Class Dis-Mythed

Chapter Four

"Skeeve!"

Massha flew forward to envelop me in a hug. When Massha hugs you, you know it. If I was to describe her as large, you'd know I was understating the situation by a factor of six or seven. Massha wasn't ashamed of being a well-rounded woman; far from it. She wore gaudy clothes and tons of jewelery which could not help but draw the eye to her shape. She also tended to dye her hair a vivid orange, and favored lipstick to match. Since becoming Lady Magician to the Court of Possiltum, Queen Hemlock presiding, and marrying the ex-general of its army, Massha had actually toned down the shock value, but the package was still an impressive one. She was one of my best and most trusted friends, so it didn't take her long to guess that I had something on my mind.

"So, what brings you out of your self-imposed exile, Hot Stuff?" she asked, directing me and my party to cushiony divans that took up most of the spare living space in her and Hugh Badaxe's cosy love nest. The cottage, occupying a corner of the courtyard in the center of the castle environs, actually had fewer square feet than the Court Magician's apartments itself, but with no shared walls to the rest of the castle it had the benefit of privacy. She pointed a finger at a drinks tray on a small table in the corner. The tray lifted itself into the air and settled on the fussily-carved wooden table at the center of the room. The stopper rose from the neck of the handsomely cut crystal bottle, which upended and poured amber liquid into five crystal glasses. Massha only let magik take it so far; she went over to pass the drinks around herself. "Bunny's okay?"

I accepted a glass. "She's fine. She wanted me to ask you when you were getting on the Crystal Ball Network."

Massha waved a hand. "I don't have time for remote entertainment, honey. We've got an invitational tournament coming up next month, and Hemlock wants me to put on a big show. You know," she added, waving a hand. Six miniature golden dragonets flew out of her fingertips carrying banners reading "Massha's Big Show!"

I chuckled.

"But aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?" She fluttered her lashes madly at the handsome young Klahd in gartered tights who struggled to keep his tunic from rising up to his waist in the thick velvet cushions.

"Save it, toots," Jinetta snapped, momentarily distracted from her hemline. "You're not my type."

Massha goggled then rose into the air, her face red with embarrassment. "I don't know where you came from, buddy, but around here you call me Lady Magician or ma'am!"

"It's not what you think," I said hastily, leaping up. "Girls, drop the disguises."

"Girls?" Massha echoed.

With a couple of whisks, the illusions faded, leaving three business-suited Pervects glaring at Massha.

"No wonder!" Massha said. Instantly, she went to a pair of cupboard doors in the wall and took out three huge steins and a gallon jug of liquor. "Let me offer you something more to your capacity, ladies. Here." She exchanged the delicate little crystal tumblers for more substantial servings of liquor.

"Thanks," Freezia said, raising the big glass to her lips. "Down the hatch!" She gulped her drink and held out the stein for more.

"So, what are you three doing in Possiltum?" Massha asked as she poured. The three Pervects glanced at one another uneasily.

"Uh, Massha," I said, "Can I see you alone for a moment?"

"Sure!" she said brightly, pulling me into her small kitchen. She beamed at the Pervects. "Excuse us a moment." She waved a gadget I recognized as her 'cone of silence.' My three students could no longer hear us. They shot me worried glances, so I just smiled reassuringly at them. Massha watched the exchange curiously. "So, what's up, Big Guy? Who are they?"

"They're temporary apprentices." I explained how Aahz had sent them to me. "They said they need some specialized training. I, er, brought them here hoping you could help me out. I'm pretty deep in my studies right now. I thought you could give them a couple weeks' instruction in what you're doing here. Practical stuff. They could help you with the festival," I concluded hopefully. "By then I'll have figured out what I can do to help them. I really haven't got a clue how to train them."

Massha shook her head. "Gee, that's too bad. I wish I could help, but I can't. In fact, I was going to visit you in the next couple of days. I have a pupil I wanted you to train."

"Me?" I squeaked.

"Yes!" Massha said, pleased. "And now that you have other students, he'll have the benefit of working with others to help him with his lessons. He's a nice kid. You'll like him. Bee! C'mere, honey!" she shouted out the cottage's back door.

Beside the well in the courtyard, a stick with ears rose to its feet. I realized at once it was a skinny young man, maybe my age or a year or two older. He had a friendly freckled face with big ears and a pop-jawed grin. When he saw me, the grin widened but his eyes dropped shyly.

"Skeeve the Magnificent, this is Corporal Bee, late of Her Majesty's army. He mustered out last week and came to see me," Massha explained. "He wants to study magik." The young man hesitated. I put out my hand and he shook it with a powerful grip that his slender frame belied. "All he needs to know is how to get along in the big bad world. The army's been good for Bee. He's had orienteering skills and survival skills hammered into him, and he has spatial relationships down pat, but he's not great at self-direction and personal organization. He'd get taken advantage of in a sophisticated scuffle."

