Myth Alliances

'Greetings,' I announced. 'I am the Great Skeeve.'

TWENTY-EIGHT

'When you have the upper hand, use it.'

— M. JORDAN

Coughing, the Pervect Ten turned to face me. I had to admit I felt a little sorry for them. I'd made the mistake of being at ground zero more than once when using flash powder, and the effect was lung-searing. I preferred to be well away by the time it deployed. Gleep came trotting over to me, expecting a pat on the head for a job well done. He got it.

'Who the hell is the tot?' the eldest demanded, waving her arms to clear the air.

'Watch who you're calling a tot!' the little one grumbled. 'Yeah, who are you?'

'Greetings, ladies,' I repeated, spreading my hands and floating higher in the air on a wisp of thought. 'I am Skeeve the Magnificent.'

'You?' the angry one declared. 'You're going to be Skeeve the Grease Spot when I get through with you!'

I threw a finger toward Bunny, who turned Bytina to face me. My face, magnified about sixty times, appeared on the wall of the chamber, and my voice echoed out of the computer on the desk.

'Halt!' I shouted. The very volume caused them to stop in their tracks.

'I serve the Wuhses, and they have empowered me to deal with you. So deal you shall!'

'I'll tear him apart,' the heavy-browed one snarled.

'Me first,' snarled the one in the leather skirt. They all started moving towards me, claws out.

'Don't!' I shouted, as they made towards me. 'Look at the walls around you. My dragon reset the wards so the flames are facing you. I know that Pervects are vulnerable to fire. Do not try to cross the threshold.'

'That's our spell!' the robed one protested.

'Formation, ladies!' the eldest one ordered. 'Let's wipe this snotty little brat out of existence.'

They all joined hands and closed their eyes. I braced myself. I had watched them send a crowd of a thousand Wuhses each back to their individual homes with a single spell. They were the most powerful magikal force I had ever encountered. If they could break through my preparations I was finished. I waited… waited… waited… then…

Each of them opened one eye and peered at the others.

'Someone is not concentrating!' the eldest chided them.

'Yes, we are,' the elegant one complained. 'Something's wrong!'

The leather-skirted Pervect pointed at me. 'He… he's dispelling our magik! All of it!'

'How could he?' the one in the bustier said. 'He's a Klahd.'

'A Klahd who knows one more trick than you,' I replied, loftily. 'That's all that it takes, really. While you were bumbling around in my obfuscation spell…'

'You mean choking on your flash powder, sonny,' the elder interrupted me. 'We may be impressed by your tenacity, but we've seen the sleight-of-hand tricks before.' 'Fine,' I shrugged. 'I don't mind if you see the mechanism of my trap now that you're inside it. The anti-magik shell comes from the jail on Scamaroni. You can't blip out of there, because neither spells nor magik items work inside it.'

They gawked at me. The skirt-suited one recovered her wits first. 'It was your voice we heard that night. You were there!'

'Uh-huh,' I acknowledged, pleased that they were finally starting to catch on.

'What do you want?'

'I want you to cease your unfair control over the Wuhses. They are tired of living under your yoke and having you rob them blind and make them work for you as slaves to make you rich. They want you to pack up and leave, and stop draining their treasury. Otherwise, you can stay here. We'll even shove food through the barriers for you, but won't take them down unless you meet certain conditions.'

The one in the coverall gawked openly at me. 'Making us rich? You've got the wrong slaves here, pal. We can't even collect our fee!'

It was my turn to goggle. 'What fee?'

The elegant one groaned, as if I was too stupid to live. 'These fools hired us to work for them. They brought us in as financial managers. Our assignment was to straighten out the kingdom's cash flow problems. These moronic Wuhses have been undercutting our efforts at every turn. Did they tell you that? Did they tell you that we've managed to get them out of debt and keep them out of debt, but only by scaring them into submission? That we were able to stay on top of their out of control spending up until the last three weeks, when someone has gotten in our way every time we were going to get ahead.'

'We've been here over two years,' the littlest one moaned. 'If they'd just cooperated we would have finished with our contract and been on our way in six months. That's what it was supposed to take.' 'Don't talk to him,' their magician complained. 'He's just here to cheat us and throw us out.'

'No, I'm not,' I goggled, honestly appalled. 'Tell me about it.'

'Not under these circumstances,' the eldest one told me firmly. 'We don't deal under siege.'

I lowered myself to the ground and headed toward the door.

'No, Master Skeeve,' Zol called to me. 'Don't go to their level. Maintain your advantage.'

But I was through listening to his advice. What the Per-vect Ten said made sense. I had observed from the beginning that the Wuhses dealt in a sidelong and cowardly fashion, except Wensley.

Wensley! I reached into my pocket and drew out the globe. The little figure in it jumped up and down. 'Stop! Stop! Stop!'

'How do I release him?' I asked, holding up the sphere.

'Just release the wards,' the robed Pervect gestured.

With my mind I opened a little door in the side of the glass ball. Suddenly, Wensley was beside me. I steadied him as he staggered, then he rushed toward the Pervects. I ran after him through the blinding flash of light.

'Hey, stop!' I shouted.

But I was too late. Wensley threw himself on his knees in front of the eldest Pervect.

'Dear lady,' he pleaded, 'I most humbly apologize.'

'What is this?' I demanded. 'Wensley, what are you doing?'

He looked up at me. 'I had no idea how hard we were making it for them. We are not used to having anyone give us direct orders. Let us say that… we didn't take it well.'

'I'll say, sonny!' the elder declared. 'You've driven us clean out of our minds with all of your nickling and… you say you're sorry?'

'I am, truly,' the Wuhs vowed. 'I'll do anything I can to help make it right.' 'Well, for a start, you can tell your hired gun here to stop interfering in our business ventures!' the skirt-suited one insisted. She walked over and whacked me on the chest with the back of her hand. 'We're doing all this for your benefit. You people have been making it almost impossible for us to live up to the terms of our agreement. We're businesswomen. We have a reputation across thirty different dimensions of being the Pervects to come to when you need something done right in the minimum possible time, and you're doing a hell of a job of undoing years of hard work in a matter of weeks.'

'I'm really sorry about the misunderstanding,' I informed them, rubbing the sore place with my fingertips. 'I didn't realize until I saw one used that those Pervomatics really were food choppers. But if it's so straightforward, why were you concealing from the Wuhses what they were working on? It looked pretty suspicious.'

'Because these sheep, in case you haven't noticed, have all the morals of jackdaws,' the eldest sighed, sinking down into a chair. 'They'll take anything and rationalize that it's okay as long as no one else knows they're