Myth Alliances m-14

by Robert Asprin

  I gasped for breath. The person whose boot was impeding my airway removed it, and the policeman hauled me to my feet. His trunklike nose twitched. I sniffed, too. I must have let the nasal illusion slip. In the melange of vanilla-orange I smelled like a pigpen by comparison. It was too late to disguise my normal scent. Half the Scammies caught my stink and edged away from me, or pinched their big nostrils shut with their fingers. The policeman's eyes watered, but he was made of a better mettle than his countrymen. He kept my arm clamped in his hand, and felt my face. When his fingers met my ordinary, and very small (by comparison) nose, his brow ridges went up.

  "Who are you, and what are you?" he demanded.

  I tried to choke out my name, but only a squeak came out, thanks to both having the air knocked out of me and the foot in the throat. "I'm Sk—" I gasped.

  "All right, make way!" Another police officer came bustling up. The first one held out a palm.

  "Magik dispeller," he demanded. The second officer slapped a wand into his hand. The first officer pushed a small stud on the handle and leveled it at me. I saw the faces of the crowd change as my disguise was stripped from me.

  "A Klahd," the officer sniffed in disgust. "What do you think you're doing here?"

  "My name is Skeeve," I croaked. "I'm here to save you."

  "Crazy, too," the second officer opined.

  "No, really!" I protested. "You're all in danger."

  "Save us, eh?" the officer in charge queried. "Is that why you stood on the courthouse steps screaming like a fool? If you have evidence that Scamaroni is in some kind of peril why didn't you go to our government and make your case?"

  "I…" I was starting to wonder that myself. I couldn't tell him that Zol Icty had told me to. I was beginning to think it had been a bad idea after all. But I couldn't make this officer think I was a bigger twit than he already did. I eyed him. "If you can ask a question like that, you've never tried to change anything by getting the government to help," I pointed out.

  It looked as though Officer Two agreed with me privately, but Officer One was not amused. His voice was even and calm, as though he was talking to a very small child. "So tell me why you caused a riot."

  "The glasses," I began, feeling a little foolish. "They're part of a big plot."

  "So you said."

  "The people who made them want to take over your dimension."

  The brow ridges went up again. "And you have proof of this?"

  "You have to take me seriously," I insisted. I gestured at the angry people around me. Tananda, Zol and Bunny were nowhere in sight. I hoped that they had jumped back to Wuh or Klah and weren't going through an interrogation like this somewhere out of sight. "Really. You'll lose control of your own lives! I'm a magician, a great magician. I've seen it happen in another dimension. I don't want it to happen to you!"

  "They had these glasses?"

  "Well, no… but it's the same ten Perverts. They've conquered one world, and yours is next!"

  "Uh-huh," the officer said, still in the same patient voice. He exchanged a look with the other officer, who tapped his chin with a forefinger. It must be the local gesture for "nut case." I started to protest.

  "… And I had mountains of treasure! Gold! Jewels! Silver! But I used that cheap stuff only to scratch my back," added the female Scammie, escorted into our little circle by a third policeman, "until that imbecile destroyed my storytelling goggles, and I got yanked out of my beautiful dream!"

  "You see?" I stated, indicating the female. "It's clouding your minds."

  "So what?" the female asked, her trunk rampant with disapproval. "I was loving it!"

  "But what about your productivity?" I said, beginning to feel desperate. They didn't understand. "What about your normal lives?" "This is much more interesting than my life," the woman told me impatiently. "I have five children. You think I can't use a little escapism?"

  "The makers of these things want to control you, maybe bleed you dry," I insisted.

  "Twenty gold pieces is steep," the woman admitted, "but it's worth it! I've wandered in beautiful places, free as a greblich!"

  "No, it won't stop there," I warned, looking about at all the hostile faces in the circle. "They'll take over your dimension while you're not looking."

  A male Scammie poked me in the stomach. "So what? If we're happy, how bad could that be?"

  The first officer put his free hand on his hip. "Have you ever even tried these things yourself?"