"So could I," I muttered. But I got the point. I could help with that.

"Glad to meet you, sir," Bee stammered. "I heard a lot about you. Sergeant Swatter, I mean, Guido told me—you don't look the way he described you—"

"Oh." I laughed. "Is this more like it?"

I dropped my disguise spell. The boy let out a whistle of relief.

"Yes, sir! I mean, you were okay the other way, sir! I mean—" His face flushed scarlet, leaving the freckles in sharp relief.

"It's okay, honey," Massha said. "He won't bite you, whatever face he's got on."

"I can't say the same about my apprentices, though," I said thoughtfully.

"You've got other apprentices?" Bee asked enthusiastically.

"No, I mean, yes, wait a minute," I burst out. "Let's start over, from the beginning. How do you know Guido? I assume we're talking about the same Guido?"

"I guess so, sir," Bee replied. "The one I know's a very big man. Talked very tough. Knows everything about how to handle a crossbow, and about everything else, too. Swatter and his cousin Nunzio were great guys. We went through basic training together. He ended up as our sergeant."

"That sounds like our Guido," I said. "So, why do you want to study with me?"

Massha shoved him forward like a mother urging her little boy into the middle of the stage to make his speech on School Prize Day. Bee dithered a moment. I'd been there, done that, and bought the commemorative tunic, so I had a lot of sympathy for a youngster trying to ask for a favor. He seemed impressed to be in the presence of the Great Skeeve, no matter how embarrassed I felt about that, and nervous to have the Court Magician of Possiltum as a sponsor.

"Come on, honey, tell him."

"I was an apprentice magician at home, before I enlisted," Bee said. "Sergeant Guido promised me that, when I got out, he promised me he'd make sure Skeeve the Great would help me get trained up as a proper magician. Then I can go home and set up a practice in my town, sir. I don't need to be a great wizard, just good enough to help the folks out. Swatter was a great guy, sir, and he had a lot of respect for you. When I got out, I went to my CO to see if he knew where to find the sergeant, sir. He sent me to General Badaxe, who put me together with the Lady Magician, here."

Massha nodded.

Bee went on earnestly. "If I can study with you, sir, it would be an honor and a privilege. I won't be any trouble. I'm good at organization. I ran the whole supply depot under the sergeant, sir."

"I heard about that, corporal," I said. At the time, Guido had been giving me a full debriefing about his stint in the Possiltum army. The name Bee swam up out of a swarm of insect names. The fact that Guido had come to be called Swatter hadn't surprised me then, nor did the respect he had engendered among his troops.

I turned to Massha. "And you're not keeping him as your apprentice because—?"

"Two reasons, Big Shot," she said. "One, he asked for you. Guido made a promise to him. Two, I don't think I'd put him through the paces the way you would."

"But I've got so much studying of my own to do," I almost wailed. "You have a lot more experience of this type than I do."

"I don't agree. The fact that you're studying is the reason you're exactly the right person to help him. You learn the most about a subject when you're teaching it. That's what Hugh always says. But I won't leave you in the lurch. Friends don't do that to friends. I will help you with your trio if you take Bee on as a pupil. I'll come down and give a few lessons in gadget magik. I know I'm good at that. What do you say?"

Bee watched us eagerly. I gave in.

"Deal," I sighed. "All right, Bee, come and meet your new classmates. Massha, I'm going to hold you to your promise."

"I'm good for it, Hot Shot," she said. "You know that."

I stalked back to the old inn, wrapped in my own thoughts, almost cringing at the notion of what Bunny would say when she saw I had four apprentices in tow instead of three—or none at all. From the look in Jinetta's eye, the Pervects weren't too happy about another student joining what they assumed would be an exclusive teaching arrangement, and neither was I. We were all careful to keep our feelings from Corporal Bee, who was nattering along happily, unaware of the simmering thoughts just below the surface.

Bunny didn't meet me at the door, but Gleep did, galloping into the room and mowing me down so he could slurp my face with his long, pink tongue.

"Gleep!" he burbled happily.

"Stop that, Gleep," I said, pushing his face away from mine. His breath smelled like a week-dead skunk, and the stink clung almost as well as the odor from the Bazaar's famous Genuine Fake Doggie Doodle with Genuine Odor That Really Sticks to Your Hands. I scrambled to my feet. He surveyed the Pervects, having already tasted them, and leaped on Corporal Bee. To give the youth credit, he didn't blanch as my dragon pinned him against the wall and gave him a good sliming.

"Gleep!"

Apparently my dragon, whom I considered a very good judge of character, had decided my new pupil was all right with him.

"Just push him down," I advised Bee, who looked nervous, or nauseous. Gleep's breath could kill flies at ten paces. "Come on, Gleep! He's not used to dragons. Bunny?"

"In here, Skeeve!" she called. "Look who's here!"

