"Well, if he's not fully mature, he won't have all his rows of teeth," Pologne said, still engrossed in her reading matter.
"What does that mean?" Bee asked curiously.
Pologne dragged him closer so he could see into the crystal ball. "See the chart? His emotions mature at a perceptible rate. Depending on his age, he will understand certain abstract notions better than others."
"You're saying we should appeal to his better sense, eh?" Tolk asked, his tongue lolling. "Good idea!"
Some of the townsfolk began to remark among themselves about the novelty of a talking dog. I regretted not giving him human semblance before we started out, but that would have given people something else to talk about when he dropped to all fours to run.
Melvine began to edge toward the rear of the square. I grabbed him by the collar and tossed him back into the midst of the others.
In the meantime, the headman ordered the archers to let fly. The bolts peppered the Manticore, who brushed them off with a fearsome roar. Blood seeped out of the golden fur. The Manticore staggered blindly in the direction of the bowmen. The people in his way screamed and ran. The Manticore lurched toward the noises, stinging here and there with his tail, and swiping with one big paw, but was too slow to hit any of them. He was hampered by the fact that he continued to clutch the round container tightly to his chest. Growling in disappointment, he dropped to all threes to crawl.
"Curse it, reload and prepare to fire!" Flink shouted.
The bowmen thrust the stirrups of their bows into the ground and yanked the strings back to the trigger, keeping one eye on the beast as they shoved fresh quarrels into the groove of their weapons. The Manticore snarled and kicked out at a haycart that unaccountably got in his way. The wagon tumbled end over end and crashed into the side of a building.
Some brave townsfolk mustered to throw more rocks at the monster. When he turned toward them, they fled to hide behind the archers, who were forming a trembling wedge behind me and my apprentices.
The Manticore stumbled over the shrubbery that surrounded a memorial garden in the middle of the square. With a huge splash, he fell flat in the pond.
The townsfolk broke into nervous laughter. The Manticore seemed to take this amiss. He rose up on three limbs, lashing his pale blue tail until his backside faced us. Then, he hoisted the tail high.
"Everybody down!" Flink yelled.
My limited knowledge of Manticores made me realize what threat lay in store. I hit the dirt. "Students! Down!"
The Pervects, distracted from their perusal of the crystal ball, looked at me aghast.
"In our good clothes?" Jinetta demanded, hands on hips.
By now the others had noticed the threat and thrown themselves to the ground. I reached out with a massive dollop of magik, just in time.
The Manticore's backside swiveled toward us, and the huge haunch muscles squeezed.
FZZZAPP!
I suddenly understood Norb's description of how the creature 'emitted lightning,' a fact unaccountably left out of the stuffy textbook I had been reading. A blue-white bolt erupted from the beast's nether parts and shot directly toward the young Pervect. I levitated Jinetta straight up into the air. The bolt missed her, blasting into a huge tree on the green. I reached for some more magik from the blue force line I could see overhead, but it was so thin I couldn't get more than a trickle out of it. I was left with less than half what my internal 'tank' could hold.
"I hope I'm not going to regret that later," I said.
"Well, thanks a million!" Jinetta said, insulted.
"That's not what I meant," I began. "Look out!"
"Aagh!" Melvine shrieked, diving for the cobblestones again.
The Manticore, once having hoisted his tail, was randomly blasting houses and buildings apart with lightning bolts. He turned once more to look directly at the cluster of people behind me, and a mean smile crossed his face.
"No!" shouted Flink.
The Manticore concentrated deeply, and the biggest lightning bolt yet shot out of his backside and hurtled into a white stone building at the end of the square. The face of it exploded, shooting fragments in every direction.
"The town hall!" Norb yelled.
"Do something, Master Skeeve!" Flink said in frustration. "Your assistants are no help!"
"I agree," I said mildly. I turned to the small cluster at my back. "Apprentices!"
"It looks like maybe it got hurt by those arrows," Tolk pointed out eagerly. "I can fix it. Maybe then it'll like us and stop causing trouble."
"That's one theory," Jinetta said. "It ought to understand the concept of gratitude."
"Hey, listen up!" I said to them in a low but urgent voice.
"I dunno," Bee said. "If, like you say, they're vulnerable between the eyes, I can probably hit it square if one of these fellows will give me his crossbow."
The Manticore seemed to revel in the dismayed groans of the assembly at the destruction of their town hall. He rose to his hind feet and staggered toward the building, pausing to take a swallow from the container en route. My apprentices didn't seem to see the action.
I cleared my throat. "Excuse me."
With the townsfolk in pursuit, the Manticore ambled unsteadily over to the smoking ruin and began to pick the statues and ornaments off its eaves one at a time, plinking them into the fountain.
"Can we appeal to its intelligence?" Pologne asked passionately.
Melvine blew a raspberry. "Do YOU speak Manticore?" • "Well, no."
I lost my patience.
"EXCUSE ME!" They all turned to stare at me. I glared back. "Before you try to appeal to his intelligence or sense of gratitude, hadn't you better stop him from destroying anything else first?"
"Huh?" they asked, almost in unison.
I stood back so they could get a good look at the ongoing destruction. The Manticore heaved a carved stone windowsill into the pond. The water splashed high into the air.
"Oh!" they exclaimed, as though surprised that he hadn't held still while they identified him as to genus, species and subspecies.
"Sorry, Skeeve," Tolk said, lowering his shaggy head. "We just kinda got caught up—"
"No time," I interrupted him. "Hurry up and get him out of town. Then we can handle him without anyone else getting hurt."
"No problem," Melvine said. "I can grab him with a whirlwind." He saw my concerned face and grinned. "It's okay, Teach. I've been refining it. Really."
His small face contorted, and he held out his hands. An eddy in the dust began to turn. It picked up bricks and stones in its wake as it started to trace a path toward the Manticore, who had discovered the curved blue roof tiles. He was picking them off one at a time and eating them as if they were cookies.
The tornado grew very slowly, seeming to sneak up on the monster, skirting behind trees and buildings whenever he turned his head. I admired Melvine's tactics. They might even work, as long as the creature didn't notice. The tip of the wind touched the beast's toe.
"Huh?" the Manticore said.
WHOOSH! Before he could move, the tiny windstorm snaked up his body and enveloped him. The bemused face, the last to be absorbed, whipped helplessly around in circles.
"Yeeeaaaah!" Melvine carolled, dancing around. "I'm the Cupy! I'm the Cupy!"
"Move it out of here!" I shouted.
He gave me a sheepish glance. "Oh, yeah."
The Cupy tilted his head, and the whirlwind started to weave down the street toward the gate. Respectfully, the townsfolk moved aside. I admired Melvine's control. He had been practicing. Markie was right. All the kid needed was a little direction.
The crowd followed, chanting and brandishing its homemade weapons.
"Yay! Death to the monster! Death to the monster! Death to the monster!"