I gawked at him.
“You counted all of them? You kept track?”
He shrugged modestly. “Second nature for a Kobold. It's said we have a mathematical bent that inclines at a per?fect 90 degree angle. Now, if you would be so kind, pour me some tea, and let's talk about your problem.”
Impressed at last, I complied.
“Pervects,” he mused, sipping from his cup of tea. “Pervects are very interesting. They have every advantage, coming from a dimension that uses both magik and tech?nology with equal ease. Their physical attributes are such that they are saved from harm in circumstances that would kill weaker beings. Their skin is natural armor, their teeth and claws formidable weapons, yet their species evolved superior intelligence. They have so much confidence in their own expertise that it's difficult to prevent one from carrying out his or her plans.”
I met Wensley's eyes and nodded. (Bunny was still star?ing at our guest, though I could tell she really was listen?ing.) “That sounds like the ones I know,” I said.
“The key here is secrecy. Don't ever tell a Pervect what you want from him, or he'll do his best to thwart you. You can't expect someone with that kind of intelligence and ego to go along with the wishes of a lesser species, and in their view, we are all lesser species.”
“That's what I was afraid of,” Wensley droned sadly. “We tried to tell them to go, but they wouldn't.”
“You were not speaking from a position of strength, Master Wensley,” Zol admonished him. “With Pervects you must dictate.”
Lots of luck, I thought. “I'd like to lay out my plans be?fore you, Master Zol,” I began. "Ten Pervects is an army.
We can't force them out by strength, because as you point out, any one of them could tear us apart. We can't use threats, same reason. Blackmail would backfire on us, and besides, it's too dirty a scheme for me. It looks like the only thing we can do is see if we can find out what they're afraid of and scare them away. I know Pervects don't frighten eas?ily, but even they must fear something. Or maybe we could trick them into leaving and not coming back, convince them there's a plague in the kingdom or something. I hope you can give us some advice on what we could use to pry them loose."
The Kobold regarded me solemnly. “Once you have that information do you intend to put these plans into practical use?”
“Well, that's my intention,” I asserted. “I promised Wensley here that I would try to free him and his people.”
“That's one of the finest things about Klahds,” Zol ob?served cheerfully. “They always want to do the right thing. My advice is to dive right in. Let your intentions be your guide.” In my zeal I rose to my feet. Bunny put her hand on my arm and pulled me down to the bench again.
“We'd like some specific guidelines,” she enunciated, pointedly. “How can a Klahd and some Wuhses oust a party of determined Pervects?”
“Why, with the help of an experienced Kobold,” he replied, patting her on the hand with his thin gray fingers. “I've gotten so interested listening to you that I simply must come along.”
I glanced at Wensley, who was looking hopeful but for?lorn. “I doubt that Pareley would be able to afford your fees, sir.”
“My fees?” he echoed jovially, blinking his huge eyes at me. “The only fee I'd charge is being right in the thick of things. This is an opportunity I can't afford to squander. Call it research. You can pay my expenses, that's all. Travel, housing, entertainment...” He started to tick them off on his long fingers.
I saw stacks of coins begin to mount up in my imagina?tion. My dubiousness must have showed on my face. The little man laughed and patted my arm. “I don't eat much, I can sleep anywhere, and I find entertainment in almost everything. Don't worry. We'll get this job done. You'll see.”
I began to like him in spite of myself. “I want to enlist a few more of my associates,” I added.
“If you'll listen to me,” Zol insisted, pouring himself another cup of tea, “they'll be female. Set a thief to catch a thief, I always say.”
“Not a thief,” I corrected him with a smile. “An Assassin.”
Tananda was in our tent packing a bag when we arrived.
“I'm just on my way out the door,” she declared, glanc?ing up. “I'm going to visit my mother on Trollia. Chumley's already there. Mums decided she wanted to change all the wallpaper in the house, and you know how she is when she makes up her mind. She has a list of home im?provements she wants him to do. The next thing you know she'll want him to pull up the floors and lay terrazzo in?stead of the flagstone that she had him put down last time. I've got to go and act as a buffer between them. He just can't say no to her even if she has a bad idea. As long as I'm in between jobs.”
