Myth-Ion Improbable

Chapter Five

"That's wild!"

J. WEST

"What kind of name is Kowtow?" I asked, pointing at our destination on the map after Glenda released me from the hug of the century.

No one answered me.

"How did you do that?" Glenda asked, staring at me. "I've never heard of anyone taking the magik out of a treasure map before."

Her beautiful brown eyes were huge and there was a look of what I took to be slight worry. Then I realized that what I was seeing wasn't worry. She was in awe of me. And having someone in awe of me was not a circumstance that often happened.

"Honestly," I said to her, "I'm not sure."

"Why is that no surprise?" Aahz said, his eyes rolling in disgust.

"Aahz said something about taking the magik out of the map," I said, going on, explaining to her what had happened while ignoring Aahz, "So I gave it a try. I tapped into its en­ ergy like I would a force line and just let it flow through me and into the ground. That's all I did. Honest."

Tanda looked as if she understood, but was saying nothing.

"The vortex dimensions are known to be powerful places for magik," Glenda said. "That's why no one lives here very long."

"So while we're here," Aahz said, glaring at me, "be careful!"

I pointed at the map. "What? Didn't I help?"

"I think you did," Tanda said. "Glenda, do you know this Kowtow dimension? Or do we have to go back to the Shifter to get there?"

Aahz moaned at the mention of the Shifter.

"I've been there a number of times," Glenda said. "Never thought of it as a place with a great treasure, though."

"Are there cattle there?" Aahz asked.

"More than you could ever imagine," Glenda said.

"So our next adventure," I said, smiling at Glenda, "is find­ ing a single cow in a proverbial haystack of cows."

A puzzled frown came over her face, telling me clearly she had no idea what I had just said, and since I had no idea what a cow looked like, I didn't want to try to explain a haystack of them to her.

"What our young friend there was trying to say," Tanda added, "is that if there are a lot of cows, how are we going to find the one that gives golden milk?"

Glenda shrugged. "I have no idea. No one has ever got­ ten this far with this map before. It would have never oc­curred to me that the map led to Kowtow."

Aahz wasn't adding anything, so I figured it was safe to say what I was thinking.

"Wouldn't a cow that gave golden milk live in a golden palace?"

Again they just all three stared at me.

"More than likely," Tanda said, nodding slowly.

Silence again filled the small cabin. At that point I figured it was better to just eat more bread and leave the thinking up to them.

After an hour of planning and talking, at Aahz's suggestion, Glenda dimension-hopped us to Kowtow, to a location iso­lated enough that we wouldn't be seen by anyone. He figured that way we would have time for me to get us in disguises so that we looked like the local residents.

Before we hopped, Aahz made real sure that either Glenda or Tanda could hop back to this cabin. And he had Glenda help him set his D-Hopper so he could as well. It seemed I was the only one who didn't have an emergency getaway. I planned on making sure I was always close to one of them. Preferably Glenda.

After the hop, we ended up standing near a large rock cliff face. The air was warm and dry, and the sun was high over­head at the moment.

The area around us looked like desert, but the ground sloped away from us down to a lush, green valley. A road came over the hill beside the cliff, wound past where we were, and down the hill to what looked to be a small town built out of wood. From what I could tell there was no building over two stories tall. The buildings seemed to be centered around the main street.

"That town is called Evade," Glenda said. "Mostly cow­ boys and bars."

"Cowboys?" I asked. Since I had no idea what a cow looked like, I couldn't imagine what a boy cow would be, or why they would build a town.

"Cowboys are men who take care of the cows," Glenda said. "For some reason they're called that in just about every dimension there are cows or cattle."

I wanted to ask her what a woman who took care of cows was called.

"In this dimension," Glenda said, "the cowboys are a strange bunch, let me tell you."

Aahz stood, staring at the town in the valley below them.

"In what way?"

