Robert Asprin - Class Dis-Mythed

That took everyone aback. For a moment, no one spoke. Then they all tried to talk at once.

"My aunt told me—"

"Well, I heard—"

"Everyone knows—"

Don Bruce silenced them all with a wave of his hand.

"Let's start at the top," he said. "Mostly, each of you wants to increase his or her value on the job market. Right?"

There was a round of nods from the class.

"To my thinking," he continued, "what that actually breaks down to is the acquisition and use of power."

The nods were slower, and Bee raised his hand.

"Um, not to disagree, sir," he said, "but I just want to help people. I thought that studying under Skeeve would help me to do that better."

"Good answer," the Don nodded. "Very admirable. But you don't see many weak or poor people helping others, no matter how nice they may be as people. To help others, you have to be in a position to be able to help, and that gets back to what I was saying, acquiring and using power. See what I mean?"

"I—I think so," Bee said hesitantly.

"Now, this all gets back to why you should listen to me," Don Bruce said. "I may not be a magician but, as a businessman, one thing I have to know is how to acquire and use power. The problem with young folks like you, with the possible exception of the young gentleman here and the furry guy sitting next to him, is that you wouldn't know power if it bit you on the leg."

He turned his attention back to Bee.

"I couldn't help but notice that you seemed to recognize me or my name. Can I ask if I'm right?"

"Yes, sir," Bee said. "I was in the army with Swatter— Guido—and he often mentioned you with the greatest respect. Just like he mentioned Skeeve."

"The army, eh?" the Don smiled. "I thought you showed more sense than normally comes out of a book. For the record, I have the highest regard for Guido. I only wish he was here to help me make my next point."

"Um, if I may, sir. If it will help—"

Bee closed his eyes in concentration, and suddenly Guido was sitting there in his place.

"Hey! That's pretty good," Don Bruce said then turned to me. "What is that? Some kind of transfer spell?"

"It's just a disguise spell," I said. "It's actually still Bee sitting there."

"Well, it'll do for the moment." He went back to addressing the class.

"Now, my question to you is this: Look at Guido here, then look at me. Then tell me which of us you would least like to have angry with you."

It really wasn't much of a choice.

"Guido," Melvine said. "No offense, sir, but he's a lot bigger."

The rest of the class nodded their agreement.

"Uh huh," the Don said. "Guido is not only big, he's one of the best, if not the best, at what he does—which is to say, controlled violence.

"Thank you—Bee, is it? The point is made."

There was a shimmering in the air, and Bee was back.

"Now, you all made the obvious, expected choice. Unfortunately, you're all wrong."

He smiled at the frowns around him.

"Guido is big and strong, and I'd never disrespect him," he said. "The truth of the matter, though, is that I have over a hundred like him working for me. All of them specialists in controlled violence. If Guido gets mad at you, you have to deal with Guido. If I get mad at you, you can have the whole pack of 'em down on your neck. Are you starting to see what I mean about power?"

The class was murmuring back and forth again, but they were also watching Don Bruce with a new level of respect.

"The key word in what I was saying," the Don continued, "is control. Guido doesn't walk around randomly pounding on people. He knows how much power he has and the repercussions if he misuses it. He's not a bully looking for a chance to show off. He's effective and only uses as much power as is necessary for the situation. Technically, I have more power at my disposal than Guido has. That means I have to be that much more careful about how and when I use it."

He leaned back and smiled.

"All of that brings us back to why you're studying under Skeeve. Now, if I understand it right, most of you were recommended to him or heard about his reputation. I'm willing to bet that you were all a little disappointed when you actually met him because he isn't flashier or more impressive. That's because most of you are still young and tend to look at the surface, just like you were more afraid of Guido than of me."

All of a sudden, he wasn't smiling.

"Well, I'm not young and impressionable. I've been around for a long time and earned my position against some tough competition in conditions where, if you make a mistake, you don't get a bad grade or expelled from class, you get dead. Based on long, hard experience, I'll tell you here and now that your teacher, Skeeve, is one of the most powerful men I've ever dealt with. What's more, I don't think there's anyone that I admire and respect more."

He looked at me and gave a slow nod with his head in salute.

Startled as I was by his declaration, the only thing I could • do was return his nod with equal dignity.

He turned his attention back to the class.

"You might want to hear a little of how he built that reputation. Since he's not likely to tell you himself, let me fill you in on few of the highlights.

"When I first met Skeeve, he was the Court Magical for Possiltum. At that time, he had just backed off the largest, best-led army this dimension had ever seen. What's more, he did it with only a Troll, a Trollop, a Pervect, an Imp, a Gargoyle, a salamander, and an Archer to help him."

"Gleep was there, too," I said.

"I stand corrected. And a baby dragon. Even so, that's fairly impressive odds by anybody's books. As I was saying, when I met him, he was standing in for the king, who had taken it on the lam to get out of a marriage. If Skeeve had wanted to, he could have stayed and run the kingdom from then on. Instead, he straightened the mess out and moved to the Bazaar at Deva, where the Chamber of Commerce hired him for their Magician in Residence.

"On the side, he and a few of his friends challenged the two champion teams on Jahk to the Big Game and beat them out of their own trophy. Then there was the time that his partner, Aahz, was in jail in the dimension Blut—that's the one with vampires and werewolves—and Skeeve had to bust him out and prove his innocence."

That one got a reaction from the class. I had told them I would be sending them to Blut on a field exercise, but I had deliberately neglected to mention to them how I happened to be familiar with the place.

"One bit you ladies might find interesting was the time that Aahz resigned from M.YT.H., Inc. and Skeeve here went to Perv all by himself to convince him to come back. I'm still gathering information as to exactly how he pulled that one off and came back intact."

The three Pervects were eyeing me now with thoughtful expressions. I was glad Don Bruce had either failed to find out or chosen to omit mentioning how that little escapade got me deported from Perv as an undesirable.

"Now, you might think that all that would be enough to build a reputation for anyone. Well, it might, but in Skeeve's case, it's only the tip of the iceberg. Where his real reputation comes from is that he's a true gentleman.

"I said at the beginning that I was telling you all this because he won't. That ain't his style. He don't brag or bluster or swagger. What's more, he don't throw his weight around unless it's absolutely necessary. He don't have to. His track record speaks for itself. More important, Skeeve genuinely likes people. He's polite and respectful to everybody including his enemies, whether they're strong enough to hurt him or not. If you don't believe me, ask around.

"You've all met Massha? Well, when they first met, they were opposite sides of a caper—specifically, that Big Game on Jahk I was telling you about. Afterward, not only did he accept her as an apprentice, he set her up to replace him as the Court Magician at Possiltum. And my niece, Bunny. She had it in her head that she wanted to be a mob Moll, so I sent her to Skeeve as a bit of a test for both of them. As it turns out, he won't let her be a floozie. Instead, she ends up using all the financial training she got at school to straighten out the kingdom's books for Possiltum, and now she's got a rep of her own as a financier and negotiator. As a matter of fact, there's at least one bank in Perv that's been trying to hire her away from Skeeve for years, but she won't budge."