Myth Alliances

definition.'

'That's the one. We get them inside it, but we turn it inside out so they're trapped. If they can't use magik, they're not going anywhere. Then we have negotiating power.'

'And how are we going to get them to wait politely in their chamber while we steal their powers and lock them inside their own security spell?'

I agreed with them. 'For that, we're going to rely upon Wuhs power.' Since the Wuhses were still under house arrest during all nonbusiness hours the only time they were able to attend a secret meeting was just after dawn and before they had to report for work in their shops and factories. Thirty or forty Wuhses crowded nervously into Montgomery's main room.

'We do not wish to be late, Master Skeeve,' Gubbeen reminded me, watching through the window as the sun climbed with distressing rapidity up the eastern edge of the sky.

'Then I won't waste your time,' I said. 'I'm ready to fulfill the deal we made, but to succeed I am going to need your help.'

'Us! W… w… well, you're the one Wensley hired,' Ardrahan protested.

I raised an eyebrow. 'How badly do you want these Pervects out of here?'

'Er,' Gubbeen thought about the question for a moment, 'a lot?' The others nodded their heads vigorously. That seemed to be the general consensus. They were willing to agree upon that concept.

'Enough to risk your life?' I inquired, pushing a little harder.

'Uh,' Cashel gulped, 'well, now that you mention it, not really. It hasn't been so bad with them here now, you know… new things to do, new industry getting started…'

I interrupted him. 'Do you want to end up in a bottle like Wensley?'

'No!' the Wuhs protested. He began to back out, but there wasn't room in the crowded inn. 'I mean, if it's not necessary, but they have their own opinions on how they want to deal with us, you know. Everybody has his or her own style, and who am I to condemn that, right?'

'Well, here's the good news,' I told them. 'I need your help, and it won't be fatal or painful at all. How about that?' The Wuhses looked surprised. I had begun with the worst possible scenario, and dropped the level of threat un- til it was under their threshold of panic. I did my best to keep from smiling as they discussed the matter between themselves, but I wasn't going to wait long for their answer. 'Well?'

'I believe,' Gubbeen began, 'that the risk assessment is favorable to our continued comfort. All in favor of assisting Master Skeeve…?'

'Yah. Ya-a-aaah. Yaaaah,' the others bleated in agreement.

'Opposed.'

They all looked at one another. That was the biggest reason I had not approached each Wuhs privately. In public, they had to hang together, or face peer pressure to accede. I was right.

'Sheep,' Tananda muttered.

I rubbed my hands together. 'Good. Now, here's what I want you to do. One week from today…'

I now had to undertake the most intense course of study in my life, more difficult even than when I was trying to learn Dragon Poker in a week. Montgomery lent me a small, unused root cellar as my study, since we didn't want an inkling of what I was doing to circulate. The Wuhses were terrified of the Pervects, but they loved to talk among themselves. A secret which they crossed their hearts and hoped to die before telling was open knowledge before the next round of drinks was on the table. I watched it happen over and over again. Therefore, Gubbeen and the others were on a need-to-know basis only, as far as the specific details of our upcoming attack were concerned.

It was easy for me to say I could break down the components of die anti-magik spell and figure out how it worked, but since it did dampen any magikal probe that I threw at it, it made it harder to figure out what made it tick. Zol offered me his assistance. 'We can employ statistical analysis and field emissions to discover what sets it off,' the Kobold stated, setting up his computer at the far end of the table. We discovered that inside a certain range the stone prevented either his notebook or Bytina from operating in this dimension. Bunny kept her little PDA at a protective distance from the sample.

'What puzzles me is what our source told Tananda,' Zol reminded me. ' 'It makes more of itself.' What can that mean?'

'I don't know.' I peered at the rock more closely. I had had plenty of time to study the walls during my incarceration, but I had not seen the bricks reproducing. 'Maybe we have to give it something to reproduce with.'

We tried soaking the stone in water, wine, oil, and several less savory fluids. We fed it sugar, plant food, even people food, but it continued to sit there. I went back to Klah for the grimoires Garkin had left me. Everything in his books was oriented toward channeling power, not getting rid of it.

'Maybe it's like yeast,' I suggested. We broke it up into little pieces. We mixed it with dirt, then gravel, then chunks of rock. We heated it in fire, cooled it in ice, added practically every ingredient I could think of. I surrounded it in a field of magikal energy, then let it dissipate. Nothing happened until we mixed the wall parts with sand. The chunks of rock started making a hissing noise. A lather began to gather on top. I reached out a finger to touch it, but Zol yanked my hand back.

'Don't touch it!' he cautioned me. The sizzling noise got louder. 'I believe it's working!'

'But why sand?' I asked, watching as the foam covered the mass and enveloped it in a seething, heaving, glowing lump. Heat blasted outward from it, singeing our eyebrows. We retreated to the far end of the cellar. 'Why would that work when rock like the original piece wouldn't?'

'Because of its relative translucency,' Zol explained. 'I believe that what you have just witnessed is a textbook example of near-clear fizzin'.'

I was too fascinated by the process to ask for a clarification. It was working.

It took a few days to produce a couple of buckets full of the anti-magik material. Tananda provided security on the cellar, making sure that no one came down to see what we were doing, although my yell of 'Yee-hah!' probably raised a few eyebrows. I emerged from our laboratory, frizzled hair and all.

'Are we ready?' Bunny asked.

'We are,' I announced, triumphantly. 'The coup will proceed on schedule.'

TWENTY-SEVEN

'But that trick never works!'

— SQUIRREL

Niki shouldered into her coverall and gulped down the rest of her coffee.

'Almost whistle time,' she told the others, who were in various stages of trying to wake up.

Oshleen peered up from her ledger full of red ink with gold lines showing in the yellows of her eyes. Vergetta threw aside her copy of the Perv News, their sole link with civilization in the dreary Wuhs backwater.

'The new line is running like a top. No trouble from the Wuhses. They went right from Pervomatics to personal reminder pixies. The hypno chamber is really good. Even I almost forget what we're doing when I leave there.'

'Should patent it,' Caitlin stated, tapping away at her keyboard. 'Look at the potential applications for secret installations. There might be government contracts in a device like that.'

'Oh, great, that's all we'd need,' Charilor groaned. 'The government already forgets half the stuff it's doing. Do you really want to add deliberate black holes to that?'

'I guess not,' the little Pervect shrugged, not looking up from her screen. 'Should patent it anyhow. Won't keep the Deveels from copying it, but at least we'll have a legal reason for ripping their lungs out if we catch them.'