Class Dis-Mythed m-16

by Robert Asprin

  "Good," I said, firmly. "Now, go back to your exercise. You're making good progress. Keep it up."

  "Will you swear to that?" Melvine asked.

  I spun to face him. "Swear I didn't pay any of you or make a secret deal for compensation? Yes. I swear it."

  His baby face seemed to crumple with disappointment. "Well, those coins are from Humulus, aren't they?"

  "Bunny," I called. "Would you mind checking the strongbox and see if any of our reward money is missing?"

  Bunny rose, and Gleep trotted after her, with a backward glance to make sure I didn't need him. No one moved while she was gone. When she returned, her face was grave. "Fifteen coins are missing," she reported.

  I held the bag out to her. "Here they are. I'll have to come up with a better magik lock that only you and I can open."

  Bunny took the money from me, and shot a distasteful look around at the apprentices. I knew what she was thinking. She was still convinced that there was something fishy going on.

  "I don't like this," I told them. "Playing little jokes on one another is one thing, but I won't put up with outright crime. Someone stole that money from our strongbox."

  "Someone set me up," Jinetta insisted furiously.

  "I don't know that," I said. "Either someone set you up, or you want me to believe that someone did. I even bet it's pointless for me to do a trace spell. I'm sure whoever put the money here covered his or her tracks. But I'll tell you here and now that if I catch anyone doing anything dishonest like that again, you're out of here. Got that?"

  "Yes, Skeeve," they chorused glumly.

  "All right," I said. "Back to work."

  No one moved. Their eyes darted from face to face, probably trying to figure out, as I was, who had sneaked the bag into Jinetta's briefcase, or if she had done it herself.

  "Come on," I said sarcastically. "Are you waiting for an engraved invitation?"

  "Hey, hey, hey, are you an audience or an illumination?" a hearty woman's voice asked. "Why so silent?"

  Massha floated into the courtyard. She appeared to be carried on the shoulders of four young and good-looking courtiers dressed in Queen Hemlock's personal livery, until she sailed on beyond their grasp and settled to the ground on the toes of a pair of pointy orange silk slippers.

  "Massha!" I went to greet her, and received one of her patent bone-crushing hugs. Bunny came over, too, and gave as good as she got.

  "What's the silent treatment for?" she asked, looking at the group, who were now intently studying their feet.

  "A misunderstanding," I said, passing it over casually. "Welcome! Do you want to freshen up before you start your lecture?" "No way, Hot Shot! It was a relaxing jaunt. Wasn't it, boys?"

  "Yes, Lady Magician," they chorused.

  Massha elbowed me. "I'm trying to get them to sing it in harmony, but Marco there in the left back corner is tone deaf. So, how's it been going? I see Bee's still standing." The young corporal blushed crimson and kicked the dirt. Massha grinned.

  I grinned back. "Let's all have a drink, and we'll give you the short version."

  Chapter Fifteen

  "Oops."

  LAST WORDS OF ANY BOMB DISPOSAL EXPERT

  "Well, you're still in one piece," Massha said, setting down her empty mug on the little table beside the heap of cushions that her attendants laid out for her to lounge upon in Bunny's sitting room. Gleep was curled next to her feet, his long neck resting contentedly along a spare lump of cushion. "So that's what really happened! A troubador from the town came to Possiltum and sang a song about the Great Skeeve defeating a beast by turning its lightning back on it."

  "Not exactly," I said modestly, toying with my wine glass. "I just appealed to its self-interest."

  "Most powerful force in the universe, after love," she agreed. "Hemlock was impressed. She'll laugh herself silly when she hears the real story." She surveyed my students, who sat around the cosy room on chairs or the floor. "And you all sound like you're making Master Skeeve proud. Old Massha was his first student, and look where she ended up? Happily ever after!"

  "Thanks for the plug," I said. "I really can't take credit for where you've gotten. That was all you. I think you're doing a better job than I ever did."

  "Don't sell yourself short, Superstar! You brought out the best in me."

