Myth-Chief

THIRTY-FIVE

The wave of smell hit me before anything else. It was like old cheese wrapped in burning newspapers with a touch of unwashed laundry. I gagged. Hermalaya detached herself from us.

"Aahz?" Tananda called. "Can you hear me?"

"Over here ..." came a faint little voice.

I created a globe of brilliant white light. Suddenly, I could see that we were surrounded by spooky-looking trees heavy with hanging beards of moss. Creepers dangled overhead in swags and loops. Insects immediately homed in on the light, diving in and out of the white globe. My feet immediately sank into the spongy surface.

"Watch it," Tanda said. "It's pretty deep."

I levitated until I could walk on the surface of the marsh. Tananda used a little of her own magik to guide me.

The ground was an expanse of uneven masses. I glided from one semisolid lump to another.

"There they are!" Tananda exclaimed, pointing to three blobs. I hurried after her. One green blob looked scalier than the others. I realized it was Aahz's head. All three of them were buried up to their lower lips in mud. Aahz's batwing ears were flat on the surface of the marsh.

"Don't make waves," Guido said, stiffly. "This stuff tastes worse than dorm food."

I knelt beside them. "Are you guys all right?" I asked.

Aahz glared at me.

"What took you so long?"

Tananda burst out. "Aahz! Don't be ungrateful! Skeeve came out just as soon as we told him you were in trouble."

"What makes you think I'm in trouble?" Aahz asked. "We're just having a mud bath while a marsh squid drowns us so it can have an off-world buffet!"

"What's a marsh squid?" I asked.

A huge splash broke the silence.

"That is," Tananda said, pointing.

My globe of light wasn't large enough to illuminate the entire expanse of the creature that surfaced.

It looked like what stomach flu felt like. It was a sickly green mass of squirming, writhing tentacles with an ugly face that even its mother must have had a hard time loving. Two big round eyes as flat as dinner plates stared at us. One of the tentacles coiled out at me faster than whipsnap.

I was ready for it. I charged up the globe of light and threw it right into those eyes. It exploded in a blazing star-burst. Without eyelids to cover them, the squid was suddenly blinded. It squealed like an injured rhinophant and contracted its body to protect its offended orbits.

I heard a yell of protest from Aahz and Guido. The waves of the thrashing squid were swamping them. I had to get my friends free before it managed to drown them by accident. I pulled some more magik out of my reserves and threw lassolike loops around all three. Then. I hoisted them up into the air.

It took a lot more effort than I expected. My eyes watered as clouds of foul-smelling gas were released. I strained to hold the spell together. When their feet cleared the water, I discovered that the tentacles of the giant squid were wound around their legs and lower bodies. I couldn't let it go, or it would slither back into the swamp, taking my friends with it. Instead, I reached out to the hanging creepers, some of which were thicker than my waist. Using my fast-dwindling supply of magik, I tied loops in them and captured the ends of the tentacles. The squid struggled against me. I was gasping, but I got one leg after another tied up. Pretty soon, the whole monster was hanging from the trees like a hammock.

Now that he was in no danger of drowning, Aahz took part of the rescue into his own hands. He grabbed hold of the nearest waving arm and sank his teeth into it.

The squid squealed again, taking the sound up into the highest registers of sound. It threw Aahz halfway across the swamp.

"Aaaagh!" Aahz yelled, his arms and legs windmilling.

SPLOOP!

Guido added his strength to the escape attempt. I couldn't see what he was doing, but the squid didn't seem to like it any more than it did being bitten. It trembled so much that Guido slipped out of its clutches.

"Anyone got a rope?" he shouted.

He hung by his fingernails from the tentacle. Tananda threw him a lifeline made of magikal force. He threw her a salute and hauled himself up again.

Matfany was the only one still tied up like a spider's lunch. I didn't have a lot of magik left available. Tananda was right. I could see some perfectly good force lines, but I felt as though a glass bubble were keeping me from getting at them.

