Magic Street Page 0,104

telling me. What difference does it make? I think I'm a free man, you think I'm secretly Oberon. So what?"

"So you can do things that we need. We can use you," said Yo Yo, "to set up the old dragon and - "

"Kill him?" Mack whispered.

"No, but castration and stomach stapling seem appropriate," said Puck.

"Is he fat?" asked Ceese.

"No, I just want him to throw up every time he eats more than three little bites of a meal."

"We got to get out of the jugs," said Yo Yo. "And not just set free. Protected till our... souls are given back."

"Why should we free his soul?" asked Mack, thumbing at Puck.

Puck let out a long, loud fart. Fortunately odorless. In fact, knowing Puck, it probably wasn't a real fart.

"Don't, if you don't want to," said Yo Yo. "Just remember that without me, Puck would belong completely to Oberon. No more attempts to make it possible for you to avoid letting people hurt themselves."

"My head is spinning," said Grand. "I want to go home and go to bed."

"I didn't invite you," Puck said cheerfully. "Feel free to leave any time."

"What exactly is the plan?" asked Mack. "And what can we do to help?"

"Nothing," said Yo Yo. "It's too powerful for you. Thanks for all you did so far, but except for one tiny thing, we don't need you at all and don't intend to put you at risk."

"What's that one tiny thing?" asked Mack.

"Get us out of those jars."

"How?" asked Mack.

counterword. So we do need you to get that. You or somebody."

"Where do I learn this 'counterword'?" asked Mack.

"Oh, you already know it," said Yo Yo. "You just don't know that you know it. In fact, you think you don't know it. But you know it."

"So you do need me."

"Just a little bit. Then we're on our own."

"Okay," said Mack. "I'll help you find that password - "

"Counterword," said Puck with all the smugness of Alex Trebek.

"But you got to help us, too."

"We are helping you," said Yo Yo. "Once we get out of those jars and put back together properly, then we can go find Oberon's pony and shut him down. Put him out of business. Stuff the genie back into the bottle. So to speak."

"Won't he know you're out?"

"Well," said Yo Yo, "probably."

"So won't he come down on you the second you're free?"

"That's the other little thing we need."

"The counterword and something else."

"We need a distraction. We need - "

Grand Harrison interrupted her. "What you need is a fairy circle."

Yolanda looked at him like he was insane. "Do you know how many fairies it takes to make a decent circle?"

"But it's what you need, isn't it?" said Grand.

"We got no fairies to work with," said Puck. "Oberon keeps a tight rein on them. He only lets the ones he absolutely trusts to come out to... um... play. So we can't raise a circle."

"He lying?" Mack asked Yo Yo.

"Do you believe him?" asked Yo Yo in reply.

"Can't get a straight answer into a crooked mind," said Puck.

"What do you mean by that?" demanded Mack.

"I mean the only time you believe me is when I lie."

Grand Harrison spoke up again. "If he can suck our wishes out of us, why can't you use us mortals in your fairy circle?"

"And that's really starting to bother me," said Puck, rising to his feet. "What do you know about fairy circles?"

"It's how you do truly great magicks. You bring together a bunch of fairies and they form a circle and all of the power of all the fairies in the circle becomes part of the great thing you're trying to do."

"And you learned this where?" asked Yo Yo.

"The Blue Book of Fairy Tales," said Grand. "Or the Red one. Or whatever."

"Not in those books," said Puck.

"Stay on topic, Puckaroo," said Yo Yo.

"If I had any real power, she'd drop dead when she called me that," said Puck. Then he grinned at Yolanda. "Just kidding, darling."

"Fairy circle," said Ceese. "Grand's idea."

"It might work," said Yo Yo. "Except we don't know just how much of him he's put into his pony. If it's all there, except for the part that is Mack - then we could do it using a fairy circle made of mortals. But if part of him is here in this world, and part of him in Fairyland, that would be like lassoing a one-inch-thick snake with a lariat that won't get any skinnier than two inches in diameter."

"Will this be on the geometry