Class Dis-Mythed m-16

by Robert Asprin

  All right, maybe I didn't fear exposure, shame and dismissal. I'd been pretty straightforward with my friends and associates about my lack of experience and formal training and understanding of magik, and they had risen to the occasion, stepping in to help me when I couldn't do the job myself. They all had expertise in very different fields, had lived fascinating lives and handled situations I had never dreamed of facing. The person it bothered more than anyone else was me. I stepped away at the optimum time, to give myself a chance to catch up with my position in life, so that when I came back— if I came back-—I'd be a worthy associate to my friends.

  I had my mission: to turn myself into the wizard that matched the hype. The old inn that Aahz and I had 'inherited' from the madman Istvaan sat at the crossroads of several force lines which I could draw on for nearly limitless power. I had books and scrolls from numerous scholars on approaches to classical magik and access to practitioners in multiple dimensions. While I appreciated Bunny's sacrifice in sharing my exile, I wasn't a fool. I hoped she might become interested in my research, but she had her own life and interests. She was used to a lively existence in the midst of her Mob family (she was Don Bruce's niece) and in M.Y.T.H., Inc. I anticipated that she might become bored having to lie low in what was believed to be a derelict and maybe haunted building in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the woods of Klahd a place that would not attract attention to us. I made sure she knew I would transport her back to Deva or anywhere else whenever she wanted to go. I encouraged her to find entertainment, such as watching the magik pictures that Bytina brought in from the aether. Nor did I rule out visitors, though more for her sake than mine.

  As if on cue, a knock came at the door.

  "Quick, Skeeve," Bunny whispered, gesturing at Bytina.

  I whisked a hand toward the tiny device. The crowd of declaiming actors vanished, and the room fell silent.

  Mostly silent. My pet dragon, Gleep, had heard the rapping, and came hurtling into the room.

  "Gleep!" he exclaimed.

  "Shh!" I said.

  I listened carefully. I could hear youthful-sounding female voices just outside the big main door.

  "Girls," Bunny said. "I'll take care of it." She gestured at herself.

  "See what you think of this illusion," I said. "I saw an illustration in a scroll, and I came up with a really scary variation."

  Closing my eyes I superimposed the craggy, blue-tinged face of an ancient hag over Bunny's lovely features. She glanced in the mirror as she passed.

  "Yuck."

  I grinned, satisfied.

  "Gleep!" my pet protested.

  "You, too," I whispered. With another moment of concentration, Gleep became a terrible giant bug, a cross between a cockroach and a firefly. My pet gallumphed happily toward the door. I hope he wouldn't scare them too much. I would hate to be responsible for causing nightmares, when all I wanted was my privacy.

  Then, the door swung open.

  The last thing I had to worry about was that the three girls on the doorstep might be afraid of blue-skinned crones or flying cockroaches. They were Pervects.

  They regarded Bunny with the disdain that natives of Perv had for most other races, completely unconcerned that live spiders swung from her lank tresses, or that her skin appeared to be peeling before their eyes. Aahz had once said that most Klahds looked alike to him.

  The smallest one pointed a thumb over her shoulder. "They said in that little hovel down the road that the Great Skeeve lives here."

  "Who wants to know?" Bunny shrilled in a voice like an elderly woman.

  "We do," the tallest one replied. "This is Freezia and Pologne. I'm Jinetta. He knows my great-aunt, Vergetta. Can we see him?"

  My ears perked up at the name of one of my recent acquaintances. I hurried to the door.

  "Hi," I greeted them, holding out a hand to each one. "I'm Skeeve. What can I do for you?"

  Pologne glared at me. "You're Skeeve?"

  "That's me," I said.

  My admission seemed to spark the expressions of horror that my illusion spells had not.

  "This?" Freezia demanded of Jinetta. "This is the Great Skeeve your aunt was so impressed by? This skinny little Klahd? We've been had!"

  "No, no, I really am Skeeve," I protested. I glanced past them to see if any of the locals were in sight. "Come on in."

  I got the door closed behind them just in time to keep the argument from scaring every woodland creature for miles.