I followed her voice into the main room, where Bunny was sitting in a cosy tete-a-tete with a being about seventeen times her bulk. The purple fur and odd-sized moon-shaped eyes were unmistakeable.

"Chumley!"

The Troll rose awkwardly to his feet and put out a hand. I ignored it and gave him a hearty hug. It had been months since I'd seen him.

"Oh, I say!" he muttered shyly. "Me mean, Crunch glad see you!"

I glanced back over my shoulder and saw that Bee and the Pervects had followed me into the room. Chumley, like most Trolls from the dimension of Trollia, tended to conceal his intelligence, lest the whole package overwhelm denizens of more insecure dimensions. He supplied hired muscle on a freelance basis under the nom de guerre of Big Crunch. Crunch, unlike Chumley, who was extremely well educated and possessed an erudite manner of speaking, expressed himself mainly in monosyllables. Around strangers, he maintained the subterfuge.

"Let me introduce you to my new apprentices," I said. "From left to right, that's Jinetta, Pologne, Freezia, and Bee."

Bunny looked startled for a moment then smiled. "See, Chumley, there's no problem. I told you."

"Good!" Chumley exclaimed, clapping his big hands together heartily. "See? Tolk!"

From the inglenook at the side of the big fireplace, an irregular brown-and-white shape unwound itself and trotted to Chumley's side. It rose to its hind feet and regarded me with large, chocolate-colored eyes. Tolk looked rather like a big hound with a slightly flattened face, jowls hanging down on either side of big black nose and long mouth. His paws had thick black nails, but fingers instead of pads. Chumley pointed at me.

"New teacher!" he boomed.

"Now, wait a minute, Chumley," I said.

He regarded me with a question in his big moonlike eyes. "Four, why not five?"

I didn't have a good answer for him. Tolk didn't wait for my approval. He trotted over to the Pervects and panted happily at them.

"I'm Tolk!" he yipped. "I'm from Canida! Nice to meet you, eh!"

"Jinetta," the tallest Pervect said, fending off a slurp from the newcomer's long pink tongue. "Give paw?"

"Hey, I'm better trained than that," Tolk barked. He grinned, showing teeth halfway as sharp as the Pervects', and shook hands all around. "Where you folks from?"

"Chumley?" I asked, as the five young people introduced themselves. "Who is he, and what's he doing here?"

"Sorry to descend on you without notice, old chap," Chumley murmured abashedly, keeping his voice down. "No time to explain, what? Tolk was in just such a hurry to find some decent training. I thought of you."

"Why? You have a lot more experience than I do." Trolls and their sister Trollops tended to have a lot of magikal talent, much more than Klahds possessed overall.

"Well, I don't practice much, as you know, preferring to depend upon sheer muscle. I consider it more reliable, what? I tend to leave the hocus-pocus to Little Sister. I wanted Tolk taught by someone who is in the field, so to speak."

I eyed him. "Then why didn't you go to Tananda? She's most definitely in the field, more than I am, lately. In fact, she might even be a better instructor for the Pervects."

"I wouldn't say this to anyone but a very close friend," Chumley confided, with a glance over my shoulder at the group, "but Tananda isn't much of a teacher. She is not at all interested in taking on a pupil. I might add that she is engaged upon a job, and does not want to confuse Tolk with moral issues."

"I see," I said. I did. Tananda, besides being a pretty good magician and a very dear friend, was also occasionally an assassin for hire. It was a facet of her talents I didn't want to know more about, and she had never forced me to examine the matter more closely.

Chumley continued, "I must add, Tananda feels that you are a better all around magician than she is, with the potential for greatness."

That was going too far. I scoffed. "She never said that."

Chumley favored me with an earnest expression. "I assure you, she did. I also feel that it is true. Tolk could not be in better hands."

"Forget it," I said, feeling foolish. "Find another tutor for him."

The big purple head wagged slowly from side to side. "I'm afraid I am committed. Tolk has invoked a debt I owe his family. I need to forward his education, and swiftly. He has a good deal of untrained talent, and it would be worthwhile to guide him forward."

I shook my head. "You can do it, Chumley. I can't. No."

Chumley fixed his big, irregular eyes full of hope on me. "Skeeve, have I ever asked anything of you before?"

The question stopped me cold. I gave it my best shot, searching back through my memory. Chumley had always been there for me and the rest of the M.Y.T.H., Inc. crew, but had never put us to the test on his own behalf.

"No, you haven't," I said. "Not a thing that I can recall. On balance, we owe you. I owe you plenty."

"Well, I wouldn't put it that way," Chumley said modestly. "I know I'm imposing, and I would be terribly grateful to have the matter taken care of. It's temporary, old chap. Five or six weeks, what?"

"All right," I sighed, hearing an echo in my head of my capitulation to Massha. "He's in."

Chumley slapped me on the back. The blow nearly flattened me. "Thank you, old shirt."

"Would you consider an application from someone to whom you don't owe a favor?"