“Doesn’t it scare you?”
“Yes, it does.”
“Well, how do you handle it?”
“By thinking about it as little possible,” I said flatly. “Look, apprentice, aside from doing shtick in court for the amusement of the masses, this profession of ours is pretty dangerous. If we start dwelling on everything that can go wrong in the future, we’ll either never move or blunder headlong into the present because our minds aren’t on what we’re doing right now. I try to be aware of the potential danger of a situation, but I don’t worry about trouble until it happens. It’s a little shaky, but it’s worked so far.”
“If you say so,” she sighed. “Oh, well, gear me up and let’s get started.”
With a pass of my mind, I altered her features. Instead of being a massive woman, she was now a massive man . . . sort of. I had been experimenting with color lately, so I made her purple with reddish sideburns that ran all the way down her arms to her knuckles. Add some claw-like horns at the points of the ears and rough-textured, leathery skin on the face and hands, and you had a being I wouldn’t want to mess with.
“Interesting,” Massha grimaced, surveying what she could see of herself. “Did you make this up yourself, or is there a nasty dimension I haven’t visited yet?”
“My own creation,” I admitted. “The reputation you’re going to build I wouldn’t wish on any dimension I know of. Call it a Hoozit from the dimension Hoo.”
“Who?”
“You’ve got it.”
She rolled her eyes in exasperation.
“Hot stuff, do me a favor and only teach me magik, okay? Keep your sense of humor for yourself. I’ve already got enough enemies.”