Myth Alliances

Cautiously I approached the pool of wine, the creaking of my bucket's wheels covering the chattering of my knees. I couldn't let the Pervects see my face. I hauled the mop out, slapped it onto the floor and began swabbing up the mess. The tallest Pervect, the one in the form-fitting camouflage coverall, drew her knees in as I bumped past. I caught a glimpse of her out of the comer of my eye. She still looked familiar to me. I must have met her on Perv, or seen her coming out of a restaurant at the Bazaar (if you think I'd ever have been in a Pervish restaurant, you've never smelled one). I sopped up most of the wine, then took a brush and pan off the back of the pail to sweep up the broken glass.

"You missed a lot of the liquid, dear," the Pervect informed me, pointing a manicured fingernail. "Look. It ran away toward the wall. It's going to stain the fringe of that tapestry." I nodded, and kept brushing. "Hey!"

"Silence!" Domari roared. "As a result, I order all of you to stand trial on multiple charges of malfeasance and misfeasance, mental assault on hundreds, if not thousands, of citizens of our fair nation ..." The judge paused in the middle of his pronouncement to lean over his desk. "Mandrilla, what have you been rolling in?"

The guard with the drawn sword cleared his throat. "She's been cleaning up after that Klahd wizard, sir."

"Ugh. Well, when you're done here, Mandrilla, go home and take a bath."

I muttered and nodded as I wrung out the mop and slapped it down on the floor.

"You didn't get all the glass, either," the young Pervect told me. 'Take a wet cloth and pick up the particles. Then you can mop it down. You're just spreading the shards all over the place."

"This is ruining everything," said the shortest Pervect. "What are we supposed to do now?"

"There are plenty of other dimensions," the female in khakis told her. "Be patient."

"A Klahdish wizard?" the elder Pervect said, in a low voice meant to be heard only by her companions. "A powerful wizard who's a Klahd? They barely have an adequate magician once in a thousand years. Have you heard of such a thing?" "I think I have," the angry one on the end replied thoughtfully. "Stiff, Stiv, Smee ... something like that."

"We'll have to have Caitlin research it when we get back," suggested the elegant female in a skirt suit.

Hearing them talk about me made me nervous. They didn't know who I was, but the police could identify me if my disguise slipped. My hand trembled, sending drops of wine all over. The female sprang to her feet as I narrowly missed her ankle.

"Oh, for Crom's sake, female! I've never seen such an inept job in my life! Give me that mop! I could do a better job than you in my sleep!"

"Sit down, madam!" the judge roared. "Let our employee finish her work."

"I could have cleaned your entire courtroom in the time it's taken her to make matters worse," the elegant Pervect snarled back.

"You may end up doing menial labor," Domari warned her. "Each of these charges carries a penalty of a period not less than thirty days in jail, to be served consecutively."

"What?"

The combined outrage of eight Pervects was enough to knock me off my feet. Hastily I finished wiping up the last of the spill, scrambled up, and creaked out of the courtroom. Behind me, all of them were on their feet shouting at the judge. My guard escorted me to the door, then closed it behind me. I could still hear their voices echoing as I walked in increasingly long strides out of the building. A guard at the entrance gave me a strange look.

"My vacation starts tonight!" I piped, in a high-pitched voice. I didn't have to simulate the aged tremble; I was still shaking from being that close to my nemeses. The guard nodded and went back to staring off into space.

Unless I was very wrong, the Pervect Ten, or eight of them, anyhow, were going to be in a magik-proofed jail for years! Wuh's problem was almost solved. We should be able to handle the remaining two. I had trouble restrain- ing myself from dancing a little victory hop as I left the courthouse and tottered over the bridge to Bunny and the others.

Bunny and Tananda embraced me as I reached them. I hid behind a pillar to shed the cleaning lady's garments and straighten my own.

"You had better restore our appearance," Zol reminded me. The disguises had been knocked out by the anti-magik field inside the building, but were restored the moment we stepped outside its sphere of influence. That was a sophisticated spell.

It took less than a moment for me to reach down to the line of power I'd been staring at for over a day, erase the faces of long-nosed Scammies and restore their features. It felt so good to be doing magik again!

"Nice work, handsome," Tananda remarked approvingly, looking at herself in the mirror of Bunny's PDA. "You ought to get locked up more often."