There was no time to free him now. I stuffed the sphere into my pouch. Tananda and I emptied our buckets into the center of the room and used brooms to push it over the surface of the floor in a big square.
'Do we have to get it everywhere?' she asked.
'Keep it more than an arm's length from the wall. I don't want it to take out the fire spell. I need that. Look! It's soaking right in.' The disenchanting sand seemed to dissolve right into the substance of the floor.
'If it replicates itself,' Tananda pointed out, 'then eventually it will work its way outward and put out the fire.'
'I hope we can get this done before that happens,' I replied. But I was worried about that, too. Screaming and the sounds of breaking crockery allowed us to monitor Gleep's progress around the castle. I had instructed him to cause the maximum possible disruption, and it sounded as though he was taking my orders to heart. I hoped that the other Pervects would come running to help. When I was only half-finished covering the floor the sound seemed to grow nearer.
'Not yet, Gleep,' I muttered desperately. We couldn't even become invisible. All magik within arm's length of the bespelled floor had been dampened. 'We're not ready!'
It must have been a lucky gust of wind or a shift in the old building's foundation, but the door into the hallway swung shut just before Gleep thundered past it with the Pervects in hot pursuit. It was about time something went our way on this assignment.
I surveyed our handiwork. The anti-magik dust had soaked into the floor, leaving only a slight sheen to show where it lay. I tried throwing a fireball into the room, but my spell fizzled almost as soon as it left my hand. I grinned.
'Now, to get them all back in here,' I declared.
'First thing we have to do,' Tananda insisted, dropping her broom and shouldering a bag full of her own special equipment, 'is to get their attention.'
Loud clattering in the direction of the kitchen told us where Gleep had led them. I levitated the two of us past all the traps and spells that were supposed to prevent intruders and were now impeding the Pervects from intercepting the dragon who had made their room temporarily uninhabitable. Cursing, they had to dispell their own magikal obstacle course as they ran. Gleep let half the attacks roll off his tough hide, and blew out the other half of the defenses with blasts of flame.
He spotted me as we ducked into the long hallway that led to the butler's pantry, the laundry room and several other side passages. Wheeling almost on his tail, he bowled over his pursuers, and came charging towards us. I readied an illusion spell for the moment he crossed the threshold, transforming him into a mouse. The Pervects hammered past the doorway of the pantry, backpedaled and glanced in.
'Gleep?' squeaked the mouse.
'He must have gone down one of the other passages!' the elegant one shouted.
'We'll split up,' the miniskirted one ordered.
'Call for reinforcements,' the little one panted.
'I'll get the others back here,' the elder one insisted. 'You keep looking. I'll bet this Skeeve is here somewhere.'
I grinned. They were absolutely right.
They all took off in different directions, but within minutes reassembled in the hall heading for the main stairs. Tananda vanished, heading to a point over the stairway where she had some little surprises ready. I could almost count backwards in my head, men…
'Eeeeeee!!!'
A plague of wood spiders came plummeting out of the air onto the heads of the Pervects. These weren't real arachnids, but an animate growth like an active moss Tanda had discovered while 'camping out' in another dimension (well, that's what she had called it). The longlegged plants enveloped the Pervects with fibrous threads, wrapping them up like mummies. The females' feet got tangled up, just in time to slip on the spongy marbles scattered on the floor from another package in the Trollop's bag of tricks. Yelling, the four clutched at one another, dancing madly to stay upright. They cannoned into one another, and rolled head over heels down the stairs. Being Pervects I knew the fall wouldn't hurt them, but it
I had been counting on Bunny to set off the next wave, which let a gaggle of herdbeasts loose from the reception chamber where they'd been penned up since before dawn. I reached out with my mind, lifted the latch, and flung open the door. Baaing in panic, the herd thundered out, heading for the main door and freedom. Before the Pervects could tear all the wood webbing off, they were in the middle of a mini-stampede.
Into the midst of this mess, another Pervect appeared, the efficient one in the coveralls.
'Vergetta, what's going oooo-nnn-nnn-nnn!'
The marbles claimed another victim. She catapulted down the stairs and landed on her fellows, who were just picking themselves up off the floor. They all fell down again. Another, the plump motherly one, blipped into the middle of the disarray.
'What is going on here?' she cried. 'Who-oo-oooa!' And down.
Six. It was time to let myself be seen. Wearing the disguise that Aahz and I had worked up for my 'audition' as court magician of Possiltum, I stalked out onto the landing and raised my arms. The main door slammed shut behind the last of the herdbeasts. The open windows banged closed, and the torches on the walls dimmed and flickered.
'There!' the elegant one shouted. 'There he is!'
Bolts of fire and lightning flew at me, from not one, but two directions. I spun on my heel. The slim female in the long robe had reappeared on the landing. I glanced up. Tananda was gone. I threw up my hands, spreading out a ward. Her lightning bolt bounced off, and I 'disappeared' in a cloud of smoke, courtesy of a bag of flash powder. The Pervect magician doubled over coughing. Before it cleared I was flying through the hall overhead, aiming toward my next vantage point. The object was to lure the Pervects, all ten of them, back into their chamber all at the same time. I had seven.
Gleep wasn't idle. I bounded up toward the ceiling in time to avoid being run over by my pet, who was being chased by two Pervects dressed in exactly opposite styles. One had on the most conservative two-piece suit I had ever seen, and the other was in a spiked leather bustier and stockings. It takes all kinds, I mused. Nine.
All we were missing was the grouchy one. I had presumed I was going to catch a few fish upstairs in the main headquarters as they popped back from the Wuhs riots, then found they couldn't pop out again. I hoped fervently that she was there. It was time to lure the rest of them back into the trap we had set.
Sailing towards the second floor anteroom I lit off a series of rainbow blasts of light designed to bring the Pervects running my way. Without Bunny I was going to have trouble with the next part of my illusion, but I was willing to improvise. I alit on the mantel of the fireplace, where I'd gotten stuck the first day. Now it was a perch to keep me from being trampled by the Pervects.
'Sst! Skeeve!'
I glanced down and saw the gleam of a familiar head of red hair. Bunny! A thin gray hand waved.
'Ready, Master Skeeve!' Zol whispered.
I beamed. My force was back up to full strength. It was showtime.
From two different directions the Pervects converged upon the hallway, one group pursuing Gleep, one following my beacons. At my signal, Bunny turned Bytina toward me.
I spread out my arms and in my most impressive voice I boomed out, 'Greetings!'
My magician image, vastly expanded, appeared on the wall of the headquarters. Yes, there was the tenth Pervect waving her arms, evidently trying to figure out why her transportation spell wasn't working.
'He's in our workroom!' the eldest shrieked furiously. Together, the remaining nine of the Pervect Ten went charging into the chamber with Gleep right alongside them. I saw him take a deep breath.
I crossed my fingers. The timing was very tricky. The second the last Pervect crossed the threshold, Gleep breathed out a long tongue of flame. It struck the big tub of flash powder Tanda and I had left on the Pervects' table. A vast cloud of smoke filled the room, accompanied by coughing and hacking. Gleep came lolloping out of the midst of it as if he hadn't a care in the world. He was largely immune to anything having to do with smoke and fire. I watched carefully as he exited. The little flames marked his passage, and turned their points inward. The Pervect Ten were trapped.
When the smoke cleared, I was sitting crosslegged on the air facing the door, my disguise dispelled.
