Myth 13 - Myth Alliances Asprin, Robert (top 100 novels .TXT) 📖

the Pervect Ten had finished with their sorcery there was plenty of magik around. I could feel the pulses of minor spells, like the nutter of leaves in a forest. I pictured the lines of force in my mind. Here the lines deep within the earth were green. It wasn't very strong, but it was close. I drew as much of it up into myself as I could.

When working with magik you had to think in very posi?tive terms to keep control of forces that were greater than you. Lose your concentration while you were constructing a magikal framework, and the resulting backlash could tear you to pieces. Lose your focus while defusing a trap, and smack! You did your opponents' work for them. I summoned up the image of a huge pair of hands, and imagined them pushing at the blue force blanketing the door. It moved! The whole curtain shifted backwards about five paces.

“Hold it!” Tananda ordered. “Look behind you.”

I halted the progress of the hands, but kept them in place as I glanced around. The curtain shielding the far wall had also moved forward five paces. Very, very care?fully I pushed the spell back to where it started. In my mind I formed four big pairs of hands and pushed outward. This time the walls moved but the lid of the spell started to come down on us as its supports were moved further apart. I tried pushing in all the directions. I succeeded in stretch?ing the spell every which way but never finding a hole in it through which we could escape.

“I've never seen one that moved before,” Tananda mused, peering at the force field curiously. “That's really interesting. It dragged over the table but didn't burn any?thing. These are still intact.” She picked up a pair of gaudy-​framed spectacles that lay on the wooden top.

“That's what was in the box the Ten were putting a spell on,” I declared, excitedly. “It's a clue. We'll take them to Zol. He'll help us figure out what they are.”

“When we get out of here,” Tananda reminded me. “We can't wait here for them to come back, then ask them pretty please to remove their security spell because we got trapped in it.”

“Then we won't,” I stated, grimly.

“What? What are we supposed to do with a huge cage of burning blue fire?”

“We'll take it with us,” I explained. “It doesn't hurt inanimate objects. All we have to do is shrink it around us and walk out of here. As soon as they get back and notice it's gone, they'll dispell it and start over. We'll just have to make sure that neither we nor anyone else touches it until then.”

A slow grin curled the side of Tananda's mouth. “That's so ridiculous it's brilliant,” she nodded. “I'll help you. We have to hurry.”

I dismissed my invisible pairs of hands inside the room and reconstituted them outside. “All together now, push!”

The spell became very tall and narrow. I hoped when the top of the now rectangular shape vanished through the ceiling that it wouldn't hit any poor, innocent Wuhs work?ing on an upper floor. Tananda and I held onto one another as we shuffled in the center of the narrow square, walking out through the antechamber, into the hallway, past the de?fensive spells that Tananda disarmed then rearmed as we passed. To my relief we did not run into any of the Pervect Ten. Before we reached, the main entrance I put the dis?guise spell back on us, but if any of the Pervects had looked out the window, the tower of magik would attract their attention long before the little figures inside it did. To prevent any Wuhses from approaching us to pass the time

of day I created the illusion of a couple of wheelbarrows full of rotting offal.

“That looks so bad I can almost smell it,” Tananda grinned admiringly. “You really know your illusions, handsome.”

It took us some time to get back to the inn. We stood at the open door, reluctant to go inside lest the spell towering over us kill anyone in the upper storey.

“Zol,” I called, seeing the author sitting at a table chat?ting quietly to a couple of Wuhses. Bunny peered around the side of the booth and smiled with relief. Gleep, curled on the floor beside them, raised his head from the floor. His eyes widened with joy, and he sprang to his feet.

“Gleep!” he cried, charging over to greet me.

“No, Gleep!” I shouted. “Stop! Go back! Don't touch the...”

There was a blinding flash of light as he galloped through the spell's boundary. When my sight returned I dropped to my knees beside my poor, fallen pet. I cradled his head in my lap. He had probably been charred to death by the incin?eration spell. He ... he was still green. The mustache under his long nose was still white. And his eyes ...

“Gleep!” he exclaimed. His eyes flew open. He tilted his head back so he could lick my face with his long, forked tongue.

His eyes were still blue. He was all right! I hugged him, and he slurped my face again. I gagged. His breath was as stinky as Pervish cooking.

Zol and Bunny hurried over to us with Wensley scurry?ing nervously behind.

“What has happened?” the author asked.

“Don't come any closer!” I yelled.

“Yes,” Zol pondered, throwing out an arm to prevent Wensley from stepping right into the edge of the spell.