"Can you handle this, Skeeve?" Bunny said, poking her head into my room. "It's much more up your alley than mine."
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 inn had been abandoned for years, but I'd cleaned it up enough to make it habitable. Unfortunately, a rumor had gotten around that the hostelry was operating again, not what I had in mind. Normally Bunny would politely send them on their way, but I understood why she wanted me to do it. The eager-faced couple on the doorstep were the kind of tourists who didn't take a subtle hint.
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 Bunny out completely behind the image of a sarcophagus with skeletal hands crossed on the chest under a skull-like face. Then I opened the door.
"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. Bunny emerged from the shadows. The beautiful woman with luxurious red hair had a figure that made it hard for men to remember to look up at her face ... which, by the way, was well worth the effort. She resembled a wood nymph appearing suddenly from a copse of trees. I let the illusion fade away, to be replaced by the ordinary walls and furniture.
"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," Bunny said, heading back toward the kitchen. I snapped back to reality long enough to lift my head and sniff the air. Bunny's cooking was much better than mine. It was an unexpected bonus when I'd asked her to come back to Klah to be my secretary. I had had visions of endless meals of squirrel-rat stew, something I could prepare with my limited culinary skills. Now I still hunted for most of our meat and cut herbs from the wild tangle of weeds that surrounded the inn, but she prepared those simple ingredients with a gourmet's hand. She had numerous unheralded talents, and was always surprising me with the things she knew or was studying. I had a sneaking feeling that she'd be a much better magician than I, though she seemed to have as little interest in the Arts Magikal as she did in going into her own Family's business.
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 inn into my body, I formed a hot spark in my mind and sent it to the wick. The candle blazed brightly into life. Too easy, I thought sadly, as I turned toward the kitchen. The lesson no longer taught me anything. I'd have to look elsewhere for inspiration.
"Massha sent a new collar for Gleep," Bunny bubbled, as she dipped a ladle into the simmering pot of soup. "It was a present from her friend, Princess Gloriannamarjolie. It's there on the table." She pointed with the non-dripping side of the spoon. I unwrapped the package. The collar, made of a thick hide I hoped was fireproof, had been dyed a soft baby blue that would match Gleep's eyes. It was studded with cabochon jewels, also light blue, each bigger than the last joint of my thumb. Automatically a part of my brain calculated the value of the gems. If fortune did not go my way, each of them could feed us all for a year. Disgusted at myself, I shook my head, to chase away the thought. I had plenty of money, countless times more than I deserved for the work for which I'd earned it.
Bunny must have noticed that I was in a dark mood. Never a prattler under other circumstances, she began to talk cheerfully about other subjects at random.
"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. Bunny looked dubious. "You don't suppose they've come back, do you?"
"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 inn is closed."
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."
The sheep-man reached into his tunic. I readied a defensive spell, but I didn't need it. He disappeared. Relieved, I started toward my study.
He appeared in front of me again, hands out, beseeching. "Please, Master Skeeve, you must listen to me ..."
My hands went up automatically, spreading out a web of protection. The sheep-man rose in mid-air, his body twisting as the strands of power surrounded him. It was a spell Aahz had taught me to tangle up intruders. He looked so miserable and helpless I felt terrible for tying him up in it. I hurried to undo the enchantment, all the while listening to him babble.