  "No," I admitted. "But I know what they can do…"

  "Well, here." He plucked the goggles off one of the bystanders. The owner's eyes flew wide in alarm, but calmed down when he saw a law officer holding them. He started to put them on my face.

  "No!" I protested, throwing up my hands. "They'll enchant me!" The cop shrugged and handed them back. The owner went to put them back on. I couldn't let him be dragged back into the spell. I raised my hands and made a twisting motion. The owner cried out in alarm.

  "You'll thank me later," I tried to say, as he went for my throat. All three police officers pulled him back. He shook his fist over their shoulders.

  "You… you vandal!" he yelled, his nose-trunk erect in outrage. "Aargh! That's the last time I help the police!"

  "Look," I said, desperately, "You don't know what they're doing to you. Today it seems like you're just enjoying harmless fantasies, but before you know it you'll be their slaves. I'll reimburse everyone for their glasses— wholesale cost," I amended hastily. If I'd learned anything from Aahz, it was never pay the full price for replacement of an item. If I had ever agreed to give anyone the retail value of an item I had broken Aahz would have rolled his eyes right around inside his head. "They're harming you. Trust me."

  The more I protested, the more faces I saw becoming thoughtful.

  "Maybe he's on to something," a narrow-faced woman mused, tilting her head. "I never considered it more than a toy… but you never know what extra spells might be tucked in there. I've heard all kinds of things happen to people. You read about it in the news all the time."

  "Hah," a young male sneered. "He's just jealous that he doesn't have his own goggles. Can't afford to buy one for yourself, Klahd?"

  "I bet he works for a rival toymaker," an elderly female shrilled. "He doesn't like theirs, but we should buy yours, isn't that right, stinky?"

  "No, it's not like that at all!"

  The first policeman held up his hands. "All right, all right, calm down. We'll get to the bottom of this. We'll have the goggles inspected to make sure they don't cause any harm to any of you. In the meantime, give your names to Officer Koblinz, and we'll notify you when we've finished our investigation. Move along! Move along! Clear the road!"

  The Scammies, grumbling, obeyed the first policeman's commands. Officer Two, Koblinz, took a pad of paper out of his pocket. Names magikally limned themselves down the index. He nodded and put it away.

  "You can better believe we're going to get to the bottom of this," he promised.

  "That's a relief," I breathed. Very quickly traffic returned to normal, and the complainants departed. "Well, thanks a lot." I spotted an alley where I could retrieve the D-hopper out of my boot in private, and started towards it.

  "And where do you think you're going?" Officer One asked, grabbing me by the back of my collar. I struggled to pry myself loose, even using a flick of power, but he had a good grip on me.

  "I've got to get back to my work," I told him. "I told you, those Pervects have a grip on another helpless dimension."

  "You're not going anywhere!"

  "What? Why?"

  Officer One looked at me as though I was an idiot. "You're still under arrest for destroying personal property."

  "But, gee, I said I'd pay for them," I protested.

  "Nothing doing," he said, hauling me by my collar down the sidewalk to a waiting rat-horse cart. "Restitution will be part of the sentence. You're still being held for assault on sixty or eighty persons, destruction of property, causing
a nuisance on the public highway with that sick rorse of yours, creating an affray…"

  "A what?" I asked.

  The officer sighed, as if he had never met such a stupid being in his life. "Causing a riot, if you prefer it like that. The judge is really going to throw the book at you."

  "What's the usual penalty for causing an affray?" I asked.

  "Oh, thirty or forty days. But with all the other charges added on you're likely going to spend the rest of your life in here."

  "Perhaps I could talk to the judge," I offered, stumbling as I climbed into the cart. "Arrange a payment schedule, and apologize to the Scammies I have offended?"

  "I doubt it," Officer One said, gesturing his companion to whip up his animal. "Senior Domari was the first person you assaulted."

  FOURTEEN

  "Maybe I should have kept my nose out of it."

  — C. DE BERGERAC

  I paced from one side of my small cell to the other. It looked just like your average cell, but it smelled good for a change, like roses and new mown grass. Except for the fact that there were bars on the hand-sized window, iron bands wider than my torso on the door, and, oh, yes, walls of big rough stone in between them, I could have been walking in a delightful garden.

