I found myself considering the two pieces of broken staff I was holding. There was a stunt I pulled once when we were fighting Big Julie. Then it had been a desperation gambit. Of course, we weren't exactly cruising along now.

"Get the ball to me!" I called to my teammates. "I've got an idea."

"What kind of an idea?" Aahz asked.

"Just get me the ball," I snapped back.

I didn't mean to be short with him, but if this plan was going to work, I needed all my concentration, and Aahz's banter wasn't helping.

Closing my eyes, I-began to draw and focus power. At the same time, I began forming the required images in my mind.

"Head's up, kid!" Aahz shouted with sudden urgency.

My eyes popped open... and the ball was there. I wasn't quite as ready as I would have liked to have been but the time was now and I had to go for it.

I'll detail what happened next so you can appreciate the enormity of my accomplishment. In live time, it took no longer than an eye blink to perform.

Dropping the two halves of the staff, I caught the ball with my hands. Then, I cast two spells simultaneously. (Four, actually, but I don't like to brag.)

For the first, I shrank the images of Gleep and myself until we were scant inches high. Second, I changed the appearance of the two staff halves until what was seen was full sized reproductions of me astride my pet.

Once that was accomplished, I used my remaining energy to fly us toward the Ta-hoe goal. That's right, I said "fly." Even in our diminutive form, I wanted us well above the eye-level of our opponents.

Flying both Gleep and myself took a lot of effort. So much, in fact, that I was unable to animate the images we left behind. I had realized this before I started, but figured that suddenly stationary targets would only serve as a diversion for our real attack.

It seemed to work. We were unopposed until we reached the Ta-hoe goal. Then my mischievous sense of humor got the better of me. Landing a scant arm's length from the goalie, I let our disguises drop.

"Boo!" I shouted.

To the startled player, it appeared that we suddenly popped out of thin air. A lifetime of training fell away from him in a second, and he fainted dead away.

With a properly dramatic flourish, I tossed the ball into the goal.

One to one to one! A tie game!

The team was strangely quiet when Gleep and I triumphantly returned to our end of the field.

"Why the long faces?" I laughed. "We've got ‘em on the run now!"

"You should have told us you had a gambit going," Gus said carefully.

"There wasn't time," I explained. "Besides, there's no harm done."

"That's not entirely accurate," Chumly corrected, pointing up field.

There was a pile of Jahks where I had left the staff pieces. The stretcher teams were busy untangling the bodies and carting them away.

"He was trying to protect you ... or what he thought was you," Badaxe observed acidly.

"What..."

Then I saw what they were talking about. At the bottom of the pile was Aahz. He wasn't moving.

Chapter Twenty-Six:

"Winning isn't the most important thing; it's the only thing!

-J. CAESAR

"HE'LL be all right," Gus declared, looking up from examining our fallen teammate. "He's just out cold."

We were gathered around Aahz's still form, anxiously awaiting the gargoyle's diagnosis. Needless to say, I was relieved my mentor was not seriously injured. General Badaxe, however, was not so easily satisfied.

"Well, wake him up!" he demanded. "And be quick about it."

"Back off, general," I snarled, irritated by his insensitivity. "Can't you see he's hurt?"

"You don't understand," Badaxe countered, shaking his head. "We need five players to continue the game. If Aahz doesn't snap out of it..."

"Wake up, Aahz!" I shouted, reaching out a hand to shake his arm.

It was bad enough that my independent scoring drive had resulted in Aahz getting roughed up. If it cost us the game. ..

"Save it, Skeeve," Gus sighed. "Even if he woke up, he wouldn't be able to play. That was a pretty nasty pounding he took. I mean, I don't think there's anything seriously wrong with him, but if he tried to mix it up with anyone in his current condition ..."

"I get the picture," I interrupted. "And if we wake him up, Aahz is just stubborn enough to want to play."

"Right," the gargoyle nodded. "You'll just have to think of something else."

I tried, I really did. The team kept fussing over Aahz to stall for time, but nothing came to me in the way of a plan. Finally the referee trotted over to our huddle.

"How's your player?" he asked.

"Ah... just catching his breath," Badaxe smiled, trying to keep his body between the official and Aahz.

"Don't give me that," the stripe-tunicked Jahk scowled. "I can see. He's out cold, isn't he?"

"Well. sort of," Gus admitted.

" ‘Sort of nothing," the ref scowled. "If he can't play and you don't have a replacement, you'll have to forfeit the game."

"We're willing to play with a partial team," the gargoyle suggested hastily.

"The rules state you must have five players on the field. No more, no less," the official declared, shaking his head.

"All right," Badaxe nodded. "Then we'll keep him on the field with us. We'll put him off to one side where he won't get hurt and then we'll play with a four-man team."

"Sorry," the ref apologized, "but I can't let him stay on the field in that condition. It's a rough game, but we do have some ethics when it comes to the safety of the players."

"Especially when you can use the rules to force us out of the game." Gus spat.

I thought the slur would draw an angry response from the official, but instead the ref only shook his head sadly.

"You don't understand," he insisted. "I don't want to disqualify your team. You've been playing a hard game and you deserve a chance to finish it. I hate to see the game stopped with a forfeit... especially when the score's tied. Still, the rules are the rules, and if you can't field a full team, that's that. I only wished you had brought some replacements."

"We've got a replacement!" I exploded suddenly.

"We do? "Gus blinked.

"Where?" frowned the ref.

"Right there!" I announced, pointing to the stands.

Tananda was still floating in plain sight in front of Quigley.

"The captive demon?" the official gasped.

"What do you think we are? Muppets?" Gus snarled, recovering smoothly.

"Muppets? What ... I don't think ..." the ref stammered.

"You don't have to," I smiled. "Just summon the Ta-hoe magician and I'm sure we can work something out."

"But... Oh, very well."

The official trotted off toward the stands while the rest of the team crowded around me.

"You're going to have a woman on the team?" Badaxe demanded.

"Let me explain," I waved. "First of all, Tanda isn't..."

"She's not actually a woman," Chumly supplied.

"She's my sister. And when it comes to the old rough and tumble, she can beat me four out of five times."

"She isn't? I mean, she is?" Badaxe struggled. "I mean, she can?"

"You bet your sweet axe she can," Gus grinned.

"Gleep," said the dragon, determined to get his two cents worth in.

"If you're all quite through," I said testily. "I'd like to finish. What I was about to say was that Tanda isn't going to play."

There was a moment of stunned silence as the team absorbed this.

"I don't get it," Gus said at last. "If she isn't going to play, then what..."

"Once she's here and revived, we're going to grab her and the Trophy and head back for Klah," I announced. "The ref's about to hand us the grand prize on a silver platter."