"All right," I said. "You've convinced me. Your Princess Glory sounds like she's reading all the signs right"

Massha leaped up and hugged me again. "So you'll do it?"

"Ill do it," I gasped out. Joyfully, Gleep sprang over and licked me again. "Dammit, don't do that!"

The following week found me wearing ridiculous breeches and a jacket that only needed the too-tight sleeves to tie behind my back to make it fit for lunatics. I refused outright to put on the helmetlike hat a bunch of the participants were wearing, preferring to depend upon the toughness of my Pervect skull and save my reputation as a snappy dresser from total ruin. The boots were the only things I liked: shiny black leather with just enough heel to catch the stirrups but wouldn't make me trip while back down on terra firma.

It was the day before the hunt. My borrowed mount, a hiphippohippus named Fireball, came from Gloriannamarjolie's own stables, a buckskin mount like a cross between a horse and a rhinoceros. Its big barrel-like body had one deep, diagonal ridge running from midpoint down to a leg's length beneath the withers. It had delicate legs for its build, with bunched muscles in the shoulders and haunches that would make it a good jumper. The beast's spoon-shaped ears swiveled back and forth as I climbed aboard to try it out for size. The natural saddle ridge was suprisingly comfortable. A harness buckled about his barrel in front of the rider provided reins and stirrups. The grooms on both sides shortened the stirrups considerably until my feet fit into them. Not one adult Brakespearan I saw was my height. All of them were at least a head taller, usually more. When the princess had taken us on a welcome tour of the palace guard I felt like I was walking through a forest.

Gloriannamarjolie herself was a strapping girl; not in Massha's class, of course, but tall and big boned, with a healthy, pink-cheeked outdoorsy complexion, long blond hair, and green eyes similar to the fox-wolves that hunters in other dimensions pursued. Brakespearans resembled Klahds fairly closely, except that their ears were pointed at the top instead of round, and their hands were almost pawlike with short fingers, the fifth digit a cross between a thumb and a dewclaw, and a sixth digit just like it on the opposite side of the palm. Plenty of good manipulative talent, and, by the cording in the sturdy arm attached, the strength to back it up. The carvings that decorated both wooden and stone surfaces would have been considered art anywhere.

"All set?"' the princess asked. She sat towering over me on a white beast with a set of wicked little pointed horns in between its ears. It lifted its lip in a sneer at me. I bared my teeth and growled back. The 'hippus danced out of reach, and I wheeled Fireball around.

"Ready," I said.

"Then let's move out!"

Massha and Nunzio, the latter holding an eager Gleep on a leash, stepped back. She looped the reins between the dewclaws on either side of her right hand, set her left hand on her hip, and kicked her mount in the sides. "Come on, Suzicue." Fireball and I followed.

"Don't fall off, Hot Stuff!" Massha called. Setting my teeth, I clenched my knees around Fireball's sides. We thundered away.

The hunting course was off limits, but Glory led us out on a path in a stretch of woods that ran beside the river that fed the castle moat. A stiff wind beat the water up into mini-whitecaps. I could feel the tips of my ears starting to chill.

"A bracing breeze!" Glory shouted over the gale. "Open him up and see what he can do!"

My mount was already galloping hard, jarring my rear like a jackhammer. I dug in my heels, and was nearly bowled over the beast's tail as Fireball threw it into overdrive. If I hadn't seen dragons move I would never have believed a creature that big could move so fast. The trees around me blurred into a brown picket fence. Another white blur passed me as Glory, on Suzicue, hurtled ahead. I heard the princess's hearty laugh.

"Ha hah! Exhilarating, isn't it? Tally ho! Yoicks!"

The thundering gait turned into a speedy lollop, easier on my spine than the canter, but now we were running into the forest. Low-lying branches swept over me, threatening to scoop me off. Grimly I clenched the reins and leaned down over Fireball's neck. As I told Massha, I'm not built for the saddle. I found myself digging my toe talons into the mount's side. He didn't seem to notice, probably because of the boots. He was too busy tossing his head to clear twigs out of his eyes. I put my head down next to his neck as I tried to keep Suzicue in sight It'd take me forever to find my way back in these thick woods. If I'd had my magik, I'd have popped back to the castle and told Massha I resigned.