I had never met the elder Trollop who was the mother of two of my most trusted and intelligent companions. If Tananda was anything like her, she must be a formidable woman.
I was dismayed. “I would like to hire you for this as?signment,” I explained.
“Is Aahz coming, too?” she asked, tilting her head at me curiously.
“Uh, no,” I mumbled. Resolutely, she picked up a stack of lace underthings to put them in her bag: tiny brief pan-
ties of wispy black or emerald green, brassieres whose rounded confines would hold Tananda's marvelous curves gently but still allow that bewitching jiggle ... For a mo?ment I stood fascinated, staring, but I forced my attention back to Tananda's eyes. “He's ... er ... busy.”
Tananda nodded. “He said he wouldn't do it.”
I had to admit she was right. “Uh, no. But we've got an?other expert to help us. He is sure he can help us think our way around the Pervect Ten's defenses. May I introduce you to Zol Icty?”
I presented the Kobold, who came to wrap his hands around hers warmly. “Mistress Tananda! What a happy moment for me to meet such a lovely Trollop as yourself!”
“I wondered if that was you,” Tananda cooed, cuddling up to the author in the more than friendly way she had. “Call me Tanda.”
Trollops, I didn't need Zol to tell me, believed in close physical contact, even when meeting someone for the first time. The Kobold seemed to relish it.
“I'd heard you were in the Bazaar today, but I didn't want to risk the crowds. I'm delighted to meet you. I enjoy your books.”
“The pleasure is all mine, I assure you,” Zol mumbled from the depths of a first-class embrace.
Tananda released him and turned to me. “I'm not crazy about what you're trying to do, but I trust you. Chumley will just have to fend for himself with Mums. Terrazzo floors will look pretty.”
“Good.” I sighed with relief. “Now to sign up a few of the others.”
Even the presence of Zol Icty didn't assuage the fears of my other former associates. I next approached the pair of enforcers who'd been muscle for M.Y.T.H. Inc., and now had sole charge of the Mob's interests in the Bazaar.
They'd taken over our office space in the former Even Odds gambling club. Guido, a huge man who dressed in dapper zoot suits with big shoulders and wide lapels, the better to conceal the pocket crossbow that he carried just inside his jacket, regarded me with a mixture of disbelief and sympathy.
“With all due respect, Boss,” Guido imparted, “I don't feel safe tanglin' with no Pervect females. I know Pookie and I know Aahz, and I'm glad they're on our side Ñand I know which one o' them I'd rather have mad at me. I'd stand a chance at survivin' Aahz.”
“I must also tender my polite regrets.” Nunzio, Guido's cousin, a slightly smaller but no less formidable ally, was equally adamant. He also dressed in dapper zoot suits, and was just as heavily armed. “We can lend you armaments, but it would be impolitic, if not impossible, for us to par?ticipate in your enterprise. Even if we were still seconded to your command, Don Bruce would say 'No' to this one. He does not tangle with Perverts if he can help it. Still, we would not want anythin' to happen to you, so if you in?sisted we would accompany you in spite of our orders.” When I said nothing, he sighed. “We wish you t
he best of luck.”
I returned to our tent and looked at my small army, much smaller than I'd hoped, and frowned. “Maybe we can recruit on Amazonia,” I suggested.
“Nonsense!” Zol exclaimed heartily. “A Trollop, an in?telligent maiden and a Klahd Ñbetween you you have ex?perience, ingenuity and leadership that will far exceed your needs. Add to that the malleability of the Wuhses and my own expertise, and you have nothing to fear!”
I'd been in the adventure business far too long to take a comment like that at face value, but I did know the skills of my two companions. If it was a simple matter of figuring out the weaknesses of a given group, an Assassin and an accountant might well be all I needed. Besides, Tananda
and Bunny were watching me carefully. I didn't want to let them down by showing them I didn't have faith in them.
