MA04 Hit or Myth Read online

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  PERHAPS IF I hadn’t been so preoccupied with my own thoughts when I walked into my quarters that day, I wouldn’t have been caught unawares. Still, who expects to get caught in a magical attack just walking into their own room?

  Okay, okay! So I am the Court Magician of Possiltum, and maybe I have been getting a bit of a reputation lately. I still should be able to walk into my own room without getting jumped! I mean, if a magician isn’t safe in his own quarters, can he be safe anywhere?

  Scratch that question!

  It’s the kind of thing my teacher says to convince me that choosing magic for a career path is not the best way to insure living out one’s normal life span. Of course, it doesn’t take much convincing. Actions speak louder than words and the action since I signed on as his apprentice has been loud enough to convince me that a magician’s life is not particularly quiet. I mean, when you realize that within days of meeting him, we both got lynched by an angry mob ... as in hung by the neck...

  But I digress.

  We started out with me simply walking into my room. Yea, simple! There was a demon waiting for me, a Pervect to be exact. This in itself wasn’t unusual. Aahz, the teacher I mentioned earlier, is a Pervect. In fact, he shares my quarters with me. What was unusual was that the demon waiting for me wasn’t Aahz!

  Now I haven’t met many Pervects ... heck, the only one I know is Aahz ... but I know Aahz very well, and this Pervect wasn’t him!

  This demon was shorter than my mentor, his scales were a lighter shade of green, and his gold eyes were set closer together. What’s more, he wasn’t smiling ... and Aahz always smiles, even when he’s mad ... especially when he’s mad. To the average eye Aahz and this stranger might look alike, but to me they were as different as a Deveel and an Imp. Of course, there was a time when I couldn’t tell the difference between a Deveel and an Imp. It says something about the company I’ve been keeping lately.

  “Who are you?” I demanded.

  “You Skeeve?”

  “Yea. Me Skeeve. Who you?”

  For an answer, I suddenly felt myself snatched into the air by an invisible hand and spun end over end until I finally stopped dangling head down four feet off the floor.

  “Don’t get smart with me, punk. I understand you’re holding a relative of mine in some kind of bondage. I want him back. Understand?”

  He emphasized his point by lowering me to within a few inches of the floor, then using that surface to rap my head sharply.

  I may not be the greatest magician ever, but I knew what he was doing. He was using his mind to levitate me about the room. I’ve done it myself to small objects from time to time. Of course, it occurred to me that I wasn’t a small object and that I was dealing with someone a bit better versed in the magical arts than myself. As such, I deemed it wiser to keep my temper and my manners.

  “You know Aahz?”

  “Sure do. And I want him back.”

  The latter was accompanied by another head rap. So much for holding my temper.

  “Then you should know him well enough to know that nobody holds him against his will!” My head started for the floor again, but stopped short of its target. From my inverted position I could get a partial view of the demon tapping himself thoughtfully on the chin.

  “That’s true,” he murmured. “All right ...”

  I was turned into an upright position once more.

  “Let’s take it from the top. Where’s Aahz, and what’s keeping him in this backwater dimension?”

  “I think and talk better with my feet on the ground.”

  “Hmm? Oh! Sorry.”

  I was lowered into a normal standing position. Now that I was self-supporting again. I realized the interrogation had left me with a splitting headache.

  “He’s back in General Badaxe’s quarters arguing military tactics,” I managed. “It was so boring I came back here. He should be along soon. They were almost out of wine when I left.”

  “Tactics and wine, eh?” my visitor grimaced. “That sounds like Aahz. What’s the rest of it? Why is he staying around a nowhere dimension like Klah and how did he get mixed up with the Great Skeeve?”

  “You’ve heard of me?”

  “Here and there around the dimensions,” the demon acknowledged. “In some circles they think you’re pretty hot stuff. That’s why I started wondering if you’d managed to cage Aahz somehow. I was braced for a real battle royale when you walked in.”

  “Well, actually I’m not all that good,” I admitted. “I’ve only really started making headway in the last couple years since I started studying under Aahz. I’d still be a total nothing if he hadn’t lost his powers and taken me on as an apprentice.”

  “Bingo!” my visitor declared, holding up his hand. “I think you just explained everything. Aahz lost his powers and took on a new apprentice! No wonder he hasn’t been home in a while. And all this talk about the Great Skeeve is just a standard Aahz-managed hype job for a new talent. Right?”

  “We have taken on a few rough assignments,” I said defensively.

  “In which Aahz choreographed, then set you up to take the credit. Right?”

  “What’s ‘choreographed’?” I asked. Obviously the family similarity was more than scale deep.

  “Well, I hope you’re up to operating on your own, Skeeve, ‘cause I’m taking your mentor back to Perv with me.”

  “But you don’t have to rescue him from me!” I protested. “He’s free to come and go as he wants.”

  “I’m not saving him from you; I’m saving him from Aahz. Our colleague has an overblown sense of responsibility that isn’t always in his own best interest. Do you know how lucrative a practice he’s letting fall apart on Perv while he clowns around with you?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “Well, he’s losing money every day he’s gone ... and that means the family is losing money.”

