Myth 13 - Myth Alliances by Asprin, Robert (ebook reader online free .txt) 📕

“Exciting, if I may use so bold a term,” Montgomery hesitated, glancing at us for permission.

“Okay by me. Where's Wensley?” I asked.

“Oh, we didn't know when you were coming back, good Masters and Mistresses, or they would have waited for you.”

“Waited for us for what?” I inquired curiously.

Montgomery's fat cheeks shone with emotion. “The revolution, Master Skeeve!”

'The what?"

"Wensley was so very impressed, sir, as were we all, at the way you went to save people in a dimension that you

didn't even know, and how you went back again at the risk of your own safety to save Master Zol Ñjust like that!Ñ when you saw that he was in trouble. Well, I have to say that we were ashamed. Wensley called a mass secret meet?ing, sir, and spoke as how we ought to take more of a hand in our own defense. He was very strong on the subject of non-​cooperation. Now that only two Perverts are still in the castle he thought that it was time we take action, sir! And so many people agreed with him! I agreed with him, but he pointed out that I had to wait for you ..."

“Action?” I interrupted him. “What kind of action?”

Montgomery drew himself up proudly. “Wensley says it behooves us to make an attempt to wrest the leadership of our people out of their claws, er, hands.”

“He's been fomenting a revolution?” Zol asked.

“Well... yes.”

“Good for you!” Zol exclaimed.

“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 re?torted. “We've got to go stop them.”

We gathered up Gleep and raced toward the castle, leav?ing 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 asper?ity, “but you persuaded me not to.”

“Heavens, you are right,” Zol replied, surprised. “This is all my fault. Wuhses are such followers normally. I un?derestimated him. He adapted to a positive example much more strongly than I thought he would. And he was be?having 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 re?bounded 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 re?minded 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 car?ried 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 win?dow 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 heav?ily 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 court?yard had vanished without a trace. The street was silent.

I groaned, overwhelmed with grief at the tragic and un?necessary loss of life.

'They're back."

Myth 13 - Myth Alliances

NINETEEN

“You say you want a revolution?”

N. LENIN

“That's