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Robert Asprin "MYTH-ion Improbable"
Origin: Библиотека "Артефакт" -- http://andrey.tsx.org/
http://www.meishamerlin.com/Myth-IonImprobableExcerpt.html
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"Here we go again!"
C-3PO
When my teacher/mentor Aahz grumbles or rants about my being stupid or
having done something stupid, I make a big show of being apologetic, but it
really doesn't bother me all that much. I figure it goes with the territory
and is part of the price of learning magik.
I mean, first of all, there's the point that Aahz is older than I am
and has been around more. A lot more. He's an experienced dimension
traveler, or 'demon' for short, and compared to his knowledge and experience
I really am stupid and naive.
Then, too, the dimension he hails from, Perv, is noted for its
short-tempered, hostile inhabitants. Other dimension travelers tend to avoid
Perv whenever possible, and give the green, scaly Pervects a wide berth when
encountering them in other dimensions.
To cap it all off, while he was once an accomplished magician himself,
Aahz lost his powers when we met (See Another Fine Myth). Watching me fumble
and stutter while learning what are, to him, some of the simplest, most
rudimentary spells, all the while being aware that, at least for the time
being, he's dependent on me in the magik department, is bound to make him a
bit testy from time to time.
I can understand and accept it when I do something he thinks is stupid.
When I do something that, in hindsight, I think is stupid... that's another
matter entirely.
We were ensconced in the Royal Palace of the Kingdom of Possiltum,
enjoying my cushy position as the Royal Court Magician, a job that Aahz had
coached me through the auditions for. That is, Aahz was enjoying it. For him
it was comfortable surroundings and a steady, generous salary. For me, it
was living in constant close contact with a grouchy demon who seemed
determined that I practice my magik lessons night and day.
Needless to say, this gets boring after a while. The few adventures I
had been on since I had apprenticed myself to Aahz had whetted my appetite
for travel, and I was eager for more. Unfortunately, Aahz steadfastly
refused to even start teaching me how to dimension-travel on my own, saying
it was far too dangerous for someone with my meager magikal abilities.
That's when I decided to try something really stupid. I decided to try
to outwit Aahz and trick him into taking me dimension traveling again.
An item had come to hand that I thought might be just the ticket, so
one afternoon when he seemed a bit bored himself, I sprang it on him.
"Aahz," I said, holding out a folded piece of parchment to him, "I
think you should take a look at this."
Aahz glared at the paper in my hand as if it might bite him. And when
someone from Perv glares, it is really something to see.
"And just what is that?"
"It looks like a map." I shrugged. Actually, I knew it was a map. While
Tanda and I had been jumping dimensions, shopping for a birthday present for
Aahz, I had been offered this map by a beggar on a street corner. Since
Tanda had been, at that moment, off talking to some sort of businessmen of
that dimension, I had bought the map for a few coins, thinking it would be a
fun small gift. I had stuck the map in my belt pouch, and then proceeded to
forget about it because of all the problems with the Big Game three
dimensions later. Actually, forgetting about the map was entirely
understandable, since Tanda ended up captured and our main focus was on
freeing her. And the only way we could free her was by winning the game. So
forgetting the map was reasonable. I had had enough on my mind.
But today, while searching through my pouch for something else, I found
the map. While I honestly didn't know what it was, I thought it might be
what I needed to bait Aahz into taking me dimension traveling again.
Aahz still wasn't about to touch the parchment. He motioned to the
fire.
"Throw it in there and then get back to your practice."
"I'm done with my practice," I said.
"You're never done with your practice."
I ignored him and pushed on.
"Besides, I paid good coins for this map."
That was my trump card. If there's anything Aahz hates, it's wasting
money. He got angry with me every time my dragon, Gleep, tore up something
while playing, and the cost of repairs were taken from my wages. When it
came to my money, Aahz was in complete control. And by the way he talked, we
were always broke and about to go hungry.
"A scam, I'm sure," Aahz said, turning away. "Just like you to waste
money."
I frowned. This was going to be harder than I thought. Normally, if
there was any chance of making money at anything, he jumped at it.
Then it dawned on me I hadn't told him what the map led to.
"Aahz," I said to his back.
He didn't move. Instead he just kept staring out the window at the
courtyard.
"Aahz, you might really want to look at this. It's a map to a creature
called a cow."
"So?" Aahz said, shaking his head. "Remember the last time we were at
the Bazaar at Deva? Where do you think that steak you ate came from?"
I stared at him. I had no idea steaks came from creatures called cows.
I had just assumed they came from creatures called steaks. Trout came from
trout, salmon came from salmon, and duck came from duck. It was logical.
Besides, there were no cows in this dimension. At least, none that I had
ever met.
"Well," I said, glancing at the parchment in my hand, "this is a map to
a golden cow that lives in a golden palace and gives gold-laced milk."
Aahz slowly turned to stare at me, his eyes slit as if he were trying
to figure out if I was actually joking or not Then, in two steps, he was in
front of me, snatching the map from my grasp.
"So there really is such a golden beast?" I asked while he studied the
paper.
He didn't respond, so I stood and watched him stare at the map. The
writing on it was odd, actually. It didn't show roads, but more like
dimensions, energy points, and vortexes. Most of it I didn't understand, and
almost none of the map had any names on it, but there was a massive amount
about jumping from dimension to dimension that I didn't understand.
Aahz had told me once there were so many dimensions, no one knew the
total number, and it was easy to get lost and never make it back when
jumping from dimension to dimension. After my shopping trip with Tanda to
thirty or forty different dimensions, I was starting to believe him.
Finally he looked down at me, a frown on his ugly face. And when Aahz
frowned, which was a great deal of the time, he looked like an animal
snarling. His green skin and bright eyes and sharp teeth could be very
intimidating if a person wasn't used to it. Luckily, I was.
"So where exactly did you get this?" He fluttered the parchment in my
face as he asked the question.
"Bought it from a man on a street corner," I said. "I think it might
have been some beggar."
"What dimension?"
"Not a clue." I shrugged. "One of the many Tanda and I visited. You
could ask her."
Aahz frowned even more at that.
"What made you buy it?"
Again I shrugged.
"I honestly don't know. I thought you'd have fun with it for your
birthday, and the guy said I was the first traveler he'd seen in a long time
who might be able to use it and live to tell the tale."
"Could he see through your disguises?" Aahz asked, staring at me.
I tried to remember back to the day. I had used my standard disguise
spell, and on that dimension, the spell had not been hard. Most of the
residents stood four feet tall, and had two feet. Compared to disguising
Tanda and me as slugs on one of the previous dimensions, that had been easy.
But the beggar had clearly picked me out of a crowd, and he seemed out of
place among the short people, being almost five feet tall.
I looked at Aahz and nodded.
"Maybe. But I don't know how he could have."
Aahz waved his hand in disgust.
"Apprentice, there are a thousand ways, especially with someone so
unpracticed as you."
I said nothing. No point in even trying to defend my talents. Aahz
always won those conversations by making me try something I couldn't yet do.
And that was just about everything when it came to magik. But making
disguises is my best ability.
