“Hand stew,” I announced. “Anybody hungry?”
* * *
And that’s another thing about heroes. No sense of humor at all. They even took away my flask and drank all that was left in it.
Said I hadn’t done enough to deserve a drink!
Chapter 31.
Marvelous
There was a spot of trouble getting Benvenuti back through
the Evil Horizon. The first time he tried the leap, the Horizon bounced him right back out. Fortunately, Hrundig was there to catch him before Benny went sailing into the kettle of oil.
Greyboar and I had already made the leap, so we weren’t aware of the problem right away. Greyboar was preoccupied with reassuring Gwendolyn that we had, indeed, found Benvenuti and that he was, indeed, in splendid condition. I was preoccupied, of course, with giving Jenny and Angela the same reassurances concerning myself. Deeply distraught, they were.
“Sure, and it got a bit dicey before I took care of the first Hand what with the way it was advancing on me and all, but after I told Greyboar to distract the lefty while I—”
“Ignace!” barked Greyboar. I turned and saw that the Cat had appeared and was jabbering away in the strangler’s ear. (For the record, he’s still “the strangler” as far as I’m concerned. I’ll use “the Hero” for official reports, but not here where I’m telling the straight truth about everything.) “Benny’s having some kind of problem! Go see what it is, will you?”
Of course I dug in my heels right there. Until I found out just what the perks and requirements were for my new job as “Professional Hero, Excelsior, Management,” I wasn’t about to let any precedents get established. Not for nothing does the wise man say: “Lackey once, you’ll lackey forever.”
“Do it yourself!” I snarled. “What? Am I supposed to be some kinda—”
Sometimes it’s a real pain in the ass trying to have a rational discussion with Greyboar. For a guy who claims to love philosophy, he’s got an astonishing lack of appreciation for the dialectic. He picked me up and pitched me through the Evil Horizon.
Having, on occasion, undergone this lowbrow form of debate with him, I landed in a roll and came up to my feet without injuries or too much, even, in the way of damage to my dignity.
“What seems to be the problem?” I asked, dusting myself off casually. “Greyboar asked me to look into it.”
Hrundig shrugged and jabbed a thumb at the Horizon. “Damned thing won’t let Benvenuti through. We just tried again.”
Benny was standing next to him, looking exceedingly disgruntled. His sculpted physique was starting to look much the worse for wear. That might have assuaged my primitive envy, except that his loincloth was looking worse still. Not to put too fine a point on it, he’d have been more modest if he were stark naked.
But the truth is I’d grown pretty fond of the guy, despite his handicaps. And I reassured myself that, first, Gwendolyn was on the other side to keep him preoccupied; and, second, that he really didn’t seem to have much of a poaching inclination; and, finally, that neither Angela nor Jenny had ever been the least impressed by standard notions of male pulchritude. Any kind of male pulchritude, actually. (Except me!)
So I didn’t hesitate more than two seconds before setting the whole matter straight.
“Evil Horizon!” I hollered. “Cut the crap!”
The Evil Horizon might have flickered, maybe. Good enough. I told Benny the way was clear and he leaped into it and came bouncing back and suffered a bit more wear and tear. The loincloth was pretty much nonexistent, now.
“Guess not,” I mused. I scratched my head, not sure what to do.
Then, the Evil Horizon flashed soundless shrieks of lightning and started getting real fuzzy around the edges. A moment later, Zulkeh came stalking through the damn thing. As casually as if he were taking an evening stroll, except for the ferocious scowl on his face and the way he was waving his staff around.
“Impudent metaphysical phenomenon!” he barked. “Bah! Attempt to obfuscate me, will you?” He stopped more or less in the middle of the Evil Horizon—which was more in the way of a rapidly-receding tunnel, now—and began making peculiar gestures with his one hand while fingering various grotesque carvings on the staff with the other.