With only limited magik left to me, I had to think small— like a hotfoot. I lit a white-hot flame underneath the coil of the tentacle.

The squid flinched away, but with the rest of it tied to the trees, it couldn't go very far. I followed it with the little fire, keeping it right up against the slimy green flesh until I could smell something burning.

Somehow a whisper made itself heard over the wailing.

"Excuse me, gentlemen, but it's squeezing me pretty hard."

J ran over the surface of the swamp toward Matfany. Tananda scrambled up over the body of the squid, evading the tentacles that still waved free. She beat me there. With a dagger drawn from somewhere within her clothes, she stabbed the squid. I got there just in time to catch Matfany as the tentacle let him go. It felt after us, but I turned up the flame. It winced and curled up against its body. Tananda dropped down lightly to the surface. We each took an arm and carried Matfany over the water to a spit of nearly dry land under an arched willow bough.

Matfany brushed himself down. His somber suit and black curly fur were plastered with green mud. "Sir, thank you for your courtesy."

"Save it," I said, with no friendliness in my voice. "The princess was nearly captured today, and that was all your fault"

The prime minister managed to look dignified in spite of his condition. "I only did what I had to do, sir."

"Seems to me you could have figured something else out, a smart guy like you?"

Aahz waded through the slime toward us. He stumped up on the spit of land and wrung out his sleeves. Gallons of water and a frog poured out of the sodden tubes of cloth.

"What a miserable place," he said. "I can't believe you Swamp Foxes think this is the nice part of town."

"How are you?" I asked.

"How do you think?" Aahz said. "I'm wet! Look at that. A Barclys of Gannet suit, brand-new, ruined!"

"Haven't you got something you'd like to say to Skeeve?" Tananda asked.

He looked up at me. "What do you think I should say to him?"

"Well, I don't know. How about Thanks, you saved my life'?" Tananda pressed him. "Aren't you grateful?" Aahz made a face.

"That wasn't anything special. So he clotheslined a squid. I'd have done the same for him." He turned to me. "Thanks, You can go away now. We're fine from here."

I gawked at him.

"Thanks? That's it?"

He glared at me. "What do you want, a medal?" "What about some, I don't know, gratitude?" "You got it. I'm grateful. Happy?" "No, in fact," I said. "You're acting like you're not happy to see me."

"And why should I be?" Aahz asked. "We're on opposite sides of this competition. You stepped in to help. Now we go back to our respective corners and keep slugging. See you at the finish line."

I felt forlorn, then upset. "That's it? Are you mad at me? Aren't we still friends?"

"Maybe later," Aahz said. I felt devastated. He prodded my chest with a talon. "No, I'm not mad at you, but I ought to be! Look, you are acting like I'm the one who left. You bugged out. You didn't talk to anyone except Bunny—unless you needed them for something. How do you think they liked that? I didn't see you at all after that one time. You want to talk about ungrateful? Because we didn't open up our arms and let you march right in where you left off? Everybody gave you a pass because you're a nice guy, but you don't deserve it. You Klahd."

I was being pushed on the defense. "I told you, I had to get away and prove myself."

Aahz looked annoyed. "And solving problems in a dozen kingdoms in as many dimensions doesn't give you that kind of confidence? What took you so long? I thought you had some potential, but maybe I overestimated your brains."

"Aahz!" I must have shown how hurt I was.

"Aw, come on, I don't mean it like that," Aahz said. "What's a couple of months out of touch between friends? But this is business, kid. You've known me long enough to understand that, I hope. Nobody stands between a Pervect and something he wants, especially not former apprentices and partners who happen to be Klahds who want the same thing!"

"And dropping everything on my side of the competition to come and pull your fat out of the fire doesn't earn me even a little friendliness? If you can't even appreciate what people do for you, then I guess I don't need to have anything else to do with you."

"If you could only hear yourself, kid," Aahz said almost sadly.

I had heard myself, and I had to admit I didn't like what I heard. I was whining. No wonder nobody wanted to let me back in the group.

