Aahz said. “Stay behind me.”
I thought it was unnecessary for Haroon to have to sniff the ground. I could have followed the stench blindfolded.
Thick-leafed plants almost concealed the slit in the ground from which the cries and wails emerged. Markie whipped up a couple of spheres and held them in her palms. Inside the translucent magikal shells, miniature tornadoes banged against their prisons, demanding to be let out. Aahz slipped into the opening first. We waited a moment. His hand emerged and beckoned. Dorinda went next, with Markie close behind her. Haroon and Nurgin followed. I went last, with Gleep at my side.
I blinked in the darkness. The cave was high enough that I could just stand upright. A faint globe of light appeared between Dorinda’s palms. She held it above Aahz’s shoulder to light his way. We walked for what seemed like endless hours along a narrow, twisting passageway. The moans and cries grew louder.
Roots tickled my head as we went down a slope. The damp ground had been worn into a hard path. Footing was solid. All I had to worry about was bumping my head when the ceiling dipped. A few dozen yards in, the cavern opened up to either side. A still pool filled most of the floor, leaving only a narrow arc for us to walk on. Gleep sniffed the water. Something jumped, breaking the surface.
BLOOP!
Gleep jumped. The thing, a sickly white creature with huge dark eyes, submerged again at once.
BLOOP!
“Stop it!” Aahz hissed. His voice was drowned out by a loud moan far ahead, beyond a dark spot in the rough wall that indicated the next cave entrance.
Dorinda doused the lamplight. We felt our way along, one hand on the wall, one hand on the shoulder of the person ahead. Gleep kept his nose up against my back.
“No!” came the voice in the distance. “This is not the way I want it!”
As we got closer, I could see a faint pinpoint of yellow light coming from the next chamber. A hand closed on my shoulder and dragged me forward into the midst of the group. Aahz’s face loomed in shadow.
“This is it,” he whispered. “Stay against the wall. Get as close as you can, and jump him with everything you’ve got! We get one chance. Ready?”
“Yeah,” Markie murmured back. The rest of us nodded.
We sidled into the new cave. This chamber was infinitely larger than the first. The ceiling soared above my head. I could tell by the feel of the air and the occasional bright spot of luminous lichen.
Moss slimed against the back of my neck like Gleep’s tongue as I slid sideways. We climbed over boulders and screes of tumbled rocks. Now I could see the glow of golden light at the far end of the tunnel. I could sense the enormous buildup of power behind it, surging against it like ocean waves. In front of it, a small, dark figure seemed to be bowing and dancing.
“Meeger!” Dorinda breathed. “Wait a moment, that isn’t him!”
“No,” I said, standing up.
“What are you doing?” Aahz growled, reaching for my arm.
“I know who that is!” I said. “Servis!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“And then there was one.”
—D. MACLEOD
I broke away from the others and ran toward the bar of brilliant golden light set in the vast dark wall. The slightly built Winslovak was shoving objects toward it. They clung for a while to the bright outline, then clanged to the floor. In the shimmering glow, I saw what they were: the six Loving Cups.
“Servis!” I cried.
“No!” the Winslovak shouted. “You must not have bad service here! My clients need to be happy! Go away! Why won’t you go away? Everything was good until you came here!”
“Me?” I asked. “What did I do?”
But Servis wasn’t talking to me. He picked up the cups one after another and pushed them into the blinding glare.
“Take this! And this! And this!”
“Servis, stop!” I said. I dragged him away from the light. “That’s not helping!”
He raised desperate eyes to me. I would not have recognized the neatly groomed, well-dressed employee in the ragged, disheveled figure. But he knew me. He bowed deeply.
“Mr. Skeeve! What can I do for you, sir?”
“Sit down,” I said. He was much smaller and lighter than I was. I picked him up and swung him toward a rocky outcrop covered with thick moss.
“But I must stop that . . . that evil!” Servis said.
“Sit there. It’s what I want! Please do it.”
“Oh, sir, I hate to disappoint you, but it’s my job to clear up messes and misunderstandings!” He kept trying to pass me. I dodged in front of him, and finally had to use some of my magik to fix his feet in one spot. “Please, Mr. Skeeve! Let me free! It’s my job!”
“Not at the moment,” I said. “It’s mine. Sit down. Have you seen anyone else in here?”
“No!” Servis said. “Just that!” He pointed to the object embedded in the wall.
The others joined me then.
“So he did steal all the Loving Cups,” Markie said. “He must have been here since that night. Poor fool.”
“I have tried to dig it out of the stone,” Servis said, weeping. Nurgin patted him sympathetically on the back. “I have tried to cover it. I have offered it food and wine and all the marvelous things I could find in the resort. I gave it all the Loving Cups and their most benevolent magik! Nothing works! I do not know what it wants!”
“You really want to help?” Aahz demanded.
Servis looked up at him with hope in his eyes.
“Oh, sir, it would be my pleasure!”
“Then sit down and shut up,” Aahz said. “I can’t think with you yelling your head off.”
“Of course, sir,” Servis said. He sat down and folded his hands.
“Better,” Aahz said. “Now, what have we got?”
“Servis had the right idea,” I said, surveying the beacon in the wall. “I can see why he thought the Loving Cups would help. It’s kind of cup shaped.”
“That’s the Nix Pyx,” Dorinda said, in dismay. “Meeger was smart. Block the force lines with its vile magik and Winslow falters.”
“Do you know how to counter it?” Aahz asked.
“That’s easy,” she said. “We have to get it away from the force line. Once we do, the power will flow again.”
Aahz gestured toward
the golden light.
“Be my guest,” he said.
I rolled up my sleeves. I could tell by the hot yellow magik that the Nix Pyx put out that it would be a tough customer to handle. I didn’t want to absorb any of its power. Instead, I took the magik I had gleaned along our trek. Using Aahz’s technique, I built a globe of force around it. Because the Pyx’s aura was so large, it took a good portion of my magik. Once I had it surrounded with red magik, I made the globe press against the walls of the cave. I believed that once it popped loose, the force line would be free.
The Nix Pyx fought me. Like anything magikal, it had an affinity for power. It had a whole source behind it, but it absorbed mine as well. Sweat ran down my face as I strove to keep the Pyx contained. It was older and far stronger than I was. I built my globe thicker and thicker, but it ate through the layers.
“I’m running out of magik,” I said, through gritted teeth.
“Just say where and when,” Markie said. She raised her hands, palm outward.
“My spell’s fading,” I said. “I need to collect more magik. Contain the Pyx! Try to push it out of the wall.”
“Got it.” Markie clapped her hands together. The sound wave echoed off the ceiling of the cavern. Brilliant blue-white light augmented my spell. The globe turned into a massive pearl. I could barely see the cup inside, but I could feel it.
It was angry.
The blue-white pearl started glowing so brightly we could hardly look at it. It wavered and shrank until it was the size of a pea. We leaned forward to see what was going on.
BOOM!
The magik exploded outward. Markie threw up a shield of power to protect herself, but it wasn’t enough. She was catapulted clear across the cavern. Nurgin ran to help her.
The golden light lanced out again. I fought to contain it, but I wasn’t strong enough. I used every single particle of power I could amass to surround the Nix Pyx in an unbreakable shell. It beat at the shell with hot magik.
The pressure eased slightly. My red globe took on a gentler purple hue. Dorinda stood beside me. She pointed her hands, palms pressed together, directly at the Nix Pyx.
Robert Asprin's Myth-Fits Page 25