  Officers One and Three, whom I now knew were called Gelli and Barnold, had left me the D-hopper and all of my other magikal paraphernalia, including the sample pair of glasses we had picked up in the Pervects' headquarters.

  "The whole place is magik-proofed," Officer Gelli informed me, at my puzzled expression when he handed me back the D-hopper. "You can use that as a backscratcher, or whatever you like, but you're staying here until your arraignment."

  "Do I get a lawyer?" I said.

  "Sure. Who can we call to get one for you?" But there was no answer to that. My companions had escaped. I was thankful for that: there was no point in all five of us being locked up. Thanks to the disguise there was no way they could be identified as fellow perpetrators if they returned. When they returned. I knew my friends. They would not leave me here to rot.

  The cell door had a huge, primitive key lock, the kind I had practiced opening hundreds of times back when I thought I wanted to be a thief. My fingers were small enough to reach the tumblers, but not strong enough to turn them through the keyhole. If I could only have summoned up a thread of power I could have shrunk the shaft of the D-hopper to use as a lock pick, but nothing doing.

  It wasn't as though magik was scarce. Strong lines of power abounded on Scamaroni. I could see a huge blue arrow running directly underneath the police station, but it was as untouchable as the shutterbugs behind the glass of Zol's little magik mirror. I tried a thousand times to reach that power, or the bright golden one I could see arching like a monochrome rainbow over the main street of the city, or the paler green one that crossed the blue one at some distance from the jail. Some big, tough wizards had created the containment spell around this building, wizards hundreds of years older and far more accomplished than I was. There would have had to be sixteen of me to make any dent in it. I certainly tried.

  I pictured a magikal crowbar prying out the grille over the window. Sweat poured down my face as I constructed the spell over and over again. The bars didn't even grow warm. I pictured a magikal rope tied around the door dragging it off its hinges. Not a creak, not a quiver. I sat down, exhausted. I was just going to have to wait until someone came and let me out.

  It didn't take a genius to tell me that I had made a mess of my opportunity to free the Scammies. Zol Icty may have had the utter adoration of every self-help book reader in every dimension, and know everything that there was to know about everyone who lived in them, but his advice was awful. I blamed myself. I had gotten caught up in his plausibility, and believed whatever he said without judging for myself whether what he told me to do made sense. I promised myself from then on I'd listen to whatever he had to say, then do the opposite of what he advised. If I'd done that, I could have been home by now.

  I paced back and forth until my feet hurt, then I spent some time looking out the window. My cell faced the street. It seemed to me that at least half the people out there had Storyteller Goggles on, wandering blindly as their keen sense of smell kept them from running into obstructions, and most of the other half looked envious. But I thought that I had done some good: a few of the passersby looked disapprovingly at their fellow Scammies who were wearing the Pervect Ten's device. Maybe I'd gotten through to a few after all.

  A clattering at the door announced the arrival of my dinner tray, pushed through a panel at the bottom of the door, which was firmly closed and locked as soon as the following edge of the tray was inside. A covered dish, a jug of wine and a jug of water lay on the wooden trencher, along with a candlestick, two candles, and flint and steel. By my calculations the candles would burn from sunset to midnight. I supposed I could try to set the room on fire, but there was nothing to burn except my clothes. The necessary was a covered metal bucket shoved underneath a wash stand consisting of a china bowl and pitcher on a stone shelf in the corner. The bed was a stone shelf, too. Not very comfortable, but then, nothing to attract insects, either. I didn't really need a blanket; the room was warm. I looked under the plate cover. The Scammies may have thought I was crazy, but they treated their prisoners well. The food looked and smelled as good as anything at the best restaurants in the Bazaar. I ate my supper, then spent the rest of the remaining daylight clutching the bars of my small window and watching the people go by. A few of them spotted me; with my Klahdish looks I had to be about as inconspicuous as a porcupine on a silk rug. They made faces or obscene gestures. With those flexible noses, obscene gestures took on new impact.

