Class Dis-Mythed

"Everything all right up there?" Bunny asked them. "We haven't really done anything to the place except clean it."

"Don't apologize," Freezia said, giving me a heart-stopping grin of brilliantly white four-inch fangs. "After our dormitories

at MIP, these accommodations are almost palatial. They don't give students and apprentices a lot of consideration. I was jammed in the same size room with five other students. I had no idea it was going to be this nice. I can tell we're going to like it here with you."

"Er, thanks. Okay," I said, feeling a little guilty. "We're going to take a short trip to visit a friend of mine. It'll be a chance for you to get a good look at this dimension on the way."

"We've seen a good part of it," Pologne pointed out. "It's a dump. But, whatever you say."

I couldn't disagree with her about that. I'd always been fairly bored by my home dimension. My idea was to take these three into the kingdom of Possiltum, getting a little better idea of what they needed while we were on our journey. Massha had been no mere apprentice who started by sweeping my study and learning to light candles by concentrating on them. She had been an independent magician, working in the dimension of Jahk, who quit to come join me and my associates. I firmly believed I had learned more from her than she could possibly have gotten out of me. She'd specialized in practical magik.

I eyed the three females, mentally measuring the potential reaction of them on not only the local wildlife but my fellow Klahds. "You'll spook the neighbors if you go out like that. Can you ladies do a disguise spell?"

They beamed.

"Oh, sure!"

The room seemed to fill with flying sparks as the Pervects before me vanished. In their place, a gigantic green dragon curled around the walls of the room, cupping in its coils a sharp-toothed, gold-eyed mermaid with long flowing seaweed-colored locks and a tail full of green and blue scales, and a huge tree with sinisterly glowing green eyes. Gleep hissed. I frowned.

"Don't you like these?" the dragon asked in Jinetta's voice. "Not showy enough? How about these?"

The room swirled wildly again. I found myself facing three Trollish guards with white wherhide trews bound over their

thick purple-furred legs, wearing brass helmets with horns sticking out each side and carrying giant double-bitted axes.

"No!" I cried.

"No?" Freezia asked. "Okay. We'll try again."

Gargoyles, with fearsome smiles and stone tutus. I gawked.

"How's this?"

A volcano, a rainbow and a twinkling blue fairy.

"And this?"

Before I could stop them, the Pervects became unicorns, Deveels, Ogres, towering robots with sparks sputtering from the electrical contacts in their necks, winged Sphinxes, animate stone towers, undulating sea serpents, enormous spiny red hedgehogs and, finally, a trio of pink elephants with floating ostrich plumes bound to their foreheads.

"No!" I shouted, waving my hands. "I mean, can you use a disguise to pass unnoticed?"

The elephants lowered their trunks and stared at me out of little wizened eyes.

"Why?" they asked, sounding hurt. "Aren't these good illusions?"

"I think I'm beginning to see their problem," Bunny observed, with an eyebrow lifted.

"They're terrific illusions," I assured them "but they're inappropriate. We want to get to the palace without anyone following us. We don't want to attract attention."

They looked at each other as if the notion had never before passed through their minds.

"Well, then, let's just go as ourselves," Freezia said. She made a pass with one huge round foot, and the three became scaly green Pervects again. "Just like this. Come on." She made for the door.

"No way," I said firmly, striding ahead of them to block it.

"Why not? We're not ashamed of our bodies," Pologne said, planting her hands on her hips as she confronted me. "Is it our clothes? Are these fashions too extreme for Klah? Two piece suits? A classic is a classic."

"It's got nothing to do with you or your clothes," I said. "It's you. There's only ever been one Pervect to visit Klah, and he already frightens most Klahds out of their socks. Three would send whole villages running. Can you disguise yourselves as ordinary Klahds, like the people you saw on your way here?"

The three exchanged startled glances. "Of course we can," Jinetta said. "If you insist."

"I insist," I said.

They closed their eyes. When they opened them, I beheld the transformation. Before me were a hefty, slack-jawed man carrying a yoke of buckets who was the local village idiot, a sallow-faced man with a long nose I recognized as a tax collector, and a cow.

"Um, almost," I said. I perched a hip on the edge of the table and gestured to them to sit down. "Let's try again."