"But I liked it! Can't I just have it for a while?"
"Oh, you must wean yourselves away from it. You should be as you were before, true to yourself!" "How?" a male demanded hoarsely. "How can we do that? How can we do without them?"
"Help us!" a female pleaded, clutching my arm. "I don't want to give it up!"
"You need to be strong!" the little gray man shouted, his thin voice almost swallowed by the woe of those around him. "Believe in yourselves! That is all you need to do! Rely upon one another!"
"He knows what he's talking about," I told the Scammies who lifted tear-stained faces to me. "That's Zol Icty, the self-help expert."
"Zol Icty!"
Desperate for any kind of comfort now that the Pervects' false vision had been taken away from them the crowd swelled in upon us. People shoved in close to me, shouting questions. They were so distraught they were crushing me. I used magik to open up a little space, but there were so many people I was hurting the ones nearest me. Bunny let out a yelp of distress. Hastily I grabbed her around the waist and swung her up onto the span of the bridge, then jumped up beside her.
"Advise us, wise strangers!" a Scammie pleaded, reaching for us.
The protest had attracted the attention of the people in the courthouse. Police officers came boiling out of the entrance. Officer Gelli spotted me and pointed.
"The wizard! After him!"
In my haste to get out of the crowd, I had accidentally placed myself in plain view. I pulled the D-hopper out of my boot and set it for Wuh.
"Tananda! Zol!" I cried. They glanced up. I pointed at the dozens of policemen racing towards us.
Down in the midst of the crowd I saw Tananda starting her bump-and-grind transportation charm. Zol, in the thick of everything, seemed perfectly calm. He tipped me a wink. Reassured, I pressed the stud.
The coolness of Wuh's pale-gray skies rushed in on me like a welcome splash of water. I gasped for air and let go of Bunny's hand. We were safe and sound in Montgomery's tavern. Tananda appeared next to us and brushed back her magnificent hair with both hands.
"That was just a little too cozy," Tananda articulated, shaking her shoulders, a movement that hypnotized me on the spot. "I prefer to be introduced before I get that close."
"You are back!" Wensley cheered, rising from the table in the corner. "You are saved from Durance Vile! I rejoice!"
Gleep, too, noticed our return. He sprang up and came hurtling toward me like a cannonball. After the delicious smells on Scamaroni, his stench hit me before he did. I went down on my back with him slurping my face. I gagged, but I was pleased, too. The Wuhses might have been spoiling him, but he missed me.
"That was a close call," I stated, climbing back on my feet. I wiped the slime off my face with my sleeve.
Gleep looked sad that I was disposing of his token of affection. I grabbed his head and scratched energetically around his ears. He slitted his eyes and let his body fall sideways to the floor in bliss.
"But where is Master Zol?" Wensley inquired.
SEVENTEEN
"The only thing dumber than sticking your head
in the lion's mouth is doing it twice."
—c. bailey
"Uh-oh," I groaned. I looked around. The Kobold did not reappear. We waited. And waited. "Uh-oh."
"Perhaps he went home," Bunny suggested. "We didn't clarify where we should meet."
Another long pause, during which we just couldn't seem to talk about anything.
"He must have gotten arrested," Tananda said at last.
"Uh-oh," I reiterated. I got to my feet. "All right. We'll have to go back for him."
"You can't," Tananda reminded me.
"I can if I wear a disguise and stay away from their magik dispellers," I pointed out. "We have to go get him. No one knows he broke any of those mindbending goggles. They only saw me. He's part of our company. You wouldn't leave me in jail; I can't abandon him."
"Bravo," Tananda applauded, patting her hands together softly. Bunny regarded me with affection.
"But what about the Perverts?" Wensley babbled, ner- vously. "It would seem to me, though perhaps I am not seeing the big picture, that your attentions have focused themselves, probably with justification, upon a different situation. Not that Master Zol has not been a great help, but we still suffer from the effects of that government not of our own choosing."
"You don't have to worry about most of the Pervect Ten," I replied confidently. "Eight of them were arrested by the Scammies!"
"What?" Tananda and Bunny chorused.
I explained what had happened when they had gone on ahead of me. "... And it sounded like they are all going to be stuck in jail on Scamaroni for a long time. A magik-proof jail. I'm not saying it'll be easy to pry out the other two, but once they know eight of their number are doing time in another dimension, I don't see them staying around long. And even if they stay, they can hardly thwart the wishes of a whole nation. You can run rings around them."
"Oh, Master Skeeve!" Wensley gushed. "You ... you are the most average wizard I have ever met!"
I frowned.
"That's a compliment," Bunny reminded me gently.
"I know," I sighed. "It just doesn't sound like one."
Magik-proof the Scamaroni jail and courthouse might be; damage resistant they were less so. Tananda and I had planned to sneak back by ourselves and liberate Zol, possibly enlisting the help of the guard she had, er, bribed, but Bunny insisted on going along.
We hid underneath the drawbridge until the foot traffic in the street thinned out in the wee hours of the morning. The guards on duty marched just above us. I was waiting for them to sit down so they wouldn't fall when we hit them with the Assassin sleeping spell that Tananda knew.
But they never settled down anywhere. I wouldn't have, either, if I had had to listen to the banging and pounding that was coming from inside the station. Loud shrieks rang out, only lightly muffled by the twelve-foot thick stone walls.
"The Pervects aren't taking incarceration calmly, are they?" Bunny whispered to me.
Wham! The wall just overhead shook, as if a dragon had slammed into it. Male voices joined in the cacophony.
"Shut up or we'll chain you up!" a guard yelled.
"You and what army?" shrilled a female voice.
"Police brutality!" bellowed another.
"Let us out, or we'll let ourselves out!"
"Never! The Volute Jail has never had a successful escape!" a male announced proudly, but the sentence ended in a hesitation. After all, had I not departed unexpectedly only that day?
The footsteps overhead became more agitated by the moment.
"We're never going to get rid of them," Tananda murmured.
"Sure we will," I assured. "They're afraid of a jailbreak. We'll give them one."
From my long, slow promenade that afternoon I knew every inch of that drawbridge. It was no trouble at all to create the illusion of two heavily armed female Pervects dropping to the stone path from above the door, then running down the bridge toward the town.
The effect on the sentries was electric.
"They're getting away!" one yelled. "Raise the alarm! Two of the Perverts got out!" Sprinting footsteps pattered away into the distance, along with the faint yellow light of the glowing torches they'd grabbed off the wall sconces.
"What? What?" came from inside. But the two guards were-already in pursuit of my illusion. I listened carefully. The sentries' alarm had spread. Within moments, a troop of guards and police officers raced out and down into the street, following their fellow guards' lights. Tananda grinned at me as she swung a hook over the side of the bridge. I levitated, pulling Bunny with me by her wrists. I lowered her lightly until her toes touched down, then swung in as far as I could into the darkened doorway. We all alit without noise, and tiptoed in.