"WATT A MOMENT!" I shouted. "Just exactly what kind of action does Wensley have in mind?"
"Why, they're going to go in there, and throw out those two Perverts," Montgomery explained, as if surprised that I didn't understand. "Should be easy as pie, now that there's only two of them."
My tongue went dry, and I realized that my mouth was hanging open. "Where are they?" I demanded.
Montgomery peered at the timepiece on the mantel. "Oh, I suppose they'd be up at the castle about now."
"No! They'll be killed!" Bunny gasped.
"But there's only two of them, against thousands of us," Montgomery replied, hurt.
"That's like saying there's only two tornadoes," I retorted. "We've got to go stop them."
We gathered up Gleep and raced toward the castle, leaving our puzzled host behind us. As soon as we were out of the door I took to the air. Flying is controlled levitation, pushing against solid objects with my mind to move me along. I lifted Bunny and carried her along with me. Zol and Tananda took to the air under their own power. Gleep dashed ahead. We had no time to waste.
"Perhaps we should have taken Wensley with us to Scamaroni," Zol mused, as we flew. "We could have advised him on the sensibility of confronting Pervects directly."
"I wanted to take him," I pointed out with some asperity, "but you persuaded me not to."
"Heavens, you are right," Zol replied, surprised. "This is all my fault. Wuhses are such followers normally. I underestimated him. He adapted to a positive example much more strongly than I thought he would. And he was behaving in such a threatened fashion that I feared it would do him more harm to be thrust into a new situation. I did not take into account the effect new stimuli might have on him when he was left behind in a venue he considered to be safe. You are a catalyst, Master Skeeve. You're making a leader out of him. He has gathered followers of his own." t
"And now he's leading them into a bloodbath," I growled.
"But the threat is limited," Zol pointed out, as Gleep rebounded off the corner of a candy shop to turn into the main street.
My mind more on what I might find ahead than what I was doing, I narrowly missed the edge of the same building.
"It is possible for a group of that size to overpower a pair of Pervects. It is not as though they were at their full strength." Zol insisted.
"But they don't know what they're doing," Tananda reminded him, grimly. "I don't think even Wensley has a real plan."
"Then we must persuade them to retreat and reconsider their actions!"
"We have to get them out of there before they get hurt," I declared.
We rounded the last corner until we could at last see the castle. As Montgomery had predicted, thousands of Wuhses were marching through the unguarded gate. Some carried flaming torches. They were all shouting.
"Baaa-aaad Pervects! Baaa-aaad Pervects! Go home! Go home! Go home!"
A green face with bat-wing ears appeared in the window of the Pervect Ten's headquarters. A shower of rocks came flying up from the crowd and spattered against the castle wall. The face withdrew hastily. I thought I saw Wuhses in the room behind her.
Suddenly, I felt as though someone had yanked my stomach and dragged it down through my toes. I fell heavily to the ground. Bunny dropped on top of me.
"Skeeve!" she squealed.
"I didn't do it," I protested. "The magik is gone!"
A great disturbance was brewing in the energy lines above and beneath me, draining them of power. I had felt this sensation before, but I didn't want to believe that it could possibly be what it was: the Pervect Ten pooling their strength, drawing on an incredibly deep well of magik.
There was a huge flash of light. When it cleared, the thousands of Wuhses marching and chanting in the courtyard had vanished without a trace. The street was silent.
I groaned, overwhelmed with grief at the tragic and unnecessary loss of life.
'They're back."
NINETEEN
"You say you want a revolution?"
N. LENIN
"That's it!" Vergetta howled, dropping the hands of the two Pervects on either side of her. "I can't stand it any longer! I did not need this on top of just getting out of jail. Everyone's grounded. No exceptions!"
"What the hell brought that on?" Niki wondered, taking a quick glance out of the window. The spell had worked. The street was empty of life.
"You're the ones who let the place go to hell while we were gone," Paldine accused her. "Why don't you tell us."
Niki gawked at her. "We let it go to hell? Did it really take all eight of you to find out that you'd laid an egg in that other dimension? A few of you could have stayed here and helped keep order. But no-o-ooo. You left two of us—two of us—having to play hall monitor for an entire country, and now look what we had to do!"
"Those intruders must have been watching us," Tenobia grunted. "Look how they knew to come in with us to avoid being toasted by the barrier spell. They've been planning this for a while."
Loorna kicked a pile of papers that had been cast to the floor by the invaders. "This place is a mess! It doesn't look like they have dusted in here in days."
"Well, sure," Niki snarled defensively, "I could have been cleaning up in here, if I didn't have to oversee the distribution of merchandise in the morning, monitor factory operations all day, and still have time to work on special projects. That's why we have all those janitors!"
"Did it ever occur to you you're complaining about the color of the dragon's nail polish just before the paw comes down and smashes your worthless carcass into a grease stain? Those janitors just facilitated an attempted palace coup," Tenobia reminded them.
"That's right, girls," Nedira soothed, trying to make peace. "We have bigger problems than dusty bookshelves."
'This is totally lame," Caitlin snorted, sitting down at her computer and tapping in the data off the sheet Oshleen handed her. "I mean, you didn't make a single gold piece on the whole Scamaroni enterprise. You lost all of our investment!"
"Give your elders more respect, dear," Nedira corrected her. "We were up against unfair opposition."
"Yes, the Klahdish wizard," Vergetta grumbled. 'The one who really escaped."
"Did anyone get his name?" Tenobia asked. Oshleen reached down into her cleavage and pulled out a sheaf of papers.
"I always knew you stuffed. What's that?"
"The court docket," the accountant replied, with a haughty stare. "They wouldn't let Paldine see it. We'll send it back when we're through with it."
"I can't read this merde," Loorna sneered. "It's in Scammie."
"Ugh," Oshleen groaned. "I knew we should have bribed the bailiff. He could have read it to us." Caitlin waved an imperious hand. "Give it to me. I'll run it through the translator." The smallest Pervect spread the papers out in front of her screen and typed in a command. The computer started humming. In a moment a huge rectangle projected itself upon the wall. "There."
"Smee, Smee," Niki mused, running down the names that appeared in the document during the target dates. "There's a Glee here, a Skeeve, and a Paneer."
"Cheesy," smirked Tenobia.
"Save the cheap jokes. So, which one is our wizard?"
"We heard of a Skeeve when we were on Deva," Vergetta offered. "But we heard he's retired. What would he be doing on Scamaroni?"
"No idea," Loorna rejoined. "What the hell, we're out of there now. We'll just have to pick up where we left off, pay our suppliers and start over." Niki snorted. "What?"
"You have no idea what's been going on since you left," the scientist growled.
"I notice that this place is a mess," Charilor taunted.
"Eat a bomb. We can't pay our suppliers. While you were out the stupid sheep have been in and out of this place every damned day, sneaking out money and goods. They've been on a buying spree that you would not believe."