Aahz spun around and moved back to the window, keeping the map with
him. He stood there, staring out over the courtyard, letting the silence in
the room just build and build. And if there was one thing I hated more than
anything, it was the sound of someone thinking, without telling me what they
were thinking about.
"So, is there such a golden cow?" I asked, moving over and standing
beside him in the big window so he couldn't ignore me.
In the courtyard below the window, Gleep was running in circles chasing
his tail. Thank heavens he wasn't near anything, because when a dragon
started chasing his tail, things got knocked down, trampled, and just flat
destroyed. Especially when it was young dragon.
What was even more amazing was that Aahz didn't seem to be noticing
what Gleep was doing. Clearly the map meant something to him.
"The golden cow?" I asked again, "Is it real?"
Aahz slowly turned and looked at me.
"A myth. There are a lot of them in the different dimensions."
"You're kidding! You mean there is more than one golden-milk-giving-cow
myth?" Considering that I had never heard of a cow before today, I found
that a little hard to imagine. I'm not sure exactly why I thought even one
golden cow was easy to imagine, but dozens of them were just too much. Maybe
there was an entire dimension with a race of them.
Aahz sighed. When he sighed like that, it usually meant I was being
extra stupid or dense.
"Every tenth dimension has a myth about an animal or person doing
something with gold. One has a goose laying golden eggs, another has a fish
touching things and turning them to gold, another has a duck with golden
feathers."
"One heavy bird," I said, trying to imagine the duck covered in gold.
Aahz sighed again.
"The feathers become gold when they fall off."
"Got you," I said. "You ever been near or seen one of these golden
animals?"
Aahz laughed, his demon-sound shaking the room.
"If I had, would I be here, in this dump of a palace, with an
apprentice as stupid as you?"
I had to admit he had a good point, but I didn't really want to agree
with him.
"So that is a sham map," I said.
"Most likely," Aahz said, staring out at the courtyard where Gleep had
now managed to catch his tail. He bit it so hard, the poor dragon jumped and
looked around, startled. Gleep was smart in many ways, but not about his own
tail.
I glanced over at Aahz. When he said 'most likely,' and didn't look at
me, it meant he thought there might be a slight chance the map was real.
"Why only most likely?" I asked.
"Because," Aahz said, "I saw a golden deer-dropping once."
"Deer dropping?" Again I had no idea what he meant.
"Deer poop," Aahz said, his voice showing he was getting very tired of
my stupid questions. "Deer turds. Deer crap. Deer excrement. One dimension
has a myth about a deer that drops gold. I saw one of the droppings. And..."
He stopped, still not looking at me. In all the time we had been
together, I had never seen him like this before.
"And what?" I asked.
"And I saw part of a solid-gold elk antler at the Bazaar at Deva."
I was stunned. A deer that pooped gold and an elk that had golden
antlers.
"So the map might actually be real?"
"I doubt it," Aahz said, glancing at it.
"But you don't know for sure, do you?"
He shook his head.
"Not for sure."
"So we're going to check it out?"
He looked down at the map in his hand, then folded it and stuffed it in
his pocket.
"I'll be back in an hour."
He pulled out the D-Hopper and twisted it to a setting. Back before he
met me and lost his powers, he used to be able to jump through the
dimensions without the use of a D-Hopper. Now he needed the help and he
hated it.
"Wait!" I shouted. "You can't go looking for it without me."
"I'm not," Aahz said. "And get that dragon of yours under control
before he breaks something again and we have to pay for it. Be ready to go.
One hour. And the dragon doesn't come with us."
With that Aahz was gone, vanished off to another dimension with a faint
BAMF.
By the time Aahz got back I had Gleep in his stall in the stables and
had arranged for someone to feed and walk him until I returned from wherever
we were going.
I was standing near the foot of the bed in my room when suddenly the
air next to me sort of went BAMF again. Not real loud, but startling when it
happened two feet from you. I jumped. Aahz was back, and he had my favorite
demon in the entire universe of demons with him.
"Tananda!" I shouted, stepping toward the beautiful creature with the
long green hair and a body that, with a deep breath, could stop a parade.
"Skeeve!" she shouted back, laughing.
Then she pulled me into a hug that I hoped would never, ever stop. Now,
granted, it had only been a month since I had last seen her, drunk as a
skunk at Aahz's birthday party. But every time I saw her I figured it was a
great excuse for a very long hug. And she sure didn't seem to mind, either.
Tanda was a former assassin and member of the guild. I wasn't sure what
she did now besides shop and go on adventures. What's more, I didn't really
want to know. We were friends, and that was enough for me.
Aahz cleared his throat after far too short a time in her wonderful
hug. He did seem to mind that she didn't mind. Oh, well. I still believed
she liked me better than him, and that was all that mattered.
She pushed me back and looked at me sternly, her wonderful eyes glaring
at me with mock anger.
"Why didn't you tell me you had bought a treasure map?"
"Actually, I was going to when we stopped for the night," I said with a
shrug, "but then the game and you getting captured and everything sort of
pushed the map out of my mind."
"So do you remember how many dimensions before Jahk you bought it?" she
asked.
I knew exactly how many, since I had done the disguises in every
dimension on the trip. "Three," I said.
"You're absolutely sure?" Aahz asked, his golden eyes staring at me
like they were about to shoot daggers.
I held up my hand.
"Jahk, the dimension with the Big Game."
I pointed at my thumb.
Tanda nodded and Aahz just glared, his expression of annoyance making
me take my time.
"Counting backwards," I said, pointing at my index finger, "the
dimension before that was where we had to look like a form of a three-nosed
pig."
I wiggled my index finger at both of them. Tanda nodded. "Yeah, fun
place."
"Not really," I said. Aahz's glare got deeper, so I went on. "Before
that was the dimension where we had to be eight feet tall and have three
legs." I pointed at my middle finger. Tanda laughed. "That was a fun
dimension, too. Wasn't it?" It hadn't been, since walking on three legs is
something that is a factor harder than trying to fly by flapping your arms
and jumping off a cliff. But I ignored her this time and went on.
I pointed to my next finger.
"Dimension where we had to be four feet tall and where I bought the
map." I held up the three fingers. 'That many in front of the game
dimension."
I wanted to add that I could go over them again if Aahz wanted, but he
was clearly not happy with me, so I didn't offer.
Tanda smiled. "I thought so. Mini."
"So what's so special about that dimension?" I asked. It hadn't seemed
like much to me, although Tanda had not wanted to stay there long on our
shopping trip.
"Actually," Aahz said, "it makes this map more likely to be real."
"Almost certain." Tanda laughed.
"You're kidding?" I asked. "You really think there is a golden cow out
there?"
"I didn't say that," Aahz said. "I just said the map was likely to be
real."
I frowned and Tanda laughed.
"Mini is populated by Minikins, who have this awful power of never
telling a lie about anything. They do not do well at the Bazaar at Deva, for
obvious reasons."
"But what happens if the guy who sold it to me wasn't a Minikin?"
"If he had been there for more than a day, he had to tell the truth
about the map as well. That's why we got out of there so fast. Truth is not
a good influence when you are shopping."
