Myth-Ion Improbable

Chapter Ten

"I can quit anytime."

S. HOLMES

The hundred slogging steps through the dust storm to the cabin seemed to get longer and longer every time I had to do it. I had no idea why we just couldn't D-Hop right into the cabin and skip all this dust and wind. I was going to ask Tanda that, as soon as things settled down.

As we got near the cabin, Tanda held up her hand for us to stop. I could barely see the dark shape of the building in the storm. There was no light in the window this time.

She did something with both arms I assumed was some sort of scanning magik that assassins knew, then motioned that it was clear and we should move forward. Therefore, Glenda wasn't here waiting for us.

I had the sudden image of one of the cow-vampires bend ing her over and sucking on her neck in the middle of some road somewhere. Considering what she had done to me, it was one of the nicer thoughts I had had about her in days.

We got inside and the door closed against the storm.

"Are we shielded?" Aahz asked Tanda.

"Up and solid," she said. "Skeeve was right; there is power ful energy here. I can hold the shield for as long as we need it."

"So Glenda can't pop in and surprise us?" I asked, moving to the stove to get it started before I took off my coat.

"Not a chance," Tanda said. "She hops back here, she's going to get awful dirty standing out there in the dust."

Aahz laughed. "Couldn't happen to a nicer demon."

"Want something to eat?" Tanda asked, working around in the cabinets as I sat at the table.

"Just more carrot juice," I said.

I could feel my body starting to get really tired, as if some one had pulled the energy plug and what I had left was draining onto the floor.

I dug into my pouch for the canister that I had been carry ing. It was gone. I checked again and it was still not there. I couldn't remember doing anything with it, but I might have dropped it in the excitement of watching cows become vampires and bite on people.

"You have the other canister of juice?" I asked Aahz. "Afraid not, apprentice," he said. "Left it back on Kowtow when we hopped out of there."

My first reaction was not to believe him. Then it became clear that he had left the rest of my carrot juice, and my reaction was anger.

"How could you do that?" I shouted. "Easy," he said.

He showed me by reaching into his pouch, taking out an invisible canister, and dropping it to the floor. "But what am I going to do without it?" Again I shouted. I needed that carrot juice; right down to the very bottom of my soul I needed it.

"You're going to sleep for a long time," Tanda said, smiling at me.

Just her mention of sleep made me sleepy. I couldn't believe they had done this to me.

"Taking a guy's carrot juice isn't nice."

"I know," Tanda said. "But we're doing it for your own good. You haven't slept in at least three days. You need to stop moving and just lie down."

The tiredness was washing up over me like a wave on the beach. It was everything I could do to even think about saying I didn't need sleep.

How dare she tell me what I needed? How dare Aahz leave my juice behind? Hadn't I trusted him with that juice?

"I don't need to rest," I said, my voice sounding funny to my ears.

"How about you just lie down for a few minutes and then we'll talk about it," Tanda said, helping me to me feet and moving me over to the soft-looking bed against one wall.

"Well, maybe just a minute," I said.

What could a minute hurt? I'd get back some of my en ergy, and then convince Tanda to hop me back to get my juice.

"Only one minute," I said.

Or at least I think I said that. I might not have, because from the moment my head touched the pillow, I don't remember another thing.

I woke up with a blinding headache and a taste in my mouth that was a cross between horse droppings and stale carrots. I rolled over and the pain hit me even harder, smashing into my head like someone was taking a hammer and pounding me right between the eyes.

"Ohhh," I said, putting both hands to my head trying to stop the agony.

"The sleeping apprentice awakes," Aahz, said, his voice far too loud for the size of the space between my ears.

"And in pain, it seems," Tanda shouted.

"Please whisper," I said, but my throat was so dry the words didn't really come out.

I wanted to die. Why hadn't they just killed me as I slept? Or maybe they had tried, which was why I hurt so much.

I also wanted to be sick, but that wasn't possible since there wasn't anything left in my stomach. But my stomach still felt like it wanted to twist inside out and come up through my throat. And the world spinning didn't help that feeling at all.

