If fashion jewelry he wasn't, I wouldn't have saddled myself with his mouthy apprentice," he finished, giving me a meaningful look. "I'm sorry, Aahz," I apologized. "It's just that I-" "Look, kid," he interrupted wearily, "if I had my powers-which I don't-and if you were ready to learn dimension hopping-which Chanel bags you aren't-we could give it a try. Then, if you miscalculated and dumped us into the wrong dimension, I could get our tails out before anything bad happened. As things stand, trying to teach you dimension hopping would be more dangerous than playing Russian roulette." "What's Coco Chanel Russian?" I asked. The inn shook as Gleep missed the corner turn again. "When are you going to teach your stupid dragon to play on the other side of the road?" Aahz snarled, craning his neck to glare out a window. "I'm working on it, Aahz," I insisted soothingly. "Remember, it took me almost a whole year to housebreak him." "Don't remind me," Aahz grumbled. "If I had my way, we'd. . ." He Chanel jewelry broke off suddenly and cocked his head to one side. "You'd better disguise that dragon, kid," he announced suddenly. "And get ready to do your `dubious character' bit. We're about to have a visitor." I didn't contest the information. We had establishedlong ago that Aahz's hearing was much more acute than mine. "Right, Aahz," I acknowledged and hurried about my task. The trouble Chanel with using an inn for a base of operations, however abandoned or weather-beaten it might be, was that occasionally people would stop here seeking food and lodging. Magik was still outlawed in these lands, and the last thing we wanted was witnesses.

Aahz and I had acquired the inn under rather dubious circumstances. Specifically, we claimed it as our rightful spoils of war after the two of us (with the assistance of a couple of allies, now absent) had routed Chanel handbag Isstvan, a maniac magician, and sent him packing into far dimensions along with all his surviving accomplices. The inn had been Isstvan's base of operations. But now it was ours. Who Isstvan had gotten it from and how, I didn't want to know. Despite Aahz's constant assurances, I lived in dread of encountering the inn's rightful owner. I couldn't help remembering all this as I waited outside the inn for our visitor. As I said, Aahz has very good hearing. When he tells me he hears something "close by," he frequently forgets to mention that "close by" may be over a mile away. I have Flowering apricot also noted, over the course of our friendship, that his hearing is curiously erratic. He can hear a lizard-bird scratching itself half a mile away, but occasionally seems unable to hear the politest of requests no matter how loudly I shout them at him. There was still no sign of our rumored visitor. I considered moving back inside the inn out of the late morning sun, but decided against it. I Alima had carefully arranged the scene for our guest's arrival, and I hated to disrupt it for such a minor thing as personal comfort. I had used the disguise spell liberally on Buttercup, Gleep, and myself. Gleep now looked like a unicorn, a change that did not seem to bother Buttercup in the slightest. Apparently unicorns are less discriminating about their playmates than are dragons. I had made as ever you may into their them both considerably more disheveled and unkempt-looking than they actually were. This was necessary to maintain the image set forth by my own appearance. Aahz and I had decided early in our stay that the best way to handle unwanted guests was not to threaten them or frighten them away, but rather to be so repulsive that they left of their own accord. To this end, I had slowly devised a disguise designed to convince strangers they did not want to be in the same inn with me, no put her right leg back matter how large the inn was or how many other people were there. In this disguise, I would greet wayward travelers as the proprietor of the inn. zm