“Surveillance first,” I asserted, firmly. “Let's find out just how their operation is structured, and see if we can fig?ure out their plans before we make a move of their own.”
Bunny smiled. I'd said the right thing.
“Surveillance,” Tananda mused. “Where are they based, Wensley?”
“Oh, in the castle,” the Wuhs informed her. “The prince wasn't using it. He prefers to live in the suburbs, and it's just too centrally located. It's very sturdy, he said. Stone walls and tiled ceilings with big heavy beams. Very protec?tive. We Wuhses like protective buildings.”
“Good,” stated Tananda.
“Good?” I echoed. “It's not like they're out in a field somewhere, where it would be easy to hear what they're saying.”
She gave me an amused look. “That would make it im?possible to eavesdrop on them. Have you ever tried to sneak up on someone in the middle of a field?”
“Of course not,” I replied indignantly. “They'd see you coming for miles ... oh.”
“Exactly, exactly,” Zol beamed. “See? You're already building on one another's strengths. So the Pervect Ten feel very secure and certain no one will sneak up on them. It should be a simple matter to find a good listening post and learn all.”
Myth 13 - Myth Alliances
FOUR
“One's biggest problems are almost always of one's own making.”
V. FRANKENSTEIN, MD
“Run those figures again for me, Caitlin, darling,” asked the elderly Pervect in the flowered dress. She tapped the side of the console with her cane.
“Don't do that, Vergetta,” snapped the very young fe?male at the keyboard. She turned deepset amber eyes at her senior. “It upsets the gremlins in the motherboard.”
“Well, they need waking up, if those are the answers you're giving to me,” Vergetta remarked peevishly. “They shouldn't talk this way to anyone's mother. This is a wrong answer. It has to be.”
“I think she's right,” declared Oshleen, a tall, willowy Pervect, sashaying into the room with a slighter, shorter compatriot in her wake. She waited for the skirts of her floor-length silk gown to settle around her manicured feet. “I've done the calculations myself, and Tenobia has checked the store rooms. About ten percent of the treasury is gone.”
“Again?” Vergetta roared. She slammed a hand down on the console, earning a glare from Caitlin. “What is it with these Wuhses?”
“I told you you ought to let me confiscate that D-hopper,” sneered the narrow-eyed Pervect in black, who was filing her claws to razor points in the corner of the room.
Vergetta turned to her patiently. “It's a toy, Loorna. It gives them pleasure.”
Loorna sprang up, her long yellow fangs bared. “Every time they use that toy they end up spending money! Money they don't have! Money we don't have. They're such idiots.”
“They're Wuhses, what do you expect? They're going to pull business acumen out of the ground?”
“If they'd dig up some self-control, then I'd set every one of them up with shovels and tell them to get to it. As it is, if you yell at one of them, he folds up and points at everybody but himself.”
“If I could get my hands on the Deveel who sold them that D-hopper I'd park it under his pointed tail,” Tenobia growled. "I've tried to get them to put it back in the treasu?ry and sign it out when they want to use it, but no. They don't want to let us hold it for them. We might not give it back, and that's 'uncooperative and unfriendly'. So it gets passed secretly from hand to hand, never in the same place for five minutes. If we don't control it, we can't tell them where they can and can't go. And they do: they flit off to any dimension that takes their fancy. And every time they go off they come back with a souvenir. Every single time. So suddenly everyone has to have one of the new gizmos, and we have a flood of imports. Then, because this stuff isn't free, they raid the treasury to pay for it. No one ever asks Ñthey're not assertive enough for that. So they sneak it out. Every single one of them feels entitled to spend some of the money. No one has ever had the backbone to
take all of it, but they might as well. The trouble is that they don't check, in case someone says no. Like us."
“We made a mistake telling them we were close to solv?ing their problem,” Oshleen sighed, polishing her nails on her sleeve. 'They think the money shortage is over."
“It's not over!” Caitlin snapped. “I keep a spreadsheet going of input and output.”
“I know that,” Oshleen retorted. “I recalculate the bal?ances every day, too, you know.”
“On paper!”
