Zol paid his own tea bill, over the protest of the cafe owner, and blipped us all back to Wuh.

The bamf of our return brought Gleep running from the stables, where he must have been taking a nap. "Gleep!" he cried joyfully. I managed to fend him off before he knocked me over. Zol petted him and produced a few bags of Kobold snacks out of his satchel for him. Gleep settled down on the floor to crunch up the shiny packets.

I looked around. Montgomery's inn seemed to be completely vacant. Not one of the tables underneath the ferns was occupied. The lights behind the bar had been extinguished. I glanced out into the street. It was devoid of Wuhses.

"Hello?" I called.

Tananda frowned. "Is something wrong?"

"Where is everyone?" Bunny said.

Gleep's pointed ears perked up. In a moment, I heard the noise that his more sensitive hearing had detected: the sound of footsteps rushing towards us. Down the stairs came Montgomery, the innkeeper. He rushed towards us with arms extended.

"I am overjoyed to see you!" he exclaimed, embracing us all one at a time. "Welcome back, Master Zol," he greeted the author shyly. "We are very glad that you are safe."

"You are very kind," Zol beamed. "It was a productive trip, I must say. So many minds cleared! And how have things been here?"

"Exciting, if I may use so bold a term," Montgomery hesitated, glancing at us for permission.

"Okay by me. Where's Wensley?" I asked.

"Oh, we didn't know when you were coming back, good Masters and Mistresses, or they would have waited for you."

"Waited for us for what?" I inquired curiously.

Montgomery's fat cheeks shone with emotion. "The revolution, Master Skeeve!"

"The what?"

"Wensley was so very impressed, sir, as were we all, at the way you went to save people in a dimension that you didn't even know, and how you went back again at the risk of your own safety to save Master Zol—just like that!— when you saw that he was in trouble. Well, I have to say that we were ashamed. Wensley called a mass secret meeting, sir, and spoke as how we ought to take more of a hand in our own defense. He was very strong on the subject of non-cooperation. Now that only two Perverts are still in the castle he thought that it was time we take action, sir! And so many people agreed with him! I agreed with him, but he pointed out that I had to wait for you…"

"Action?" I interrupted him. "What kind of action?"

Montgomery drew himself up proudly. "Wensley says it behooves us to make an attempt to wrest the leadership of our people out of their claws, er, hands."

"He's been fomenting a revolution?" Zol asked.

"Well… yes."

"Good for you!" Zol exclaimed.

"WATT A MOMENT!" I shouted. "Just exactly what kind of action does Wensley have in mind?"

"Why, they're going to go in there, and throw out those two Perverts," Montgomery explained, as if surprised that I didn't understand. "Should be easy as pie, now that there's only two of them."

My tongue went dry, and I realized that my mouth was hanging open. "Where are they?" I demanded.

Montgomery peered at the timepiece on the mantel. "Oh, I suppose they'd be up at the castle about now."

"No! They'll be killed!" Bunny gasped.

"But there's only two of them, against thousands of us," Montgomery replied, hurt.

"That's like saying there's only two tornadoes," I retorted. "We've got to go stop them."

We gathered up Gleep and raced toward the castle, leaving our puzzled host behind us. As soon as we were out of the door I took to the air. Flying is controlled levitation, pushing against solid objects with my mind to move me along. I lifted Bunny and carried her along with me. Zol and Tananda took to the air under their own power. Gleep dashed ahead. We had no time to waste.

"Perhaps we should have taken Wensley with us to Scamaroni," Zol mused, as we flew. "We could have advised him on the sensibility of confronting Pervects directly."

"I wanted to take him," I pointed out with some asperity, "but you persuaded me not to."

"Heavens, you are right," Zol replied, surprised. "This is all my fault. Wuhses are such followers normally. I underestimated him. He adapted to a positive example much more strongly than I thought he would. And he was behaving in such a threatened fashion that I feared it would do him more harm to be thrust into a new situation. I did not take into account the effect new stimuli might have on him when he was left behind in a venue he considered to be safe. You are a catalyst, Master Skeeve. You're making a leader out of him. He has gathered followers of his own."

"And now he's leading them into a bloodbath," I growled.

"But the threat is limited," Zol pointed out, as Gleep rebounded off the corner of a candy shop to turn into the main street.

My mind more on what I might find ahead than what I was doing, I narrowly missed the edge of the same building.

"It is possible for a group of that size to overpower a pair of Pervects. It is not as though they were at their full strength." Zol insisted.

"But they don't know what they're doing," Tananda reminded him, grimly. "I don't think even Wensley has a real plan."

"Then we must persuade them to retreat and reconsider their actions!"

"We have to get them out of there before they get hurt," I declared.

We rounded the last corner until we could at last see the castle. As Montgomery had predicted, thousands of Wuhses were marching through the unguarded gate. Some carried flaming torches. They were all shouting.

"Baaa-aaad Pervects! Baaa-aaad Pervects! Go home! Go home! Go home!"

A green face with bat-wing ears appeared in the window of the Pervect Ten's headquarters. A shower of rocks came flying up from the crowd and spattered against the castle wall. The face withdrew hastily. I thought I saw Wuhses in the room behind her.

Suddenly, I felt as though someone had yanked my stomach and dragged it down through my toes. I fell heavily to the ground. Bunny dropped on top of me.

"Skeeve!" she squealed.

"I didn't do it," I protested. "The magik is gone!"

A great disturbance was brewing in the energy lines above and beneath me, draining them of power. I had felt this sensation before, but I didn't want to believe that it could possibly be what it was: the Pervect Ten pooling their strength, drawing on an incredibly deep well of magik.

There was a huge flash of light. When it cleared, the thousands of Wuhses marching and chanting in the courtyard had vanished without a trace. The street was silent.

I groaned, overwhelmed with grief at the tragic and unnecessary loss of life.

'They're back."

NINETEEN

"That's it!" Vergetta howled, dropping the hands of the two Pervects on either side of her. "I can't stand it any longer! I did not need this on top of just getting out of jail. Everyone's grounded. No exceptions!"

"What the hell brought that on?" Niki wondered, taking a quick glance out of the window. The spell had worked. The street was empty of life.

"You're the ones who let the place go to hell while we were gone," Paldine accused her. "Why don't you tell us."

Niki gawked at her. "We let it go to hell? Did it really take all eight of you to find out that you'd laid an egg in that other dimension? A few of you could have stayed here and helped keep order. But no-o-ooo. You left two of us—two of us—having to play hall monitor for an entire country, and now look what we had to do!"

"Those intruders must have been watching us," Tenobia grunted. "Look how they knew to come in with us to avoid being toasted by the barrier spell. They've been planning this for a while."