  "I thought Hugh did that," I said innocently. Massha blushed as bright as her lipstick. I turned to my class to give her a moment to recover. "All right, individual exercises are over for the day. At the beginning I promised you guest lecturers. This will make a welcome change of pace. I think we could all use one. The Lady Magician of Possiltum has come all the way from the royal court to demonstrate something in which she has more expertise than anyone I have ever met, including most Deveels: gadget magik."

  "You bet. Quintin!" she called, clapping her hands. One of the muscular, liveried courtiers ran in and knelt at her feet, presenting an enormous bag that clanked as it moved. She chuckled. "Don't you just love it when they hustle?"

  "Adorable," Bunny agreed, waggling a couple of fingers at the page. "Hi-ya." She winked at him. The page blushed to the roots of his long pale hair.

  Massha whipped out a heavy silk cloth and left it floating in the air while she sorted through the clunking collection and laid several items out. "Here are a few of my favorites, stuff that's gotten me out of a couple of nasty situations, and a few that are just plain useful."

  "Oh, come on, I've been playing with things like those since I was two," Pologne complained, flipping a couple of pieces over with her talon. "There's a wince whistle. Makes the noise from barking dogs rebound on them. And that's a stuff-sack, for getting more things into your purse."

  Massha shrugged. "This is gonna be old hat for a few of you, honey, but I just love toys. Oh, here's a good one!"

  She drew out a heavily jeweled gold wand. "This one's good for changing ambience. Short range, but this room's a good size. No verbal invocation, just point and shoot." She stuck a finger in her ear and aimed the wand at the ceiling.

  A loud report momentarily deafened us, followed by whistles and toots. Over our heads, flower-shaped gouts of fire erupted, filling the ceiling then drifting down over us. Where the cooling sparks passed, the room shifted before our eyes. The whitewash warmed to a honey color. Framed pictures shimmered into being, along with lamps, vases, occasional tables and knicknacks, and finally a fringed rug of complicated pattern spread itself on the floor.

  "I like it," Bunny said with an approving nod. "That makes the room much more cosy now. Skeeve and I just haven't really taken the time to redecorate."

  "Freaky!" Melvine hooted. "Instead of looking like a dreary old pub, now it looks like my granny's house!"

  "I think it's nice," Bunny said, sounding hurt.

  "Yeah, right," the Cupy said. He picked up the wand. "How do you make it do something about five hundred years more modern?"

  "Turn the dial," Massha said, pointing to a ring near the base of the wand.

  Melvine shot the wand toward the crystal lamp in the middle of the ceiling. BANG! Within moments, the walls were stark white again. Tapestry upholstery had changed to russet or stone-colored leather, and the wooden tables had become chrome frames with glass tops. All of the fussy ornaments had vanished, and the pictures on the walls turned to abstracts. Massha's freeform cushions assumed geometric shapes. "Much better. The other stuff made me gag."

  "Oh, geometries are so downmarket," Jinetta said.

  "Hey, you don't know a thing about design," Melvine shot back.

  "And you do?"

  "What do you think?" Massha asked Bunny. "It's your house."

  "I like this, too. My tastes are pretty eclectic. You can leave it like this. If I get bored with it, I'll redecorate. What else have you got there?"

  Massha spread her hands generously. "Take a look, kids. Try them on for size, but don't invoke anything until you check with the proprietor first. A lot of these gizmos look alike! I don't want any accid
ents, and I'm sure Skeeve doesn't want the place brought down on his head."

  Bee picked up a gaudy ring with a blue stone and fiddled with it. "What's this one do, ma'am?"

  Alarmed, Massha plucked it out of his fingers. "Don't point that at yourself, Honeybunch. Joke ring. It fills the mouth of the person you're facing with soap suds. I think it started out as a punishment device for smart-mouthed kids. Be careful.

  Just because it looks pretty doesn't mean you can laugh off the results. See?" She picked up a ring with a glittering opal in the bezel. "Watch this. I got this one for saving a merchant from an Ogre he had cheated."

  She turned it toward the open window and pressed inward with her fingers. A bolt of blue-white lightning shot out of the window.

  "Ho-hum, another lightning ring," Freezia yawned. "I got one for my twelfth birthday. You got taken by the merchant, too, lady. You should have negotiated better. Those cost about three gold pieces brand new. Five with the decoder wheel."

