'I doubt it,' Bunny retorted crisply, though her large eyes were full of tears. 'But I'm sorry for Wensley.'
'It was a hero's passing,' Zol intoned solemnly.
Montgomery was cleaning glasses behind the bar when we entered. 'Evening, Masters and Mistresses,' he greeted us blithely. 'I wouldn't presume to tell you your business, but may I suggest a nice glass of wine, or something stronger? If I looked like one of you, I'd tell myself that I needed it.'
'We do,' I agreed, sliding into the booth that we had more or less come to regard as our own. 'Master Montgomery, I don't really know where to start. We have some bad news for you. The revolution…'
'… Went all wrong,' the innkeeper finished for me. 'I know it. Ragstone, my potboy, told me all about it.'
I peered at him, wondering if I had heard him incorrectly. 'It went worse than 'all wrong,'' I stated. 'It was a total failure. There were no survivors. Where was Ragstone watching from?'
'Oh, he was in the thick of things,' Montgomery declared.
'He was on the drawbridge?' I asked.
'He was up the stairs on the way to the Pervects' big room,' Montgomery replied, looking around at all of our puzzled faces. 'He said they never had a chance. One minute he was about to break down a door with my best barrel-rolling stave, and the next minute there's a big flash of light and he's back here.'
'Here?' I echoed.
'Aye, in his room. Which he shares with Coolea, my stable lad. Both of 'em as puzzled as a crossword. You've never seen such faces,' the innkeeper chuckled.
'They're alive?' I demanded. 'But we thought the Pervects had killed them all.' 'I bet the boys wondered if they was dead,' Montgomery grinned. 'Finding themselves at home looking at the ceiling. We're all surprised, too. I thought like you did, that they might put down armed resistance with force, but maybe the Pervects are more merciful on us poor misguided souls than we would've been on them.'
Zol's eyes danced. 'This is more material for my study,' he asserted eagerly, pulling out his notebook and tapping in several lines. 'What a fascinating turn of events.'
'And your employees weren't harmed at all,' I pressed Montgomery.
'Well, except none of 'em can go out and about. I was right surprised to see you come in. I thought it didn't work. We've all tried to go out, but it's as if there's no door there.'
'That,' Tananda announced, once we had all gotten over the shock, 'is one powerful group of magicians. Two couldn't have done such a mass working by themselves. Not even ten of them could have. What we saw them do the other day to combine their power has to be unique. I feel outgunned and outclassed.'
'And yet they temper their actions with mercy,' Zol muttered, writing furiously. 'Intriguing.'
I thought for a moment. 'It doesn't sound like mercy so much as a warning. They don't want to destroy their workforce. They'd have to train thousands of new Wuhses to do the work.'
'But what about our revolution?' Montgomery said.
Zol gave a rueful smile. 'And with such a demonstration of power, will you refuse to do your work tomorrow?'
'No!' the innkeeper exclaimed, his slitted pupils wide. 'No, I'll get up early! I'll work late. Providing we can all get out of here in the morning, that is.'
'What about Wensley?' I asked.
'Oh, he don't live here, Master Skeeve. You ought to try his house. And on the way past, if you'd be so kind to drop in at Carredelest's delicatessen? He lives above his shop. There's not a bite to eat on the premises, and I can't get out of here to pick up my order.'
'Sure,' I agreed, absently. 'Where does Wensley live?'
TWENTY
'There's something funny going on here.'
'I'm sorry,' responded a petite female Wuhs with dark curls, through the window of a pleasant blue house several blocks from the inn. 'My mate is not here.'
'That's strange,' I murmered, almost to myself. 'Everyone else was returned to their homes.'
'He could be with his parents,' Kassery suggested apologetically. 'They are not well. He is there as often as he is here. I applaud his eagerness to be a dutiful son.'
'Hmm.' I nodded slowly. 'That might explain it. Could you tell us how to get to their home?'
'They don't live in Pareley,' Kassery offered. 'I could send them a note… if I could leave here, but at present I am finding it difficult… very difficult. Is it possible that I might be allowed an explanation of my temporary indisposition? Not that I am upset about it, of course,' she added hastily.
As quickly as I could I told her what had happened. 'No, no, no,' the female shook her head disbelievingly. 'This is not my Wensley. It couldn't be.' Following Kassery's instructions, we traveled out a few days' journey into the countryside to a small village in Rennet, in the midst of a great forest just beyond the borders of Pareley. Gouda and Edam, Wensley's mother and father, the local apothecary and schoolmaster, were as puzzled as we were.
'He hasn't been here in some weeks,' Gouda explained, serving us tea in a scrupulously clean kitchen. She was a plump little woman, with soft, very deft hands. 'He said he's involved in a project for the common good. I might make a guess, though you can tell me if I'm wrong, and I probably am, that you are involved in that project?'
'I think we are the project,' I explained. 'It's just that we've lost track of him.' I glanced at the others, and they nodded. No sense in worrying them, when they could do nothing.
'I thought as much. It's clever of him to bring demons to enrich our local Wuhs culture, when all the others he knows are bringing back inanimate souvenirs. Why, they can't talk, can they?'
I knew plenty of knickknacks that could talk, and more, but I didn't believe then was the time to bring that fact up. 'He definitely had… has a purpose for us,' I said, hastily correcting myself. I had to stop talking; my concern for the missing Wensley was making my tongue trip over itself, and it really didn't need the help. 'We're trying to live up to his expectations.'
Gouda smiled. 'He's such an intelligent boy, so curious, though I probably shouldn't brag about him to you… but would you care to see some pictures of him as a child?' 'He's still not here,' Wensley's wife informed us, when we called upon her on our return to the capital. She regarded us with wide-eyed fear and hope, the latter of which I hoped we could justify by discovering his whereabouts and restoring him to his family.
'He'd surely be returned nightly, if he was still around,' Montgomery told us, as he escorted us upstairs to our rooms. 'We're all still having to have our secret meetings in the daytime. Once the sun sets, bang! It's cutting something fierce into my trade. But on the other hand, my lunch business is going very well,' he added, talking loudly to the air.
'Are you being spied upon?' I inquired.
'Never be too careful,' the innkeeper replied. 'The Pervects seem to be here, there and everywhere these days.'
We joined one of the secret lunchtime meetings, held with great ceremony in the back room of a tavern owned by a Wuhs named Crozier not far from the central factory. The situation had clearly worsened. Everyone was going a little stir crazy at having been under house arrest for a week. The Pervects had succeeded in intimidating them into compliance with every whim, no matter how trivial. Not that the Wuhses need much intimidating, mind you.
'We're all going to work,' Gubbeen admitted to us over a mug of beer, 'but we're not enjoying it. That's putting things strongly, I know, but it isn't only my opinion. I wouldn't say such a thing myself, not unless I was assured of wide support from my friends and co-workers, that is.'
