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

must be a spell on some part of the process to fool the conscious mind into believ?ing that they are still performing their usual functions.”

“That would be why we never found out who was mak?ing those glasses,” I mused, thoughtfully. “Nobody would remember doing it. Do they plan to take over another di?mension?”

“Or to sell to one,” Zol suggested. “These are enterpris?ing women, and you will have observed that they did not need arms to take over Wuh or Scamaroni. In one they are already successful, and in the other they would have been, if not for your intervention.”

“Next time I'm going to make sure they're captured and stay under lock and key,” I asserted, pounding my fist into my palm. “ All of them. We have to get back into the castle to figure out where they're going and head them off.”

“Oh, we don't need to do that,” Zol informed me. “Now that my notebook has been in contact with their computer, we can access their drive remotely.” To my puzzled expres?sion he explained, “We can see what they see in their magik mirror.”

“I thought you couldn't get through their encoding,” Bunny queried.

“We don't need to. My countrymen back on Kobol broke their basic program code. What they are working on at any given moment is not going to be stored under lock and key. We can spy upon their plans as they make them. I merely need to be in the same dimension, preferably upon the same energy line.”

“You can't do it from here?” I asked. “On Perv they could communicate with the banks on Deva through their computers.”

“That was with the cooperation of the Devan comput?ers. The Pervect Ten will surely not want us reading their plans. We need to be close for my subterfuge to work. Our only fear then will be discovery.”

“I'll keep us hidden,” I vowed, grimly. “I won't fail again. I owe it to Wensley's memory.” A thought occurred to me just then. “You know, I hate to say this, but it's just as well that he isn't around any more. If we had plotted this out in front of him he would have blabbed to the Ten about us.”

“We're having to do this because of you, honey,” Vergetta confided to the snow globe on the table as Niki dragged in the first invitee.

All their threats of torture, all their shouting and shak?ing had done nothing to dent the resolve of the Wuhs leader, Wensley. Vergetta had to admit to herself that she was pretty impressed, with the little guy. It took a strong person to defy a Pervect, let alone the whole minyan of them. Big, brave Trolls had broken down in tears when faced with the Ten in full fury. Even a bowl of purple Pervish gumbo had not been enough to make him open his mouth. A miniature picture of defiance, he sat crosslegged and arms folded on the bottom of the paperweight.

“Let's see how long you hold out when you see us take some of your friends apart.”

The little face turned away from her. Vergetta grinned.

“First things first,” Tenobia demanded, when the fat Wuhs with black curls had been flung into the “hot seat,” a chair in the middle of the room.

They had drawn straws to see who got to be “Lady High Executioner,” and she had won. In celebration she had put on a silver bustier and a tight black skirt that she usually saved for wild parties at home on Perv. The ensemble looked suit?ably dangerous and very impressive, the virtual caricature of a dominatrix torturer. The Wuhs's eyes nearly started out of his head at the sight of her. She smacked her palms down on the arms of the chair and leaned into his face.

“Where's the D-​hopper?”

“I d-​d-​don't know what you mean, madam...” Gubbeen babbled. “It's not my department to keep track... we are the friends of public health ... the D-​hopper is more of a safety issue....”

Charilor came back upstairs, grunting under the weight of a vast, lumpy bag. She threw it on the stone floor in front of the Wuhs. It clanked and banged like a suit of armor in a garbage disposal. Their guest nearly jumped out of his seat at the noise.

“I don't have it!” Gubbeen exclaimed, his eye on the sack, though none of them moved towards it. “I haven't had it for ages. It's been my turn ... I mean, I would have safeguarded it on your behalf, but I really don't know, dear ladies, Ardrahan had it last time I saw it... please don't hurt me!”

“I don't know why we didn't do this six months ago,” Loorna grimaced.

She kicked open the folds of the bag and extracted a metal implement with a rotating wheel and several long, sharp strands of metal. She pointed it at Gubbeen and ro?tated the little handle that made the tines clash violently against one another. The Wuhs recoiled into his chair, try?ing to meld with the wooden staveback.

Vergetta recognized the device as a whisk they used to

aerate hot drinks. She hadn't seen it for months. It had probably gotten dumped into the hold-​all drawer in the kitchen, or shoved into a box in a storage closet. She smiled. Obviously the Wuhs, who had never seen one, was making up his own uses for it in his head, and none of them made him comfortable.

They played