Myth Alliances

by Robert Asprin

  Outside it was broad daylight. Tananda, Zol and I had slept into the late morning. Bunny woke me once about dawn. I started up at the sight of the dark circles under her lovely eyes, but she signaled me to lie down. "I got them to agree to fifteen hundred gold pieces, but Wensley had to let them take their turns with the D-hopper," she said, wearily. "I could have gotten more if you had let me negotiate before you said you'd take the job, but as you have pointed out ad nauseam, we really don't need the money. I'm going to bed. Please don't wake me for breakfast."

  When we left for the castle about noon, I had left Gleep guarding Bunny's door, to make sure no one bothered her. I asked him to make sure, even if we didn't come back, he would keep her safe. He promised, and laid his head on my foot with worry in his big blue eyes. Zol also remained behind at the inn, getting more information from our hosts, who also looked somewhat worn out… but whether from the all-night speeches or negotiations with Bunny I wasn't sure. Tananda and I had assumed the images of a couple of Wuhs housekeepers, trudging along in line with the others to begin their cleaning shift.

  Once inside the real Wuhses went to work, while Tananda and I dropped the disguises and crept off in the direction of the Pervect Ten's wing of the castle.

  I had to admit I couldn't see much evidence of the endless greed Wensley and the others had told us about—I mean, more than usual. Aahz, my best example for how Pervects behaved, had always felt there were two kinds of wealth in the world: his, and that which wasn't his yet. Still, Tananda and I poked through the ten suites the Pervects had claimed for their own. The furnishings belonged to the castle. Little of the clothing in the presses seemed to have been made on Wuh: the Pervect Ten hadn't gone in much for the handmade fabrics and modest styles that were prevalent in this dimension. Far from it; a few of the outfits we found even made Tananda whistle in disbelief. And every room was relentlessly clean. The possessions that the Ten were supposed to have confiscated weren't among their personal goods.

  I found the dining room by smell. The aroma of Pervish cooking reminds passersby of a stableyard compost heap, only slightly more likely to linger in the nostrils. I could never stand watching Aahz or Pookie eat their hometown grub. I had been hungry in my day, but I could never picture a situation so desperate I wouldn't rather risk starvation than eat Pervish food. Our eyes watered painfully at the stench, but we went in, anyhow.

  A forlorn Wuhs in a white tunic and hat stood by a gigantic cauldron. In one hand he had a huge spoon for stirring, and in the other a hammer. He wore protective goggles and nose clamps. He hadn't noticed us; he was too deep in his own misery to pay attention to anything but his job. A pseudopod of purple goo rolled over the lip of the cauldron and started to crawl towards him. He brought the hammer down. Clang! The tentacle-like blob stiffened, then slid back into the pot. Tananda and I had backed carefully out of the room.

  Forcing my thoughts to return to the present, I rolled off the heap of cushions and got down on all fours to follow Tananda to the giant wooden doors that led into the room the Wuhses said was the Pervect Ten's headquarters. No Wuhs was ever allowed in there even to clean. A line of blinding light leaked from beneath the portal, lighting our hands and feet. I heard voices inside, but they sounded far away. I leaned down to try and see under.

  "It's ajar," Tananda whispered. She pointed to the crack between the doors, which showed an irregular angle of light. I nodded resolutely. We could try to slide in. If the Ten noticed the movement we would have to roll into the shadows and hope they thought it was just an ill-fitting old door creaking open by itself. After all the deterrents they'd set in the hall, they had to believe no one could reach them in this last room. I slipped my fingertips along the smooth stone floor and started to pull. To my relief the hinges rolled back silently, no eldritch screech of rusty iron announcing us.

  Almost on toetips and fingertips, I crept into the room. I wished I could have the power of illusion at that moment, because I faced the most terrifying thing I had ever seen: ten Pervect women, their long teeth gleaming as they chanted something in unison. Since Aahz had lost his powers even before I met him I'd seen very little Pervect magik, but even I could tell this was something extraordinary. The Ten were working a vast, powerful enchantment right before my eyes. The room was full of golden light that I could feel burning all the way through my body. I cowered in the shadows at the base of the wall. In the reflected brilliance I could see Tananda's eyes wide with amazement.

