Chương 18

The Potion of Unlimited Invincibility wasn't capped, corked, or stoppered in any way. The fact that nothing ever spilled was one of the nice things about her bag charm, and Lemon had long since developed the habit of just shoving whatever she wanted in there without worrying about those kinds of details. That was good, because right now she had about a second before she got squished under a giant slab of stone.

She gave her master a brief mental apology, materialized the potion out of her bag, and tilted it back into her mouth. For one single moment, she forgot all about how much danger she was in. All she could think of was that the potion was the most awful thing she had ever tasted. It was unbelievable. It didn't smell bad, or good really, or like anything at all. But the taste was miserable. Even by dog standards, she wanted to gag. Then she remembered why she'd drunk it and had to focus on not throwing it back up.

The potion flowed through her, and she felt it begin to work just as the rock slammed down on top of her. Lemon was driven straight into the ground, then dragged backwards as the stone slab skipped back up into the air and leaped forward again. She gave herself a good shake and looked around. There was a Lemon-shaped indent in the ground, still visible despite all the ripped-up turf around it. It was a remarkably good outline of her, all things considered. More importantly, she felt fine.

Being flattened under the rock hadn't so much as ruffled her fur. Tail wagging, Lemon raced towards the buildings. More blasts of fire rained down on her, but she ignored them. Beams of light swept across her, burning the grass but leaving her untouched. Holes opened up in front of her and attempted to trap her legs in the ground, but Lemon just pulled the limbs back out.

She ran through all the wards like they were nothing, straight towards her goal, with her only deviation being when she spotted a crowd of people gathered to watch her. As she approached, a bald man wearing a black polo that said 'Wiz-Con' across the chest moved to intercept her.

"Excuse me, I'm going to need to know who your wizard is," he said.

"The obstacle course is closed right now."

"The what?" Lemon looked back over her shoulder.

"What else would it be? Are you saying you wandered in by accident?" The man was giving her a very hard look now.

"I… yes? I'm sorry, I didn't know what it was. I was just trying to get to my master to deliver his potion…" Lemon's tail drooped and she whined,"But I… I had to drink it. I'm a bad girl. The worst dog ever!" Lemon couldn't help herself. She started howling in misery. After everything she'd done, all the hard work, all the walking, it was all a waste. She was practically within sight of Hogarth, but now she didn't have the potion anymore. The enormity of what she'd just done had fully caught up with her.

"Er, just calm down there," the man said.

"I need to know who your wizard is. We'll get it sorted out. Don't worry, I don't think you're in trouble if it really was an accident." A man pushed through the gathered crowd of wizards and peered down at her. Blinking large, owlish eyes behind his glasses, he said, "Lemon? Is that you?" She looked over and said miserably,"Hi, Finister."

"Sir, is this your familiar?" the bald man said.

"No, no. She's not anybody's familiar. She's the pet of a friend of mine. I didn't know she was even here at the conference."

"Hogarth forgot his potion. I was bringing it to him, but I… I… Oh, I ruined it all!"

"He did what now?" Finister said, looking confused.

"I think there's been a mix up, Lemon."

"No, no, he made a potion for the alchemy competition, but then he was trying to get everything packed because he forgot to before the portal showed up, and he didn't remember the potion, so I was bringing it to him, but then I drank it just now and it's gone and I feel kind of funny."

"That's, er, probably the potion wearing off. I don't suppose you know if it has any side effects?" Lemon didn't say anything. She just looked at Finister piteously, hunched forward, and vomited up a wad of what looked like unraveled gray wool socks.

"I think I need to lie down." The bald guy said something else, but Lemon didn't catch it. She slumped to the ground and passed out. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. *"Lemon. Lemon. Come on, girl. Time to wake up."

"Unggghhhhh…"

"What if I offered you a sausage? Would that get you to open your eyes?" Lemon's eyes didn't open, but her tail thumped against the ground. She felt a hand on her head, giving her scritches behind her eyes. Her tail thumped harder.

"Come on now. You're alright."

"Master?" she asked, cracking one eye open to see Hogarth sitting on the ground next to her.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

"No. I feel awful."

"Well, that potion wasn't really made for dogs, but I am glad you had it to keep you safe. Quite the demonstration too. They had to disable the obstacle course so people could go look at the Lemon-shaped hole you left behind."

"I'm so sorry," Lemon said, wiggling forward and laying her head on Hogarth's leg. He kept petting her.

"When I saw you forgot your potion, I knew I needed to bring it to you. And I almost got it all the way here too, but I messed up at the last minute."

