Myth Alliances

The Pervect tapped her teeth with a manicured fingernail. A magician from some other dimension, one capable of shapeshifting or illusion. Who would want to queer their deal on Scamaroni? Everybody took advantage of the Scammies, at least twice a year, so moral dudgeon had to be lacking on further outrages. The irony was that this time, the Pervect Ten were giving them actual value for their money, so the outrage was all hers. She bent to look at the damaged glasses. All that work, pissed away by ignorant peasants. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted Bofus wiggling his fingers in a spell to try and deossify the curtain.

'Not so fast,' she cautioned him. He sagged. 'You weren't so afraid of me a few days ago. You and I both know that what they're saying about these toys isn't true. What else have they been saying?'

'That you use s-s-slave labor to make the G-g-goggles, and you are planning to make us slaves so we can build goggles for other dimensions that will b-b-become p-p-part of your empire.' Bofus swallowed hard.

Paldine's eyes narrowed. 'That's the first I've heard about an empire, honey.' For a moment she wondered if Oshleen or any of the others had been around to talk to him, then decided that was wrong. They might fight each other to the death over trivia, but they would do it openly. This would have been cutting one of their own off at the knees, and, worse yet, slashing their own income, something no Pervect would ever do. Bofus looked ready to faint, his long nose sagging like a discarded sock. Paldine decided to change tack. She turned on the charm, moving toward him with a sinuous wiggle.

'How can I find this prophet?' she purred, fluttering her green eyelids at him.

Two uniformed guards arrived in my cell with swords drawn. I sprang up in alarm. Very solemnly, they marched me into a corner and stood facing me. I peered up at their solemn faces.

'Are we going into court now?' I asked hopefully. 'I'd like to get this all cleared up so I can go home.'

But they didn't say a word. Their reticence made me nervous. In my experience, no news was not necessarily good news. I heard footsteps in the hallway, accompanied by the sound of metal clanging and creaking sounds. I frowned. Was this my release? Or more trouble? Did they torture their prisoners?

To my wondering eyes, the newcomer was an elderly female Scammie, dressed in drab brown and gray. Her hair was gathered up underneath a triangular scarf of the same gray fabric. A big clip held her single nostril closed. Not looking up at me, she pushed a bucket on wheels into the room. My shoulders sagged. A cleaner!

While the guards held the terrifying wizard (me) at bay in the comer, the cleaning woman swabbed the floor with a big mop. They moved me around the room from time to time so she could get into every corner without having to walk past the big dangerous criminal (me). I wondered about the chances of overpowering one or both of my captors, then fighting my way out of the jail using the cleaner as a living shield. I calculated my own body mass, even adding in a factor of 150 percent for all the dirty infighting tricks that Aahz had taught me over the years, and came up at least 400 percent short.

'Nice day,' I observed, instead. The Scammie guards didn't reply. They both looked as though they would have liked to be wearing clips on their noses like the old woman.

The cleaning lady continued to potter around. She removed my chamber pot and replaced it with a new one, emptied, rinsed out and refilled my washing pitcher, picked up the used dinner trays and laid a wrapped candy on my stone bunk. The guards waited until she had clanged and squeaked her way but again, then withdrew, bolting the door.

Depressed, I stumped back to my bed and sat down heavily upon it. I picked up the candy, unwrapped it, and immediately spat it out again. Licorice. No news was indeed no good news.

FIFTEEN

'Darling, your slip is showing.'

— G. ROSE LEE

'This has to be your fault,' Oshleen accused, striding alongside Paldine up the main street of Volute. 'How could you blow something as perfect as the deal we had on those glasses?' Vergetta trotted to keep up behind her two young associates. Five of the others trotted in their wake.

Caitlin had refused to come.

'Straightening out other people's messes is not my bag,' she had snorted, and gone back to working on her program to translate the specs of every Wuhs they knew into computer game characters for a game she called 'Pretend Pushovers'.

Niki, who distrusted anything in which Monishone and/or high sorcery was involved, offered to stay behind and keep an eye on the Wuhses. Vergetta had to agree. They started doing things when the Ten were not in residence. And she had begun hearing rumors of unrest.

That was all right; eight of them was more than enough to straighten out a misunderstanding. One should have been. She didn't know what had gotten into Paldine, carrying on like that. Brainwashing, indeed! They were businesswomen, not voodoo economists.

'I didn't do it, I tell you,' Paldine protested. 'Everything, everything I did was according to our plan. We ought to have been raking in the gold pieces by now. This item ought to have netted us ten thousand this week alone.'

'Well, that's five percent of what we need,' Oshleen snorted.

'You think I don't know that? Bofus, that imbecile, claimed a group of strangers bounced in here, and started talking nonsense about how we were planning to rule the world, starting with everyone who bought our toy. Non-Scammies. Everyone believed it. They are so gullible.'

'It's those Wuhses!' Loorna growled. 'I told you we have to find that D-hopper and confiscate it. Then I'm going to tear all of them limb from limb. When I think of all the hard work we've put in trying to pull their fat out of the fire, I could just scream!'

'It can't be the Wuhses,' Nedira stated, flatly. 'To stand up in front of a crowd of strangers and make a speech like that? It's just not in their nature, dears. Wuhses couldn't do it.'

'Who else?' Loorna demanded. 'Who else knew we were selling merchandise to the Scammies?'

'I still want an explanation for why the fire barricade went for a walk the other day,' Tenobia added. 'Monishone saying that it ought to have been tethered down all along still doesn't ring true.'

'The Wuhses can do some magik,' Monishone suggested. 'Perhaps we have overlooked a real magician among them.'

'I still tell you they couldn't be responsible for this,' Nedira protested, trotting ahead to catch up with Paldine. The marketing specialist opened her stride.

Vergetta threw up a magikal barrier to stop them all from outdistancing her. The younger ones ran into the barrier and bounced back several feet. She hauled them up one by one.

'Slow down, darlinks. Nedira is right. Don't go charging in making accusations. We ask this Bofus, quietly and calmly. And then we tear down his shop around his ears.'

'We'd better not go charging in at all,' Charilor exclaimed, brushing herself off. She pointed in the direction of Bofus's store. 'Look at that!'

Vergetta rendered the group of Pervects invisible with a hasty chant. 'Over here, darlinks,' she urged, grabbing the two tall females by the hand. 'We don't want them smelling us, either. We have to pick the only place in the known universe where their you-know-what don't stink.'

The eight of them stopped. On the main street a protest was under way. Hundreds of Scammies marched in an oval, carrying picket signs that read 'Our brains are our own!' and 'Down with dictaters!'

'Their spelling stinks, too,' Charilor growled.

'I can't believe they fell for the rantings of some wandering nutcase,' Vergetta grumbled.

'Maybe we've got a rival,' Loorna remarked darkly. 'The Deveels probably want to open up their own shop and freeze us out.'

'Already?' Oshleen asked. 'We haven't been operating for five days yet.'