  "… And they all lived happily ever after!"

  The web of golden light gathered itself up, tied a knot in the top as if it was a sack of potatoes, squeezed down into a mass the size of a bucket, and dropped into a box on the table. The lid slammed shut. I felt a rush, not a physical sensation but a magikal one, as they released their hold on local sources of power. They'd been draining two entire lines of force. By themselves!

  "That's it," a petite Pervect announced in clipped syllables, releasing the hands of the two females on either side of her. She dusted her palms together. "We're finished."

  "Vonderful," gushed a plumpish one in a flowered dress. "This is all we need. It vill be so easy, bubchen!"

  I heard a gasp from Tananda beside me. Pervects have far keener hearing than Klahds or even Trollops. All twenty green ears swiveled in our direction.

  "What was that?" asked a young female in a leather miniskirt. She started toward the door. I realized we no longer had the shadows to conceal us. Hastily, I formed the image in my mind of sections of wall and wainscoting, and pulled the illusion over Tananda and me. The female came close, peering around the door. I held my breath, praying she couldn't hear my heart pounding.

  "Don't worry," the older one reassured her. "We have those Wuhses so scared they'd wet their pants even thinking of coming in here."

  The younger one shut the door firmly. "I don't want them seeing what we're doing, that's all."

  "How could they? Come back here and listen to Oshleen’s plan."

  Oshleen! I knew that name. But from where?

  A tall, slender female in military uniform strode past the older Pervect. I peered at her. She looked familiar. Where had I seen her? Maybe when Aahz and I visited Perv? She smacked a riding crop into her palm, then pointed it up at the wall.

  "Caitlin?"

  The smallest Pervect I'd ever seen jumped up on a chair and poked at some buttons on a board. A huge map appeared on the wall. I didn't recognize the country. It wasn't Wuh, or Klah, or Deva, or any of the other dimensions where I'd been, but there was an infinity out there.

  "Now, here's my plan," Oshleen proclaimed, indicating a city on the map. "Taking over only a portion of our factory output we can still cover the initial point of insertion. We can start pushing into this territory here, here and here." As she swung the crop, tiny red arrows appeared over the places she pointed to. "Expansion should be easy. They will fall to their knees before us. How could they resist? With our charm and business acumen, there's no way they can withstand us. It'll be a walkover."

  "Yes," agreed Vergetta, holding up an object. My eyes were still dazzled from the spell light. Was it a pair of spectacles?

  "They'll be ours, all ours," gloated the Pervect in the mini-skirt. "Their eyes, their minds, will belong to us."

  I was horrified. The Ten went on talking over my head, but all I could think was that Wensley and the others were right! The Pervects were trying to take over other dimensions. They had some sort of evil device they planned to use to brainwash them.

  "Well!" the older female breathed, clapping her hands. "That took a lot out of me, I gotta tell you. Lunch has got to be ready, already."

  "I'm hungry!" the little one announced. "Let's eat."

  A stylish Pervect in a skirt and jacket snapped her fingers, and the box on the table leaped into the air. "I'm off to start gathering converts," she explained. "I'll report back as soon as I have them." She and the box vanished.

  The remaining nine Pervects marched past us. The last one,
the strong one in the short skirt, stopped to look around the room before she slammed the door. A blast of white light filled the room. I felt, rather than heard a hum. As soon as I was sure they were gone, I got to my feet and let the wall disguise slip. Tananda was already standing beside me, a grim expression on her face.

  "What's the matter?" I asked.

  "I've met two of them before," she mused.

  "Are you sure?" I asked.

  "Could you miss that flower-print dress?" Tananda demanded. "They were trying to take over a part of the Bazaar a couple of months ago."

  "What?"