"Oh, don't worry about that," Hogarth said with a laugh.

"I didn't forget the potion."

"But you did! I had it. I carried it all the way here."

"I know, but the whole point of the conference is to show off how it's made. That's why I took all the reagents out of the cupboards, you silly dog. I made a new one yesterday in front of an audience."

"What? But I… it was so far, and there was… it was all a waste of time?"

"Well I don't know about that. Did you accomplish anything worthwhile on your trip?" She thought about that for a second, and decided she had. She'd stopped the harpies from completing their ritual, and gotten rid of that swamp hag. Most importantly, she'd saved Nemba from whatever that vampire had been planning, and she supposed she'd probably stopped those men from beating up Bon. Hopefully that was all they'd planned on doing.

"I think I did." Hogarth smiled at her and said, "I'll look forward to hearing all about it later. I bet it's quite the story. It's a good thing Finister happened to be sitting on the patio when you showed up though. Conference security was about ready to send you back down to the city since you don't have a pass. The first thing we need to do is get you one, then I think you could take a nap in our room if you'd like."

"Why is Finister here? I thought he said he wasn't going to another conference after that thing with the exploding frogs a few years ago." Hogarth chuckled at that.

"Oh, good times. They charged him triple the cost of the room just to have it cleaned. I don't think he ever quite forgave Morgilan, but she was too busy to attend this year, so he decided to come last minute. Said he wanted to catch up with everybody."

"That kind of makes me glad I showed up then. You should have told me he was going to be here."

"I didn't know myself," Hogarth said. Finister had a reputation in the wizard community as a bit of a hermit, and when he'd stopped showing up at the yearly conference, he'd fallen out of touch with a lot of people. He'd been by to visit Hogarth a few times when they collaborated on an alchemy project over the last few years, but it had been happening less and less often, which was a shame. He always smelled like food, and he was always willing to share a bite of whatever he happened to have in his pocket.

Finister was probably Lemon's favorite wizard, after Hogarth of course.

"I wonder if he has any sausages. I ran out."

"I don't know about sausages, but I'm sure he has someth- wait, what you do mean, 'you ran out?'" Lemon squirmed around and got back to her feet.

"So let's go get that pass now? I want to see all the neat stuff on display this year."

"Lemon." Hogarth's voice had a hard note of warning in it.

"I had to have something to eat on the trip! You wouldn't want me to starve, would you?"

"How much something?" Lemon's tail drooped down to tuck between her legs.

"All of the sausages." Hogarth was aghast.

"All of them? That's impossible. In just two days? There was enough for three weeks hanging in the pantry."

"And that bag of jerky on the top shelf," she added shamefully.

"Not my cockatrice jerky! Lemon, how could you?"

"There's still a little bit left, see?" Lemon pulled the jerky out of her bag and floated it over to Hogarth, who took it mutely and peered inside. He reached in to pull out a single strip of meat, barely a finger's length long, then turned the bag upside down and gave it a shake. Nothing but a crumb or two fell out. Then Hogarth noticed her eyes fixed on the jerky held in his hand and not the empty bag. He moved his hand to the left. Lemon's eyes moved with it. Back to the right. She followed the motion.

With a sigh, Hogarth tossed the jerky to her and she snapped it out of the air. After noisily chewing it and swallowing, she started sniffing at the bag.

"Oh, come on! It's empty. You know this."

"Right, sorry. I'm just kind of hungry. And thirsty. Maybe a bit of sausage would help."

"I don't have any sausage, either on me or in my own home, apparently. You'll just have to suffer the loss," Hogarth told her severely. Lemon let out a whining sigh, but a second later, she saw a wizard go flying by, standing on what looked like a kitchen chair that was leaving a trail of explosive sparks behind it. She let out a friendly, excited little bark and her tail started pumping again.

"What's that? It looks like fun!"

"Delarou made it," Hogarth said sourly.

"He's crashed into the side of a building three times already today, that I know of. And caught a garden on fire."

"That's amazing," Lemon said, watching the wizard fly away.

"That is one word for it, I suppose. Come on, let's go get you a pass, and then I'll show you where our room is."

"Oh, right. Can we get two passes? I have a new friend here who can do magic. He wants to see the conference too. And maybe we can find him a master to apprentice under?"

"A new talent, huh? That sounds worth checking into. Alright, two passes it is."

"And can we get something to eat too? I think I smell some porkchops over that way." Hogarth sighed and said, "Yes, Lemon, we can get some porkchops too."