"That's right. You all handled it in different ways," I said. "Isn't it best to choose the most expedient and practical way of getting a job done?"

"Hold on," Freezia said, flinging up her hands. "Maybe you were right once. I'm still not going to concede Professor Maguffin's method is wrong."

"Nor am I," Jinetta added. Pologne nodded her agreement.

"Okay," I sighed. "I'm not here to shoot him down. I'm just telling you what has worked for me in the real world. That's why you came here, isn't it?"

"Well, yes," Jinetta admitted.

"That's fine," I said. "For now, we'll agree to disagree."

"Say, I'm hungry," Pologne announced suddenly. "Anyone up for a snack? I know where I can get the best iodine sundaes on Perv."

A vein popped out on Bee's forehead as he strained to concentrate.

"Lift the feather," I ordered. "Levitation is not that hard. If I could learn to do it, anyone can."

The next day I had decided to do something about the wide gap in expertise between the students. Melvine and the Pervects had had basic training before they finished cutting their teeth—well, before Melvine had, anyhow. I believed that the Pervects were born with all their teeth. Bee's instruction had come from his village hedge-wizard and whatever the Possiltum Army's library of scrolls had stashed in between nudie pinups and manuals on how to strip down and repair crossbows, plus what he'd picked up from Massha. I could tell, that except for his handful of homegrown spells, all his progress in magik could be attributed to the latter.

"Good try," Bunny said encouragingly. She sat polishing her nails on a down-stuffed cushion beneath a pavilion, and offering the occasional compliment to my apprentices. Gleep and Buttercup chased one another around the inn, offering a noisy distraction that I warned them all to ignore.

"Huh," Melvine grunted. He hovered in the trees, picking leaves off and tearing them to pieces without touching them. "What good is trying? Magik is about succeeding."

I glared at him. "Don't show off, Melvine. Couldn't you try to help?"

"Fine," he said. "Look, Klahd, just lift the feather. There's enough magik floating around here to raise the Titanic. Use some of it."

"But I don't know when I'm putting enough magik into it," Bee said.

"All right, let's add a wrinkle. We'll give you resistance to work against. It'll be good practical experience for both of you."

"It's not practical experience," Jinetta insisted. "These are just exercises. We used to do them all the time."

"Everything's practical. Bee, you push up on the feather. Jinetta, you push down."

"There's nothing to that," Jinetta said.

"Aha," I said, "but here's the catch: you can't push any harder than he does. He'll levitate it up to here," I held out a hand, "then you top it with your magik. Don't let him push it any farther. You can't let it go lower than the original level. If he lets it drop, that's his problem, but you can't push it down. See how much control you have."

Jinetta tittered. "That ought to be easy!"

But it wasn't, as I had reason to know. With endless power flowing into them, the girls were no more subtle than Melvine. They channeled whatever was in them. What they needed to learn was how to tighten the valve. The first time Jinetta pushed, the feather ended up embedded in a flagstone.

"Oops," she said.

"See what I mean?" I said. "Freezia, Pologne, I have an exercise for the two of you to work on while Jinetta helps Bee. I want you to work on storing up energy then releasing it—slowly!— until you get used to how much you can hold normally."

Pologne clicked her tongue.

"Why, when this place is full of lines of force? This is like Grand Perv Station!"

I eyed her sternly. "Assume that at any moment they could disappear, and then what?"

"Then Bee here wouldn't be able to lift his feather. Which he can't anyhow!"

"Hold on, someone's coming," Freezia announced. We all paused to listen. I couldn't hear anything, which wasn't surprising. Pervect hearing was a dozen times keener than Klahdish.

"How far away are they?"

Pologne consulted a gold pendulum. "About a mile," she said. "You Klahds make more noise than a dragon in heat."

"Gleep!" protested my pet. Buttercup added a nicker in defense of his friend.

"Sorry," the Pervect said, holding out her hand to Gleep. "You would almost think that they could understand me."

I was unwilling to reveal Gleep's secret to anyone who hadn't saved my life at least ten times. "Well, at least he knows the word 'dragon.' Drop what you're doing, people. Put on a Klahdish disguise. Something believable," I said, halting Freezia, who had promptly transformed herself into a cow.

"Ugh!" Freezia exclaimed. "You soft-skinned are uglier than ten miles of bad road. At least that creature has an attractive pattern!"

"Fashion later," I said. "Security now."

Tolk came galloping back along the road. "A Klahd is coming this way!" he panted.

A mile might have been a long way for a Klahd to cover, but I wanted plenty of time to finish my arguments with my class before whoever was racing towards us emerged from the bushes. Tolk was having trouble focusing his disguise spell, so I transformed him into a large dog—no stretch of the imagination there—and Gleep into a goat. My pet caught a glimpse of himself in the trough and gave me a look of reproach. I shrugged. If we had been in the house I might have gotten away with making him a dog, too, but he had a tendency to forget what he was doing and eat anything that appealed to him. I could get away with explaining a goat eating a cartwheel or gnawing on an anvil. Buttercup's horn was easily erased, leaving him a robustly handsome horse, not an unusual beast to find on a Klahdish homestead.

In an instant, Bunny's red-headed beauty was swallowed up by the semblance of a toothless crone sheltered from the sun by a tattered gray cloth strung on a clothesline. The Pervects had assumed new disguises, having been coached by me and Bunny as to what represented beauty in our dimension. They appeared as three dainty lasses in the dress style worn by prosperous merchants—still in pastel shades, of course. Bee assumed Guido's hulking form. At first I was going to tell him to change back, then I realized he was thinking more clearly than I was. We had no idea whether the approaching being was hostile or not.

To diguise myself, I assumed my disgusting old man image, which was usually enough to remind casual visitors they needed to be elsewhere.

A Klahd came panting into the yard. My illusion made his red face go somewhat pale, but whatever was troubling him was enough to make him risk catching whatever disease or vermin I might be carrying. He fell almost at my feet.

"The Great Skeeve," he gasped. "Where is the Great Skeeve?"

"Who wishes to see my master?" I asked, in a creaky voice.

"He is summoned by Flink, the headman of Humulus," the man said after fetching several deep breaths. Bee came over to help the man to his feet. Tolk trotted over, took the man's wrist in his mouth shortly, then dropped it, giving me a nod. The man's pulse must have been all right. The other apprentices clustered around to listen. "I have been running for two days! There is a terrible monster destroying our village! It's attacking people, terrifying the livestock! The Great Skeeve must help us!"

He looked so distressed I felt sorry for him. Before I could open my mouth to offer my help, Bunny was beside me.

"How terrible?" she asked. "Is it really a monster, or are you exaggerating? What's your name, honey?"