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 freeze 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.
"I don't know yet," I said honestly. From my studies I knew of a number that could have fit the description Norb gave us. Furry, big, lightning. There were giant furred spiders in the dimension of Phobia whose webs were crackling nets of lightning. That didn't sound exactly like the creature Norb was talking about—too many legs. There was a huge blue bunny on Vorpal that spat lightning. I shook my head. I knew too much and too little to help. The Pervects had been searching their information sources for furry lightning-shooting creatures, and had also come up with too many possibilities.
Mostly, I worried that my apprentices could be harmed or killed helping me with this mission. I had no intention of letting them get hurt, but I wanted them to try to rid this town of the menace. It would give them a sense of accomplishment.
Bunny was sympathetic. "I have faith in you."
"Maybe you were right," I moaned. "Maybe I've taken on more than I can handle."
"Don't give up now," Bunny said firmly. "You're just getting good at this."
"Thanks," I said glumly, but I appreciated the gesture.
"Here he comes again," Freezia announced.
"Put your disguises on again," I instructed the students.
Jinetta sighed as she assumed her Klahdish appearance. "I just hate not being me, you know."
"Think of it as a dreary necessity," I said severely. "You have no idea how much trouble we'd get into if they ever saw your normal face."
"The trouble with your Klahds is that you don't appreciate genuine beauty," Pologne said.
"Good news, wizard," Norb said, panting up to us. "I found an inn that hasn't gotten the news from the one we tried to stay in last night!"
Chapter Eleven
"Are these things supposed to act like that?"
CRASH!
"We must be near Humulus," I said.
"The monster is still raging!" Norb shouted, pulling me along by the elbow. "Hurry, master wizard!"
"Either this is a very large town," Bunny murmured to me as we passed through the high wooden gates, "or this is one very slow monster. And the villagers haven't managed to overpower it?"
I shook my head. "I guess not. That's why they sent for a wizard. I don't know why it stayed here. That is the part that strikes me as strange."
The streets that unrolled before us as the portal slammed shut at our backs suggested the former. Humulus was, or had been, a thriving trading town. Nearly all the buildings on the roads I could see had three or four storeys with shops on the ground level, all deserted now, many of them with broken windows or balconies. I could hear more crashing and the shouting of hundreds of people not far away.
"That way," I pointed toward the loudest sounds of destruction.
FZZZAAAP! A tearing noise ripped through the air.
"What was that?" Melvine asked.
"Lightning!" I felt around for force lines. Luckily, there was a medium-sized blue-tinged line arching overhead. I latched onto it.
"Everybody fill up your tanks," I said. I noticed Melvine screwing up his face to protest. "No argument! Do it!"