At that I had no firsthand knowledge, but I figured Tanda was the
expert.
"Come on," she said to Aahz. "Dig out the map. We're wasting time.
Let's do this."
"Why do I have a bad feeling about this?" Aahz asked as he pulled out
the parchment, unfolded it, and put it on the bed so all three of us could
look at it.
I had no idea what I was looking at, but Tanda seemed to. She pointed
at the upper left corner.
"That's Minikins' Dimension."
Even I knew that, since it was labeled Mini.
"So we start there?"
Aahz nodded. So did Tanda, for which I was grateful. If they both
agreed, at least we had something solid.
Tanda ran her finger along the only line leading from Minikin. It ended
at a dot that was labeled Vortex #1. She studied that for a moment, then
glanced at Aahz.
"You have any idea what that means? Or where it's at?"
"Not a clue," he said.
Now I was stunned. It wasn't often that my mentor admitted he didn't
know something. In fact, I couldn't remember the last time that it had
happened, if ever. I wanted to point that out to him, but this just didn't
seem to be the right time, so I went back to studying the map.
I could see that on the map Vortex #1 had six lines leading off to six
unlabeled points on the paper. And lines led off of each of those points to
other vortex dots. There were seven more vortexes listed, and a big "X"
marking the cow in the lower right corner of the map. Only one line led from
Vortex #8 to the cow.
It was clear that there was no straight line from Mini to the cow. And
no right path. From the looks of it, we could go any of a dozen different
ways, through different points labeled vortexes, taking different lines. If
nothing else, this was going to be an interesting puzzle.
Aahz had told me that dimension-hopping was dangerous because a person
could hop to an unknown dimension and never get back. I wondered now how
safe it was going to be following a map through some of these dimensions,
especially when even the map was confusing.
"Well," Tanda said, turning to Aahz. "It looks like we're going to need
some more help if we're going to find this golden beast."
Aahz looked at her and then slowly shook his head. "You can't be
thinking what I think you're thinking."
"I'm thinking it," she said.
"No!" Aahz said, his voice firm. I knew for a fact that when he said no
like that there was no changing his mind.
"Yes," Tanda said, smiling at him with a smile that could melt a
belt-buckle right off a guy's pants. She reached up and touched one of the
green scales on his cheek.
"No," Aahz said, but this time it wasn't as firm. Not even a Pervect
could stand up against Tanda's charms.
"Yes," she said, turning the smile up one more notch and stroking
Aahz's green neck just below his ear.
I was glad she wasn't doing that to me. As it was, just watching I was
almost a puddle on the floor. And I didn't even know what they were arguing
about.
Aahz wasn't faring much better. He shook his head, then said, "It's a
mistake."
"How else are we going to find what dimension to jump to from Minikin?"
She stroked his cheek and then moved right up against him.
No sentient male being could have withstood that attack. Aahz didn't.
I was sweating hard just watching. Much more and I would need to change
into one of my clean shirts.
"All right," he said, his voice so soft I could almost not hear it.
"But trust me, this is a mistake."
"Oh, we're not showing anyone the map," Tanda said, moving away from
Aahz and turning down her convincing body language and smile to a normal
level.
Both Aahz and I took a deep breath.
"Then why?" Aahz asked.
"We're just going to find out what, or where a vortex is," Tanda said.
I couldn't stand it any longer.
"Would someone please tell me what this is all about?"
"No," Aahz said.
He picked up the map, then took me by the arm and stepped over beside
Tanda. A moment later we were in the Bazaar at Deva.
"How bazaar!"
RIPLEY
The Bazaar at Deva was like no other place in the universe, or at least
that's what Aahz kept telling me. And from my few times in the Bazaar, and
what little of the different dimensions I had seen, I was beginning to agree
with him.
The Deevels, the residents of Deva, were known as the best traders and
negotiators. Now, granted, Aahz, as a Pervect, could be tight with a penny,
but as Aahz had warned, a Deevel could trade you out of the penny and the
pocket you kept it in, and leave you naked and thinking you were better off
for the deal.
The Bazaar was the logical extension of that ability. They had set up
the trading capital of all the dimensions, a bazaar that now stretched
seemingly forever. Demons, which was a catchphrase for Dimension Travelers,
were allowed to set up booths and try to make a living doing whatever it was
they did best.
I don't think anyone really knew how far the Bazaar extended, since the
tents and booths seemed to always be changing and moving. When I asked how
long Aahz thought it would take me to walk across the Bazaar, he said if I
was lucky, only five or six months, but he doubted I would make it alive.
It seems that the Bazaar at Deva was also a very dangerous place, which
was why I was doing my best to keep up with Tananda and Aahz as they headed
through the crowds. I had no idea why this area was so jammed with Demons.
It smelled like someone was boiling old shoes, and most of the demons in
this area were covered in white and red scales that flaked at the slightest
touch. And in my hurry I was bumping into a lot of them. By the time we came
to a stop in front of a blank-looking tent with the flap closed, I was
sweating like it was a hot summer day, and scales were stuck all over me.
"Might want to brush those off," Aahz said, glancing at me and shaking
his head.
Neither he or Tanda seemed to have any on them at all. I had no idea
how they had managed that and still moved so fast.
"Why?" I asked, half-heartedly pushing the white and red scales off my
sleeve.
"They're acid," Tanda said, reaching over and flicking a scale off my
forehead with a polished nail.
I picked up the speed of my brushing, working at getting every one of
the hundreds of scales stuck to me.
Tanda and Aahz just laughed.
"Little help with the back?" I asked, shaking my entire body as hard as
I could.
Tanda laughed even harder as I turned around and her hands worked over
my shoulders, down my back, and across my rear. Any other circumstances I
would have enjoyed the feel, but standing in the middle of a crowd with acid
scales all over me sort of deflated any thoughts of enjoyment.
Aahz just stood and shook his head, staring at the tent, until I was
finished and Tanda had inspected my hair and neck and other areas for a
stray scale. I didn't know that we had both missed one in my left shoe until
I looked down and saw that my shoe was smoking. It was one of my best pairs,
too.
As I kicked off the shoe and emptied the acid scale onto the ground,
Aahz looked at me and bared his teeth in a grin.
"Just count your blessings it didn't go down your pants."
I looked at the hole the scale had burnt into my shoe and shuddered.
"Want me to check you to make sure?" Tanda asked, smiling.
"Thanks," I said, putting my shoe back on. "Maybe later."
"I still don't like this idea," Aahz said, turning to stare at the
tent, which was clearly why we were on Deva.
Tanda shrugged. "Neither do I, but we don't have much of a choice, do
we? You know anyone who might know what or where a vortex is?"
Aahz shook his head, obviously trying to think of someone.
"I just don't like the price we're going to pay."
"It doesn't have to be that bad," she said.
Aahz said nothing.
I finished one more last check for scales and glanced at the tent we
were standing in front of. There was no sign, no indication that anyone was
even in it. The crowd in the street seemed to give it a wide berth as well.
"I just wish I knew what we were walking into," I said. "A little hint
would be nice."
"You're staying out here," Aahz said.
