With one impressive forefinger, I signalled for my visitor to rise.
He finally recovered enough to speak. "Why—why didn't your manservant just go into the house to fetch you?" he asked.
All right, maybe I hadn't impressed him as much as I had thought.
I lowered my eyebrows at him. "I was in a distant plane of existence," I boomed, "not occupying a miserable hovel like that. Why have I been disturbed from my studies?"
Norb gestured uneasily in the direction of Bunny's pavilion. "Well, you see, I just finished telling that old crone—"
I held up a hand. "Never mind! Your mind is an open book to me! The Great Skeeve knows all! I will help your town.
Assistants!" I clapped my hands. "Make ready to depart! And," I called as an afterthought, "pack lightly!"
Norb guided us to the main northern road, and set as rapid a pace as he could. Since my new client couldn't give me or my 'apprentices' enough details to identify his 'monster,' I brought Gleep and Buttercup along as extra muscle. My pet dragon was as thrilled as Tolk was to go 'walkies' in the pleasant May weather, and spent many happy hours racing into the bushes beside the road, chasing the local wildlife and finding snacks. Gleep's taste in food was almost as dire as that of the Pervects, so I was happier when I could hear him but not see him slurping and chewing. Norb also seemed grateful that my very smelly 'goat' preferred to travel at a distance from him. He was very uneasy about my entourage. Bunny rode sidesaddle daintily on Buttercup's back. The war unicorn had never really gotten used to carrying civilians, but he adored Bunny. He blew out between his lips as Gleep disappeared again. I could tell he longed to romp with his friend, but his training held good and he remained on the road. I patted him on the nose.
"Are you sure you need all of these people, great wizard?" Norb kept asking me.
"They are my students and my servants," I intoned. "They accompany me to learn at my feet and to do those menial tasks such as preparing food."
Norb looked skeptical. "Well, I thought you could do that all by magik."
"Such tasks are beneath his attention," Bunny put in hastily.
Behind us, the Pervects burst into giggles over some private joke I couldn't overhear. Now clad in the illusion of fine travel gowns, they weren't at all pleased with having to spend days disguised as Klahds. When we stopped for food, which because of their prodigious appetites was often, I had to pretend I was conjuring elementals or summoning demons to aid me and protect us on our path to explain away why we had to brew cauldrons of 'protective potion.' We really didn't have
anything to worry about. First, this was the main north-south trade route for this region, and was well patrolled by guardsmen in the service of the local ruler. Second, we were carrying few valuables to speak of. Third, those of us who weren't heavily armed packed a substantial magikal wallop. Fourth, and most importantly, anyone who got within ten yards of the Pervects' food was not going to cross the remaining distance, even if we had a string of naked dancing girls carrying baskets of diamonds. After one curious sniff, Norb put as much distance between himself and their cooking pot as he felt was safe. He kept pressing us to hurry. I calculated that it would take about two days to cover the distance on foot that he had run, but he had been traveling unencumbered and we, to put it briefly, were not.
In spite of my instructions, Bee had emerged from the inn with his whole field pack on. I had to admit that it didn't look oversized worn over the disguise of Guido's hulking build, but I could tell it was still Bee under there. Since he was more of a company clerk than a commando type, the weight was beginning to wear on him, though I think he would rather have undergone torture than admit it. He did manage to produce from its depths anything that anyone might even remotely need. I admired his preparedness, but it might have done the others some good if they had to improvise even once to make do. I couldn't criticize him again; he was trying so hard to live up to Massha's recommendation and my reputation. I did not feel worthy of such adulation.
Tolk carried a new cloth bag to replace the paper sack stolen by the Sear natives. A present from Bunny, it had once held half a bushel of garlic. Tolk loved it, and trotted along taking loving snorts from the stinking burlap. Melvine, resplendent in what Aahz would have called a 'Little Lord Fauntleroy' suit, swaggered onward hauling his belongings in a huge leather satchel that floated behind him like a balloon. Bunny, who ought to have known better, also claimed she was traveling light. For her, I suppose she was: two huge suitcases were slung
over Buttercup's back like panniers. All she carried on her own person seemed to be a ragged sack. My illusion overlay what was an incredibly expensive designer silk bag Aahz and I had given her for her last birthday. Inside it was Bytina, her palm-sized Perfectly Darling Assistant, cosmetics, gum, a small amount of gold for our travel expenses, and the most powerful pocket calculator on Klah. Not that she needed it. What Bunny lacked in magikal ability was more than made up for by her facility with numbers. When she wasn't chatting with one or another of the apprentices, she was catching up via Bytina with one or another of her many correspondents in other dimensions.
I strode on in thoughtful silence, occasionally lowering my eyebrows as if deep in thought. In truth, I was. My conscience was barking at me, telling me I shouldn't be putting my innocent apprentices into harm's way. On the other hand, if I left them behind and the task took too long, I would feel I was cheating them out of several days' instruction. On the other hand, observing me in action wouldn't hurt, and they might even be able to help me. On yet another hand, I wondered if having them help might make the job harder than it ought to be. I decided that was enough hands. What would happen would happen, and I could only try to prepare my students to be flexible.
Norb accepted all of the strangeness of my entourage as befitting that of a notorious wizard. The one thing he couldn't tolerate was how slow we were moving.
"Hurry up!" he begged, not for the first time that day. "The road's good and the weather is fine. You could put a move on, wizard! Er, with respect, of course."
"If you're so impatient," Bunny said, also not for the first time that day, "why don't you trot ahead and see if there's a decent inn we can put up at for the night? We'll move much faster tomorrow if we get a good night's sleep."
"Old cro—-madam, your witches' brew got us pitched out of the last one. I had to pay a substantial amount above
and beyond the inn's fee not to have the tavernkeeper summon the local guards. Even the drunks were afraid of your potion's stench!"
"Actually, it was our—goat that made the smell," Bunny pointed out. Gleep seemed to have taken a fancy to Freezia's cooking. He had begun licking out their pot. Pervish cooking passing through a dragon's digestive system had unfortunate results, to say the least. Norb picked up on that with alacrity.
"Since you admit that it was your creature's fault that I was forced to waste the headman's money, then perhaps you shoulder the burden for tonight's lodging."
Bunny looked outraged. "You don't expect the Great Skeeve to pay for his own lodging? Not when he's going to save your town?"
Muttering something about "this had better be worth it," Norb trotted ahead into the woods, leaving us alone.
The moment he was gone, the Pervects went into elaborate gyrations and gestures. Their disguise spells dissipated, revealing their scaly green faces and four-inch-long fangs. Small animals and birds fled screaming into the trees.
"Whew!" Jinetta said, admiring herself in a pocket mirror. "My mother warned me if I made ugly faces I would free2e that way someday."
"How do you know it didn't?" Pologne asked cattily.
Jinetta pouted. "You don't have to be mean about it!"
"How are you going to defeat a monster that shoots lightning?" Bee asked when he was sure our guide was out of earshot.