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

that fact up. “He definitely had ... has a purpose for us,” I said, hastily correcting myself. I had to stop talking; my concern for the missing Wensley was making my tongue trip over itself, and it really didn't need the help. “We're trying to live up to his expectations.”

Gouda smiled. “He's such an intelligent boy, so curious, though I probably shouldn't brag about him to you ... but would you care to see some pictures of him as a child?”

“He's still not here,” Wensley's wife informed us, when we called upon her on our return to the capital. She regarded us with wide-​eyed fear and hope, the latter of which I hoped we could justify by discovering his whereabouts and restoring him to his family.

“He'd surely be returned nightly, if he was still around,” Montgomery told us, as he escorted us upstairs to our rooms. “We're all still having to have our secret meetings in the daytime. Once the sun sets, bang! It's cutting some?thing fierce into my trade. But on the other hand, my lunch business is going very well,” he added, talking loudly to the air.

“Are you being spied upon?” I inquired.

“Never be too careful,” the innkeeper replied. “The Pervects seem to be here, there and everywhere these days.”

We joined one of the secret lunchtime meetings, held with great ceremony in the back room of a tavern owned by a Wuhs named Crozier not far from the central factory. The situation had clearly worsened. Everyone was going a little stir crazy at having been under house arrest for a week. The Pervects had succeeded in intimidating them into compliance with every whim, no matter how trivial. Not that the Wuhses need much intimidating, mind you.

“We're all going to work,” Gubbeen admitted to us over a mug of beer, “but we're not enjoying it. That's putting things strongly, I know, but it isn't only my opin?ion. I wouldn't say such a thing myself, not unless I was assured of wide support from my friends and co-​workers, that is.”

“The Pervects have to go,” I declared, causing most of my listeners to dive underneath the table, and emerge only when it became apparent that the ceiling wasn't going to fall in on them. “But the problem is that there's no easy vulnerability that we can exploit to get them to leave. We still have to find where they're weak, and push on it.”

“But they are not weak!” Ardrahan, the female commit-

teefriend exclaimed, and confided to the ceiling, “They are all powerful and strong!”

“More Wuhses than ever are being taken in for extended personal conversations,” Gubbeen whispered. The Wuhses who worked as janitors nodded their heads vigorously, but were afraid to say anything aloud. They had been sitting and listening to us with their mouths clamped tightly shut except to eat.

“Where are they being held?”

“In the, er, basement apartments,” Ardrahan stammered, with a glance at the silent cleaning staff for corroboration.

“Is Wensley down there, too?”

“He is not... there, good Master Magician,” said one of the janitors, a female with silver scattered through her black curls. “The only ones that we are, er, hosting, are those whom our visitors wish to speak to under conditions where they ... aren't interrupted.”

“I know about the interrogation chambers,” I burst in, making them dive underneath the table again at my direct phrasing. “Is there anywhere else in the building where he could be?”

“We are fairly certain that we ought to be able to state with some degree of certainty ...” one of them began.

“YES OR NO?”

“Uh, er, no.” They looked taken aback that I forced them to provide a one word statement. I tried to remember that Wuhses were generally nice people, and that the frus?tration I was feeling was my own.

“And he's not in anyone else's home? Then he must be in a public building. Like, one of the factories, for example.”

“I don't see how any of the missing Wuhses could pos?sibly be concealed in the factories, Master Skeeve,” Gubbeen protested. “Our workers clean every facility every day. The Perverts see to that.” Here he gave me a hard look.

“It's not my fault they managed to come back,” I re?torted. "I know how disappointed you are but I did my best

to make sure they stayed out of your dimension. They're tough. You knew that. I have a lot of respect for Pervects' abilities, both magikal and otherwise. They're fantastic ne?gotiators. If I hadn't been thinking wishfully I might have guessed that they would have gotten themselves out sooner or later. I'm sorry it was sooner."

Gubbeen grumbled to himself, but he didn't say any?thing. I intimidated him, too, and I'm one of the least terri?fying people I've ever run into, but Wuhses terrify easily.

“All right,” I offered in a soothing voice, “you're proba?bly right. How could anyone live in a factory? I'm only try?ing to look in all the corners, hoping to find my friend while we try to figure out what the Pervects are up to now.”

I had to admit that it was a setback to have the eight turn up again so soon. Zol was at a loss to explain their reappearance.

“I don't understand it, Master Skeeve,” he had stated apologetically. “I gave my testimony to the judge. In my opinion the perversion of minds is one of the greatest crimes in existence. They should have remained in custody for at least thirty days. Per victim.”

But it hadn't happened. We were still dealing with ten