Myth Alliances

I turned my attention back to the candle. The spell had become too easy for me. I'd stopped feeling the co

The bell rang. I heard light footsteps on the stone floor, a pause, then more footsteps coming towards me.

"Can you handle this, Skeeve?" Bu

I rose from the table and the unlit candle, and hurried toward the door. A glance through the peephole revealed a couple of eager-faced Klahds with luggage. The i

The one magikal talent I had mastered without a doubt was illusion. Immediately I filled the hall with illusory spider webs and broken beams hanging crookedly over the gallery. I cast a disguise spell over myself to make me into an aged hunchback with matted hair crawling with vermin. I blotted Bu

"Ye-ees?" I croaked.

"Hello!" the man beamed. "Do you have a room for the night?" As he glanced over my humped shoulder at the ruin of the room his face changed. "I mean… er… do you know of a nearby hotel where we could spend the night?"

"Come in, come in," I urged them, beckoning with a gnarled hand. The man backed away. Gleep chose that moment to stick his head around the door. I changed his scaled visage from dragon to large and mangy dog. There was no need to alter his breath, which was bad enough to send maggots packing. The man and woman stepped back another pace.

"We'll just be going," the woman said weakly. The two of them, apologizing hastily, sprang back onto their cart. The man whipped up their horse, who lurched into a trot. I waited until they were out of sight, and had a good laugh.

"Thanks, Gleep," I praised my dragon, patting him on the head. His tongue lolled. I let the disguise drop, restoring his large, round eyes to their normal baby blue. The tongue snapped up and slimed me across the face. I gagged. He romped away a few paces, then thundered back to me, making the floor wobble under his weight. He looked hopeful.

"Skeeve… play?"

"Not now. I'll play with you later," I promised. "I've got to keep working. Why don't you find Buttercup?"

"Gleep!" He thundered off, his passage shaking dust down from the rafters.

I turned away from the door. Bu

"Thanks," she sighed. "I just knew when I saw those tourists pulling up they weren't going to take no for an answer from me."

"No problem," I assured her. If we'd been back in the Bazaar at Deva there was not a soul who'd give trouble to the niece of Don Bruce, the Fairy Godfather, or to a member of M.Y.T.H. Inc, for that matter, but Klahds, denizens of my own dimension, were notoriously unable to appreciate subtleties. It took a good scare to send them off.

I was a Klahd, too, but I knew I'd changed in the years I'd associated with my friends, especially Aahz. Looking back, I finally understood what the Pervect meant when he said, "You can't go home again." In the past I'd been puzzled by that, since all I had to do to go home was unlock the door of the tent in the Bazaar, and there I was. This was the home I couldn't come back to. I knew I didn't belong here any longer, but this was the appropriate place to do what I'd come here to do.

"Lunch in ten minutes," Bu

I sighed, glancing back into my study. The candle still sat on the table unlit. Drawing the lines of force that ran through the earth deep under the i

"Massha sent a new collar for Gleep," Bu

Bu

"My uncle has a new tailor who's trying to sell him a whole wardrobe. You've never seen so much purple fabric anywhere. I don't think ruffles are him, if you know what I mean…"

The bell rang softly. I rose to my feet. Bu

"I hope not," I agreed. I wasn't in the mood for any more interruptions.

Before I reached the hall, the bell had sounded again twice more, but with only a mild jangle, as if the person had pulled the string gingerly. It had to be those tourists again, I thought, my ire rising. I didn't even bother to put on a disguise as I flung wide the door. "We're not open!" I shouted. The man on the doorstep jumped back, flinging his hands up to protect his face. "Go away!"

He gawked at me, then vanished. I blinked. I hadn't used any magik to dispel him. I thought. Puzzled, I closed the door and turned around.

He was standing there looking at me. "Please," he begged. "I need to speak to you."

"No, you don't," I stated. "The i

I noted that he had hazel eyes with horizontal slitted pupils, giving him the look of a herd sheep. He tilted his round head, which was topped by a mass of pale curls, adding to the ovine semblance. "But you are Skeeve the Magnificent, aren't you?"

"Yes! I mean, no!" The surprise of being recognized momentarily unsettled me. "I'm not magnificent. I mean, I'm on sabbatical."

"But, we need your help."

"Not mine," I contradicted, firmly, walking toward him. He cowered until he was standing in a corner with me looming over him. "Go away. Scram."