"Well," I asked the three, clapping my hands together, "what do you need to learn? I, er, could get you started on some basic magik."
Pologna snorted and threw up her hands. "I told you he was strictly amateur hour!"
"We don't need basics" Jinetta said. "We're all graduates of MIP. Summa cum laude. We can give you credentials, if you need them."
"Oh." I felt very young and inept next to such well-educated Pervects. "Then what exactly do you need from me?"
"We'd like to intern with you for a few weeks, get a handle on practical uses of the arts. Your business manager said you'd welcome the chance to mentor a few worthy pupils. We all took degr—"
"How much?" Bunny interrupted.
We all looked at her in surprise.
"How much did you pay Aahz?" Bunny asked.
"Why?" Freezia countered, suddenly suspicious.
"Well, we need to know if you've signed up for basic instruction, or something more advanced. Let me see your receipts." Bunny held out an imperious hand.
"She's the bursar," I added when the three hesitated. I thought about it, and realized her wits were more in tune than mine. We both knew Aahz must have found a financial angle. It wasn't just altruism and belief in my skills that had prompted him to send me three apprentices. He'd dumped me into the drink a few times in the past with his passion for gold. Bunny was almost certainly right. There had to be some serious money involved.
The Pervects handed her small slips of parchment covered with Aahz's inimitable scrawl. Her face turned white, then red. She passed the slips to me. I gawked at the sum.
"Uh. Well, that's definitely the advanced course," I managed to choke out.
Bunny grabbed my arm and dragged me into the next room. "Give me the D-hopper," she said.
"What for?" I asked.
"I am going to march into that tent and give him a piece of my mind, since he seems to have lost his! What was he thinking? He knows you can't handle these girls!"
"Well, I don't know," I mused. "Aahz must think I can do it."
"That's the money talking. Look at me, Skeeve." I raised my eyes to hers. "This is just Aahz being greedy. What are you doing here? I mean, here, in this place." "Well—studying."
"Because?" she prompted.
"Oh, I know, Bunny. I'm not the wizard everyone thinks I am, but Aahz must think I'm ready to tutor university students. Besides, he has put me under an obligation. I have to fulfill it. Those Pervects are counting on me. How bad could it be? We've got plenty of space for them to stay. They can each pick out a room. You'll enjoy the company—-"
"You're talking yourself into it, aren't you?" Bunny could read a lot of my thoughts, and I always found it unnerving. "Skeeve, snap out of it! Aahz is flattering your ego. You don't know anything about teaching."
"I have to do it, don't I?" I countered. "Aahz made a contract in my name. I've got to live up to that. Otherwise, what happens to my reputation?"
She put her hands on her hips. "Will you put your sense of honor to the side just for the moment? It's not your reputation that's at stake here. Aahz made the deal without ever asking you if you would do it. You could say no. He knows what you're doing here. He'll just have to give those Pervects refunds."
We both stopped for a moment to reflect upon the mental image of Aahz forced to dig into his pockets and give money back. I almost laughed. It would almost be easier for me to learn advanced techniques and teach them to these young Pervects. It would sure take less time. No matter what Bunny said, I was stung by the challenge. I wondered if I could do it. If I couldn't, I'd soon find out. If I found I was in over my head, I could find a way to refund part of their tuition, and possibly find them a substitute teacher.
With a gesture of surrender, I returned to my new charges, who were waiting anxiously in the main room. Bunny stayed at my shoulder.
"Practical magik, huh?" I inquired.
"Yes," the girls said. "As soon as possible."
"What's the hurry?" Bunny wanted to know.
Jinetta hesitated. "Well, er, you know, no one wants to hire recent graduates who have no practical experience, right? I don't want to start out frying mimgrou ribs and asking 'do you want oil-soaked tubers with that?' I want a high-paying executive job. I want to get a jump on getting ahead of our fellow students."
"Me, too," put in Pologne. Freezia nodded eagerly.
"Me, too. And the key to big money is a reputation. And the key to that reputation is f—"
"Experience," Jinetta interrupted. "Unpaid experience. That's why we're looking for internships intstead of, er, entry level positions. So you don't pay us. Just teach us. Quickly."
That sounded reasonable to me. Having been on Perv once, I guessed it would be tough to jump into a good employment situation. Unlike Klah, everything seemed to move fast there.
"Okay," I said. "I'll do it."
"Thank you!" Pologne cried.
"It's a deal, then," Jinetta said, sticking out a hand. I hesitated for a moment, remembering Aahz's dislike for shaking hands with apprentices. But I was going to create my own style of teaching. I clasped her scaly fingers. The others grasped my hand in turn.
"Now what?" Freezia asked.
Chapter Three
"Nice effects."
What, indeed?
With three skeptical Pervish faces gazing at me, my mind went blank.
"Er," I began.
"Why don't the three of you pick out rooms to stay in?" Bunny said, distracting them from me for the moment. "This was once a coaching inn. You can each have a room of your own. The bathroom is a little on the primitive side, but there's always lots of hot water, and the insulation is good. Just remember to keep the curtains drawn. The locals think the place is haunted."
The three Pervects bustled upstairs eagerly, chattering nervously among themselves. I heard doors open and slam, accompanied by gales of wild giggles. Bunny caught my expression, and gave me an amused little smile.
"What are you going to do with them?"
"I think I'll take them to Massha," I replied. "She ought to have some ideas about how I can teach them, since she was my first and only apprentice. I might even see if she can take them off my hands."
Bunny shook her head doubtfully. "She's got a lot of responsibilities as Court Magician."
"All the better if she has three assistants to help her," I said brightly.
By the time they came jogging down again, I had my thoughts in place.
"Everything all right up there?" Bunny asked them. "We haven't really done anything to the place except clean it."
"Don't apologize," Freezia said, giving me a heart-stopping grin of brilliantly white four-inch fangs. "After our dormitories at MIP, these accommodations are almost palatial. They don't give students and apprentices a lot of consideration. I was jammed in the same size room with five other students. I had no idea it was going to be this nice. I can tell we're going to like it here with you."
"Er, thanks. Okay," I said, feeling a little guilty. "We're going to take a short trip to visit a friend of mine. It'll be a chance for you to get a good look at this dimension on the way."
"We've seen a good part of it," Pologne pointed out. "It's a dump. But, whatever you say."
I couldn't disagree with her about that. I'd always been fairly bored by my home dimension. My idea was to take these three into the kingdom of Possiltum, getting a little better idea of what they needed while we were on our journey. Massha had been no mere apprentice who started by sweeping my study and learning to light candles by concentrating on them. She had been an independent magician, working in the dimension of Jahk, who quit to come join me and my associates. I firmly believed I had learned more from her than she could possibly have gotten out of me. She'd specialized in practical magik.