Over hill and down dale we galloped, pounding through the undergrowth. We were following a trail, but it was thickly overgrown. No surprise, if no one used it but Glory and her family. Birds fluttered upward, calling. Showers of leaves and seeds rained down on me. I tightened my grasp on Fireball.

A thin branch hit me in the forehead like a hot wire. I let out a bellow of pain.

Through the trees I saw mottled shapes scatter and flee: animals running from the sound of my voice. As Fireball crested the hill in Suzicue's wake I spotted another shape, one moving toward me. It stood upright on two legs, not on all fours or all sixes like the rest of Brakespear's wildlife. I squinted, trying to see details. Twigs lashed my face. I spat out leaves. Just as suddenly as I had spotted it, the mysterious shape vanished. Whatever it was had gotten close enough to get a look at us, then disappeared on the spot. That spoke of intelligence and probably advanced magik or technology. I caught up with Glory, and rode back to the castle in thoughtful silence.

"You were right to call us in," I told her and the others, once we were closeted in her personal study and Massha's privacy bracelet had drawn a cone of silence around us. "There is someone out there, scoping out the woods."

"I have a thousand forest rangers," Glory argued. "It could have been one of them." I could see she didn't believe what she was saying.

"So what do we do?" Massha asked.

I sighed down to my bruised end. "We go with Plan A, but we'd better have Plans B and C as backups. We join the hunt tomorrow."

"Gleep!" announced the dragon. He was the only one who seemed happy about it.

"Stirrup cup, good sir?" asked a strapping Brakespearan appearing next to my mount. He presented me with a brimming silver goblet shaped like a skull.

"Heady liquor, is it?" I asked.

"Sire?"

"Never mind." I took the cup and drained it "Tally ho and yoicks." I tossed the empty back to him. He withdrew, bowing. I took a good look around.

The misty morning air was full of the smell of brimstone and rotting meat as the Master of Hounds, as he was still called, organized five dozen assorted dragons by size with the help of a dozen handlers. Gleep, one of the smallest, was at the front with a couple of wyverns and a half-grown wurm. Nunzio, holding up a meaty bone, made him sit up and beg. Even though Gleep had been a royal pain in the posterior since the day Skeeve, er, acquired him, he was kind of cute. At a distance.

Fireball started at something invisible, dancing under me. I tightened my knees, and my muscles reminded me that they'd had a hard time the day before.

"How are you doing, Aahz?" Massha floated over to me from the royal reviewing stand. She was dressed in brown and green, the royal colors of Brakespear, to match Gloriannamarjolie.

"I'm remembering why I don't do this for fun," I gritted.

"Attention, all of you!" We turned to face the stand. King Henryarthurjon smiled down on us. He was a big, muscular Brakespearan with fox-red hair going white at the temples and green eyes like his daughter's. He held out his hands for silence, spreading out all four thumbs in a gesture of welcome. "We are gratified to see so many puissant hunters assembled here to participate in our daughter's Royal Hunt!" Rousing cheers interrupted him, and he smiled paternally at Glory. Glory held her hands up over her head in a gesture of victory. Her outfit was classic camouflage: A long-sleeved dress of light-absorbing brown and green mottled fabric covered her from shoulders to knees; no velcro or zippers. Tall, soft boots that would absorb the sound of stepped-on leaves or twigs were cross-gartered on her long legs, and slung across from one shoulder to the opposite hip was a sptit-leather bag that appeared to be driving the dragons into a greater frenzy than they'd usually be in. I assumed it contained the bait she would use to draw her trail. A pair of gloves were tucked into her belt. "She will give you a good run, my friends. The rules are three in number the hunt shall commence at my signal. It will continue until sunset or until a hunter captures the princess—alive, naturally. Points will be given for style, courtesy, riding, coursing, handling of one's hound, and, of course, success. The hunter who bags the princess wins the grand prize, the finest treasure in the kingdom." He snapped his fingers, and two pages in army-surplus tabards staggered up onto the dais carrying a solid gold box. "This is a most remarkable treasure chest, my friends and guests. Once an item has been entrusted to its depths, it will always be safe, even when it is taken out again. If a treasure is stolen, one can always retrieve it by reaching into the chest. As far as I know this coffer is unique throughout the dimensions. I think you will agree it is a worthy prize, what ho?"