I glanced around at the flowing crowds of white-and red-scaled acid
demons and shook my head. "Not a chance."
"We need to stick together," Tanda said, taking my side. "We may have
to move quickly."
"That doesn't sound good," I said.
Aahz made his disgusted noise, then looked me right in the eyes.
"Not a word comes from your mouth in there. Understand?"
"Sure," I said, making a motion across my mouth that I had sealed it.
"Here," Tanda said, smiling at me. "Let me help you with that."
She put her wonderful hand against my mouth. The smell of her skin was
that of distant flowers; her touch was soft. She ran her hand along my mouth
as I had done, then patted my shoulder.
"That was-"
My mouth wouldn't open!
I tried again.
The words sort of jumbled inside and the only noise that reached my
ears was "Thrrrgggg wgggggeeee."
I tried to shout "What did you do?"
What got to my ears was "Wgggggghhh dggggggghhh ygggggghhh
dgggggggghhh"
My lips were completely glued together. And the harder I tried to force
them apart, the more painful it became.
"I didn't know you knew that one," Aahz said to Tanda, completely
ignoring my struggle. "I've wanted to use it a hundred times."
She smiled at my mentor. "There are a lot of things you don't know
about me."
Well, as far I was concerned, sealing my lips wasn't something I had
ever wanted Tanda to do with anything except maybe a kiss. I tried to tell
her so, but again nothing sounded like a word.
"Let's do this," Aahz said, nodding in satisfaction at my condition,
then stepping toward the tent.
"Don't worry," Tanda said, smiling at my struggle as she took my arm
and followed Aahz. "It's just temporary. Trust me, it's for your own good.
And ours as well."
Not for the first time, it occurred to me that for someone who claimed
not to have enough magikal talent to be a magician, Tanda occasionally
displayed a lot more knowledge and skill than I had as the Royal Magician of
Possiltum.
At the tent flap Aahz didn't even hesitate or knock, if knocking was
possible on a big tent. He just stepped inside and Tanda led me right behind
him.
The place was huge.
No, huge didn't describe it. On either side of us the tent seemed to
fade off into the distance. This was the first time I had seen one of the
Bazaar tents that had bigger insides than outsides. Aahz had mentioned them,
but until I stepped into the massive room on the other side of the tent
flap, I had no idea that such a thing was really possible. I was going to
have to have Aahz teach me the magik involved so I could do that with our
rooms back at the palace.
The tent was dimly lit and had a polished marble floor and dark,
wooden-looking walls. There was almost no furniture. A simple wooden desk
sat on the side of the room facing where we had come in. A massive map of
what looked like dimensions filled the wall behind it.
A woman sat at the desk, not looking at us at all. Whatever had Aahz
and Tanda so worried about being here wasn't clear on first glance. The room
felt odd, but not threatening, besides it being a hundred times larger than
the tent holding it. We all stopped a few feet in front of the desk, with
Aahz clearly in the position to do the talking.
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 location 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 creature 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 wonderful voice
melting every thought I had. "Understand?" I managed to nod.
"Good," she said, winking at me. "I will know if you succeed 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 dimensions.
"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 nothing 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 something 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, smiling at
Aahz. "Might as well answer his questions."
Aahz just sighed and sat down on the floor.
"The tent we went into was a Shifter's tent. The person we had talked
to was a Shifter. The Shifter moved us here, and my guess is this wonderful
place is the Vortex #1 dimension."
I had to admit that he had answered my questions, but not very well.
"So why were you so reluctant to go see a Shifter for help?" Tanda
laughed at that as she too sat down on the floor. "It wasn't just Aahz. I
didn't want to either, but we had no choice, if we really were going to
follow the map."
"Why?"
"Because," Aahz said, "Shifters have made it their business to know
where dimensions are. Remember I told you that when jumping to a dimension
you need to have a clear image of that dimension in mind, as well as a solid
place in the dimension?"
I nodded. Every time I asked Aahz to start teaching me how to
dimension-hop he brought that problem up.
"I might be able to jump to a few hundred," Aahz said, "if I had my
powers back and I was close enough to them. Maybe between Tanda and me we
could find three or four hundred. With a really expensive D-Hopper we might
find another few hundred on top of that. But there are thousands and
thousands of dimensions. Maybe even millions, for all I know. The Shifters
are the travel agents of dimensions."
"What's a travel agent?"
I looked at Tanda, then at Aahz. Both were just shaking their heads.
"Never mind," Aahz said, waving the question away with his hand. Every
time he did that, I knew he considered the question too stupid for an
answer.
"So they charge for the information and the jump," I said, going on.
"Sounds reasonable to me."
"Well, it is and it isn't," Tanda said. "No one knows where the
Shifters come from. They are masters of disguise, and if you try to
double-cross them you will disappear, never to be seen again."
"More than likely off to some deadly dimension," Aahz said, shaking his
head.
"So we make sure they get their five percent of the golden cow if we
find it."
That seemed logical enough to me.
"I hope that's all it will take," Aahz said.
Tanda just nodded.
I didn't like that at all. Disappearing was not something I considered
in my possible future. I had plans. Better, bigger plans. Yet now I was
risking my life chasing a cow. Not smart at all as far as I was concerned. I
tried to think about something else besides a future where someone made me
vanish.
"How do the Shifters keep changing like that one did?"
"Disguise spells, maybe. I don't know." Tanda shrugged. "I've never
seen one really stay the same for very long."
I considered myself good at disguises, but I was a long way from being
able to do what that Shifter had been doing. Which meant that if they were
that good, it was possible that one of the shifters was with us right now,
disguised as something around the room.
The thought almost made me jump. I glanced around, trying to see
anything odd about the old log cabin. There was nothing but a dirt-littered
floor and old logs. Yet I now had a feeling we were being watched.
"So let's see if we can figure out where we are and how to take the
next step," Tanda said, scooting over beside Aahz.
I walked once around the small room, then moved over to where Aahz had
pulled out the map and spread it on the floor.
"Would you look at that?" Tanda said, pointing.
I saw instantly what she was talking about. The map had changed. I
studied what was there now, comparing it to what had been there before. Now
the lines from Vortex #1 were different, and the points at the end of each
were labeled. And the upper corner of the map had Deva listed, with a direct
line from Deva to Vortex #1.
"Amazing," Aahz said, his voice just a whisper. "A true treasure map."
"How did it do that?" I asked. Aahz laughed.
"Just as everything is done," he said. "Magik."
"It's a magik map, a true treasure map of the dimensions," Tanda said.
"I've only heard of such things."
She reached over and gave me a big hug, something I was more than
willing to continue as long as she wanted it to. Finally, far too quickly,
she let go and looked at me. "This was a great purchase on your part." I
shrugged. "Not unless it leads somewhere."
"True," Aahz said, not looking up from the map. I went back to studying
the map as well. As far as I was concerned, it was just lines and points and
a few names. I couldn't use it to find my way back to where we had appeared
here on Vortex #1, let alone to jump dimensions. "So the map changes. What
does that mean?" Tanda pointed at the point labeled Vortex #1. "Thanks to
the Shifter, we're here. From this point we have five choices of dimension
jumps."
