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

one claims that they hired him to get rid of us. I think they brought the Great Skeeve here to bankrupt us so that they can keep us here forever.”

“I want to go home!” Oshleen wailed.

“Right,” declared Vergetta, putting her hands down de?cisively on the table. "This means war. He can't be in too

many places at once, no matter how tough he is. We'll have several fronts. If he shuts one down, then we'll have the others. He can't cover every dimension. We'll diversify, get into places before he knows that we're there. And we'll shut him down. We are the Pervect Ten. The second he comes back here, he's history."

Oshleen raised a slender eyebrow. “What makes you think he's coming back?”

Vergetta picked up the snow globe and shook it. “We've got his friend.”

Myth 13 - Myth Alliances

TWENTY-SIX

“What do you say to a little revolt?”

F. CASTRO

“In a paperweight?” I repeated, not for the first time.

“In a crystal sphere,” Kassery said, huddled with us be?hind the statue. “I couldn't say if it was used to hold down paper or not. Many of those invited by the Pervects to ... to go and converse with them... claim that they have seen him.”

Trust a Wuhs not to be able to make a straightforward statement about anything. “Are you sure it's him, not an il?lusion?” I said.

“Well, I would hesitate to doubt such upright members of the community,” Kassery waffled, “but I have also heard Coolea say something similar. He claimed that he saw my mate standing before our tormentors, then was whisked away.”

“I believe that would confirm that it is he,” Zol sug?gested. "If the Pervect Ten meant to frighten their intervie?wees with the thought that they, too, could become a

permanent guest they would leave him on display. Pervects are not subtle people."

“That's true,” I agreed. “All right, that's it. I've been feeling guilty because I believed I had driven Wensley to a suicide attack. That had me stuck for a while, but I'm not stuck any longer. We're going to get him out.”

“How?” Tananda asked, reasonably.

“The only way to do it is to beat the Pervect Ten into submission,” I insisted. “We strip away their strength and put them at our mercy.”

The looks on my friends' faces ranged from astonish?ment to open pity. Even Gleep wore a puzzled expression.

'Ten Pervects at our mercy?" Bunny asked.

“Are you sure you are feeling all right?” Kassery in?quired, with tender solicitousness.

“I'm fine,” I informed her. “I'm better than I have been for ages. I'm not crazy. I know how we can do this,” I think. “We can't beat them if we go at them head to head, but we're not going to; we're going to hit them where they live Ñliterally.”

Tananda watched me carefully. “It sounds like you want to commit organized suicide. Mind letting us in on your plan?”

“It's not organized suicide, or suicide of any kind.” I looked her squarely in the eyes. “A good general never wants to go into battle. I learned that from Big Julie. But when you have to, you go in to win, one way or another. Where you can't win openly and honestly, you win any way you can, because the enemy is going to do the same thing. Right? And you know me. I don't want any of us to get hurt, not even the Pervects, if I can help it. To do that I need your help. All of you.”

Tananda's moss-​green eyebrows climbed her forehead. “I'm not sure I like the way this is going. Excuse me for being skeptical, but I signed on to watch your back, and I will. I'll do anything you need me to, but I'm not even a lit?tle sure what you want to do is possible.”

“Trust me,” I pleaded. "You might like what I'm going

to suggest. At least I'm hoping you might. At least, I'm hoping you won't throw me through a wall for suggesting the first step I want you to take. I need you to go back to Scamaroni and look up your friend Scootie."

A half-​grin appeared on her face, and her shoulders shifted unconsciously as she considered it, not unfavor?ably, I thought. “And ask him what?”

I whispered in her ear. She let out a long giggle, took my face between her palms and gave me a big kiss right on the lips.

“See you later, handsome,” she waved. There was a loud bamf as she vanished into thin air.

“What can I do?” Bunny asked eagerly.

“Nothing right away, but I'll need you and Bytina to help with negotiations with the Ten.”

“Why Bytina?” Bunny asked, with wide eyes.

“Access,” I grinned. “With what I have in mind we may not be able to speak with them directly. Bytina may be the only way we can communicate with them. I'm going to trap them inside their own fire spell.”

“How?”

I waggled my eyebrows. “Tanda's gone to get the means. I hope.”

“How may I help, Master Skeeve?” Zol inquired.

“Insights,” I replied, though I didn't tell him how I planned to use the opposite of whatever he said. “Tell me how the Ten are likely to respond when we throw our one-​two-​three punches at them.”

“Ah!” Zol exclaimed. “A three-​pronged attack. Very clever. I see that Mistress Tananda is one step. The fire spell is another step. But what is the third?”

“For that I'll need about thirty packets of Kobold snacks,” I grinned.

Zol's big dark eyes crinkled with merriment. He glanced at Gleep, who looked innocently from