“But she's our princess!” a lone voice cried out.
“That is beside the point,” Matfany said, sternly. “I am your prime minister! I have been running this country all throughout the crisis of the pinchbugs and the specter of bankruptcy that has followed in its wake. I am the one pulling you back from the brink of disaster.” He loomed over them. His shadow seemed to cast outward over most of the crowd. “Are you questioning my judgement?”
They cowered back, filled with fear, until someone raised a copy of The Princess's Diary. “Yes! Yes, we are! Hermalaya loved us! We want her back!” That broke the logjam.
“Yes! Yes!'” they began to chant. “Bring hack our prin-cess. Down with Matfany! Down with Matfany!” My worst nightmare loomed as the crowd started to surge toward us
Suddenly, the Salamanders began to fall off the sign above our heads.
The bright orange lizards landed on the rioting Swamp Foxes, who howled and leaped around, bellowing with pain. The Salamanders, trying to scramble to safety, acci-dentally set fur and signs on fire. The protesters forgot all about us in their rush to put out the blazes. I pulled back into an overhang out of the rain of fire. Pervects have tough skin, but fire is one thing that can destroy us. My compan-ions crowded in after me. Outside, the Deveels ran in cir-cles, howling about their precious advertising. For the moment, no one was thinking about us.
“That saved our bacon.” I said. “I gotta hand it to Skeeve for timing.” “Skeeve's not doing that,” Tananda said. “He would never hurt Salamanders.”
“Then who?” Guido asked. “Show me the magicians causing the cascade. If they are not in a concealed place, I am sure I can pick them off from here.”
She looked up at the sky. I knew she was reading force lines. Since I had lost my powers I could no longer see them. “No one is pulling magik out of there. This is a natu-ral phenomenon of some kind.”
We heard a gentle cough behind us to attract our atten-tion.
“It's the Old Folks,” Matfany said, squeezed into the rear of the niche. “I told you they don't like people messing up their mountains and things.”
The force of Salamanders gathered up their injured members and assembled in a group at the base of the Geek's sign.
“That's it!” Pintubo squeaked indignantly at me. “We quit! This dimension is too dangerous for us to work! We are out of here! You'll be hearing from our legal represen-tative! He'll burn you up!” They flashed out of existence.
“Hey, Aahz, I warned you!” Gribaldi said, coming over to shake his fist at me. “We've had enough. You had better give us our money back.”
“No!” I exclaimed. “Put up something else, anything! Your choice. I always thought Salamanders were a bad idea. How about Shutterbug photos? You could have your picture up here, too.”
“No more,” Matfany said. He poked a fingernail at the Deveel's collarbone. “We are not having Deveels leering down at us from up here. You can put your names up in a more genteel fashion. Some of my folks have been out of work for a while. They'd be pleased to have the jobs. I don't want to have to make it a law to use local labor, but I will if I have to.”
The assembled Swamp Foxes were outraged. “We won't work for them. And we don't want you! We want our prin-cess back!”
They started to chant again. “Bring back our princess! Bring back our princess!”
Something whizzed past me and impacted on the stone face at my side. It was a rock. They had run out of vegeta-bles, but they weren't out of missiles.
“We'd better beat a retreat,” I said. I reached into my pocket for my D-hopper.
An unlucky stone smashed into my wrist. It caught the tip of the magical device and sent it spiraling out of my reach. I dashed out and made a flying leap to catch it.
Guido jumped out after me, brandishing his crossbow in an attempt to cover me, but you might as well have held up an umbrella under a waterfall. The Swamp Foxes piled onto us. I got a foot in the eye and grabbed for the nearest tail. I closed my teeth on it.
“Yow!” the owner bellowed. He must have retaliated against whoever was near his mouth, because another cry erupted from the pile of beings on my back. In a moment, it turned into a writhing, scratching, punching mass. I got off a few more punches and bites as I scrabbled on my hands and knees toward daylight. A Swamp Fox, also on all fours, met me face-to-face and bared his teeth. I snarled back. He recoiled slightly, but a dozen others shouldered up beside him. I faced a ring of glowing, yellow eyes. Well, if I couldn't ignore a fight, the best thing I could do was win it. I bunched up my thigh muscles and jumped back-ward, out of their way. The only real way to win a fight is not to get in it.
The Swamp Foxes were stunned for a moment, then came after me, barking and howling. I dashed around the rock Matfany was still standing on, trying to find my D-hopper or a way down off the mountain. I dodged my pursuers three times. Then they got smart and split up. I found myself with my back to