Glenda shrugged. "They seem to treat the cattle almost like they were sacred. They never hurt a cow, they never push a cow too hard, and they always talk nice to the cattle. And they protect them against anything."

"Now that is weird," Tanda said.

"Why?" I asked.

Aahz looked at me with one of his looks that said I was asking too many questions. I knew that look well, since I saw it two or three times a day.

"Because, in most dimensions, cows are nothing but food. Here, killing a cow is a hanging offense."

"So what do these cowboys look like?" I asked. For once, courtesy of my earlier adventures, I knew what a hanging offense was. In fact, I knew about it intimately enough to not want to dwell on the memory.

"Actually, in this dimension, they look a lot like the three of us." Glenda laughed. She glanced at Aahz. "We're going to have to do something about you, though, big boy. They don't know about demons here, let alone Pervects."

Aahz said nothing. I think he was just glad she didn't call him a Pervert, as so many did.

Suddenly, over the hill behind us, along the road, there was the sound of something coming. Glenda had us move back behind some rocks at the base of the cliff and watch. I made sure I had a pretty good view of the road so that I could disguise us all in the right clothes.

A minute later, two men appeared at the top of the rise. They were on horses and were headed slowly down the hill toward the town below. They both were dressed pretty much the same. They had on plaid shirts, jeans-like pants, high boots, and wide belts. Their skin was tan from a long time in the sun, and they wore wide-brimmed brown hats on their heads. One was a little older than the other and both had short hair and mustaches. They rode side-by-side in silence. After they got a distance down the hill, Tanda turned to me. "Get what they look like?"

"Easy," I said.

Pulling in the energy I needed, I changed all of us into our local disguises. I gave us all black hats, and basically similar plaid shirts. Since I couldn't see beyond the clothes what my magik did when I disguised someone, I glanced at Glenda. "How do we look?"

"Perfect," she said. "Even Aahz's tan is red instead of green."

"Are we going to need horses?" I asked. "I can't do them."

"We might," Glenda said, looking frustrated. "Especially if the golden cow isn't close by. We might have to do some traveling, and, from what I remember, horses are the only means of travel here."

"Money?" Aahz asked. "We're going to need money as well."

"I don't think so," Glenda said. "This place doesn't use money."

I thought Aahz was going to have a heart attack. It was like telling him the sun would never come up again.

"So what do they use to trade and buy things with?" Tanda asked, also shocked at the very idea.

"Work," Glenda said. "Work is their capital."

Now I was just as lost as Aahz and Tanda looked.

Glenda went on. "You work for someone when you want something from them. They keep everything on IOU's. So if you want a drink or some food, you sign an IOU and then later you have to work off the debt."

"This is a strange place."

Glenda agreed and we started off down the hill, four strang­ ers walking into a town full of cowboys. I just hope my dis­ guises worked. Just in case, I stayed real close to Glenda. Not that that was a hardship or anything.

The town of Evade was active and primitive. The only street was appropriately enough called Main Street. It was dirt and hardened mud and very rough. It split two rows of wooden buildings with covered wooden sidewalks in front of them. Outside the main street were houses scattered through the farmlands, tucked into groves of strange-looking trees.

Music and laughter were coming from a number of the doors along Main Street. Bright-colored signs were over some of the doors, with names like Battlefield, Wild Horse, and Audry's. I had no idea what any of those names meant.

Horse-drawn wagons and single horses were tied up on rails along the wooden sidewalks, and the entire town smelled like horse droppings, of which there were some pretty good-sized piles spaced along the road.

A man with a white hat and a big shovel was slowly pick­ ing up fresh horse leavings and tossing them onto the piles. I wanted to ask him what debt he was trying to pay off, or what he was trying to buy, because whatever it was, the price was too high.

When we reached the main area of town we stepped up on the sidewalk on the left side and into the shade. Sud­denly I realized just how hot our walk from the cliff had been, and how lucky it was these people wore hats. The sun hadn't seemed that hot at first, after coming from Vor­tex #6, but now that we were in the shade, I realized how bad it was.

