"Oh, hurry, Freezy," Jinetta gasped. "That blast weakened my spell!"
"Well, I'll try!" Freezia said. "My goodness, he has a tight grip! I—I can't do both spells at once!"
"Neither can I!" Pologne wailed.
Shades of green were beginning to show through my apprentices' peaches-and-cream complexions. In a minute, the townsfolk were going to have three Pervects in their midst. Having been involved in riots with Aahz on Klah once before, I wanted to avoid the possibility. I threw what little power I had left into the disguise spells.
"You're under wraps," I said. "Keep trying to get that bottle!"
"I'll distract him! C'mon, Gleep! Hey, critter!" Tolk and my dragon galloped straight for the Manticore.
Surprised by the two creatures advancing on him, the Manticore stopped spraying the surrounding buildings with lightning. Tolk, looking very small beside the beast, started worrying at one of his big, shaggy feet. Gleep burned the other foot with his tiny spear of flame. The Manticore roared in surprise. His tail lanced down over his head. Yelping, Tolk dodged the spike. Gleep saw the whole thing as a game, and started jumping around, yodelling every time the raging Manticore missed him.
"Gleep! Gleep! Gleep!"
"Now!" I bellowed.
Freezia jerked at nothing with both hands. The round container lunged out of the Manticore's grip.
She pushed, and it sped out of the gate into the woods.
"Hey!" the beast roared. He dropped to all fours and began running after the jug.
"Buttercup, stay with Bunny!"
We started running after the Manticore.
Within a few hundred yards the mob had fallen behind. I was relieved. My magik was just about depleted. I let the disguise spells fall away. What power I had left might serve to light a candle, no more.
Freezia kept the bottle just out of the Manticore's grip, teasing him one way or another, but not letting him run faster than we could keep up. The beast never noticed us, being completely focused on getting the booze back. The young Pervect played him like a fish on a line, reeling in the jug then yanking it back out again.
"This road is so rough," Freezia gasped. "I'm afraid of losing control. Oh, I hate having no magik!"
"I can put the Cantrip on you," Tolk said. "I think I learned it well enough from Bee."
"Klahd magik!" Pologne snorted.
"I think that's a good idea," I said. "I'd take him up on it, if I were you."
"Oh, just as long as she doesn't start wearing tasteless clothes," the Pervect said, rolling her eyes.
It took a lot of concentration to cast an unfamiliar enchantment on the run, but Tolk did manage to bespell Bee's spell.
"Rrrrrrr!CANTRIP!"
We all felt the results. The Pervects may have been scornful of the magik and the magician, but it seemed that we were running on air, all the stones and ruts cleared out of our way.
"I'm proud of you, Tolk," I panted. "Good work!"
"Thanks, Skeeve!" Tolk barked, racing around us in a circle. "I did good. I did good. I did good."
"That's much better," Pologne said, reluctantly.
"I've got a flight coupon," Jinetta said, digging in her backpack as we ran. "I can zip ahead and see where Bee is."
"Oh, good idea!" Freezia praised her.
"Thank you!" she beamed. From her bag she fished out a slip of blue paper and blinked at it. "Nothing is happening! I know this ticket isn't outdated!"
"It's the strain on the force line," Pologne said. "It's nothing more than a thread! Those tickets need a lot of magik to work!"
"Oh, I hate this!" Jinetta said. "I feel so helpless!"
"You're not helpless," I said. "Not as long as you can think."
Fine words, I chided myself, as we chased a drunken Manticore five times our size down the road. I wondered if my students thought I sounded as supercilious as I felt.
A slight figure in the distance stepped out of the bushes and waved its hands over its head.
"There's Bee," I said. "Everybody get ready. Freezia, send the bottle after him."
I waved back to Bee, pointing into the woods. He beckoned to us and stepped off the road to the right.
The gum-gorse was one of the nastiest pieces of nature that it had ever been my misfortune to run into. Its fragrant, blue-green bark was said to be good to eat, but it was defended from predators by a thick layer of viscous goo and studded with long, red spines that not only hurt going into one's skin, but worse coming out because of their minute, backward-facing barbs. When I'd been an inept junior thief, I once tried to get away from someone I had robbed by climbing up into one. My victim had laughed at seeing me stuck there among the thorns, and left me, saying it was a harsher punishment than he had planned to give me. I had only been freed by a kindly passerby who knew the tree's secret.
This specimen almost waved its branches as if to say, "Come and get me, sucker."
I ran up beside the tree and clapped my hands together. "Throw it here, Freezia!"
The young Pervect flicked her fingers, and the bottle came hurtling towards me. It smacked into my arms. It was bigger than I thought, about the size of a medicine ball.
"Oof! Hey, big guy!" I shouted, waving it at the Manticore. "Do you want this?"
"Roooooaaarr!" the beast gargled. He lumbered in my direction.
I looked around.
"Bee! Go long!"
The ex-soldier dashed out a little way and held out his hands. Using a touch of magik to offset the weight, I heaved the container to him. Bee turned around and threw it to Freezia, who nearly let it drop in surprise. The Manticore peered from one to the other, trying to follow the flight path of the beloved jug. He started to gallumph toward Freezia. She saw him coming, and called out.
"Catch, Jinetta!" The tall Pervect leaped into the air, intercepting the ball like a pro.
"Oh! Oh! To me!" Tolk yelped. Jinetta slung it to him underhand. It rolled past him, and he galloped after it, his tongue flying. Gleep beat him to it, and the two of them fought over it, each tugging the strap in opposite directions. Gleep won the tug-of-war, and dashed around through the trees with the Manticore in pursuit. As he passed me for the second time, I reached under his chin and yanked the bottle away.
"Gleep!" my pet protested.
"Sorry, but you're not helping!" I said. I tossed the container in a high lob toward Bee. The ex-corporal dove for it, snagging it out from under the beast's nose, and tossing it to Pologne.
The Manticore roared in frustration. The bottle bounded around him too fast for his addled wits. He staggered toward one of us, then another, then another. His legs seemed to be getting tangled up underneath him. The insectlike tail lashed, stabbing over his head. We ducked under cover of branches and into bushes to avoid the deadly sting. With the container
in my arms, I dodged towards a heartwood tree just ahead of the Manticore. The sting missed me. The tree took a direct hit. It let out a low moaning sound, and red sap dribbled down the trunk. The Manticore edged around the tree, his claws reaching avidly for the bottle. Hastily, I heaved it all the way across the circle. The Manticore turned to follow.
I felt for the force line. It was refilling; the Manticore hadn't thrown a lightning bolt in several minutes. Pologne reached out to snag the bottle and cocked her arm back to toss it.
"Don't throw it!" I called. "Can you levitate?"
"I think so!" she called back, her Klahd-disguised face wrinkled pensively. "Where?"
"Over the gum-gorse—right NOW!"
The middle-sized Pervect looked doubtful, but she crouched and sprang, just ahead of the Manticore's leap to retrieve his property. Pologne hovered above the tree.
"What do I do now?"
"Taunt him!" I yelled. "Pretend he's your little brother!"
The look of doubt became even more pronounced, but she reached inside herself for her inner big sister. "Hey, Manticore!" she said. "I've got your whateveritis! You can't have it back! Nyah nyah nyah!"