  "You've got to be kidding!" Freezia shrieked.

  "I told you he was a Klahd!" Jinetta said.

  "Yeah, but he's a baby!" Pologne said. "We came all this way, wasting more time which we do NOT have, and what do we get? A kid! Barely out of swaddling clothes."

  "A baby!" Freezia agreed.

  "Er," I said, seeing the glee on Bunny's face. "I'm not a baby."

  "Yeah, but you don't look like the guru of magik, either," Jinetta explained, sheepishly. "No offense."

  "None taken," I replied. I blinked. "Guru of what?"

  "Magik," Freezia snapped out. "We need a magik tutor. Now. Today."

  "ME???!!!???"

  Jinetta nodded. "My aunt assured me that you were the slickest operator she'd ever met, someone who can get a job done with no wasted effort. And your business manager gave us a big buildup, too."

  "His what?" Bunny demanded.

  "Business manager. Aahz. He said you were hot stuff. Just what we were hoping for."

  "Aahz did?" I asked, now thoroughly puzzled. I knew Aahz's opinion of my skills. He'd told me enough times that if, magik were wind, I couldn't produce an audible poof.

  "And Aahz told you I was the one you wanted?"

  "Here," Jinetta said impatiently. She opened her buttermilk-yellow briefcase and rooted around with it. She came up with two rolls of parchment, one a long screed in ornate and difficult script asking me for a little favor, to help out her niece and her friends, signed by Vergetta. The other was a note scrawled by Aahz on the back of an old shopping list:

  "Nice girls. They need some polishing up. Thought you could handle it. Aahz…"

  "Well," I breathed. I felt honored that my ex-partner had so much faith in me. Bunny had been trying to read the notes over my shoulder. I passed them to her.

  "Well," I asked the three, clapping my hands together, "what do you need to learn? I, er, could get you started on some basic magik."

  Pologna snorted and threw up her hands. "I told you he was strictly amateur hour!"

  "We don't need basics" Jinetta said. "We're all graduates of MIP. Summa cum laude. We can give you credentials, if you need them."

  "Oh." I felt very young and inept next to such well-educated Pervects. "Then what exactly do you need from me?"

  "We'd like to intern with you for a few weeks, get a handle on practical uses of the arts. Your business manager said you'd welcome the chance to mentor a few worthy pupils. We all took degr—"

  "How much?" Bunny interrupted.

  We all looked at her in surprise.

  "How much did you pay Aahz?" Bunny asked.

  "Why?" Freezia countered, suddenly suspicious.

  "Well, we need to know if you've signed up for basic instruction, or something more advanced. Let me see your receipts." Bunny held out an imperious hand.

  "She's the bursar," I added when the three hesitated. I thought about it, and realized her wits were more in tune than mine. We both knew Aahz must have found a financial angle. It wasn't just altruism and belief in my skills that had prompted him to send me three apprentices. He'd dumped me into the drink a few times in the past with his passion for gold. Bunny was almost certainly right. There had to be some serious money involved.

  The Pervects handed her small slips of parchment covered with Aahz's inimitable scrawl. Her face turned white, then red. She passed the slips to me. I gawked at the sum.

  "Uh. Well, that's definitely the advanced course," I managed to choke out.

  Bunny grabbed my arm and
dragged me into the next room. "Give me the D-hopper," she said.

  "What for?" I asked.

  "I am going to march into that tent and give him a piece of my mind, since he seems to have lost his! What was he thinking? He knows you can't handle these girls!"

  "Well, I don't know," I mused. "Aahz must think I can do it."

  "That's the money talking. Look at me, Skeeve." I raised my eyes to hers. "This is just Aahz being greedy. What are you doing here? I mean, here, in this place." "Well—studying."

  "Because?" she prompted.

  "Oh, I know, Bunny. I'm not the wizard everyone thinks I am, but Aahz must think I'm ready to tutor university students. Besides, he has put me under an obligation. I have to fulfill it. Those Pervects are counting on me. How bad could it be? We've got plenty of space for them to stay. They can each pick out a room. You'll enjoy the company—-"

  "You're talking yourself into it, aren't you?" Bunny could read a lot of my thoughts, and I always found it unnerving. "Skeeve, snap out of it! Aahz is flattering your ego. You don't know anything about teaching."