I turned to stalk away, and found myself face-to-face with a virtual forest fire. Flickering shapes made of hot blue light surrounded me. These had to be the Old Folks. I went on guard and filled my hands with the remaining magik I had in store.

"There you are," said the leader. He had a deep, booming voice. He was shaped like a Swamp Fox, but one made of blue cellophane. His deep-set eyes fixed on my face. "Those three boys aren't done with their punishment yet. You just can't take them away from here."

"Sorry to disagree with you," I said, sounding more calm than I felt. "They're my friends, and I am taking them with me. Or you can try and put me down there. But look what I've done to your pet." I gestured toward the squid, which struggled furiously against its bonds. It was tied to various tree limbs.

The deep voice sounded aghast. "What have you done to Baby?'"

"Baby?" I asked. That gigantic thing was a baby? "That wasn't nice of you, son."

A tenor-voiced Old Folk joined him. "I guess he wasn't big enough to handle all of them. I'd better summon Daddy. He'll wind them up good, and this one into the bargain."

"Bring him on! I can take him, too," I vowed.

"And Granddaddy," suggested another one of the hovering flames, a woman with a long, sharp nose.

Uh-oh, I thought. I had just dropped out of their league. I didn't stand a chance against two of them.

"Stand back," I warned, igniting the power in my hands to a ball of red fire, "or I'll burn all of you back to life!"

"Didn't your mother ever show you any manners?" the female asked. She clapped a hand down on my palm. The fire went out. I was out of magik. I backed away. "I think we'll just have to sink you first and send your friends down after you!"

Plants began to wind themselves around my feet. I tugged at them.

"Now, Great-grandmother Clarissa, what are you doing?" Hermalaya was at my shoulder. She had her hands on her hips. The long-nosed female ghost looked at her.

"Hermalaya, honey, is that you?" The blue flames surrounded her.

"Hello, baby," said the tenor-voiced ghost.

"Daddy, what are you doing trying to drown my prime minister?"

"Well, baby girl, he overstepped his bounds by telling you to go away."

Hermalaya glanced back toward Matfany. Her eyes were bright, but she held her head high. "I left willingly.

He was just doing what he thought was right. I'd just appreciate it if you stopped interfering with those folks from out of town? For now, anyhow."

A female ghost with a sweet face came to hover beside the tenor. "Well, if you are all right, sweetheart, that's all that matters. And this is your little friend?"

"Yes, Mama. This is Skeeve the Magnificent."

"It's an honor, your majesty," I said, bowing low.

"Well, aren't you sweet?" the late queen said, beaming with pleasure. "You just go on taking care of my daughter. She's a good girl."

"Yes, ma'am. I'll do my best."

Matfany came up to touch my sleeve. "Sir, I don't want you to think that all of us are ungrateful wretches. You have saved our lives, and I will be forever in your debt. How can I repay you?"

"A life for a life," I said. "Repeal the death sentence on Hermalaya. And while you're at it, maybe you should get out of town for good yourself. She won't need you anymore."

Matfany bowed. "Very well, sir. I am a man of my word. I will depart at once. I will go back to my quarters for my possessions, if you will allow that."

"I don't see why not," I said. I could be magnanimous. Inwardly I was jubilant. Just like that. I had gotten Hermalaya her throne back and gotten rid of her archenemy!

"Now, wait a minute!" Aahz protested, pushing in between us. "You can't do that!"

I turned to him calmly. "I just did."

"I want a ruling from the judge."

"What ruling? Matfany agreed. I saved his life, so he's leaving the country." The prime minister nodded gravely. Aahz goggled.

"If you exile my client, I can't win."

"You can't win anyhow," I said, trying not to gloat and failing. "We beat you six ways from feastday. I just won. My client's got her job back, and yours has just lost his. Besides, we have the moral victory."

"Moral? This is purely a numbers game, pal." Aahz stuck his face in mine.

I didn't back down. I thrust my chin forward.

"Then we'll take it back to Bunny, and ask her," I said. "All right?"

"All right!"