Robert Asprin - Class Dis-Mythed

"Not since we married" Massha said, settling back with a satisfied air. "Since we—"

"Too much information!" I protested.

She chuckled warmly. "It's a real humdinger: an incendiary grenade. That's my Hugh, always thinking in terms of mass destruction. Once a general, always a general."

"Very nice," Bunny said. "Hugh has good taste. That's the kind of gift my uncle would give."

Melvine began looking it over for controls. "How does it work?"

I flipped it out of his hands with a dollop of magik and put it back among the other items. "It doesn't. Try something else. So far, you've got nine points. Jinetta's ahead of you by three."

Six pairs of hands sifted through the clanking collection on the silk mat. Pologne got tangled up in a braided cord that tied her wrists together and bound every finger to the corresponding digit on the other hand.

"It's got me!" she shrieked. "Who invoked that on me?"

"Trollish finger trap," I laughed, dispelling it for her. "It works by itself. It's a practical joke. Deveel school children leave them in each other's lunch bags."

"Hmmph," she snorted.

"Look at this one," Jinetta said, homing in on a burning-red jewel. "Massha, should this gem be glowing?"

"No!" Massha said in alarm, grabbing it from her. "Oh, no, it's the grenade! It's armed! It's going to explode!"

"When?" I demanded.

"About fifteen seconds."

"I'll throw it into the pond," Bee announced, pale but composed. He took the ring from Massha and made for the door.

The ring flew out of his hands back toward the center of the room.

"No, we have to destroy it here and now!" Pologne insisted. "Burn it—no, it's going to burn. Freeze it!" She pulled the crystal ball out of her backpack and started scrying for information. "I know the right spell's in here somewhere."

"We have to smash it!" Melvine yelled, pointing his hands at the ring. It started to spiral around in the air. "I'll crush it on the fireplace! Let me get some momentum up."

"No," Freezia exclaimed. "That will bring the inn down on our heads. Smother it with something!"

"There's no time for that!" Tolk grabbed it out of mid-air in his mouth and deposited it in Massha's hand. "Can you turn it off?" he asked.

Massha fumbled fruitlessly with the controls. "No. The failsafe's been engaged."

"We're going to die!" Melvine whimpered.

"No, we aren't," I said. "Everyone calm down. Massha, let me have it."

In panic, Jinetta grabbed Massha's wrist to look at the ring. The gem was as bright as an ember now. "There must be something we can do!"

"Everyone duck!" I barked out. I levitated the ring out of Massha's palm and sent it flying straight up the chimney. "What's the range?"

"About five thousand yards," Massha said.

Talk about overkill! I nodded grimly and flew out the window.

SQUAWK!

A flock of blue-and-white ducks flying overhead scattered outward as I shot up and over the roof of the inn.

"Sorry!" I called. They quacked indignantly among themselves as they reformed into a vee heading north.

I scanned the sky above me for the glowing dot of red light. There it was! I pushed hard at the face of the earth with enough magikal force to send me soaring upward. I hoped no one was traveling the road below, but this close to twilight they might not notice the man-sized shadow heading towards the clouds.

I had no trouble following the ring through the overcast sky. The ruby-red light was just a pinpoint. I flew towards it, hoping I was maintaining a safe distance. How far was five thousand yards? Keeping a hefty pad of magik around the ring, I shoved it higher and higher. How much longer did I have? The red light disappeared into the clouds. I made ready to follow it.

BOOM!

A red globe bloomed within the cloud overhead. The sound rang in my ears. Dizzy, I lost control of my flying spell. My stomach headed for my mouth as I dropped like a stone. A wave of heat knocked me down a few hundred feet farther. In a moment I retrieved my wits and retreated hastily toward the ground. Success. The ring had detonated where it couldn't possibly hurt anyone.

While I descended, the cloud gave off another tremendous BOOM. With a roar, heavy waves of water began gushing down on me. The grenade had triggered the load of moisture in the cloud and caused it to start raining.

"Thanks," I grumbled at the sky. "That's what I get for being heroic."

I descended as swiftly as I could to get under the shelter of the forest crown. In my mind I ran over the sequence of events. There was no way that explosion could have been triggered by accident. That grenade ring had a full-scale failsafe on it, not to mention a couple of safety catches to prevent it going off if Massha caught the bezel on something. I was reluctant to come to the obvious conclusion: that someone had set it off on purpose.

But why? If the inn had blown up, we would all have been killed.

Not necessarily, I reasoned, as I landed on the side of the road. At least four of my students were proficient at instantaneous transfer between one dimension and another. In the confusion while we were trying to get rid of the bomb, the guilty party could just have BAMFed out, leaving the rest of us to be blown to smithereens.

But who?

I didn't look forward to figuring that one out.

When I arrived back at the inn, shivering and soaking wet, I was greeted as the returning hero.

"You are amazing, Master Skeeve!" Jinetta exclaimed, gathering me up into a bone-crunching hug. "You saved us!"

"I was so frightened," Freezia admitted, hugging me in her turn and passing me along to Pologne. Bee merely stood to attention, his freckled face pale. Tolk ambled over and stuck his nose into my palm.

Melvine wasn't completely over his sulk, but he came forward and flicked his fingers at me. My clothes and hair dried instantly. "It's an Elemental School desert spell," he said. No apology, no gratitude, but I got the message.

"Thanks," I said. It did feel good to be dry again.

Massha enveloped me in folds of translucent orange silk.

"I'm sorry, Cupcake! I never dreamed the ring could go off like that."

"It didn't," I said shortly. I turned to my students. "Which one of you set that off? Maybe you thought it would be funny to have us running in circles."

"No, sir," Bee said, fervently.

"Did you do it?"

"No! No way, sir."

"I saw Pologne handling it last," Tolk said. "If you could get some of the pieces I could sniff them and tell you for sure."

"Tattletale!" Pologne snarled. "That's a lie."

"What about you, dogface? You had your nose in everything. It could have been you!" Freezia snapped.

"Me? How-how-how dare you?"

"Hold it. HOLD IT!" I shouted over the sudden pandemonium. "The only person I want to hear from right now is the one who set off the ring. I don't care if you thought it was a joke. I don't care if it was an accident. Just tell me."

Silence. The students all eyed one another with open distrust.

"All right," I said, shrugging my shoulders. "That's it, then. I've had enough. Lady Massha, thanks for coming. Do you want to take Bee back to Possiltum with you? I'm sure he can catch a wagon or something else going toward his home town."

"Sure, if that's what you want, boss-man."

"Thank you very much." I turned to the assembled student body. "The rest of you are on your own."

"What?!?" the students asked in outraged six-part harmony.

"It's over," I said simply. "Girls, I'll reimburse you the remainder of your tuition. Tolk, I will make it up to Chumley somehow. Same for you, Melvine. I'll explain to Markie if she wants to drop by. I'd appreciate it if everybody was out of here by sunset. I'm sorry to say it, but I can't teach any of you any longer. Somebody is playing dangerous games."