  "I have to do it, don't I?" I countered. "Aahz made a contract in my name. I've got to live up to that. Otherwise, what happens to my reputation?"

  She put her hands on her hips. "Will you put your sense of honor to the side just for the moment? It's not your reputation that's at stake here. Aahz made the deal without ever asking you if you would do it. You could say no. He knows what you're doing here. He'll just have to give those Pervects refunds."

  We both stopped for a moment to reflect upon the mental image of Aahz forced to dig into his pockets and give money back. I almost laughed. It would almost be easier for me to learn advanced techniques and teach them to these young Pervects. It would sure take less time. No matter what Bunny said, I was stung by the challenge. I wondered if I could do it. If I couldn't, I'd soon find out. If I found I was in over my head, I could find a way to refund part of their tuition, and possibly find them a substitute teacher.

  With a gesture of surrender, I returned to my new charges, who were waiting anxiously in the main room. Bunny stayed at my shoulder.

  "Practical magik, huh?" I inquired.

  "Yes," the girls said. "As soon as possible."

  "What's the hurry?" Bunny wanted to know.

  Jinetta hesitated. "Well, er, you know, no one wants to hire recent graduates who have no practical experience, right? I don't want to start out frying mimgrou ribs and asking 'do you want oil-soaked tubers with that?' I want a high-paying executive job. I want to get a jump on getting ahead of our fellow students."

  "Me, too," put in Pologne. Freezia nodded eagerly.

  "Me, too. And the key to big money is a reputation. And the key to that reputation is f—"

  "Experience," Jinetta interrupted. "Unpaid experience. That's why we're looking for internships intstead of, er, entry level positions. So you don't pay us. Just teach us. Quickly."

  That sounded reasonable to me. Having been on Perv once, I guessed it would be tough to jump into a good employment situation. Unlike Klah, everything seemed to move fast there.

  "Okay," I said. "I'll do it."

  "Thank you!" Pologne cried.

  "It's a deal, then," Jinetta said, sticking out a hand. I hesitated for a moment, remembering Aahz's dislike for shaking hands with apprentices. But I was going to create my own style of teaching. I clasped her scaly fingers. The others grasped my hand in turn.

  "Now what?" Freezia asked.

  Chapter Three

  "Nice effects."

  S. SPIELBERG

  What, indeed?

  With three skeptical Pervish faces gazing at me, my mind went blank.

  "Er," I began.

  "Why don't the three of you pick out rooms to stay in?" Bunny said, distracting them from me for the moment. "This was once a coaching inn. You can each have a room of your own. The bathroom is a little on the primitive side, but there's always lots of hot water, and the insulation is good. Just remember to keep the curtains drawn. The locals think the place is haunted."

  The three Pervects bustled upstairs eagerly, chattering nervously among themselves. I heard doors open and slam, accompanied by gales of wild giggles. Bunny caught my expression, and gave me an amused little smile.

  "What are you going to do with them?"

  "I think I'll take them to Massha," I replied. "She ought to have some ideas about how I can teach them, since she was my first and only apprentice. I might even see if she can take them off my hands."

  Bunny shook her head doubtfully. "She's got a lot of responsibilities as Court Magician."

  "All the better if she has three assistants to help her," I said brightly.

  By the time they came jogging down again, I had my thoughts in place.

  "Everything all right up there?" Bunny asked them. "We haven't really done anything to the place except clean it."

  "Don't apologize," Freezia said, giving me a heart-stopping grin of brilliantly white four-inch fangs. "After our dormitories at MIP, these accommodations are almost palatial. They don't give students and apprentices a lot of consideration. I was jammed in the same size room with five other students. I had no idea it was going to be this nice. I can tell we're going to like it here with you."

  "Er, thanks. Okay," I said, feeling a little guilty. "We're going to take a short trip to visit a friend of mine. It'll be a chance for you to get a good look at this dimension on the way."

