"I heard a wizard vanished out of the building, right in front of the judge," a female said, pouring opaque, pale blue liquid into her morning cup. She spooned yellow crystals in, and stirred the resulting green soup with a narrow metal stick, the local equivalent of a spoon that would fit into the small round mouths.

"I heard it was three of them, all green and scaly!" a big male exclaimed.

'That makes four," calculated the table server, a slender male in his early years. "That's almost an army."

"An army escaped?" asked an old female, coming in the door. "Preserve us! An army of demons!" She backed out of the door and scurried away as fast as her feeble legs would carry her.

I shook my head over my plate. These people really would believe anything. I was partly to blame for the mass hysteria brewing. I meant to undo as much of the damage as I could, but first we had to find Zol.

Bunny arranged herself with her back to the rest of the room, and opened up Bytina. She tilted the little magik mirror so the two of us could see it, too: there was one handsome parchment envelope visible on the desktop. In a twinkling Bunny tapped both forefingers onto the hand-shaped button.

"I shall be delayed quite a bit, dear Bunny," the message read. "I don't know if you are cross-dimensionally en- abled, so you may not get this immediately. I hope you will not be too worried about me. As soon as I can get free I will rejoin you." The ornate signature was already familiar to me from the flyleaf of Zol's book.

"He's still got his notebook." Bunny breathed a sigh of relief.

"But where is he being held?" I asked.

"I don't know. How can we find him?"

Tananda aimed a fingernail at Bytina. "Does it… or, should I say, she… have any ideas?"

"Do you, sweetie?" Bunny asked, stroking the little device with her fingertip.

Apparently she did. A blank correspondence card appeared in the center of the mirror. A long, fluffy quill dropped into view, dipped itself into an inkwell, and wrote upon the creamy whiteness, "Where are you?" The pen and ink vanished, and the card slid into an envelope marked 'To Zol Icty." The sealed letter dropped out of sight, leaving the mirror blank. The PDA hummed as though it was proud of itself. Bunny petted it some more.

"Isn't she clever?" my assistant beamed. I rolled my eyes.

We were in the middle of a second round of doughnuts and hot drinks when the ringing sound came that we had learned to associate with engraved messages being delivered to Bytina. Bunny opened the little compact. We all crowded around the tiny mirror to see what it had received.

It wasn't a message. Instead, Zol's pale oval face looked at us out of the mirror. "Oh, how fortunate to see all three of you," he exclaimed. "I am here on Scamaroni."

"So are we," I replied, relieved that he looked well and unharmed, though there were deep circles around his huge dark eyes. "We're in a cafe just off the main street, about three blocks from the jail."

"I can't come to you right now," the little gray man responded, with a shake of his head. "I'm afraid I'm tied up."

'Tied up!" I echoed, ready to spring to my feet. "Well, we're here to rescue you. What kind of vile dungeon have they got you imprisoned in?"

There was a long pause, while Zol's whole face twisted strangely. I glanced at Bunny to see if Bytina was causing it to distort. It was a moment before he answered me.

"Good friend Skeeve, I think you misunderstand my circumstances, though I am proud that you have my best interests in mind. I must clarify: I cannot leave my present location because I have quite a number of people who need my services. Perhaps you can join me?"

I must have goggled. Bunny grabbed Bytina out of my hands. "Where?" she demanded.

"I'm in an open-air cafe down by the river, running a group encounter session to help wean the Scammies from those evil goggles. If you walk sunward from the corrections facility bridge, you will soon see me."

"Sure," I agreed, faintly puzzled. We paid our bill, then followed his directions.

EIGHTEEN

Cresting the top of a hill on the street that led away from the jail, I could not immediately spot Zol Icty. There was too much of a crowd. Down near the small bistro were a thousand or more Scammies. They were all sitting or lying down on the blue-green grass on the bank, facing the center, where our little gray man sat at a table furnished with a teapot, a cup and saucer, and lofty stacks of his latest book. Every one of the audience members seemed to be in a blissful trance, smiling vacantly. The thin voice of our companion rose and fell in a sing-song tone. The heads nodded in unison when he spoke.

"… Once you have really looked inside yourself and know who you really are, you can begin to understand the wonder that is you. You need no artificial stimulants or devices to enhance the very you-ness of you. You have but to face your reality, and be satisfied with it. It doesn't matter if your acquaintances have riches or opportunities that you lack—you have your identity, your uniqueness, and that is more precious than gold, more interesting than any false storyteller. Be true to yourselves."

Eyelids fluttering, Bunny let out a huge sigh. Groaning, I led my friends down toward Zol. If there was anything more painful than realizing his advice was off-kilter, it was listening to his mumbo-jumbo. In my opinion it was the verbal equivalent of illusions, disguising the reality underneath. But people seemed to respond to it. The rapt expressions were as fixed as anything I'd seen in hypnosis subjects.

Halfway down the slope I noticed that the site was surrounded by dozens of police officers. I skirted them nervously. They, too, were smiling contentedly. I spotted Officers Gelli and Koblinz. They saluted me pleasantly when I caught their eye. I knew they could not recognize me in my disguise, but it made me nervous all the same. They, too, had become true to themselves once again. I couldn't wait for Zol to finish autographing copies of his book so we could get out of Scamaroni for good, and leave our problems behind—or at least 80 percent of them.

"Madam," Senior Domari repeated wearily, "we cannot produce that witness. I know you want to confront him. You can't. Now, I ask you again to explain how it is that two of your number escaped from this facility last night, but there were still eight of you in the cells this morning?"

"Sonny," Vergetta countered, "All I want to do is go home. What'll it take?"

"I wish I could pitch all of you into a bottomless pit, but I am required to follow the rule of law."

"Pitch us! It'd be better than spending another night in your pokey! I've been more comfortable in college dormitories!"

"Perverts," the judge muttered. "Pervects," Vergetta corrected him. "We have a right to be addressed properly, your honor."

"I'm not sure the word doesn't apply," Domari retorted. "I've heard some ugly things about Perverts."

"It's an ugly universe," Vergetta replied philosophically. "You don't want us staying here, judge. Look at the condition of your jail. And if we can slip in and out of here without detection, well, you can't keep us here against our will."

That statement made the judge even more nervous. "Then why are you still here?"

"Because we want to reassure you that we're law-abiding beings. You've heard a lot of other things about Pervects, right? Don't tell me you haven't. I can tell by your face. Let's come to some kind of agreement. I know you'd really like to settle this. So would we."