  "Running a protection scheme. Don Bruce sent Guido to ask me and Chumley to get rid of them. It wasn't easy. They were starting small, but as you can see, they had bigger plans. They've taken over Wuh, and now they're going for another dimension."

  "Ten Pervects," I shuddered.

  "Ten wouldn't be enough to take over the Bazaar. Deveels are used to dealing with Pervects. But an unsuspecting dimension, unaccustomed to magik…"

  I slammed my fist into my other palm. "We've got to prevent it."

  "How?" Tananda asked. "We don't know where they went."

  I started for the door. "Let's ask Zol. I bet he could help us figure it out."

  "Hold it!" Tananda ordered, just before I touched the knob. "Look!"

  To the naked eye, the door seemed like what it was: a door. But I knew what she meant. Letting my eyes go half-shut, I looked for magik. The blue glow was so intense I had to clap my eyelids shut.

  "What is it?" I asked, rubbing my eyes.

  "An incineration spell," Tananda replied. "We're locked in."

  Chapter Nine

  "I'll be out in a second!"

  ...HOUDINI

  "Can't we just pop out?" I asked, squinting at the wall. Now that I had stopped to look, the door, the walls, the ceiling, and even the windows were covered by a flickering blue haze. I backed into the center of the room, as far from the perimeter as I could get. "One of them did. The others just walked out."

  "They know what spell they set," Tananda pointed out. "We don't. We might manage to transport ourselves and still get fried."

  "What can we do?" I asked, trying not to sound as panicky as I felt.

  Tananda looked at the magik field thoughtfully. "Polarity," she stated at last. "It's supposed to keep people out, but not necessarily in. We could try to push it outward."

  "Okay," I agreed, slowly. I had pried open a few magik traps in the past. I wished Aahz had been there to offer his advice, but it would probably be along the lines of "you know what you're doing, kid, do it!" Which was no help at all, under the circumstances. If I knew Pervects they wouldn't linger over their food. They could be back any minute.

  I rubbed my hands together as I stared at the blue fire. But what was I waiting for? I had to find a way out.

  Now that the Pervect Ten had finished with their sorcery there was plenty of magik around. I could feel the pulses of minor spells, like the flutter of leaves in a forest. I pictured the lines of force in my mind. Here the lines deep within the earth were green. It wasn't very strong, but it was close. I drew as much of it up into myself as I could.

  When working with magik you had to think in very positive terms to keep control of forces that were greater than you. Lose your concentration while you were constructing a magikal framework, and the resulting backlash could tear you to pieces. Lose your focus while defusing a trap, and smack! You did your opponents' work for them. I summoned up the image of a huge pair of hands, and imagined them pushing at the blue force blanketing the door. It moved! The whole curtain shifted backwards about five paces.

  "Hold it!" Tananda ordered. "Look behind you."

  I halted the progress of the hands, but kept them in place as I glanced around. The curtain shielding the far wall had also moved forward five paces. Very, very carefully I pushed the spell back to where it started. In my mind I formed four big pairs of hands and pushed outward. This time the walls moved but the lid of the spell started to come down on us as its supports were moved further apart. I tried pushing in all the directions. I succeeded in stretching the spell every which way but never finding a hole in it through which we could escape.

  "I've never seen one that moved before," Tananda mused, peering at the force field curiously. "That's really interesting. It dragged over the table but didn't burn anything. These are still intact." She picked up a pair of gaudy-framed spectacles that lay on the wooden top.

  "That's what was in the box the Ten were putting a spell on," I declared, excitedly. "It's a clue. We'll take them to Zol. He'll help us figure out what they are."

  "When we get out of here," Tananda reminded me. "We can't wait here for them to come back, then ask them pretty please to remove their security spell because we got trapped in it."

  "Then we won't," I stated, grimly.

  "What? What are we supposed to do with a huge cage of burning blue fire?"

  "We'll take it with us," I explained. "It doesn't hurt inanimate objects. All we have to do is shrink it around us and walk out of here. As soon as they get back and notice it's gone, they'll dispell it and start over. We'll just have to make sure that neither we nor anyone else touches it until then."

