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The woman looked up at him and smiled. She had deep orange eyes and a pug nose that looked more like a hog's nose than anything like Tanda's. I had never seen a demon like her before.
"Yes?" she asked.
I almost fell over backwards. Her voice was deep, rough, and clearly that of a man. It was with the voice that I actually looked at her. Or him, as I was coming to realize. I had no idea why I had thought he was a woman. His arms and shoulders were built like a man's, and his brownish hair was cut short. Yet I had sworn, until he spoke, that he was a woman. Just thinking about it was getting me confused. Aahz got right to the point.
"We are looking for directions to a dimension called Vortex." The man who sort of looked like a woman smiled at Aahz. Now he was back to being a woman again. And his pig nose had vanished, leaving a wonderful pointed nose and red lips. And as I watched her face shifted slowly. The transformation was amazing. Her eyes changed color, from orange to blue, her skin darkened, her cheeks rose, and her hair grew to her shoulders.
"How the-" I started to ask how she changed like that, but my sealed lips stopped me cold. Aahz and Tanda said nothing. Clearly they had expected to meet a shape-shifting demon in here. It was as if she were constantly working through disguise spells. Interesting trick, that was for sure.
"Well," she said, her voice now soft and rich and alluring, "which Vortex are you looking for?"
Aahz seemed to struggle for a moment with the answer. I wanted to blurt out that we needed the first eight of them, but luckily my mouth was glued shut. I had no idea why I wanted to blurt that out.
"Vortexes #1 through #8," Aahz said.
The demon behind the desk was slowly shifting to look like a stone statue, her clothes vanishing into her body as she changed into a rock-like demon with scales for skin and arms as thick as trees. I also noticed that the chair it was on changed with the size of the creature at the moment. More than likely the chair was part of its body as well.
"What is the nature of your reason for wanting the loca tion of these places?" the shifting creature asked, its voice rumbling like thunder inside the massive room.
Again Aahz struggled with the answer. I had no doubt in my mind I wanted to blurt out that we had a treasure map. Something about this creature clearly forced demons standing in front of it to tell the truth. Now I was grateful that Tanda had closed my mouth. I had no idea how they were keeping quiet. What I was feeling was clearly very powerful magik or mind control.
"We are searching for a treasure," Aahz said, his words measured and slow, "and our path leads us through the Vortex dimensions, starting with Vortex #1."
"Logical," the creature said as it shifted toward a pig-body shape. "The price is 10% of your find."
I could see the anger growing in Aahz's body, his green scales stiff on his neck. Giving away anything to do with money was beyond something Aahz could do without undue stress.
Tanda put her hand on his arm and stepped forward.
"Your price is high for simple directions. We will give you 5% of anything we acquire on this venture, no matter what the value. Otherwise we will look elsewhere for help."
The creature now looked like a quatra-piggy, a type of demon I had seen in the street on an earlier trip here. But that body was quickly changing to a new shape.
"You will not find help elsewhere," the shifting demon said. "But your offer is fair and I will accept. I assume you need to go to Vortex #1 first?"
"Yes," both Aahz and Tanda said at the same time. The creature, now shifting back into a beautiful woman again, nodded. "That can be arranged."
She looked at Aahz and Tanda with a serious look. Her voice was firm and very solid. "Since I have a financial stake now in what you are attempting, I must warn you that a Vortex dimension is not a place to take lightly. It is a very dangerous, and sometimes tempting, place. It will be very easy to miss your path and become lost."
Then she looked at me, her beautiful blue eyes boring into my heart. In my best dreams I would remember what this crea ture looked like forever. She had transformed into the most striking female I could have ever imagined. Every part of my body wanted to move to her, to touch her, to never leave her. Her gaze seemed to bore deeper and deeper into me as my legs got weak and my stomach did flip-flops. I desperately wanted my lips to be free to tell her how much I loved her.
"You must take care of your friends," she said, her won derful voice melting every thought I had. "Understand?" I managed to nod.
"Good," she said, winking at me. "I will know if you suc ceed or fail. Good luck to you."
With that the tent and the beautiful woman were gone. Around us a wind whipped over the plains, driving dirt and dust into my face.
"Vortex #1," Aahz shouted over the blowing wind. "Here we go," Tanda shouted back.
I just wish someone had warned me we were jumping di mensions.
"Pgghhhhh ugghhhhh mgggghhhh mggghhhh" was all I managed to say.
The dust blew around my head, reducing visibility to near zero. The changing demon back in the big tent on Deva had said the Vortex dimensions were dangerous and full of temptations. The only temptation I had about this place was an instant desire to go home.
"This way! Hurry!"
Tananda motioned that we should follow her. Since there was nothing to be seen but swirling dust, I figured I had noth ing to lose.
It seemed that my closed-lip problem was as temporary as Tanda had promised it would be. By the time she had led us a hundred staggering paces through the storm to what looked to be an old log cabin, my lips were again free.
The old cabin that Tanda had led us to had been made of cut-together logs and had to be a hundred years old. She shoved the door open and we stomped inside. Wind blew in through at least a hundred cracks in the walls and the only things that now lived in the place was rodents.
"What was the big rush?" Aahz said, brushing dust from his clothes after shoving the door closed.
"Didn't you see it?" Tanda said. "There was something moving out there. Moving toward us."
"I must have missed it," Aahz said, and looked at me.
All I could do was shake my head and shrug. I hadn't seen anything either, but Tanda seemed a bit spooked.
I got a pretty decent fire in the middle of the dirt floor, using nothing but my mind and a bunch of wood, as Tanda put a containment field around the room to keep out the wind.
As it turned out, both Tanda and Aahz had expected some thing to happen when we went into that tent. They were pretty much prepared. I just wish they had warned me to get ready.
After I finished the fire, Tanda hung a translation pendant around my neck, then another around Aahz's neck, just in case we ran into someone we couldn't understand when we jumped from here.
"So," I said, holding my hands out to warm them over the fire, "could you please explain just what happened, who the shifting demon was, how we got here, and where 'here' is?"
"You know," Aahz said to Tanda, ignoring me, "I think I liked him better with his mouth sealed."
"Sealing a guy's lips isn't a nice thing to do," I said. Then I thought back to what I had wanted to say while in the tent and luckily hadn't been able to. "But I understand why you did it. A compulsion spell, right?"
Aahz now looked at me with a shocked expression as Tanda laughed.
"I think your apprentice is starting to learn," she said, smilin g at Aahz. "Might as well answer his questions."