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, Hugh, 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."
"No," Freezia exclaimed. "That will bring the inn down on our heads. Smother it with something!"
"There's no time for that!" Tolk grabbed it out of mid-air in his mouth and deposited it in Massha's hand. "Can you turn it off?" he asked.
Massha fumbled fruitlessly with the controls. "No. The failsafe's been engaged."
"We're going to die!" Melvine whimpered.
"No, we aren't," I said. "Everyone calm down. Massha, let me have it."
In panic, Jinetta grabbed Massha's wrist to look at the ring. The gem was as bright as an ember now. "There must be something we can do!"
"Everyone duck!" I barked out. I levitated the ring out of Massha's palm and sent it flying straight up the chimney. "What's the range?"
"About five thousand yards," Massha said.
Talk about overkill! I nodded grimly and flew out the window.
SQUAWK!
A flock of blue-and-white ducks flying overhead scattered outward as I shot up and over the roof of the inn.
"Sorry!" I called. They quacked indignantly among themselves as they reformed into a vee heading north.
I scanned the sky above me for the glowing dot of red light. There it was! I pushed hard at the face of the earth with enough magikal force to send me soaring upward. I hoped no one was traveling the road below, but this close to twilight they might not notice the man-sized shadow heading towards the clouds.
I had no trouble following the ring through the overcast sky. The ruby-red light was just a pinpoint. I flew towards it,
hoping I was maintaining a safe distance. How far was five thousand yards? Keeping a hefty pad of magik around the ring, I shoved it higher and higher. How much longer did I have? The red light disappeared into the clouds. I made ready to follow it.
BOOM!
A red globe bloomed within the cloud overhead. The sound rang in my ears. Dizzy, I lost control of my flying spell. My stomach headed for my mouth as I dropped like a stone. A wave of heat knocked me down a few hundred feet farther. In a moment I retrieved my wits and retreated hastily toward the ground. Success. The ring had detonated where it couldn't possibly hurt anyone.
While I descended, the cloud gave off another tremendous BOOM. With a roar, heavy waves of water began gushing down on me. The grenade had triggered the load of moisture in the cloud and caused it to start raining.
"Thanks," I grumbled at the sky. "That's what I get for being heroic."