  Right there I gave up the argument. Early on in my association with Aahz I learned the futility of trying to talk a Pervect out of money. The fact that Aahz was willing to sacrifice a steady income to work with me was an incredible tribute to our friendship ... or his sense of duty. Of course, there’s more than one way to win an argument.

  “Well, as I said before, I can’t keep him here,” I said innocently. “If you can convince him he’s not needed any more ...”

  “No way, punk,” the demon sneered. “We both know that won’t get him to desert an apprentice. I’m going to lure him back to Perv with a blatant lie. And you’re going to keep your mouth shut.”

  “But ...”

  “... Because if you don’t, I’ll make sure there’s nothing left to keep him in Klah ... meaning you! Now before you even think about trying to match magic with me, remember something. You’ve been studying under Aahz for a couple years now. I graduated after over three hundred years of apprenticeship. So far, I’m willing to live and let live. You should be able to earn a living on what you’ve learned so far, maybe even pick up a few new tricks as you go along. However, if you cross me now, there won’t be enough of you to pick up with a sponge. Do we understand each other?”

  I was suddenly aware why nobody we met in our dimension-crawling ever wanted to tangle with a Pervect, I was also aware that someone had just walked into the room behind me.

  “Rupert!”

  “Uncle Aahz!”

  The two pounded each other on the back. I gave them lots of room.

  “Hey kid, this is my nephew Rupert ... but I see you’ve already met.”

  “Unfortunately,” I grumbled.

  That ea
rned me a black look from Rupert, but Aahz missed it completely.

  “So what brings you to Klah, nephew? A bit off your normal prowl pattern, isn’t it?”

  “It’s Dad. He wants you.”

  “Sorry,” Aahz was suddenly his normal self again. “I’ve got too many irons in the fire here to get drawn into some family squabble.”

  “But he’s dying.”

  That stopped Aahz for a moment.

  “My brother? Nonsense. He’s too tough to kill. He could even beat me in an unfair fight.”

  “He got into a fight with Mom.”

  A look of concern crossed Aahz’s face. I could see he was wavering.

  “That serious, huh? I don’t know, though. If he’s really dying, I don’t see what I can do to help.”

  “It shouldn’t take long,” Rupert urged. “He said something about his will.”

  I groaned inwardly. Trust a Pervect to know a Pervect’s weaknesses.

  “Well, I guess my business here can keep for a few days,” Aahz declared with false reluctance. “Stay out of trouble, kid. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Let’s get going,” Rupert suggested, hiding his triumphant grin. “The sooner we get to Perv, the sooner you can be back.”

  “But Aahz ...”

  “Yea, kid?”

  I saw Rupert’s brow darken.

  “I ... I just wanted to say ‘goodbye.’”

  “Hey, don’t make a big thing of this, kid. It’s not like I was going forever.”

  Before I could respond, Rupert clapped an arm around Aahz’s shoulder and they both faded from view. Gone.

  Somehow I couldn’t make myself believe it had happened. My mentor had been spirited away ... permanently. Whatever I had learned from Aahz would have to do, because now I was totally on my own.

  Then I heard a knock at my door.

  I DECIDED that as Court Magician of Possiltum, my response should be gracious.

  “Go away!”

  That was gracious. If you knew what my actual thoughts were, you’d realize that. Very few people ever visited me in my chambers, and I didn’t want to see any of them just then.

  “Do you know who you’re talking to?” came a muffled voice from the other side of the door.

  “No! And I don’t care! Go away!”

  “This is Rodrick the Fifth. Your King!”

  That stopped me. Upset or not, that title belonged to the man who set and paid my wages. As I said earlier, I have learned a few things from Aahz.

  “Do you know who you’re talking to?” I called back, and hoped.

  There was a moment’s pause.

  “I assume I’m talking to Skeeve the Magnificent, Court Magician of Possiltum. At best, he’ll be the one to bear the brunt of my wrath if I’m kept waiting outside his chambers much longer.”

  So much for hoping. These things never work in real life the way they do in jokes.

  Moving with undignified haste, I pounced on the door handle and wrenched it open.

  “Good afternoon, Lord Magician. May I come in?”

  “Certainly, Your Majesty,” I said, standing aside. “I never refuse a fifth.”

  The King frowned.

  “Is that a joke? If so, I don’t get the point.”

  “Neither do I,” I admitted calmly. “It’s something Aahz my apprentice says.”

  “Ah, yes. Your apprentice. Is he about?”

  Rodrick swept majestically into the room, peering curiously into the corners as if he expected Aahz to spring forth from the walls.

  “No. He’s ... out.”

  “Good. I had hoped to speak with you alone. Hmmm ... these are really quite spacious quarters. I don’t recall having been here before.”

  That was an understatement. Not only had the King never visited my room in his palace, I couldn’t recall having seen him when he wasn’t either on the throne or in its near vicinity.

  “Your Majesty has never graced me with his presence since I accepted position in his court,” I said.