She pointed to the five names the lines lead to from this place. "The
one called Bumppp looks the most promising." Aahz nodded. "And the
straightest line through the map as well."
"You know this Bumppp world?" I asked. "Or any of those places?"
She slowly shook her head.
"Aahz?"
"No, I don't."
I looked at him, then at Tanda, remembering what Aahz had told me about
dimension hopping. You had to know exactly where you were going, or you
couldn't jump.
"So we're stuck here?" I asked. "That's the end of the trip?"
"No," Aahz said, reaching into his belt pouch and pulling out a
D-Hopper.
He quickly scrolled through the listing of dimensions on the Hopper,
checking them with the names on the map. Finally, he sighed and put it back.
And with that sigh I knew we were done. The five possible places we
could jump to from this place was not on the D-Hopper either.
"Damn," Tanda said. "I was afraid this might happen."
She pushed herself to her feet and brushed off her pants.
"I hate this," Aahz said, standing. He carefully folded the map and put
it in his belt pouch.
"What are we doing now?"
Tanda motioned that I should come closer. Then she reached up, and
before I could stop her, she sealed my lips again.
"Sorry," she said. "Can't take the chance."
I tried to object, but the only thing that came out was "Wggghhh."
This was getting old. Too much more of this kind of treatment and my
lips were going to be sore for a week.
A moment later, without a warning from either Tanda or Aahz, we were
back standing in front of the Shifter in the big tent.
"There's no such thing as a free ride."
M.T.A.
"Ten percent for your solution," the Shifter said, its voice deep and
strong as it studied Tanda and scratched what seemed to be part of its neck.
I stared at it, not really looking at what it was at the moment, but
more studying how it was changing constantly. It was as if there was always
a part of it moving, morphing into the next character. The hair shifted, the
skin changed, the arms lengthened, nothing really staying complete for more
than a few seconds before starting to change into the next shape or color.
Its voice, its chair, its eyes all changed as well. That really impressed
me. When I did a disguise spell, I could do clothing and size and shape, but
never the quality of the eyes. From this Shifter's eyes it looked as if it
was actually fifty or a hundred different beings all melding together. For
all I knew, it was. I wanted to ask it how it did what it did, but then
remembered my lips were again sealed.
"Ten percent!" Aahz said through his teeth, his voice barely under
control.
"On top of the first five percent, bringing the total to fifteen
percent."
I thought I could see a blood vessel in Aahz's neck trying to break out
from under the green scales. Any moment Tanda was going to have to seal his
mouth as well, from the looks of it. I wanted to tell the Shifter how greedy
it was being, but luckily I couldn't.
"No," Tanda said. "We will give you another five percent, and five
percent more for each time we require your help in this journey, but not one
bit above that."
The Shifter had become a tall creature with a very thin face and
hundreds of tiny teeth crammed into a very ugly mouth. And at that moment
the mouth smiled, or at least did something I thought was a smile.
"Agreed," it said.
Aahz looked like he might have a small fit right there, but somehow he
managed to contain himself. I was impressed. It wasn't often that large
Robert Asprin "MYTH-ion Improbable"
Origin: Библиотека "Артефакт" -- http://andrey.tsx.org/
http://www.meishamerlin.com/Myth-IonImprobableExcerpt.html
---------------------------------------------------------------
"Here we go again!"
C-3PO
When my teacher/mentor Aahz grumbles or rants about my being stupid or
having done something stupid, I make a big show of being apologetic, but it
really doesn't bother me all that much. I figure it goes with the territory
and is part of the price of learning magik.
I mean, first of all, there's the point that Aahz is older than I am
and has been around more. A lot more. He's an experienced dimension
traveler, or 'demon' for short, and compared to his knowledge and experience
I really am stupid and naive.
Then, too, the dimension he hails from, Perv, is noted for its
short-tempered, hostile inhabitants. Other dimension travelers tend to avoid
Perv whenever possible, and give the green, scaly Pervects a wide berth when
encountering them in other dimensions.
To cap it all off, while he was once an accomplished magician himself,
Aahz lost his powers when we met (See Another Fine Myth). Watching me fumble
and stutter while learning what are, to him, some of the simplest, most
rudimentary spells, all the while being aware that, at least for the time
being, he's dependent on me in the magik department, is bound to make him a
bit testy from time to time.
I can understand and accept it when I do something he thinks is stupid.
When I do something that, in hindsight, I think is stupid... that's another
matter entirely.
We were ensconced in the Royal Palace of the Kingdom of Possiltum,
enjoying my cushy position as the Royal Court Magician, a job that Aahz had
coached me through the auditions for. That is, Aahz was enjoying it. For him
it was comfortable surroundings and a steady, generous salary. For me, it
was living in constant close contact with a grouchy demon who seemed
determined that I practice my magik lessons night and day.
Needless to say, this gets boring after a while. The few adventures I
had been on since I had apprenticed myself to Aahz had whetted my appetite
for travel, and I was eager for more. Unfortunately, Aahz steadfastly
refused to even start teaching me how to dimension-travel on my own, saying
it was far too dangerous for someone with my meager magikal abilities.
That's when I decided to try something really stupid. I decided to try
to outwit Aahz and trick him into taking me dimension traveling again.
An item had come to hand that I thought might be just the ticket, so
one afternoon when he seemed a bit bored himself, I sprang it on him.
"Aahz," I said, holding out a folded piece of parchment to him, "I
think you should take a look at this."
Aahz glared at the paper in my hand as if it might bite him. And when
someone from Perv glares, it is really something to see.
"And just what is that?"
"It looks like a map." I shrugged. Actually, I knew it was a map. While
Tanda and I had been jumping dimensions, shopping for a birthday present for
Aahz, I had been offered this map by a beggar on a street corner. Since
Tanda had been, at that moment, off talking to some sort of businessmen of
that dimension, I had bought the map for a few coins, thinking it would be a
fun small gift. I had stuck the map in my belt pouch, and then proceeded to
forget about it because of all the problems with the Big Game three
dimensions later. Actually, forgetting about the map was entirely
understandable, since Tanda ended up captured and our main focus was on
freeing her. And the only way we could free her was by winning the game. So
forgetting the map was reasonable. I had had enough on my mind.
But today, while searching through my pouch for something else, I found
the map. While I honestly didn't know what it was, I thought it might be
what I needed to bait Aahz into taking me dimension traveling again.
Aahz still wasn't about to touch the parchment. He motioned to the
fire.
"Throw it in there and then get back to your practice."
"I'm done with my practice," I said.
"You're never done with your practice."
I ignored him and pushed on.
"Besides, I paid good coins for this map."
That was my trump card. If there's anything Aahz hates, it's wasting
money. He got angry with me every time my dragon, Gleep, tore up something
while playing, and the cost of repairs were taken from my wages. When it
came to my money, Aahz was in complete control. And by the way he talked, we
were always broke and about to go hungry.
"A scam, I'm sure," Aahz said, turning away. "Just like you to waste
money."
I frowned. This was going to be harder than I thought. Normally, if
there was any chance of making money at anything, he jumped at it.