  A slow grin curled the side of Tananda's mouth. "That's so ridiculous it's brilliant," she nodded. "I'll help you. We have to hurry."

  I dismissed my invisible pairs of hands inside the room and reconstituted them outside. "All together now, push!"

  The spell became very tall and narrow. I hoped when the top of the now rectangular shape vanished through the ceiling that it wouldn't hit any poor, innocent Wuhs working on an upper floor. Tananda and I held onto one another as we shuffled in the center of the narrow square, walking out through the antechamber, into the hallway, past the defensive spells that Tananda disarmed then rearmed as we passed. To my relief we did not run into any of the Pervect Ten. Before we reached, the main entrance I put the disguise spell back on us, but if any of the Pervects had looked out the window, the tower of magik would attract their attention long before the little figures inside it did. To prevent any Wuhses from approaching us to pass the time of day I created the illusion of a couple of wheelbarrows full of rotting offal.

  "That looks so bad I can almost smell it," Tananda grinned admiringly. "You really know your illusions, handsome."

  It took us some time to get back to the inn. We stood at the open door, reluctant to go inside lest the spell towering over us kill anyone in the upper storey.

  "Zol," I called, seeing the author sitting at a table chatting quietly to a couple of Wuhses. Bunny peered around the side of the booth and smiled with relief. Gleep, curled on the floor beside them, raised his head from the floor. His eyes widened with joy, and he sprang to his feet.

  "Gleep!" he cried, charging over to greet me.

  "No, Gleep!" I shouted. "Stop! Go back! Don't touch the…"

  There was a blinding flash of light as he galloped through the spell's boundary. When my sight returned I dropped to my knees beside my poor, fallen pet. I cradled his head in my lap. He had probably been charred to death by the incineration spell. He… he was still green. The mustache under his long nose was still white. And his eyes…

  "Gleep!" he exclaimed. His eyes flew open. He tilted his head back so he could lick my face with his long, forked tongue.

  His eyes were still blue. He was all right! I hugged him, and he slurped my face again. I gagged. His breath was as stinky as Pervish cooking.

  Zol and Bunny hurried over to us with Wensley scurrying nervously behind.

  "What has happened?" the author asked.

  "Don't come any closer!" I yelled.

  "Yes," Zol pondered, throwing out an arm to prevent Wensley from stepping right into the edge of the spell. "I see it now. My goodness, where did you find that?"

  Now that we were safely around the corner of the inn facing away from the castle, I plunged the bulk of the spell

  down into the
earth. Tananda and I sat down, and I told the others what we had seen. "And once they let go of the power all of these active spells began working again, including this one. Now we can't get out until the Ten turn it off and take it home."

  "Yes, you can," Zol agreed, peering at it closely. "Mistress Tananda was right about the way the spell is constructed. It is a case of polarity. You were inside when it resumed operating, and the Pervect Ten left the room. If you had gone with them, you wouldn't have felt a thing. If you examine the individual tongues of flame that make up the walls, you would see that they have a blunt end and a pointed end. The pointed end is the dangerous one. When you arrived back just now, they were pointing in. This kind of spell works like a door on a two-way hinge. First it swings out, then it swings in."

  "Oh!" I exclaimed, as enlightenment dawned. "And Gleep swung it in. So the points are facing away from us?"

  "That's right! So now all of you can come out."

  Very nervously, Tananda and I rose to our feet. I bent down and looked Gleep in the eye.

  "You jump out at the same time we do," I ordered, sternly.

  "Gleep," he stated blandly, but I noticed his eyebrow ridges rise. He understood me. I wrapped my arm around his neck.

  "One, two, THREE!"

  We bounded out. Another brilliant flash of light blinded us for a moment. I could feel my hair crackle on my head, but no blaze of fire tried to consume me. When we let go of one another I patted myself down to make sure nothing was burning. Gleep's long neck snaked all around me as he looked to make sure I was all right. Tananda brushed her hair back, and pulled her tunic down so her decolletage returned to its normal buoyancy.