We strolled along the wooden sidewalk, trying to look as if we belonged. Of course, in a town that couldn't have more than a few hundred full-time residents, four newcom­ers stood out like a bad blister in new shoes.

"Howdy," the first man we passed said to us. He tipped his hat and just kept right on moving.

By the time I tipped my hat back, he was past us.

A woman in long skirts and a flower-patterned blouse walked past us a few moments later.

"Howdy," she said.

I tipped my hat, as did Aahz.

She smiled at us, showing some pretty strange-looking teeth.

After she was past us I glanced down at my neck to make sure the Translator Pendant that Tanda had given me was still there. It was, but it couldn't be working, because I had no idea what "howdy" meant.

I glanced at Tanda who just shrugged.

About a quarter of the way up the street into the town we stopped and leaned against a wooden wall and tried to look as if we were relaxed. No one was bothering us, or even paying us much attention. Across the street, high-energy music was coming out of the door labeled Audry's. I could see a number of people through the open door sitting at tables. It looked like a bar or restaurant of some sort.

"Now what?" Glenda asked, studying the man in the street who was picking up horse droppings.

"We're going to need information," Tanda said.

"And we just can't come out and ask for it," I said.

Everyone agreed.

"We're also going to need horses," Glenda said. "Unless you want to do more walking in this heat."

I glanced down the street at the open countryside beyond the limits of the small town. Walking back out into that for any distance would be a very bad idea.

We all agreed that we didn't want to do that as well.

"Well, we need two things," I said. "Information about the golden cow, and horses to get us to the treasure."

"Skeeve and I will try the place across the street," Glenda said. "You two head for another one farther along."

"All right," Aahz said, surprising me by agreeing to Glenda's plan. "We meet back in the cabin on Vortex #6 in one hour."

I made sure Glenda understood, since she was my ride out of here. Then we stepped into the street, making a wide turn around one of the large piles of horsepoop the guy was collecting.

He just smiled at us and said, "Howdy."

I tipped my hat at him and he seemed satisfied enough to go back to work.

I was right in all fashions about Audry's Place. It was clear as we went through the door that it was both a restaurant and a bar. The bar was wooden and long, stretching the entire length of the left wall as we entered. A hatless guy wearing a white apron stood behind the bar, a rag in his hands.

Three of the tables were occupied with a total of ten pa­ trons, all of them eating what looked to be large plates of vegetables. The music was loud and had a pretty good beat to it. It seemed like it was coming from a piano in the back, only there was no one sitting at the piano.

Every person in the place glanced up at us as we entered, then went back to eating and talking as if they saw strangers every day and just didn't care. I considered that a good sign.

"Howdy, folks," the guy behind the bar said, wiping a spot off the wood surface in front of him. "What's your pleasure?"

I had no idea what the guy meant. I sort of understood the words, but standing in the middle of a bar, I sure didn't understand why he was asking me about pleasure. Just a little too personal a question for someone I didn't know.

I glanced at Glenda, who seemed confused for a moment as well. Then she indicated I should follow her lead as she stepped toward the guy.

Glenda nodded her head at the bartender, sort of like tip­ping her hat as we reached the wide bar.

"A little something to drink, a little food, and a decent way to work off the debt." Clearly it had been the right thing to say, since the guy smiled like he had just hit the jackpot.

"Strangers are always welcome in my place," he said, reach­ ing behind him and getting two glasses off the counter on the back wall. He put them on the bar and looked at Glenda, then me. "What'll wet your whistle?"

At that moment I was really glad that Glenda was doing the talking. I was fairly certain he was asking what we wanted to drink, but I wasn't totally certain, and I had no idea what he had to offer that could do that to a whistle.

"Oh," she said, "whatever you have will be fine with us."

The guy grabbed a large bottle of orange liquid and filled both glasses to the top. Then he slid them to the edge of the bar in front of us.

