“Plus a hefty bonus from the King himself,” Tananda supplied helpfully.
“We’ve been trying to tell you, Aahz old boy,” Chumly smiled. “Skeeve here has been doing just fine without you.”
“I see.”
Aahz turned away and stared silently out the window. I’ll admit to being a bit disappointed. I mean, maybe I hadn’t done a first-rate job, but a little bit of congratulations would have been nice. The way my mentor was acting, you’d think he….
Then it hit me. Like a runaway war-chariot it hit me. Aahz was jealous! More than that, he was hurt!
I could see it now with crystal clarity. Up until now 1 had been blinded by Aahz’s arrogant self-confidence, but suddenly the veil was parted.
Aahz’s escape from Perv wasn’t nearly as easy as he was letting on. There had been a brawl
physical, verbal, or magikal
some hard feelings, and some heavy promises made or broken. He had forced his way back to Klah with one thing on his mind: his apprentice . . . his favorite apprentice, was in trouble. Upon returning, what was his reception? Not only was I not in trouble, for all appearances, I was doing better without him!
Tananda and Chumly were still at it, merrily chattering back and forth about how great I was. While I appreciated their support, I wished desperately I could think of a way of getting it through to them that what they were really doing was twisting a knife in Aahz.
“Umm . . . Aahz?” I interrupted. “When you’ve got a minute, there are a few things I need your advice on.”
“Like what?” came the muffled response. “From the sound of things, you don’t need anybody, much less a teacher with no powers of his own.”