  “Oh. Then, that’s probably why I don’t recall being here,” Roderick responded lamely.

  That in itself was strange. Usually the King was quite glib and never at a loss for words. In fact, the more I thought about it, the stranger this royal visit to my private chambers became. Despite my distress at Aahz’s unplanned and apparently permanent departure, I felt my curiosity beginning to grow.

  “May I ask the reason for this pleasant, though unexpected audience?”

  “Well ...”the King began, then shot one more look about the room. “Are you sure your apprentice isn’t about?”

  “Positive. He’s ... I sent him on a vacation.”

  “A vacation?”

  “Yes. He’s been studying awfully hard lately.”

  The King frowned slightly.

  “I don’t remember approving a vacation.”

  For a moment, I thought I was going to get caught in my own deception. Then I remembered that in addition to the various inter-dimensional languages, Aahz had also been teaching me to speak “bureaucrat.”

  “I didn’t really feel your authorization was necessary,” I said loftily. “Technically, my apprentice is not on Your Majesty’s payroll. I am paying him out of my wages, which makes him my employee, subject to my rules including vacations ... or dismissal. While he is subject to your laws, as is any subject of Possiltum, I don’t feel he actually is governed by Subparagraph G concerning palace staff!”

  My brief oration had the desired effect: it both confused and bored my audience. Aahz would have been proud of me. I was particularly pleased that I had managed to sneak in that part about dismissals. It meant that when Aahz didn’t return, I could claim that I had dismissed him without changing the wage paid me by the crown.

  Of course, this got me brooding again about Aahz not coming back.

  “Well, whatever. I’m glad to see your philosophy regarding vacations mirrors my own, Lord Magician. Everyone should have a vacation. In fact, that’s why I came to see you this afternoon.”

  That threw me.

  “A vacation? But Your Majesty, I don’t need a vacation.” That threw the King.

  “You? Of course not. You and that apprentice of yours spend most of your time gallivanting around other worlds. You’ve got a lot of nerve asking for a vacation.”

  That did it. All the anger I had been storing up since Rupert’s arrival exploded.

  “I didn’t ask for a vacation!”

  “Oh! Yes. Of course.”

  “And furthermore, that gallivanting around other worlds’ you mentioned is stock and trade for magicians, court or otherwise. It enables us to work our wonders ... like saying your kingdom from Big Julie’s army. Remember?”

  “How could I forget? I ...”

  “If, however, Your Majesty feels I have been lax in fulfilling my duties as his court Magician, he need only ask for my resignation and it’s his. If he recalls, he approached me for this position. I didn’t ask for that either!”

  “Please, Lord Magician,” Rodrick interrupted desperately, “I meant no offense. Your services have been more than satisfactory. In fact, any reluctance I expressed regarding your vacation was based on a fear of having to run the kingdom for a period without your powers available. If you really feel you want a vacation, I’m sure we could work out something to ...”

  “I don’t want a vacation. All right? Let’s drop the subject.”

  “Certainly. I just thought ... very well.” Shaking his head slightly, he headed for the door.

  Winning the argument put me in a much better mood. After the beating my ego had taken from Rupert, It was nice to hear someone say they thought my powers were worth something.

  It occurred to me, however, that winning the argument with the man who paid my wages might
not have been the wisest way to bounce back.

  “Your Majesty?”

  The King stopped.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  He frowned.

  “Like the original reason for your visit? Since I wasn’t asking for a vacation, and you weren’t offering one, I assume you had something else on your mind?”

  “Oh, yes. Quite right. But all things considered, this might not be the time to discuss it.”

  “What? Because of our misunderstanding? Think nothing of it, Your Majesty. These things happen. Rest assured I am still your loyal retainer, ready to do anything in my power to assist you in the management of your kingdom.”

  As I said before, I was getting pretty good at shoveling when the situation called for it.

  Rodrick beamed.

  “I’m glad to hear that, Master Skeeve. That is precisely why I came to you today.”

  “And how may I be of service?”

  “It’s about a vacation.”

  I closed my eyes.

  For a brief moment, I knew ... knew, mind you ... how Aahz felt. I knew what it felt to be sincerely trying to help someone, only to find that that someone seems bound and determined to drive you out of your mind.

  The King saw my expression and continued hastily, “Not a vacation for you. A vacation for me!”

  That opened my eyes. Figuratively and literally.

  “You, Your Majesty? But Kings don’t take vacations.” “That’s the whole point.”

  Rodrick began pacing the floor nervously as he spoke.

  “The pressures of being a King mount up like they do on any other job. The difference is that as a King you never get a break. No time to rest and collect your thoughts, or even just sleep late. From the coronation when the crown hits your head until it’s removed by voluntary or forcible retirement, you are the King.”

  “Gee, that’s tough, Your Majesty. I wish there was something I could do to help.”

  The King stopped pacing and beamed at me again.

  “But you can! That’s why I’m here!”

  “Me? I can’t approve a vacation for you! Even if it were in my power, and it isn’t, the kingdom needs a king on the throne all the time. It can’t spare you, even for one day!”