"Thank you, kind sir," Glenda said.

Again the guy. beamed.

"Just grab a seat and I'll rustle you up some of my best grub."

At that moment I wanted to bang my translator pendant on the bar to make it work right.

"Nothing special," she said, smiling at the guy and winking.

He beamed again, his face red as he turned and headed for a back room. It seemed Glenda could charm just about any guy, no matter what dimension. I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

She picked up her orange drink, indicated that I do the same, and then headed for a table in the corner, a little ways away from the rest of the patrons. I followed her, taking a chair with my back to the wall so I could see everything going on.

After we were both seated I whispered to her, "You can understand him?"

She shrugged. "Mostly going with the flow."

"So we're going to have to eat grubs," I whispered, "to go with the flow?"

I had never eaten a grub, and wasn't excited about having my first now.

She laughed and patted my hand. "I think 'grub' means food in this dimension."

"Well, that's a relief."

"Yeah, isn't it."

I took a tentative sip of my drink and damn near spat it all over the table. It wasn't orange juice at all. It tasted like pulped carrots. Sour-tasting carrots.

"Interesting," Glenda said after taking a drink. Then she turned to me and made a face that only I could see. She didn't much like it either.

I glanced around at the other patrons in the place. Every one had a glass of the carrot drink in front of them. It looked as if it was the only drink the place served.

At that moment the guy came out of the back room carrying two plates. With a smile and a flourish he slid them in front of us. Vegetables. Asparagus, carrots, celery, a few sliced toma toes, and part of a cucumber, artfully arranged on a bed of what looked like grass.

"Wonderful," Glenda said, smiling at the man with her big gest and most alluring smile. "I hope we can find a way to repay you for this feast."

The guy had the common decency to blush. "I'm sure we will work something out." At that he beat a hasty retreat to the bar. Fingers seemed to be the preferred method of getting the food from the plate to the mouth, so I picked up one piece of celery and bit into it. It was soft, not fresh, and had a faint taste of horsedung.

I hope I managed to swallow it without looking too insult­ ing to anyone who could see me.

Glenda tried a piece of cucumber. I could tell it wasn't good either from how slowly she chewed and then forced her­self to swallow.

"We're in a vegetarian dimension," I whispered as Glenda gave the bartender an okay sign that the food was good. "What do they do with all the cattle you claim are here?"

"I have no idea," Glenda whispered. "But if I have to eat or drink any more of this garbage I think I'm going to be sick."

"Yeah, me too."

"Pretend to eat and I'll see if I can get some answers" she said.

She stood and moved over to where the man stood behind bar. I couldn't tell what she was saying, but after a moment he laughed and looked at me as if I were the brunt of a joke. I pretended to bite and chew on a asparagus spear and just smiled back.

At that moment Aahz and Tanda came in. They glanced first at Glenda, then saw me and came over and sat down in the other two chairs, their backs to the main part of the room.

"Started without us, I see," Tanda said.

"Couldn't resist," I said loud enough for the bartender guy to hear. Then I whispered, "This stuff is awful."

"What is she doing?" Aahz asked, his voice a barely au dible whisper.

I pretended to eat a tiny bit of grass, covering my mouth as I answered him.

"Getting information. And for heaven's sake, don't order the food. You have any luck?"

"None," Tanda said.

A few seconds later the bartender pointed down the street in the opposite direction from where we had entered the town. Glenda smiled and came back over.

"Horses are sold down at a stable just outside the edge of town," she said. "I told him we'd clean the kitchen for our food and drink."

"I wonder what we'll have to do for horses?" Aahz asked, shaking his head.

Glenda shrugged and kept pretending to eat.

"Besides,", I said. "We don't know where we're going yet."

"True," she said.

"That's our biggest problem," Aahz said.