Then it dawned on me I hadn't told him what the map led to.
"Aahz," I said to his back.
He didn't move. Instead he just kept staring out the window at the
courtyard.
"Aahz, you might really want to look at this. It's a map to a creature
called a cow."
"So?" Aahz said, shaking his head. "Remember the last time we were at
the Bazaar at Deva? Where do you think that steak you ate came from?"
I stared at him. I had no idea steaks came from creatures called cows.
I had just assumed they came from creatures called steaks. Trout came from
trout, salmon came from salmon, and duck came from duck. It was logical.
Besides, there were no cows in this dimension. At least, none that I had
ever met.
"Well," I said, glancing at the parchment in my hand, "this is a map to
a golden cow that lives in a golden palace and gives gold-laced milk."
Aahz slowly turned to stare at me, his eyes slit as if he were trying
to figure out if I was actually joking or not Then, in two steps, he was in
front of me, snatching the map from my grasp.
"So there really is such a golden beast?" I asked while he studied the
paper.
He didn't respond, so I stood and watched him stare at the map. The
writing on it was odd, actually. It didn't show roads, but more like
dimensions, energy points, and vortexes. Most of it I didn't understand, and
almost none of the map had any names on it, but there was a massive amount
about jumping from dimension to dimension that I didn't understand.
Aahz had told me once there were so many dimensions, no one knew the
total number, and it was easy to get lost and never make it back when
jumping from dimension to dimension. After my shopping trip with Tanda to
thirty or forty different dimensions, I was starting to believe him.
Finally he looked down at me, a frown on his ugly face. And when Aahz
frowned, which was a great deal of the time, he looked like an animal
snarling. His green skin and bright eyes and sharp teeth could be very
intimidating if a person wasn't used to it. Luckily, I was.
"So where exactly did you get this?" He fluttered the parchment in my
face as he asked the question.
"Bought it from a man on a street corner," I said. "I think it might
have been some beggar."
"What dimension?"
"Not a clue." I shrugged. "One of the many Tanda and I visited. You
could ask her."
Aahz frowned even more at that.
"What made you buy it?"
Again I shrugged.
"I honestly don't know. I thought you'd have fun with it for your
birthday, and the guy said I was the first traveler he'd seen in a long time
who might be able to use it and live to tell the tale."
"Could he see through your disguises?" Aahz asked, staring at me.
I tried to remember back to the day. I had used my standard disguise
spell, and on that dimension, the spell had not been hard. Most of the
residents stood four feet tall, and had two feet. Compared to disguising
Tanda and me as slugs on one of the previous dimensions, that had been easy.
But the beggar had clearly picked me out of a crowd, and he seemed out of
place among the short people, being almost five feet tall.
I looked at Aahz and nodded.
"Maybe. But I don't know how he could have."
Aahz waved his hand in disgust.
"Apprentice, there are a thousand ways, especially with someone so
unpracticed as you."
I said nothing. No point in even trying to defend my talents. Aahz
always won those conversations by making me try something I couldn't yet do.
And that was just about everything when it came to magik. But making
disguises is my best ability.
Aahz spun around and moved back to the window, keeping the map with
him. He stood there, staring out over the courtyard, letting the silence in
the room just build and build. And if there was one thing I hated more than
anything, it was the sound of someone thinking, without telling me what they
were thinking about.
"So, is there such a golden cow?" I asked, moving over and standing
beside him in the big window so he couldn't ignore me.
In the courtyard below the window, Gleep was running in circles chasing
his tail. Thank heavens he wasn't near anything, because when a dragon
started chasing his tail, things got knocked down, trampled, and just flat
destroyed. Especially when it was young dragon.
What was even more amazing was that Aahz didn't seem to be noticing
what Gleep was doing. Clearly the map meant something to him.
"The golden cow?" I asked again, "Is it real?"
Aahz slowly turned and looked at me.
"A myth. There are a lot of them in the different dimensions."
"You're kidding! You mean there is more than one golden-milk-giving-cow
myth?" Considering that I had never heard of a cow before today, I found
that a little hard to imagine. I'm not sure exactly why I thought even one
golden cow was easy to imagine, but dozens of them were just too much. Maybe
there was an entire dimension with a race of them.
Aahz sighed. When he sighed like that, it usually meant I was being
extra stupid or dense.
"Every tenth dimension has a myth about an animal or person doing
something with gold. One has a goose laying golden eggs, another has a fish
touching things and turning them to gold, another has a duck with golden
feathers."
"One heavy bird," I said, trying to imagine the duck covered in gold.
Aahz sighed again.
"The feathers become gold when they fall off."
"Got you," I said. "You ever been near or seen one of these golden
animals?"
Aahz laughed, his demon-sound shaking the room.
"If I had, would I be here, in this dump of a palace, with an
apprentice as stupid as you?"
I had to admit he had a good point, but I didn't really want to agree
with him.
"So that is a sham map," I said.
"Most likely," Aahz said, staring out at the courtyard where Gleep had
now managed to catch his tail. He bit it so hard, the poor dragon jumped and
looked around, startled. Gleep was smart in many ways, but not about his own
tail.
I glanced over at Aahz. When he said 'most likely,' and didn't look at
me, it meant he thought there might be a slight chance the map was real.
"Why only most likely?" I asked.
"Because," Aahz said, "I saw a golden deer-dropping once."
"Deer dropping?" Again I had no idea what he meant.
"Deer poop," Aahz said, his voice showing he was getting very tired of
my stupid questions. "Deer turds. Deer crap. Deer excrement. One dimension
has a myth about a deer that drops gold. I saw one of the droppings. And..."
He stopped, still not looking at me. In all the time we had been
together, I had never seen him like this before.
"And what?" I asked.
"And I saw part of a solid-gold elk antler at the Bazaar at Deva."
I was stunned. A deer that pooped gold and an elk that had golden
antlers.
"So the map might actually be real?"
"I doubt it," Aahz said, glancing at it.
"But you don't know for sure, do you?"
He shook his head.
"Not for sure."
"So we're going to check it out?"
He looked down at the map in his hand, then folded it and stuffed it in
his pocket.
"I'll be back in an hour."
He pulled out the D-Hopper and twisted it to a setting. Back before he
met me and lost his powers, he used to be able to jump through the
dimensions without the use of a D-Hopper. Now he needed the help and he
hated it.
"Wait!" I shouted. "You can't go looking for it without me."
"I'm not," Aahz said. "And get that dragon of yours under control
before he breaks something again and we have to pay for it. Be ready to go.
One hour. And the dragon doesn't come with us."
With that Aahz was gone, vanished off to another dimension with a faint
BAMF.
By the time Aahz got back I had Gleep in his stall in the stables and
had arranged for someone to feed and walk him until I returned from wherever
we were going.
I was standing near the foot of the bed in my room when suddenly the
air next to me sort of went BAMF again. Not real loud, but startling when it
happened two feet from you. I jumped. Aahz was back, and he had my favorite
demon in the entire universe of demons with him.