  The sun woke me just before another tray was shoved under my door. I sprang up and pounded on the heavy wood.

  "Hey!" I cried. "Let me out of here!"

  I heard no other sounds for a long time, until there was the scrape of a heavy bolt moving on the other side of the door. It creaked open, and Officer Koblinz came in. He pointed at my pendant.

  "That won't work in here," he spoke, haltingly, as he took his notebook out of his pocket, this time with a pencil, "but I speak Klahd. Let's hear your side of the story. Start at the beginning."

  "Well," I began, settling down on my blanketless bunk, "I was working on my magik studies when this Wuhs popped in…"

  In between meals I had nothing to do but peer out of the window. Shortly after lunch I saw Officer Koblinz and Gelli talking on the drawbridge that led from the prison. Gelli threw him a half-salute and marched down to street level. A female, probably Mrs. Gelli by the way their snouts reached out lovingly to touch one another, met him at the bottom. They started talking and walking along the river front. When they met another female, this one wearing a pair of the Pervect Ten's enchanted spectacles, they halted to speak with her. She listened with growing alarm, then took off her goggles and threw them away from her. They landed in the river, and sank in a circle of growing ripples. The Gellises passed on, and the now worried woman rushed over to talk to a cluster of young people with spectacles on. A few of them ignored her, but a couple must have listened, because they took the glasses off and looked at them closely. I cheered.

  "What do you mean, you don't want the shipment?" Pal-dine demanded in disbelief. Bofus, the shop owner, cringed behind his counter, his long nose pressed against his face for protection. "We have an exclusive contract! You were going to sell a thousand a week!"

  "Dear madam, I believed it! I was absolutely convinced you were right," Bofus protested, his back against the wall. He felt along the edge for the curtain that led to the back room, and probably a handy alley on the other side. Pal-dine wasn't going to let him escape that easily. She spread her hands out and spat out a chant that caused the cloth to stiffen harder than wood. Bofus prodded it with the tips of his fingers, then gave her a sickly smile.

  "If you don't want to get the same treatment," Paldine snarled, showing all her teeth, "you will take t
hese boxes and give me the money we agreed on. Then I will leave, and come back next week with your next order."

  "Please, madam, don't!" Bofus begged. "You don't understand! There won't be another order. I haven't sold out the ones you gave me. In fact, people have been bringing theirs back!" He plunged his hand under his counter and came up with a dozen pairs of Storyteller Goggles. Paldine glared at them, then realized some of them had been mangled.

  "What in hell's kitchen has been happening here?" Paldine said. "Didn't you sell them the way I told you? You had all the sales literature."

  "I did! I told them everything you told me. I let them try a pair—once anyone put them on I couldn't pry them off— I sold every single one you brought! But yesterday there was a riot. A prophet spoke, some said," Bofus explained.

  "A prophet? Not unless it's my profit," Paldine said, raising the shopkeeper by his tunic front. "And what did this prophet have to say?"

  "He s-s-says these aren't toys at all," Bofus stammered. "They're b-b-brainwashing tools."

  "What? You people haven't got enough brains to wash! What kind of stupid twit would come up with a notion like that? Who is he?"

  "I d-d-don't know! He's n-n-not from Scamaroni. He's f-f-from one of the sm-melly dimensions."

  Paldine raised an eyebrow. "That narrows it down to almost all of them. Any distinguishing features that I could use to identify this prophet?"

  "N-n-no. He walked like one of us f-f-for a while, until a policeman unmasked him. I… you demons all look alike to me. N-n-no offense."

  The Pervect tapped her teeth with a manicured fingernail. A magician from some other dimension, one capable of shapeshifting or illusion. Who would want to queer their deal on Scamaroni? Everybody took advantage of the Scammies, at least twice a year, so moral dudgeon had to be lacking on further outrages. The irony was that this time, the Pervect Ten were giving them actual value for their money, so the outrage was all hers. She bent to look at the damaged glasses. All that work, pissed away by ignorant peasants. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted Bofus wiggling his fingers in a spell to try and deossify the curtain.