And, most of all, I really wanted to forget all the night mares I'd had about cows turning into vampires, and the people of a dimension being nothing more than food stock. What an awful nightmare. That was the last time I had carrot juice if it caused those kind of visions.

Tanda came over and knelt beside me. I could feel her hand on my forehead, then a soft energy flowing through me, washing the pain and nausea with it. Whatever she did, it was nice.

After a moment she moved away and I opened my eyes. My head didn't hurt as much, and the world that felt as if it was smashing down on me from all sides had retreated.

I also realized that what I had thought were carrot-juice-induced nightmares had actually happened. "That help?" Tanda asked.

I nodded, wishing I hadn't almost at once. She had taken away the pain, but the rest of the problems-upset stomach and spinning world-were still with me.

She brought me a glass of water, helping me sit up to drink it.

"Well, hangovers are sure fun, aren't they, apprentice?" Aahz asked.

"No," I managed to croak out after I took a small drink, "they are not."

"Good thing to remember next time you go bingeing."

The thought of even seeing another carrot made my stom ach twist.

"Was there alcohol in the carrot juice?"

"No, but it had other stuff in it," Aahz said, "Stuff I'm guessing make the people of those towns good eating for the vampires."

My stomach twisted.

"And maybe help keep them under control," Tanda said, looking at me. "Think you can come to the table and try to eat a little something?"

"I can try," I said, "but no promises."

"Good enough. You need to eat."

"How long was I sleeping?" I asked as I stood and shuffled my way to the table.

I dropped into a chair and then tried to remain still while the world spun for a moment.

"About twelve hours," Aahz said. "We were just getting ready to head back to Kowtow when you started to wake up."

"Without me?" I asked, staring into the eyes of my mentor.

He smiled at what must have been my shocked expression.

"Just to explore and get a little closer to Donner while the vampires were back being cows. We would have left you shielded and been back in a few hours."

"You still want to see if you can get to the treasure?" I asked, not believing that Aahz would even want to go back to the place again, let alone try to get a golden-milk-giving cow that turned into a vampire.

"Sure," he said. "We're too close to turn back now."

"And just what are you going to do when you find this golden cow?"

"I asked him the same thing," Tanda said.

"I'll figure that out when we find it," Aahz said.

I nodded. "Glad I woke up then."

"I doubt you're going to be up for coming along just yet," Tanda said, putting a little sandwich and another glass of water in front of me.

"I'll be fine," I said. "Just a little carrot juice and I can fly a long ways."

The silence in the cabin was intense.

I looked at Aahz, then at Tanda and smiled. "Just kid-ding."

For some reason, neither of them laughed.

Along the way there were more and more cattle, bigger herds than we had seen at any other place. I was just glad that none of them were lined up along the road watching us.

The countryside was becoming pretty hilly, and the road looked like it was headed right at a fairly large mountain range. I hoped Donner was on this side of the range and not the other. My question was answered almost at once as we topped a slight ridge and could see off ahead.

I somehow managed to bring us to a stop and lower us to the ground. Considering what we were facing, I thought that was pretty good concentration.

From the top of this hill we could see Donner. It had been built going up the side of a gentle hill. From here it looked as if the buildings down low were all like the ones in the towns we had already seen, but the farther up the hill you went, the larger the buildings, the more ornate.

At the top was the palace. Only this wasn't like anything on this planet. It was made of stone and inlaid with gold that shimmered in the afternoon sun. It was like a second sun, only golden.

"Oh, my," Tanda said softly.

"No wonder there's a treasure map to this place," Aahz said. "I've never seen anything like that."

"Neither have I," Tanda said.

Well, if the two experienced dimension travelers in the group had never seen anything like the golden palace we were staring at, I sure hadn't either.

After a moment I asked what I thought was the obvious next question.

"So now what do we do?"

"We go take a closer look," Aah2 said, laughing. "See what we can see."

I glanced at my mentor. He was always happy when there was a chance we might end up with a lot of money. I didn't want to ask him how he thought we were going to get any of the gold we could see from here, but clearly he had ideas, and the ideas were enough to make him smile.

