cooperation.
Everything was as ready as I could make it, so I decided it was time to play my trump card.
'There's nothing to it, really,' I told my partner with a smile. 'Talk to me.'
It isn't often I catch my old mentor totally by surprise… I get him upset on a fairly regular basis, but total surprise was a real rarity. This was one of those golden times.
'Say WHAT?' Aahz exclaimed loudly.
'Trust me, Aahz,' I insisted. 'I know what I'm doing. Just talk to me. Tell me a story. How did you first meet Garkin?'
'Oh, that,' he said, rolling his eyes expressively. 'Well, we were at the same boring cocktail party, see… you know, one of those dreary affairs where the crowd has you pinned against the wall and you get stuck talking to whatever the tide washes up against you? Anyway, he was trying to impress some little bit of fluff with his magic, which really wasn't all that hot in those days… let me tell you, partner, anytime you start getting depressed with your lack of progress in the magic business, remind me to tell you what your old teacher Garkin was like when we first met. But, as I was saying, out of respect for the craft, I just had to wander over and show them what the real stuff looked like… not that I had any interest in her myself, mind you…'
I felt Guido tugging on my pantleg.
'Say, Boss,' he complained. 'What is this? I thought we were in a hurry.'
'This is what we needed the time for,' I whispered back.
'For this he grumbled. 'But Boss, if we don't get started…'
'We're started,' I answered. 'Now pay attention to what he's saying.'
I was afraid our side comments might have distracted Aahz, but I needn't have worried. As per normal, once my partner got on a verbal roll, he wasn't that easy to stop.
'…so there we were, just the three of us, mind you, and remember, our clothes were five floors away at this point…'
'What's going on, Hot Stuff?' Massha hissed from her position above me. 'I know you've heard this story before. Heck, I've heard it four times myself.'
'Keep your eye on the dragon,' I advised her. 'And be ready to act fast.'
I was going through the motions of reacting to Aahz's story and fielding the impatient questions of my assistants as best I could, but my real attention was focused on the dragon's head. My strategy was already working. Aahz's droning account of past glories was starting to take effect.
The dragon's eyes were definitely starting to glaze.
'…of course, after all that, I just had to take her home with me. It was the least I could do for the poor thing under the circumstances.'
Aahz was winding up his story already! I had to keep him going just a little bit longer.
'Was that the party where you met Tananda?' I said, deliberately feeding him another cue.
'Tananda? No. That's another story completely. I met her when I was sitting in on a cut-throat game of dragon poker over at the Geek's. We had a real pigeon on the line, the kind of idiot who would bet a busted Corp's a' Corp's into a Unicorn Flush showing, you know? Well, I was a little low on funds just then, Guido was getting restless again. 'Boss, how much longer are we gonna…'
'Not much longer,' I interrupted. 'Get hold of the rope. We're about to move.'
'… now I was holding Ogres back-to-back… or was it Elves? No, it was Ogres. I remember because Tananda had Elves wrapped up. Of course, we didn't know that until the end of the hand. Anyway, as soon as the Geek opened, I bumped him back limit, and Tananda…'
That did it. I should have known a hand-by-hand, bet-by-bet description of dragon poker would do the trick.
Without any warning at all, the dragon yawned… long and wide.
Aahz broke off his narration, a momentous event in itself, and blinked his surprise.
'Quick, Aahz! Jump for it!'
Bewildered as he was, there was nothing wrong with my partner's reflexes. He was out of the dragon's mouth in a flash, diving through the air to catch the rope below Guido.
As soon as his hands closed on our lifeline, several things happened at the same time.
With the extra weight on Massha's levitation belt, our whole formation started to sink at an alarming rate… my apprentice lost her grip on me, giving me minor rope burns as I clutched madly for the rope, almost too late to follow the advice I had been so freely giving to everyone else… and the dragon closed his mouth.
I caught one last glimpse of the beast before we sank from sight, and I honestly don't think he even knew we were gone. His eyelids were at half-mast, and the eyes themselves were out of focus from boredom. Aahz's stories tended to have that effect on even vaguely-intelligent beings. I had simply found a practical application for the phenomenon.
'I've gotta change the controls, Hot Stuff!' Massha called, alerting me once more to our current situation.
The ground was rushing up to meet us with frightening speed.
I remembered the faulty controls that held all of us at their mercy.
'No! Wait, Massha! Let me try…'
Exerting my last ounce of reserve power, I worked at levitating our whole crew. Under normal circumstances, I could lift three people easily and four or five in a pinch. Here in Limbo, using everything I had with Massha's belt assisting me, I barely managed to slow our descent to a moderate crawl.
'What happened there, partner?' Aahz called. 'How did you know that thing was going to yawn?'
'Call it a lucky guess,' I grunted, still concentrating on keeping us from crashing. 'I'll explain later.'
'Check the landing zone,' Guido warned.
I sneaked a peak.
We had been at our task longer than I thought. The sidewalk below was crowded with vampires strolling here and there as Blut's legendary nightlife fired up.
'I don't think we can bluff our way through this one,' Aahz said calmly. 'Any chance you can steer us around the corner into the alley? There doesn't seem to be as much of a crowd there.'
Before I could answer, something flashed past us from above with a flutter of leather wings.
'JAILBREAK!' it screamed, banking around the corner. 'Murderer on the loose! JAILBREAK!'
Chapter Thirteen
'I've never seen so damn many Indians.'
THE words of alarm had an interesting effect on the crowd below. After a brief glance to see us descending into their midst, to a man they turned and ran. In a twinkling, the street was empty.
'What's going on?' I called to Aahz, unable to believe our good fortune.
'Beats me!' my partner shouted back. 'I guess none of the normal citizenry want to tangle with an escaped murderer. Better get us down fast before they figure out how badly outnumbered we are.'
I didn't have to be told twice. Our escape had just gotten an unexpected blessing, but I wasn't about to make book on how long it would last. I cut my magical support, and we dropped swiftly toward the pavement.
'What was that that blew the whistle on us?' Massha said, peering up into the darkness where our mysterious saboteur had disappeared.
'I think it was that Vic character,' Guido answered from below me. 'I got a pretty good look at him when he bolted past me back at the Woof Writers.'
'Really?' I asked, half to myself, twisting around to look after the departed villain. 'That's one more we owe him.'