  Massha looked crestfallen. I was furious.

  "That's enough," I said. "I shouldn't have to tell you that the Lady Magician deserves respect from you whether or not you're impressed."

  I raised my eyebrows meaningfully.

  They took the threat. Jinetta reached for a bangle bracelet studded with rubies and began to examine it closely.

  "Make music," Massha suggested. "Touch the jewels."

  Jinetta tried one tentatively then broke into a wide grin at the tinkly sound. She began to play a tune with her fingernails. Freezia and Pologne looked over a cloisonne vase with a long neck, laughing when a snake jumped out of it. Massha showed them how to reload it.

  "I left that one in the queen's boudoir last week. She just howled. I think she wants to plant it on visiting ambassadors."

  "What about this?" Tolk asked, offering her a long purple plume.

  "It writes romance stories," Massha said. "Dunk it in hot water if you want it to get really steamy."

  "Ooh," Freezia cooed, reaching for it. "I adore love stories."

  "You would," Melvine sneered. "I bet you've read all of Loebis Nasus's novels."

  Freezia eyed him. "How in Perv would you know about her?"

  "I don't," Melvine said hastily. "Never read a single word."

  "Uh-huh," Freezia said skeptically. "How about this belt, Massha?" She dangled a gaudy strip of gold leather studded with rutilated quartzes.

  The Lady Magician of Possiltum settled back on her cushions with a hearty laugh. "There's a story attached to this one, kiddies! That belonged to a wizard named Polik who used it to make himself look thinner than he really was. Trouble is, it's only an illusion, and no one told the doors to believe it. He got stuck in Hemlock's privy during a state banquet, and traded it off to me in exchange for keeping silent about having to extract him."

  Bunny howled with laughter. "That little blue powder room behind her throne?"

  "That's the one!"

  "What do you do with it?" Pologne asked pointedly.

  "Trade goods," Massha shrugged, refusing to take offense. "If I find someone who's got a treasure they don't need, we swap. It's fun. Listen, I had an idea to make this interesting. I won't tell you any more about my hoard. You take an item and figure out what it does without killing yourself or your fellow classmates here. How about it? Skeeve wanted you to try out what it's like to be working magicians. We have to do this with mystery items all the time, especially in the Bazaar at Deva. Of course, about 90% of the stuff you can buy there are fakes or toys. It's a contest. Whoever identifies the most items gets a prize. Bunny can keep score."

  "I'm on it!" my assistant declared, reaching for a pencil and a pad of paper.

  Pologne grinned, showing what had to have been a few hundred gold pieces' worth of orthodontia in her mouthful of gleaming white, four-inch-long fangs. "That sounds like fun."

  "It can be," Massha smiled back. Her teeth were nowhere as impressive, but the feral expression more than made up for it. "Go on, give it a try!" She spilled the baubles out on the floating cloth.

  Bee goggled at the array of treasures. Gingerly, he picked up a skinny silver wand. Carefully pointing it away from all of us, he invoked it. Nothing happened. He shook it and listened to it. Still nothing. Tolk gave an excited bark and immediately ran his shiny wet nose up its length.

  "Cures poison," he said at once.

  "How do you know that?" Bee asked.

  "Unicornium," Tolk said, grinning. "Only element in the universe that can counteract poisons. Besides, it smells like Buttercup out there."

  Bee put the wand to his nose. "I guess it kinda smells like a horse. It's kinda hard to tell past the dragon smell. No offense, Gleep."

  "Gleep!" my pet said, the friendly expression in his wide blue eyes asserting that no offense was taken.

  "If it gets rid of poison, you ought to use it on that food of yours," Jinetta sneered.

  "Just because I don't eat live vermin?" Bee countered.

  "At least I know my food is fresh!"

  Bee almost retorted then, seeing my pointed glare, reached for another gadget, an egg-shaped chunk of glass.

  "Whoops!" Freezia exclaimed as she invoked a silver medallion and vanished from our sight.

  "Invisibility amulet," Pologne said immediately.

  "Nope," Massha said. "Give her a chance."

  In a moment, Freezia reappeared. "Dressing room," she said, tossing the disk back onto the cushion. "I was in a kind of enclosure with hooks on the wall."

