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

vously. “It would seem to me, though perhaps I am not see?ing the big picture, that your attentions have focused them?selves, 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, possi?bly 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 es?cape!” 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 mur?mured.

“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 run?ning 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.

As soon as we crossed the threshold I felt the chill sen?sation of the dampening spell. It didn't render me physi?cally cold, but it stripped away from me all connection with the natural energy lines, something I'd come to asso?ciate with heat. As Aahz had trained me to, I had filled up my inner reservoir with as much power as I could hold, though it would do me no good in here.

The false escape had thrown the building into chaos. Half-​dressed guards with veins showing in their protuber?ant brown eyes and their hair still mussed from sleep yanked on uniform tunics as they ran up and down the halls. No one seemed to know what he or she was doing. Following Tananda's lead, we flitted from shadow to shadow, ducking out of the sight of the hurrying guards. We made our way back to the cells.

Where I heard banging and yelling I knew I would not find our Kobold. I tiptoed to the first quiet door I could find and leaned close to the crack at the bottom.

“Zol?” I whispered.

“Who is that?” a voice bellowed from across the hall. The banging ceased for a moment. “Who's out there?”

I should have realized how keen Pervects' hearing was. “Zol, are you in there?” I repeated.

No answer. I heard a hiss, and looked up. Tananda was clinging to the keystone arch above the cell door. Bunny was perched on a rafter over her head. Tananda offered me a hand and helped me swing up just in time to avoid a pa?trol of three Scammies striding in, carrying lit torches.

“Prisoner check!” announced the lead guard, though he looked as though he'd rather face