Brucel stuck a hand into the box and came up with a marble.
"The All-Pervects have chosen orange!"
"Oooooh," breathed the audience.
Tolk planted one flat paw over his eyes and shoved the other into the lottery box. He handed the marble off to Schlein without looking at it.
"The Sorcerer's Apprentices have chosen purple!"
"Aaaaah," the audience responded.
"We'll be back in a moment, after this word from Duzzido, the detergent that can get any stain out of your finest clothing! Duzzido it? You bet it does!"
The stage went black for thirty very long seconds.
"Welcome our final two teams!" Schlein announced as the lights came up again. "First, the home team, those guys and
gals in green—the All-Pervects! Yes, here they are, Pervect in every way! Welcome your home team!"
The All-Pervects, whittled down to five members by the preceding rounds, stepped into the spotlight from the right. They had on fresh jumpsuits of pale green that contrasted well with their complexions, but did not conceal the bandages around a wrist here, an ear there. They looked grimly determined.
"And the challengers!"
"Booo!"
I glanced down. The audience was actually cheering and waving its arms, but the sound that reached me was disapproval. The Geek shrugged.
"People like to have bad guys and good guys, Aahz. It's nothing personal. If, and it's a big if, they make it to the final round, we'll reverse the audience reaction. You'll see."
"Welcome the Sorcerer's Apprentices!"
I could see that my students were unnerved by the catcalls and hoots from the audience, but they stepped up bravely. They wore jumpsuits like the All-Pervects, but in a rainbow of different colors, none of which was green.
"Can't tell the players without distinguishing marks," the Geek explained.
"Except for the fact that one team is nothing but Pervects."
"Well, there's three on the other team. That made it okay with 29% of the focus group we're running if the Sorcerer's Apprentices should possibly manage to pull off a win. Honestly, Aahz, it's not likely."
"Yeah," I said shortly. "I knew that."
"You won't do anything rash to me if something goes wrong, will you?"
I looked at Bunny. She shook her head.
"No. Of course not."
"Well, it's never 'of course' with you, Aahz," the Geek said. "I just want your assurance, that's all. Can I offer you a side bet on the outcome?"
"NO!"
I turned my back on him.
There were two paths marked on the floor that led in opposite directions, one purple and one orange. From my vantage point, and from the views provided by a dozen crystal balls arrayed about the Geek's bubble, I had a view of a roofless, hatbox-shaped building. The paths led to diametrically opposing points that each led into a maze which took up half of the hatbox. Each maze was beautifully designed, with marble statues and pillars, tinkling fountains and potted plants for decoration. In the center, where the mazes met, was a set of double doors. Before them rose a pedamented pillar on which sat an ornate golden key, of the hefty variety chatelaines used to rap the knuckles of lazy servants.
"That's the door to the Chamber of Success," Bunny explained. "The team that gets there first has to go through to win. There are traps and deadfalls in the maze, and the walls move around to confuse the teams."
I nodded. I was much more concerned with a sealed chamber the shape of a drum in the center of each maze. Fire and smoke issued from carved openings in the walls of the drum in the orange sector. Cascades of hot sparks flew out of the sealed room in the purple sector. Both concealed monsters were roaring and banging around inside their prisons. The very walls shook.
The teams entered the maze. I could follow all of the action easily, in one or more of the crystal balls in the Geek's floating office. The All-Pervects went into their half like an army infiltrating enemy territory. One of them went first while the others covered him from the entrance. As soon as he signaled that he was safe, the others followed one at a time.
"Hup! Hup, hup, hup!" they chanted.
So, they'd practiced before they came on the show, too. No team was as inexperienced as the oath of amateur status would lead one to believe. They were simply unpaid. I grinned to myself.
The point man trotted down the first corridor. He reached the corner and paused, waiting for his companions. When they had all reached his location, he set out again, only to disappear from sight.
"Ayieeeee!"
"Deadfall," the Geek said. "You warn them and warn them and warn them, and they still all fall into the first one. I just won a thousand gold pieces on that. Sucker bet."
The Pervect's friends hauled him out. They felt their way along more cautiously, refusing to trust the floor unless they tested it first.
The Geek's engineers had a surprise around the next corner for those who used a toe instead of magik to try out the floor. A female Pervect, in her first turn on point, prodded a tile with a cautious foot. She looked up at the sudden whistling noise above her head. A gigantic weight flattened her to the ground. The others yanked her out from underneath it and propped her up against the wall. She looked winded and bruised. The team leader spoke to her in a low voice. She waved them away. They hup-hup-hupped onward.
I turned my attention to my students. They, too, had approached the maze with caution. Pologne, the research expert, was talking, probably giving them statistics on which way to turn at each crossroads. Bee kept track of the direction they were going, navigating by the stars overhead. Melvine was at the head of the group. The deadfall took him by surprise, but his reactions were quicker than the Pervect's had been. He only dropped a foot before he caught himself and hovered over the empty square.
"Nyah, nyah, nyah," he shouted, thumbing his nose at the sky. "Is that the best you can do?"
"Boy, that kid has attitude," the Geek said, looking pleased. "The crystals caught that. Great stuff!"
"Not that way," Bunny shrieked as the team turned right. That path led through a narrow gap in shrubbery to a dead
end. As the students turned back, the plants reached out thorny tendrils to grab them.
"And the Sorcerer's Apprentices have found the Throtde Vines," Schlein announced. "Will they choke, or will they get past them?"
I was distracted at that moment by a loud roar. The All-Pervects had reached the big chamber in the middle of their maze where the monster waited. The huge container rocked wildly.
Bang!
The top flew off, and a twenty-foot-long red dragon crawled out of the box, hissing and tossing its head. It spotted the Pervects, and issued a stream of fire. The Pervects backed up into the nearest niche to confer. I saw them pretending to pound something, or throttling imaginary necks as they ran over their options.
A cloud of leaves blew upward from the left half of the building. My students jogged out of the dead end, unwinding pieces of vine from their limbs. They had escaped from the Throttle Vines, and were just a few paces behind their opponents in reaching the monster's chamber in their own maze. As soon as one of them set foot in the room, lightning began to shoot out through the container's walls, smashing the urns and statuary arrayed about the walls of the small enclosure. Melvine and Pologne flew upward. The rest retreated around the nearest wall.
"Make that louder," I said, pointing at the image. "I want to hear what they're saying!"
"Is that a weather elemental?" Pologne asked Melvine as they lit down near the others.
"How should I know?" he asked. "Do you want me to go and knock on the door?"
"That sounds like a really good idea," the Pervect snarled back. "There are only a thousand dimensions inhabited by lightning-spitters. Think you can get home town and date of birth, too?"