“And if your gremlins stop working, what record do you have? Nothing!”
“Girls, girls,” Vergetta chided them. “Enough!”
“It's natural to be interested in new things,” Nedira in?terjected, soothingly. “They're curious. They like toys.”
“It's not the toys that are the problem,” Tenobia insisted. “It's paying for them. They don't sell their used toys when the novelty's worn off. They just accumulate them, and think that the money's going to fall out off a tree.”
Paldine drummed her fingertips on her lip. “If we could only head off the trend before it catches on kingdomwide, we could control the flow and make a percentage on the value. Not to mention making sure they're not being cheated. As it is, they always pay too much, then they can't admit it. Sooner or later one of them sneaks in with the jan?itors and abstracts the coins when we're not looking. I told you we should have put a wyvern in the treasury.”
“So they're not so good at personal responsibility ei?ther,” Vergetta shrugged. “That's why they hired us.”
“They need keepers, not financial managers,” Loorna countered. “Shepherds, that's what, and maybe a bunch of border collies. Yes, that's it. Put them all in pens until we're finished straightening them out.”
“If they would just have let us do our job,” Oshleen drawled, bored with the never-ending arguments, "we could have been out of here six months ago. They're mak-
ing it impossible. Paldine should never have agreed to a milestone-based contract, especially one that prevents us from taking any other consulting contracts in the mean?time. It should have been strictly time-based."
Paldine, pristine and elegant in a two-piece skirt suit and flowered scarf pinned at the shoulder, jumped up from the couch and grabbed Oshleen by the neck of her silk gown. “If you say that one more time I'll rip your head off! Where were you when I was negotiating it? Sashaying around looking for more clothes? Strutting around on a runway?”
“I was humiliating myself for this group! We needed that device! We could have used the Bub Tube for mass hypnosis, and maybe broken the habit they've gotten into. That Deveel created a nation of shopaholics!” Oshleen said with a dangerous scowl.
“And you couldn't get it. You failed in the one assign?ment that should have been a walkover.”
“Ladies, ladies,” Nedira interrupted, pushing in be?tween them. Her plump body made an effective buffer as the two taller Pervects glared at one another over her shoulders. Charilor came up quietly behind Paldine and detached her hand from Oshleen's throat with a sharp tug. P
aldine glared and massaged her wrist. “Why are we fight?ing? What's done is done. What we need to do now is find a solution.”
Oshleen rubbed her throat. "Every single time we get these fools out of debt, one of their precious committees spends the new profits, without letting us deduct expenses, or taking into account what any of the other committees are doing with the proceeds. They're spending it faster than we can earn it. We can't even request payment because of your contract. We have to get them on their feet and keep them there for a period of sixty days. That's what we agreed to! We can't even get paid. Our work would be un?done completely if we request our fee Ñthat would clear out the rest of what's left in the treasury. And if we leave
without fixing the leak, we'll be blamed for it. Our reputa?tion will be ruined throughout the dimensions."
“She's right,” agreed Tenobia. “We've got to hang in here until we get them up and running, and make it stick.”
Paldine groaned and clutched her head. “Oh, I just want to leave here and never come back!”
“What if we set up one big score that would net all the money the budget would need for the sixty days, including our fee,” Caitlin suggested, a wicked look in her eyes, “but that the Wuhses would be responsible for? Then we could leave. The kingdom would be in excellent shape, finan?cially if not socially.”
“And what would happen when the creditors de?scended?” Nedira chided the little Pervect. “It would take them less than a week to use up two months' worth of money. Where can we increase revenue legitimately?”
“Well, there's no more money to be made out of Pareleyan exports,” Paldine stated, firmly. “I'm already strain?ing the markets for handweaving. Their books of poetry went over like a dead horse. We were doing pretty well in the factories that assemble housewares. If only Vergetta and Charilor,” she glared at the stocky young female, who went to lean against the wall with her arms folded, “hadn't blown their caper on Deva we'd have had a virtually infi?nite customer base.”
Myth 13 - Myth Alliances Page 3
