"I won't be alone," I protested. "Tananda will be there."
"-a prime target for any idiot who wants to bag a demon," Aahz continued, ignoring my outburst, "just so you can have a beast of burden for your shopping jaunt, well, you'd better think again."
"Are you through?" Tananda asked testily.
"For the moment," Aahz nodded, matching her glare for glare.
"First of all," she began, "as Skeeve pointed out, if you'd bothered to listen, he won't be alone. I'll be with him. That means, second of all, he won't be unprotected. Just because I let my membership with the Assassins Guild expire doesn't mean I've forgotten everything."
"Yeah, Aahz," I interjected.
"Shut up, kid," he snapped.
"Third of all," Tananda continued, "you've got to stop thinking of Skeeve here as a kid. He stopped Big Julie's army, didn't he? And besides, he is your apprentice. I assume you've taught him something over the last couple of years."
That hit Aahz in his second most sensitive spot. His vanity. His most sensitive spot is his money pouch.
"Well... " he wavered.
"C'mon, Aahz," I pleaded. "What could go wrong?"
"The mind boggles," he retorted grimly.
"Don't exaggerate, Aahz," Tananda reprimanded.
"Exaggerate!" my mentor exploded anew. "The first time I took Mr. Wonderful here off-dimension, he bought a dragon we neither need nor want and nearly got killed in a brawl with a pack of cutthroats."
"A fight which he won, as I recall," Tananda observed.
"The second time we went out," Aahz continued undaunted, "I left him at a fast-food joint where he promptly recruited half the deadbeats at the Bazaar for a fighting force."
"They won the war!" I argued.
"That's not the point," Aahz growled. "The point is, every time the kid here hits another dimension, he ends up in trouble. He draws it like a magnet."
"This time I'll be there to keep an eye on him," Tananda soothed.
"You were there the first two times," Aahz pointed out grimly.
"So were you!" she countered.
"That's right!" Aahz agreed. "And both of us together couldn't keep him out of trouble. Now do you see why I want to keep him right here in Klah?"
"Hmm," Tananda said thoughtfully. "I see your point, Aahz."
My heart sank.
"I just don't agree with it," she concluded.
"Damn it, Tananda ..." Aahz began, but she waved him to silence.
"Let me tell you a story," she smiled. "There was this couple see, who had a kid they thought the world of. They thought so much of him, in fact, that when he was born they sealed him in a special room. Just to be sure nothing would happen to him, they screened everything that went into the room; furniture, books, food, toys, everything. They even filtered the air to be sure he didn't get any diseases."
"So?" Aahz asked suspiciously.
"So-on his eighteenth birthday, they opened the room and let him out," Tanda explained. "The kid took two steps and died of excitement."
"Really?" I asked, horrified.
"It's exaggerated a bit," she admitted, "but I think Aahz gets the point."
"I haven't been keeping him sealed in," Aahz mumbled. "There've been some real touch-and-go moments, you know. You've been there for some of them."
"But you have been a little overprotective, haven't you, Aahz?" Tananda urged gently.
Aahz was silent for several moments, avoiding our eyes. "All right," he sighed at last. "Go ahead, kid. Just don't come crying to me if you get yourself killed."
"How could I do that?" I frowned.
Tananda nudged me in the ribs and I took the hint.
"There are a few things I want settled before you go," Aahz declared brusquely, a bit of his normal spirit returning.
He began moving back and forth through the room, gathering items from our possessions.
"First," he announced, "here's some money of your own for the trip. You probably won't need it, but you always walk a little taller with money in your pouch."
So saying, he counted out twenty gold pieces into my hands. Realizing I had hired a team of demons to fight a war for five gold pieces, he was giving me a veritable fortune!
"Gee, Aahz ..." I began, but he hurried on.
"Second, here's the D-Hopper." He tucked the small metal cylinder into my belt. "I've set it to bring you back here. If you get into trouble, if you think you're getting into trouble, hit the button and come home right then. No heroics, no jazzy speeches. Just hit and get. You understand me?"
"Yes, Aahz," I promised dutifully.
"And finally," he announced, drawing himself up to his full height, "the dragon stays here. You aren't going to drag your stupid pet along with you and that's final. I know you'd like to have him with you, but he'd only cause problems."
"Okay, Aahz," I shrugged.
Actually, I had figured on leaving Gleep behind, but it didn't seem tactful to point that out.
"Well," my mentor sighed, sweeping us both with a hard gaze, "I guess that's that. Sorry I can't hang around to see you off, but I've got more pressing things to do."
With that he turned on his heels and left, shutting the door behind him more forcefully than was necessary.
"That's funny," I said, staring after him. "I didn't think he had anything important to do. In fact, just before you showed up, he was complaining about being bored."
"You know, Skeeve," Tananda said softly, giving me a strange look, "Aahz is really quite attached to you."
"Really?" I frowned. "What makes you say that?"
"Nothing," she smiled. "It was just a thought.
Well. are you ready to go?"
"As ready as I'll ever be," I declared confidently. "What's our first stop? The Bazaar at Deva?"
"Goodness, no!" she retorted, wrinkling her nose. "We're after something really unique, not the common stuff they have at the Bazaar. I figure we're going to have to hit some out-of-the-way dimensions, the more out-of-the-way the better."
Despite my confidence, an alarm gong went off in the back of my mind at this declaration.
"What are we looking for, anyway?" I asked casually.
Tananda shot a quick glance at the door, then leaned forward to whisper in my ear.
"I couldn't tell you before," she murmured conspiratorially, "but we're after a birthday present. A birthday present for Aahz!"
Chapter Three:
"That's funny, I never have any trouble with service when I'm shopping."
-K. KONG
EVER since he took me on as an apprentice, Aahz has complained that I don't practice enough. He should have seen me on the shopping trip! In the first three days after our departure from Klah I spent more time practicing magik than I had in the previous year.
Tananda had the foresight to bring along a couple of translator pendants which enabled us to understand and be understood by the natives in the dimensions we visited. That was fine for communications, but there remained the minor detail of our physical appearance. Disguises were my job.
Besides flying Aahz had taught me one other spell which had greatly enhanced my ability to survive dubious situations; that was the ability to change the outward appearance of my own, or anyone else's, physical features. Tagging along with Tananda, this skill got a real workout.
The procedure was simple enough. We would arrive at some secluded point, then creep to a spot where I would observe a few members of the local population. Once I had laid eyes on them I could duplicate their physical form for our disguises and we could blend with the crowd. Of course, my nerves had to be calmed so I wouldn't jump out of my skin when catching a passing glance of the being standing next to me.
If from this you conclude that the dimensions we visited were inhabited by people who looked a little strange... you're wrong. The dimensions we visited were peopled by beings who looked very strange.