"Tananda!" I shouted, stepping toward the beautiful creature with the
long green hair and a body that, with a deep breath, could stop a parade.
"Skeeve!" she shouted back, laughing.
Then she pulled me into a hug that I hoped would never, ever stop. Now,
granted, it had only been a month since I had last seen her, drunk as a
skunk at Aahz's birthday party. But every time I saw her I figured it was a
great excuse for a very long hug. And she sure didn't seem to mind, either.
Tanda was a former assassin and member of the guild. I wasn't sure what
she did now besides shop and go on adventures. What's more, I didn't really
want to know. We were friends, and that was enough for me.
Aahz cleared his throat after far too short a time in her wonderful
hug. He did seem to mind that she didn't mind. Oh, well. I still believed
she liked me better than him, and that was all that mattered.
She pushed me back and looked at me sternly, her wonderful eyes glaring
at me with mock anger.
"Why didn't you tell me you had bought a treasure map?"
"Actually, I was going to when we stopped for the night," I said with a
shrug, "but then the game and you getting captured and everything sort of
pushed the map out of my mind."
"So do you remember how many dimensions before Jahk you bought it?" she
asked.
I knew exactly how many, since I had done the disguises in every
dimension on the trip. "Three," I said.
"You're absolutely sure?" Aahz asked, his golden eyes staring at me
like they were about to shoot daggers.
I held up my hand.
"Jahk, the dimension with the Big Game."
I pointed at my thumb.
Tanda nodded and Aahz just glared, his expression of annoyance making
me take my time.
"Counting backwards," I said, pointing at my index finger, "the
dimension before that was where we had to look like a form of a three-nosed
pig."
I wiggled my index finger at both of them. Tanda nodded. "Yeah, fun
place."
"Not really," I said. Aahz's glare got deeper, so I went on. "Before
that was the dimension where we had to be eight feet tall and have three
legs." I pointed at my middle finger. Tanda laughed. "That was a fun
dimension, too. Wasn't it?" It hadn't been, since walking on three legs is
something that is a factor harder than trying to fly by flapping your arms
and jumping off a cliff. But I ignored her this time and went on.
I pointed to my next finger.
"Dimension where we had to be four feet tall and where I bought the
map." I held up the three fingers. 'That many in front of the game
dimension."
I wanted to add that I could go over them again if Aahz wanted, but he
was clearly not happy with me, so I didn't offer.
Tanda smiled. "I thought so. Mini."
"So what's so special about that dimension?" I asked. It hadn't seemed
like much to me, although Tanda had not wanted to stay there long on our
shopping trip.
"Actually," Aahz said, "it makes this map more likely to be real."
"Almost certain." Tanda laughed.
"You're kidding?" I asked. "You really think there is a golden cow out
there?"
"I didn't say that," Aahz said. "I just said the map was likely to be
real."
I frowned and Tanda laughed.
"Mini is populated by Minikins, who have this awful power of never
telling a lie about anything. They do not do well at the Bazaar at Deva, for
obvious reasons."
"But what happens if the guy who sold it to me wasn't a Minikin?"
"If he had been there for more than a day, he had to tell the truth
about the map as well. That's why we got out of there so fast. Truth is not
a good influence when you are shopping."
At that I had no firsthand knowledge, but I figured Tanda was the
expert.
"Come on," she said to Aahz. "Dig out the map. We're wasting time.
Let's do this."
"Why do I have a bad feeling about this?" Aahz asked as he pulled out
the parchment, unfolded it, and put it on the bed so all three of us could
look at it.
I had no idea what I was looking at, but Tanda seemed to. She pointed
at the upper left corner.
"That's Minikins' Dimension."
Even I knew that, since it was labeled Mini.
"So we start there?"
Aahz nodded. So did Tanda, for which I was grateful. If they both
agreed, at least we had something solid.
Tanda ran her finger along the only line leading from Minikin. It ended
at a dot that was labeled Vortex #1. She studied that for a moment, then
glanced at Aahz.
"You have any idea what that means? Or where it's at?"
"Not a clue," he said.
Now I was stunned. It wasn't often that my mentor admitted he didn't
know something. In fact, I couldn't remember the last time that it had
happened, if ever. I wanted to point that out to him, but this just didn't
seem to be the right time, so I went back to studying the map.
I could see that on the map Vortex #1 had six lines leading off to six
unlabeled points on the paper. And lines led off of each of those points to
other vortex dots. There were seven more vortexes listed, and a big "X"
marking the cow in the lower right corner of the map. Only one line led from
Vortex #8 to the cow.
It was clear that there was no straight line from Mini to the cow. And
no right path. From the looks of it, we could go any of a dozen different
ways, through different points labeled vortexes, taking different lines. If
nothing else, this was going to be an interesting puzzle.
Aahz had told me that dimension-hopping was dangerous because a person
could hop to an unknown dimension and never get back. I wondered now how
safe it was going to be following a map through some of these dimensions,
especially when even the map was confusing.
"Well," Tanda said, turning to Aahz. "It looks like we're going to need
some more help if we're going to find this golden beast."
Aahz looked at her and then slowly shook his head. "You can't be
thinking what I think you're thinking."
"I'm thinking it," she said.
"No!" Aahz said, his voice firm. I knew for a fact that when he said no
like that there was no changing his mind.
"Yes," Tanda said, smiling at him with a smile that could melt a
belt-buckle right off a guy's pants. She reached up and touched one of the
green scales on his cheek.
"No," Aahz said, but this time it wasn't as firm. Not even a Pervect
could stand up against Tanda's charms.
"Yes," she said, turning the smile up one more notch and stroking
Aahz's green neck just below his ear.
I was glad she wasn't doing that to me. As it was, just watching I was
almost a puddle on the floor. And I didn't even know what they were arguing
about.
Aahz wasn't faring much better. He shook his head, then said, "It's a
mistake."
"How else are we going to find what dimension to jump to from Minikin?"
She stroked his cheek and then moved right up against him.
No sentient male being could have withstood that attack. Aahz didn't.
I was sweating hard just watching. Much more and I would need to change
into one of my clean shirts.
"All right," he said, his voice so soft I could almost not hear it.
"But trust me, this is a mistake."
"Oh, we're not showing anyone the map," Tanda said, moving away from
Aahz and turning down her convincing body language and smile to a normal
level.
Both Aahz and I took a deep breath.
"Then why?" Aahz asked.
"We're just going to find out what, or where a vortex is," Tanda said.
I couldn't stand it any longer.
"Would someone please tell me what this is all about?"
"No," Aahz said.
He picked up the map, then took me by the arm and stepped over beside
Tanda. A moment later we were in the Bazaar at Deva.
"How bazaar!"
RIPLEY
The Bazaar at Deva was like no other place in the universe, or at least
that's what Aahz kept telling me. And from my few times in the Bazaar, and
what little of the different dimensions I had seen, I was beginning to agree
with him.
The Deevels, the residents of Deva, were known as the best traders and
negotiators. Now, granted, Aahz, as a Pervect, could be tight with a penny,
but as Aahz had warned, a Deevel could trade you out of the penny and the
pocket you kept it in, and leave you naked and thinking you were better off
for the deal.