  "You went invisible all of a sudden," Bee said. The glass egg in his hands lit up. He gave it a speculative glance. "You were gone for hours." The egg turned black. "Lie detector," he said quickly, forestalling the others.

  "Good guess," Massha praised him.

  The contest got going into high gear. All of my students reached for items from Massha's bag of toys, the females oohing and aahing over the jewelry. The males seemed to go for the less-adorned gadgets. Massha had generously brought dozens of pieces. Each student played with an object for a while, turning it over looking for clues as to its function without actually invoking it, but sometimes they couldn't help it. A few of the magik items went off by themselves. At one point everyone in the room had purple fingernails, orange lipstick and screaming scarlet rouge, thanks to a powder puff that exuded a cloud of dust. The plain walls had become festooned with pairs of shoes, flowers, racks of knives and crossbows, and a huge poster of four long-haired males holding musical instruments with a signature in the corner that said, "Love is all you need forever." I was fascinated with the rest; I had never appreciated the range of her collection of swag. Massha always forestalled a student from using dangerous items, but let them have free range with the harmless stuff.

  "Some of these things you just invoke," Massha warned them. "Others are triggered by controls. A few have got safety catches. Be careful. Those are the most dangerous."

  Of the six, Bee was the most cautious. He had seen a few of her treasures before, and identified them instantly, earning him points right off the bat. Since then he had fallen behind his companions, who could do more advanced magik-sniffing than he could. In Tolk's case, the sniffing was literal. His sensitive nose picked out obscure compounds and alloys that smelled all alike to me under a mask of Massha's powerful cologne. The Canidian was also capable of making shrewd guesses that turned out frequently to be correct. Melvine was good at figuring out some pretty obscure things like joke toys.

  The Pervects could reel off IDs for every mass-produced trinket, from the Bazaar to some upscale manufactories in the far reaches of distant dimensions, and fought to be the first to call out its name. Once they exhausted those pieces, they were left almost as clueless as Bee. With regard to jewelry custom-made for Massha, almost everyone had to cry uncle.

  "What's this?" Melvine asked crankily, holding up a platinum-banded ring with a moss green, egg-shaped bezel.

  Massha's full cheeks turned scarlet. "That was a special present to me from my sweetie, H
ugh, on our first anniversary."

  "But you haven't been married for a year yet," I said.

  "Not since we married" Massha said, settling back with a satisfied air. "Since we—"

  "Too much information!" I protested.

  She chuckled warmly. "It's a real humdinger: an incendiary grenade. That's my Hugh, always thinking in terms of mass destruction. Once a general, always a general."

  "Very nice," Bunny said. "Hugh has good taste. That's the kind of gift my uncle would give."

  Melvine began looking it over for controls. "How does it work?"

  I flipped it out of his hands with a dollop of magik and put it back among the other items. "It doesn't. Try something else. So far, you've got nine points. Jinetta's ahead of you by three."

  Six pairs of hands sifted through the clanking collection on the silk mat. Pologne got tangled up in a braided cord that tied her wrists together and bound every finger to the corresponding digit on the other hand.

  "It's got me!" she shrieked. "Who invoked that on me?"

  "Trollish finger trap," I laughed, dispelling it for her. "It works by itself. It's a practical joke. Deveel school children leave them in each other's lunch bags."

  "Hmmph," she snorted.

  "Look at this one," Jinetta said, homing in on a burning-red jewel. "Massha, should this gem be glowing?"

  "No!" Massha said in alarm, grabbing it from her. "Oh, no, it's the grenade! It's armed! It's going to explode!"

  "When?" I demanded.

  "About fifteen seconds."

  "I'll throw it into the pond," Bee announced, pale but composed. He took the ring from Massha and made for the door.

  The ring flew out of his hands back toward the center of the room.

  "No, we have to destroy it here and now!" Pologne insisted. "Burn it—no, it's going to burn. Freeze it!" She pulled the crystal ball out of her backpack and started scrying for information. "I know the right spell's in here somewhere."

  "We have to smash it!" Melvine yelled, pointing his hands at the ring. It started to spiral around in the air. "I'll crush it on the fireplace! Let me get some momentum up."