Suddenly it dawned on me that we should know where we were going. What kind of magik map would simply lead to a dimension without giving directions to the location of the trea­sure in the dimension? After all, a world was a very large place to be looking for one cow.

I had taken the magik out of the map as far as getting to this crazy dimension. But it hadn't occurred to us to check the map once we were here.

"Aahz," I whispered. "Check the map."

He frowned at me. "Why would I-"

He must have had the same thought I had. Maybe, just maybe, the magik was back for local directions.

He reached into his pouch and pulled out the parchment Since his back was to the bar, he kept the map in front of him so no one else in the place could see it. Then, slowly, he opened it

It was instantly clear to me, as I pretended to love a hunk of cucumber, that the map had again changed. It was no longer a dimension map, but now a map of Kowtow.

The customers closest to us finished off their veggie plate and got up to leave. That left only two other tables and the guy behind the bar. And at the moment he wasn't looking.

"Open it all the way and see where we are," Glenda said. "It's clear."

Aahz, much to his credit, didn't turn around to check to see if she was right. He simply opened the map and spread it out over our plates of bad food.

No one paid any attention.

The golden cow palace was marked on the map. Well, at least we knew where that was.

Evade, the town we were in now was also marked. The road between them was marked as the lines between dimen­sions had been marked. There were a lot of other towns along the way, and one thing was very, very clear. We were still a long way from the golden cow.

Glenda studied the map hard, almost as if she were memo­rizing it.

"See anything that will help?" Tanda asked.

"If we go back to Vortex #6 I can get us a lot closer."

"Thank heavens," I said.

"Don't be thanking anyone yet," she said, staring at the map. "It's still going to be too far to walk."

Aahz folded up the map, put it back in his pouch, and stood.

"Tanda and I will go find a secluded place to hop back," he whi spered, leaning forward so only the three of us could hear him. "Think you two can get out of here without being notic ed?"

"Easy," Glenda said.

"See you there," Tanda said, standing and moving toward the front door.

After we had pretended to eat more of our lunch, push ing the stuff into a pile on one side of the plate like I used to do as a kid, Glenda got up and went back over to the guy behind the bar.

I kept pretending, wishing the stuff tasted good, since the idea of eating had made me hungry.

After a moment the guy in charge nodded to Glenda, smiling as if she had promised him more than I wanted to think about.

She motioned that I should join her and I did, carrying our plates. The guy led us through the door and into what might be called a kitchen. There were barrels of the different veggies against one wall, and some dirty plates and glasses stacked near a water barrel. No wonder everything tasted so bad. I didn't want to even think about the fact that I had eaten a bite of some of the stuff from this room.

"Wash water is in the barrel," he said. He tossed me a dirty towel. "Dry the dishes before wiping down everything else."

Glenda put her hand on his shoulder and eased him around toward the door.

"Don't worry," she said. "We'll get everything all cleaned up."

"I know you will," he said. The guy was more putty in her hands than I was, and for some reason that thought just annoyed me.

He went back out through the door and Glenda turned to face me.

"Well, handsome, my father was right. You are special." I could feel myself blushing. "Thanks."

"No, thank you," she said, "for everything. In all the years of trying to find the silly treasure on that map, I never thought I'd know exactly where it was at."

"Well, now we do, and we can get there pretty soon," I said. "Jump us back to Vortex #6."

She smiled and shook her head.

"Sorry, my prince in a white hat. Maybe next time."

With a slight wave and a kiss motion, she vanished in a slight POOF!

"That's not funny," I shouted, staring at where she had been.

The guy came in, looking puzzled.

"What's not funny? And where is your beautiful friend?"

I glanced around, then pointed at the back door.

"I told her I'd get started on the dishes. She'll be right back, I'm sure."

"Good," he said. "Let me know when she returns. She said she had a surprise for me."

He headed back out into the main room, leaving me stand­ ing there alone in a strange kitchen.

In a strange dimension.

It seemed he wasn't the only one Glenda had planned a surprise for.