  "We've seen a good part of it," Pologne pointed out. "It's a dump. But, whatever you say."

  I couldn't disagree with her about that. I'd always been fairly bored by my home dimension. My idea was to take these three into the kingdom of Possiltum, getting a little better idea of what they needed while we were on our journey. Massha had been no mere apprentice who started by sweeping my study and learning to light candles by concentrating on them. She had been an independent magician, working in the dimension of Jahk, who quit to come join me and my associates. I firmly believed I had learned more from her than she could possibly have gotten out of me. She'd specialized in practical magik.

  I eyed the three females, mentally measuring the potential reaction of them on not only the local wildlife but my fellow Klahds. "You'll spook the neighbors if you go out like that. Can you ladies do a disguise spell?"

  They beamed.

  "Oh, sure!"

  The room seemed to fill with flying sparks as the Pervects before me vanished. In their place, a gigantic green dragon curled around the walls of the room, cupping in its coils a sharp-toothed, gold-eyed mermaid with long flowing seaweed-colored locks and a tail full of green and blue scales, and a huge tree with sinisterly glowing green eyes. Gleep hissed. I frowned.

  "Don't you like these?" the dragon asked in Jinetta's voice. "Not showy enough? How about these?"

  The room swirled wildly again. I found myself facing three Trollish guards with white wherhide trews bound over their thick purple-furred legs, wearing brass helmets with horns sticking out each side and carrying giant double-bitted axes.

  "No!" I cried.

  "No?" Freezia asked. "Okay. We'll try again."

  Gargoyles, with fearsome smiles and stone tutus. I gawked.

  "How's this?"

  A volcano, a rainbow and a twinkling blue fairy.

  "And this?"

  Before I could stop them, the Pervects became unicorns, Deveels, Ogres, towering robots with sparks sputtering from the electrical contacts in their necks, winged Sphinxes, animate stone towers, undulating sea serpents, enormous spiny red hedgehogs and, finally, a trio of pink elephants with floating ostrich plumes bound to their foreheads.

  "No!" I shouted, waving my hands. "I mean, can you use a disguise to pass unnoticed?"

  The elephants lowered their trunks and stared at me out of little wizened eyes.

  "Why?" they asked, sounding hurt. "Aren't these good illusions?"

  "I think I'm beginning to see their problem," Bunny observed, with an eyebrow lifted.


  "They're terrific illusions," I assured them "but they're inappropriate. We want to get to the palace without anyone following us. We don't want to attract attention."

  They looked at each other as if the notion had never before passed through their minds.

  "Well, then, let's just go as ourselves," Freezia said. She made a pass with one huge round foot, and the three became scaly green Pervects again. "Just like this. Come on." She made for the door.

  "No way," I said firmly, striding ahead of them to block it.

  "Why not? We're not ashamed of our bodies," Pologne said, planting her hands on her hips as she confronted me. "Is it our clothes? Are these fashions too extreme for Klah? Two piece suits? A classic is a classic."

  "It's got nothing to do with you or your clothes," I said. "It's you. There's only ever been one Pervect to visit Klah, and he already frightens most Klahds out of their socks. Three would send whole villages running. Can you disguise yourselves as ordinary Klahds, like the people you saw on your way here?"

  The three exchanged startled glances. "Of course we can," Jinetta said. "If you insist."

  "I insist," I said.

  They closed their eyes. When they opened them, I beheld the transformation. Before me were a hefty, slack-jawed man carrying a yoke of buckets who was the local village idiot, a sallow-faced man with a long nose I recognized as a tax collector, and a cow.

  "Um, almost," I said. I perched a hip on the edge of the table and gestured to them to sit down. "Let's try again."

  Using pictures conjured up by Bunny on her PDA, Bytina, I managed to point out images of Klahds who were not too limited, not too unpopular, and a bit more sentient than their first choices. Jinetta, Pologne and Freezia squabbled over who would wear what appearance, jumping from one image to another. They couldn't seem to make up their minds. I held my impatience for a few minutes.

  "Look, you be that milkmaid," Freezia said. "She's taller than I am."

  "Hey," I tried to interrupt.