Myth Alliances

"Which still leaves them able to mop up the floor with us," Tananda pointed out. "They don't need their magik to tear us to pieces."

"Not if they can't reach us," I replied. "You see, if they can't use their talent, they can't dimension hop."

"Out of what?"

"Remember their fire protection spell? The one we took for a walk the first day we came to Wuh?"

Tananda made a noise. "Will I ever forget it? I like being around hot stuff, but that goes outside the definition."

"That's the one. We get them inside it, but we turn it inside out so they're trapped. If they can't use magik, they're not going anywhere. Then we have negotiating power."

"And how are we going to get them to wait politely in their chamber while we steal their powers and lock them inside their own security spell?"

I agreed with them. "For that, we're going to rely upon Wuhs power." Since the Wuhses were still under house arrest during all nonbusiness hours the only time they were able to attend a secret meeting was just after dawn and before they had to report for work in their shops and factories. Thirty or forty Wuhses crowded nervously into Montgomery's main room.

"We do not wish to be late, Master Skeeve," Gubbeen reminded me, watching through the window as the sun climbed with distressing rapidity up the eastern edge of the sky.

"Then I won't waste your time," I said. "I'm ready to fulfill the deal we made, but to succeed I am going to need your help."

"Us! W ... w ... well, you're the one Wensley hired," Ardrahan protested.

I raised an eyebrow. "How badly do you want these Pervects out of here?"

"Er," Gubbeen thought about the question for a moment, "a lot?" The others nodded their heads vigorously. That seemed to be the general consensus. They were willing to agree upon that concept.

"Enough to risk your life?" I inquired, pushing a little harder.

"Uh," Cashel gulped, "well, now that you mention it, not really. It hasn't been so bad with them here now, you know ... new things to do, new industry getting started ..."

I interrupted him. "Do you want to end up in a bottle like Wensley?"

"No!" the Wuhs protested. He began to back out, but there wasn't room in the crowded inn. "I mean, if it's not necessary, but they have their own opinions on how they want to deal with us, you know. Everybody has his or her own style, and who am I to condemn that, right?"

"Well, here's the good news," I told them. "I need your help, and it won't be fatal or painful at all. How about that?" The Wuhses looked surprised. I had begun with the worst possible scenario, and dropped the level of threat un- til it was under their threshold of panic. I did my best to keep from smiling as they discussed the matter between themselves, but I wasn't going to wait long for their answer. "Well?"

"I believe," Gubbeen began, "that the risk assessment is favorable to our continued comfort. All in favor of assisting Master Skeeve ... ?"

"Yah. Ya-a-aaah. Yaaaah," the others bleated in agreement.

"Opposed."

They all looked at one another. That was the biggest reason I had not approached each Wuhs privately. In public, they had to hang together, or face peer pressure to accede. I was right.

"Sheep," Tananda muttered.

I rubbed my hands together. "Good. Now, here's what I want you to do. One week from today ..."

I now had to undertake the most intense course of study in my life, more difficult even than when I was trying to learn Dragon Poker in a week. Montgomery lent me a small, unused root cellar as my study, since we didn't want an inkling of what I was doing to circulate. The Wuhses were terrified of the Pervects, but they loved to talk among themselves. A secret which they crossed their hearts and hoped to die before telling was open knowledge before the next round of drinks was on the table. I watched it happen over and over again. Therefore, Gubbeen and the others were on a need-to-know basis only, as far as the specific details of our upcoming attack were concerned.

It was easy for me to say I could break down the components of die anti-magik spell and figure out how it worked, but since it did dampen any magikal probe that I threw at it, it made it harder to figure out what made it tick. Zol offered me his assistance. "We can employ statistical analysis and field emissions to discover what sets it off," the Kobold stated, setting up his computer at the far end of the table. We discovered that inside a certain range the stone prevented either his notebook or Bytina from operating in this dimension. Bunny kept her little PDA at a protective distance from the sample.

"What puzzles me is what our source told Tananda," Zol reminded me. " 'It makes more of itself.' What can that mean?"

"I don't know." I peered at the rock more closely. I had had plenty of time to study the walls during my incarceration, but I had not seen the bricks reproducing. "Maybe we have to give it something to reproduce with."