All his smile did was worry me.

I flew us two more small hills closer to the city before Aahz said we had better walk the rest of the way. There was so much energy in this area that I didn't even feel tired from the effort of flying. It had come easy, which meant that all magik was easy in this place. That was both good and bad.

Ahead of us on the road were some walkers, plus a wagon full of vegetables being pulled by two horses. Cows filled the fields, paying no attention to anything.

Up closer, the town of Donner was even bigger than I had first thought, with a very wide, boulevard-like main road head ing straight through everything. The golden castle on the top of the hill was massive. It looked like it could swallow the entire royal palace and courtyard of Possiltum and not even burp. I wonder if this place had a royal magician. Maybe I could apply for the job, but I doubted I would pass the cow physical.

We had just crested the last small hill and were starting down toward the edge of the city when a dozen men on horseback came galloping out of the city, kicking up a cloud of dust behind them. A few people ahead of us on the road stepped out of the way. And the wagonload of veggies had to move almost off the road and into a small ditch.

The thundering horses came on, riding hard, the men's black hats pulled down tight on their heads. I didn't have a good feeling about this, but at the same time there was no reason to think they were after us.

We moved to the side of the road as they neared, but in stead of riding past, then stopped, sort of forming a circle around us, pinning us against a pasture full of cows. I clearly should have trusted my bad feeling.

"You are under arrest," a man sitting on a big black horse said. "Please come with us into the city."

"It's a posse," Tanda said, the surprise in her voice clear. "Never thought I'd ever see one."

"A what?" I asked.

"Never mind," she said.

"Under arrest for what?" Aahz demanded of the guy on the big horse.

The guy, whose face looked very similar to the guy who had been the bartender in Audry's, smiled. I didn't like the look of his little teeth at all.

"You have been charged with not complying with round- up procedures," he said, "and the unlawful use of magik."

I glanced at Aahz, then at Tanda. Now we knew for sure that this dimension knew about magik. As far as I was concerned, right about now would be a great time to beat a hasty retreat to the wonderful dust of Vortex #6. But it seemed Aahz had other ideas.

"We demand to be taken to your leader," Aahz said, step ping toward the man. "We are powerful magicians from an other dimension with important information your leader will want."

The guy actually laughed, which rocked Aahz back on his heels. Not too many people actually laughed at my mentor and got away with it.

"Drop my disguise," Aahz said, whispering to me.

I shrugged. At this point, it couldn't get any worse, so I did as he asked.

Not a one of the men on the horses even seemed to notice that there was now a green-scaled ugly Pervect standing in front of them. Not even their horses cared.

That was not what Aahz was expecting.

The guy again just laughed.

"You can drop the act," he said. "Our leader knows ex actly why you are here."

Then the guy did something that just flat scared me to death. He pointed a finger at Aahz and a moment later the map came floating out of Aahz's belt pouch, unfolded in midair, and fluttered there. Then it refolded and returned to the pouch.

"Now please come with us," he said.

He turned his horse and started at a slow pace toward the city.

I glanced at Aahz, who was looking almost stunned, then at Tanda.

"Don't you think this might be a good time to head for home?" I asked.

"I wish we could," Tanda said.

Sweat dripped off her forehead as we all stepped back onto the road to follow the guy who had done the talking. The rest of his group of riders waited and fell in behind us.

"Excuse me?" I said. "How about jumping us to the dust storm?"

"Trust me," she said, "I tried."

"You what?" I couldn't believe she couldn't get us out of this mess.

"We're blocked?" Aahz asked.

"Tighter than a vault," she said. "Best block I've ever run up against."

"How about I try to fly us out of here?"

"Won't work either," Tanda said. "At the moment there's a block over all our magik."

"Oh," was all I could say.

Ahead, just over the head of the horse in front of me I could see the golden palace. It was the place, the treasure, we had been working and fighting so hard to reach. Right now it was the last place in any dimension I wanted to go.