Robert Asprin - Class Dis-Mythed

This specimen almost waved its branches as if to say, "Come and get me, sucker."

I ran up beside the tree and clapped my hands together. "Throw it here, Freezia!"

The young Pervect flicked her fingers, and the bottle came hurtling towards me. It smacked into my arms. It was bigger than I thought, about the size of a medicine ball.

"Oof! Hey, big guy!" I shouted, waving it at the Manticore. "Do you want this?"

"Roooooaaarr!" the beast gargled. He lumbered in my direction.

I looked around.

"Bee! Go long!"

The ex-soldier dashed out a little way and held out his hands. Using a touch of magik to offset the weight, I heaved the container to him. Bee turned around and threw it to Freezia, who nearly let it drop in surprise. The Manticore peered from one to the other, trying to follow the flight path of the beloved jug. He started to gallumph toward Freezia. She saw him coming, and called out.

"Catch, Jinetta!" The tall Pervect leaped into the air, intercepting the ball like a pro.

"Oh! Oh! To me!" Tolk yelped. Jinetta slung it to him underhand. It rolled past him, and he galloped after it, his tongue flying. Gleep beat him to it, and the two of them fought over it, each tugging the strap in opposite directions. Gleep won the tug-of-war, and dashed around through the trees with the Manticore in pursuit. As he passed me for the second time, I reached under his chin and yanked the bottle away.

"Gleep!" my pet protested.

"Sorry, but you're not helping!" I said. I tossed the container in a high lob toward Bee. The ex-corporal dove for it, snagging it out from under the beast's nose, and tossing it to Pologne.

The Manticore roared in frustration. The bottle bounded around him too fast for his addled wits. He staggered toward one of us, then another, then another. His legs seemed to be getting tangled up underneath him. The insectlike tail lashed, stabbing over his head. We ducked under cover of branches and into bushes to avoid the deadly sting. With the container in my arms, I dodged towards a heartwood tree just ahead of the Manticore. The sting missed me. The tree took a direct hit. It let out a low moaning sound, and red sap dribbled down the trunk. The Manticore edged around the tree, his claws reaching avidly for the bottle. Hastily, I heaved it all the way across the circle. The Manticore turned to follow.

I felt for the force line. It was refilling; the Manticore hadn't thrown a lightning bolt in several minutes. Pologne reached out to snag the bottle and cocked her arm back to toss it.

"Don't throw it!" I called. "Can you levitate?"

"I think so!" she called back, her Klahd-disguised face wrinkled pensively. "Where?"

"Over the gum-gorse—right NOW!"

The middle-sized Pervect looked doubtful, but she crouched and sprang, just ahead of the Manticore's leap to retrieve his property. Pologne hovered above the tree.

"What do I do now?"

"Taunt him!" I yelled. "Pretend he's your little brother!"

The look of doubt became even more pronounced, but she reached inside herself for her inner big sister. "Hey, Manticore!" she said. "I've got your whateveritis! You can't have it back! Nyah nyah nyah!"

"Don't touch the thorns!" I warned her. "Everyone else, spread out! Don't let him past you!"

"How?" Tolk asked.

I didn't have to worry. The Manticore cared for nothing but getting his jug back. His tail slashing, he stalked around the gum-gorse tree, measuring his chances of leaping up at Pologne. As I had assumed, the branches were too thick. The beast started to climb up the trunk.

"Yeowch! Yeowch! Yeeee—uhhh?"

Within two steps, the accretion of viscous sap was enough to cement the Manticore's limbs to the trunk. With total bemusement on his Klahdlike face, the Manticore tried to pull a forepaw loose. It wouldn't come. Neither would the other. He yanked at one back leg then the other. No luck. With a fearsome snarl, he swung his tail around for a killing stab. The stinger plunged deep into the bark—and held fast. The growl died away to a puzzled whine.

"It worked!" Melvine exclaimed. "Wow. You got that right, Teach."

"Thanks," I said drily.

The Pervect continued to float around the treetop, spewing her version of invective. "You're ugly! And Mother doesn't love you! And I don't like it when you blink my cosmetics out just when I'm about to put them on—"

"Pologne!" I called. "You can stop now!"

"Oh," she said, clearly disappointed. "I was just hitting my stride. Are you sure I should not abuse it a while longer?"

"No," I said. "Come down. I want to talk to it."

The Manticore heaved wildly, trying to pull each limb loose. He was not going anywhere. The sticky gum had merged with his fur, creating a thick felt that could have been used for roofing. He couldn't launch lightning bolts at us now, even if he wanted. The scorpionlike tail had been wound halfway around the bole of the tree. Truthfully, the Manticore looked pretty pathetic. Dribbles of blood oozed out of the long fur from where the thorns had pierced the skin. His eyes rolled with fear as we converged upon him. Gleep flattened himself on his belly, and snarled. The Manticore cringed back even farther.

"Now, we kill it?" Melvine asked, advancing on the creature with a bloodthirsty gleam in his eyes.

"Nope," I said, stiffarming the Cupy several feet from our captive. "We just talk to him."

"What? What fun is that?"

I turned to the Pervects. "Can any of you speak Manticore?"

"Well," Freezia said, raising a forefinger. "I did a course in comparative languages. But he hasn't said anything yet for me to compare it to!"

"Let's see if we can get him to say something."

I had not spent several years in the Bazaar at Deva for nothing. Most of the Deveel vendors there knew several languages, the better to cheat—I mean, deal—with buyers from numerous dimensions, and none of them would ever let a sale slip by for ANY reason. The usual means of communicating with newcomers was a spell or an amulet of translation. I felt the force line. It was plumping up nicely. I scoured my memory for the spell that I had learned from a friendly merchant named Bellma—for a price, of course. Nothing was free in the Bazaar, but it was often worth the cost.

The magikal force had resurged sufficiently for me to include all of my apprentices within the range of the spell. It didn't have a physical manifestation, but I felt as though we were now linked by tubes that led from our mouths to everyone else's ears.

"Who are you?" I asked the Manticore.

The beast jerked back—as far as he could, covered with glue—and gazed at me. "You speak my language!" "Uh, sort of. I'm Skeeve. These are my students."

"I am Evad, ensign of the Royal Manticorean Navy. You must be a powerful general to have captured me," the Manticore said. "I bow to you." He couldn't do that much, either, but I appreciated the effort.

"Actually, I'm a magician," I said. "What were you doing tearing up that town? You wrecked most of the place."

The Manticore showed his fangs. "They were not intelligent. I asked them where I was, and no one could tell me! I tried to insist that they send for a translator, and they kept hitting me with things. That was rude! I got impatient."

I raised an eyebrow. "So you got drunk and smashed the place up? What's your commanding officer going to think of that?"

For the first time the creature actually looked ashamed of himself. His big, shaggy head drooped. "Not much. I have only five days left on my leave, and I'm wasting it in this stupid backwater! No offense."

"None taken," I replied with a smile. "It's nothing I haven't thought myself from time to time. This dimension is called Klah, though not by the people who live here. They've got pretty particular ideas about keeping your hands off other people's houses, by the way. You'll have to make up for the damage you did."