"Yeah, your jumping on the back of one and yelling 'yeehaw' did so much to help."

"If you had been smaller, my idea of riding them to get away would have worked. Anyhew, where are we?"

I looked up, at the building in front of us. Administration. That's what we were looking for. "My unerring sense of direction wins again!" I said, triumphantly.

Julia dragged me into the door, inn the middle of my celebratory dance. "Hey, what'd you do that for?"

Then the boot clumped by outside, running, followed by a bunch of people, wielding a giant shoehorn. Oh. I turned around and looked at the room she'd dragged us into. A perky blonde secretary, feline, was sitting behind a desk, smiling at us. Something disturbing about her smile, probably the fact that it flashed and went "ting" audibly, every couple of seconds.

"HellowelcometoIOUhowcanIhelpyou?" she asked.

"We're uh..." Julia started.

I hopped up on the desk, and bowed with a flourish. "We are safety inspectors, doing a surprise safety and security check."

"Iwasn'ttoldaboutanysurpriseinspection..."

"Of course not, if you were, it wouldn't be a surprise, would it?" I leaned over toward her, conspiratorially, noting that she didn't actually have any legs, must be just a construct of some sort, "To tell the truth, we've had reports that office supplies have been going missing, things like giant squid ink, paper made from the skin of a thrice dead dragon, little things. Now, it'd be in everyone's best interests if this were handled quietly, wouldn't it?"

"Idon'tknowyouIneedtoseesomeID,onemomentplease..."

I hopped down behind the desk, and pulled a little glowing globe out of the base of the construct, which went silent and sagged. The illusion faded to show a mannequin, vaguely carved to look like a person. "Boring conversation anyway."

"You don't think anyone will notice that?"

"They'll probably be glad. That thing was creepy. Now, let's find Bombast's office."

Unfortunately, the desk was fake too, only one drawer on it that actually was a drawer, and that only had blurry copies of maps of the University in it, labeled cheerfully in primary colors. "What about this?" Julia asked, pointing at a sign on the wall, with names followed by room numbers.

"Okay, so where's Bombast?" I asked her.

"Um... fourteen," she replied.

"Okay, so that's the level, room, or what?"

"That's all it says. Maybe the whole level?"

I thought about that for a minute. "And here I thought that teachers were supposed to have dinky little offices."

"Well," she replied, "he IS kinda in charge."

"There is that. So, to the fourteenth level!"

"Okay, smart guy," she said, "How do we get there?"

I looked around the lobby. There was a door, labeled "stairs" right next to the sign. Naah, too obvious. Besides, a bunch of wizards, who nominally spend their time teaching would certainly come up with some better way of getting to places. Well, hopefully better, anyway. Being that these were wizards, they might have decided just to teleport everywhere. But that'd be too much work. Besides, the maids and important visitors had to be able to get around too. So, if I were a wizard, what would I do? Some kind of crane? Or maybe a big dumbwaiter...

While I was pondering, Julia opened the "stairs" door and looked in. "The stairs are moving," she noted.

Ah. Yeah, there's an idea! Make the stairs move, so you can just stand still. I'm so much cleverer than these wizards. "Onward then!" I shouted, quietly.

We entered the stairwell and stepped onto the stairs. They spiraled around the interior of the building, a nod to the wizardly tradition of towers. They even had a handrail that moved at the same speed. For the older wizards, probably, who weren't quite as quick on their feet any more.

One...
Two...
Three...
Four...

Whee. Exciting. From somewhere, somebody was playing an off-key instrumental version of a popular song. I looked up and down, but didn't see anybody. Funny, you'd think it'd be more active. Big orginizations like schools practically run on paperwork. I swung up onto the handrail and rode that, then had a thought. "This only goes up. How do they get down?" I asked.

Julia looked at me, irritated. "They reverse the direction or something."

"How? Haven't seen any levers or anything. And then they'd run into the people going up?"

"It's magic," she said, as if that explained it all.

I looked across the tower. "Hey, you know, there's two stairways here. They spiral around each other. The other one must go down. Umm... Shouldn't they bump?" I said, waving at a stack of papers with legs that was going down the other side.

"Are we there yet?" Julia asked.

"Um, I dunno. Aren't there level signs or something?" I said, doing just that, "Looks like eight. Why do you ask, anyways?"

The sword spoke up. "Because SOME of us are getting dizzy," it said, slightly woozily.

"How can you get dizzy? I don't think you have anything to get dizzy with," I asked it.

"And didn't we say to be quiet? Remember the last time we were around wizards?" she told it.

The sword was quiet from then on, except for quiet moans. "Wouldn't the sword getting dizzy be kind of awkward in a fight?" I asked Julia.

"Why? I'm the one who does all the work."

The sword snorted (well, at least that's what it sounded like), but didn't say anything. I looked over at the doors. "Twelve, Fourteen," I counted off, "Hey, wait a second, what happened to thirteen?" I asked nobody in particular, while we hurried onto the landing, caught off guard.

"Some builders skip over the thirteenth floor in a building, because they think thirteen is an unlucky number," the sword informed us.

Julia shushed it, while I thought about that. "But that's silly. That means this is the thirteenth floor, even if they call it the fourteenth. Anyway."

We looked at the door. Unlike the others, which had had a little sign beside them, saying what was on the level, like Accounting, Deans, Counselors, People to Make Your Life Miserable, Party Coordinator, etc., this one only had a single nameplate on it, that said, "Arch-Dean Hubert P. Bombast Esq, MOO, BUTT, FUD" And kept saying it. I think it was broken.

(BUTT= Bachelor's of Unified Technological Thaumaturgy. MOO = Master's of Obscure Occultism. FUD =Federation of Unafilliated Dowsers. I looked them all up later.)

"What're all those funny noises it keeps making, after his name?" Julia asked.

"I think it's broken." I ignored the plaque, and looked at the lock. Well, for the lock. There didn't seem to be one. Hmm. How rude of him. Some people have no consideration for uninvited visitors.

"Well?" Julia asked.

I looked up. "Well what?"

"Well, why are we just standing here? The door's still shut. You're supposed to be the best thief in the world, what's taking so long?"

"I'm NOT the best thief in the world. Hell, my mom's still aliv, for one. I'd be glad to open the lock. Just show me where it is."

She looked at the door, the doorknob, then the blank space where locks usually are. She didn't say anything else. Fine. Well, if I were a wizard, how would I lock my door? With magic, of course. Right, but how? Since I'd need to get it open and wouldn't want it to fry VIP guests. Or the guys bringing dinner. Hmm. I looked around the landing that ran around the inside of the stairwell. There weren't any other doors on this level. A dumbwaiter? But then we'd have to go find the kitchens, and I don't think Julia would fit in that, if there were one. Though, I could unlock the door from inside.

While I was thinking, my eyes wandered around the door and the wall. Really need to get those magic lenses fixed, being able to see magic stuff would be useful now. Of course, given that we were at a magic university, probably not anything that's not magic. Even so, there's only so many ways to make locks. As long as you wanted to be able to open them again. "Hang on here a sec," I told Julia, and hopped onto the stairway and road it to the next level.