Myth-ion Improbable

"So what happened here?" I asked, trying to not admit I had been wrong, even though we all knew I had been.

"We headed up to the rocks and left the D-Hopper and the map," Tanda said, "then I jumped us here."

"And right into Glenda's waiting arms," Aahz said. "Just as she had been pla

"She used a dimension-blocking spell on me," Tanda said. "She searched us for the D-Hopper, wished us both luck when she couldn't find it or the map, and hopped out."

"I assume she's going after the treasure," Aahz said. "And now she's got a full day's start on us." So what I had been feeling from Aahz was anger, both at me and at the fact that we might lose the treasure, after getting so close.

"So what's a dimension block?"

"A spell that keeps another person from jumping out of a dimension," Aahz said. "Some cultures use it to imprison people. It's a pretty basic spell."

"That you haven't taught me yet," I said.

He shrugged. "There's a lot I haven't taught you. And after falling so easily for this Glenda's charms and smooth talk, I'm not sure if I ever will."

Tanda patted Aahz's green hand across the table.

"Easy on your apprentice. He's young and full of hormones. He did get back here, didn't he?"

I wanted to ask what a hormone was, but figured I'd get that information from Tanda later, when Aahz wasn't around to make fun of my stupidity. He was disgusted enough with me as it was. And this time around I agreed with him. I shouldn't have been so easily taken with Glenda. She'd given me a couple of compliments and I'd been putty in her hands.

I looked at Tanda. "So once you jump out of here with the D-Hopper, the spell is broken?"

"Exactly," she said.

"Finish up," Aahz said. "We've given her enough of a head start as it is."

"So how do we get the treasure home once we find it?" I asked, then instantly realized just how stupid my question was. It had been Glenda who had told us we were too far from any of our known worlds to dimension-hop safely. That had been another of Glenda's lies.

Tanda shook her head. "I think that's where Glenda got me. She blocked my sense of dimensions when we got near her. When we jumped back here from Kowtow, into the storm, I could sense Vortex #4 and Vortex #2. We can get home any time we want."

My relief at that, combined with my relief at finding Aahz and Tanda all right, was more than I could handle. I stared at my stew, trying to make myself eat as much of it as I could. Doing anything else and I just might fall apart completely.

"So what did you do when she left you?" Tanda asked.

I shrugged, making myself focus on what I had managed to do right.

"Paid our bill by doing the dishes so no one would be chasing me, then explored the town to see what I could see, then sat and waited, staying in the open so that you could find me."

"And slept?" Aahz said, his voice sounding disgusted.

"Not really," I said. "I got a hotel room because those people are deathly afraid of being outside at night. And of something called a round-up."

"Really?" Tanda asked.

I glanced up from my stew. Even Aahz was now showing interest.

"Yeah, they bolt their doors and shutter every window, every night," I said. "I couldn't think of a way to ask them what they were afraid of without tipping my hand that I was a demon. And at that point I had other problems to figure out, like what to do next if you two didn't come back."

Aahz nodded. "So we need to be careful at night."

"The bartender guy said the round-up was still a few days off, since it wasn't the full moon yet."

"I wonder what they're rounding up?" Tanda asked.

"Or who's doing the rounding?" Aahz added. "There's a lot to Kowtow we don't know. You have the map?"

"I sure do," I said, taking it out of my pocket and handing it to him.

As I did I had another realization. The map was magik. It hadn't shown us the right path to Kowtow until I took the magik out of it, but back on Kowtow the magik had returned to the map.

"Aahz," I said, smiling at my mentor, "you know, don't you, that the magik returned to the map when we reached Kowtow?"

"Yeah," he said, almost sneering at me. "So? Glenda saw it as well."

"Exactly," I said, smiling at my green mentor, "Glenda looked at the map while we were in Evade. Right?"

Suddenly Tanda burst out laughing, long and hard and so loud I thought she might hurt herself.

I smiled at the puzzled expression on my mentor's face. Considering how stupid I had been lately, getting back on top and giving him some good news felt good.

"The map is a puzzle," I said. "That basic nature of the map won't change just because we reached Kowtow."

Suddenly the light in Aahz's eyes brightened and slowly a smile crept over his green-scaled face.

"Glenda has the wrong location."

"Exactly," I said. "The map changes every time we get closer, just as it did with dimensions. I'm betting it will do that on Kowtow as well."

Aahz put the folded map back in his belt pouch and stood, suddenly in a hurry.

"Great thinking, Skeeve," he said. "Let's get back to Kow­ tow. Glenda is going to come looking for us to get the map when she discovers she has wrong information. And when she does, I want to be ready for her this time."

I liked that idea a lot.

Chapter Eight

"Flying. It's the only way to travel!"

B. HOLLY

We arrived back at the cliff face on Kowtow with less than two hours of daylight left. The day was still hot and dry, and nothing had changed in the general area since I had left a few hours before. I quickly disguised all three of us again in the standard wear of the people of this dimension.

We had packed some food and containers of water. Aahz didn't much like the idea of eating vegetables. Pervects were mostly meat-eaters. Aahz checked over the D-Hopper and then reset the dimension and hid it in his shirt.

"Ahh, that feels good," Tanda said, stretching toward the sun, her white hat tipped back, her large belt buckle glistening in the sun.

"The heat?" I asked.

"Nope. The dimension block being lifted. Amazing how much you miss the ability to hop after you've had it and then it's taken away."

"Yeah, I know," Aahz said.

"Oh, sorry, big guy," she said.

"Gotten used to it," he said.

I couldn't even imagine how Aahz felt, once being a pow­ erful magician and then having his powers taken away from him because of a practical joke by my previous mentor. My mentor had been killed before he could lift the joke. Now Aahz just had to wait for the joke to wear off and his powers to come back, which he said would take more time than I wanted to think about.

Aahz unfolded the magik map and laid it on the top of a rock so we could all study it.

The town of Evade was clearly marked as our starting point, with a road leading from it to a town called Baker. In Baker two roads split off to two other towns, then two roads left each of those towns. Eventually a few of the roads led to Dodge, where it was marked that the treasure was.

Where Glenda was heading.

But was the golden-milk-giving cow there? I was betting it wasn't. I was betting the map would change when we reached Baker. And then keep on changing with every city after that until we finally found the right city.

Glenda was going to be angry, and it served her right. I didn't want to see what Aahz would do to her the next time he saw her. Pervects are not to be messed with, and she had left him to die on a frozen planet. What he would do to her wasn't going to be pretty.