The Bazaar was the logical extension of that ability. They had set up
the trading capital of all the dimensions, a bazaar that now stretched
seemingly forever. Demons, which was a catchphrase for Dimension Travelers,
were allowed to set up booths and try to make a living doing whatever it was
they did best.
I don't think anyone really knew how far the Bazaar extended, since the
tents and booths seemed to always be changing and moving. When I asked how
long Aahz thought it would take me to walk across the Bazaar, he said if I
was lucky, only five or six months, but he doubted I would make it alive.
It seems that the Bazaar at Deva was also a very dangerous place, which
was why I was doing my best to keep up with Tananda and Aahz as they headed
through the crowds. I had no idea why this area was so jammed with Demons.
It smelled like someone was boiling old shoes, and most of the demons in
this area were covered in white and red scales that flaked at the slightest
touch. And in my hurry I was bumping into a lot of them. By the time we came
to a stop in front of a blank-looking tent with the flap closed, I was
sweating like it was a hot summer day, and scales were stuck all over me.
"Might want to brush those off," Aahz said, glancing at me and shaking
his head.
Neither he or Tanda seemed to have any on them at all. I had no idea
how they had managed that and still moved so fast.
"Why?" I asked, half-heartedly pushing the white and red scales off my
sleeve.
"They're acid," Tanda said, reaching over and flicking a scale off my
forehead with a polished nail.
I picked up the speed of my brushing, working at getting every one of
the hundreds of scales stuck to me.
Tanda and Aahz just laughed.
"Little help with the back?" I asked, shaking my entire body as hard as
I could.
Tanda laughed even harder as I turned around and her hands worked over
my shoulders, down my back, and across my rear. Any other circumstances I
would have enjoyed the feel, but standing in the middle of a crowd with acid
scales all over me sort of deflated any thoughts of enjoyment.
Aahz just stood and shook his head, staring at the tent, until I was
finished and Tanda had inspected my hair and neck and other areas for a
stray scale. I didn't know that we had both missed one in my left shoe until
I looked down and saw that my shoe was smoking. It was one of my best pairs,
too.
As I kicked off the shoe and emptied the acid scale onto the ground,
Aahz looked at me and bared his teeth in a grin.
"Just count your blessings it didn't go down your pants."
I looked at the hole the scale had burnt into my shoe and shuddered.
"Want me to check you to make sure?" Tanda asked, smiling.
"Thanks," I said, putting my shoe back on. "Maybe later."
"I still don't like this idea," Aahz said, turning to stare at the
tent, which was clearly why we were on Deva.
Tanda shrugged. "Neither do I, but we don't have much of a choice, do
we? You know anyone who might know what or where a vortex is?"
Aahz shook his head, obviously trying to think of someone.
"I just don't like the price we're going to pay."
"It doesn't have to be that bad," she said.
Aahz said nothing.
I finished one more last check for scales and glanced at the tent we
were standing in front of. There was no sign, no indication that anyone was
even in it. The crowd in the street seemed to give it a wide berth as well.
"I just wish I knew what we were walking into," I said. "A little hint
would be nice."
"You're staying out here," Aahz said.
I glanced around at the flowing crowds of white-and red-scaled acid
demons and shook my head. "Not a chance."
"We need to stick together," Tanda said, taking my side. "We may have
to move quickly."
"That doesn't sound good," I said.
Aahz made his disgusted noise, then looked me right in the eyes.
"Not a word comes from your mouth in there. Understand?"
"Sure," I said, making a motion across my mouth that I had sealed it.
"Here," Tanda said, smiling at me. "Let me help you with that."
She put her wonderful hand against my mouth. The smell of her skin was
that of distant flowers; her touch was soft. She ran her hand along my mouth
as I had done, then patted my shoulder.
"That was-"
My mouth wouldn't open!
I tried again.
The words sort of jumbled inside and the only noise that reached my
ears was "Thrrrgggg wgggggeeee."
I tried to shout "What did you do?"
What got to my ears was "Wgggggghhh dggggggghhh ygggggghhh
dgggggggghhh"
My lips were completely glued together. And the harder I tried to force
them apart, the more painful it became.
"I didn't know you knew that one," Aahz said to Tanda, completely
ignoring my struggle. "I've wanted to use it a hundred times."
She smiled at my mentor. "There are a lot of things you don't know
about me."
Well, as far I was concerned, sealing my lips wasn't something I had
ever wanted Tanda to do with anything except maybe a kiss. I tried to tell
her so, but again nothing sounded like a word.
"Let's do this," Aahz said, nodding in satisfaction at my condition,
then stepping toward the tent.
"Don't worry," Tanda said, smiling at my struggle as she took my arm
and followed Aahz. "It's just temporary. Trust me, it's for your own good.
And ours as well."
Not for the first time, it occurred to me that for someone who claimed
not to have enough magikal talent to be a magician, Tanda occasionally
displayed a lot more knowledge and skill than I had as the Royal Magician of
Possiltum.
At the tent flap Aahz didn't even hesitate or knock, if knocking was
possible on a big tent. He just stepped inside and Tanda led me right behind
him.
The place was huge.
No, huge didn't describe it. On either side of us the tent seemed to
fade off into the distance. This was the first time I had seen one of the
Bazaar tents that had bigger insides than outsides. Aahz had mentioned them,
but until I stepped into the massive room on the other side of the tent
flap, I had no idea that such a thing was really possible. I was going to
have to have Aahz teach me the magik involved so I could do that with our
rooms back at the palace.
The tent was dimly lit and had a polished marble floor and dark,
wooden-looking walls. There was almost no furniture. A simple wooden desk
sat on the side of the room facing where we had come in. A massive map of
what looked like dimensions filled the wall behind it.
A woman sat at the desk, not looking at us at all. Whatever had Aahz
and Tanda so worried about being here wasn't clear on first glance. The room
felt odd, but not threatening, besides it being a hundred times larger than
the tent holding it. We all stopped a few feet in front of the desk, with
Aahz clearly in the position to do the talking.
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 location 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 creature 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 wonderful voice
melting every thought I had. "Understand?" I managed to nod.
"Good," she said, winking at me. "I will know if you succeed 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 dimensions.
"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 nothing 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 something 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, smiling at
Aahz. "Might as well answer his questions."
Aahz just sighed and sat down on the floor.
"The tent we went into was a Shifter's tent. The person we had talked
to was a Shifter. The Shifter moved us here, and my guess is this wonderful
place is the Vortex #1 dimension."
I had to admit that he had answered my questions, but not very well.
"So why were you so reluctant to go see a Shifter for help?" Tanda
laughed at that as she too sat down on the floor. "It wasn't just Aahz. I
didn't want to either, but we had no choice, if we really were going to
follow the map."
"Why?"
"Because," Aahz said, "Shifters have made it their business to know
where dimensions are. Remember I told you that when jumping to a dimension
you need to have a clear image of that dimension in mind, as well as a solid
place in the dimension?"
I nodded. Every time I asked Aahz to start teaching me how to
dimension-hop he brought that problem up.
"I might be able to jump to a few hundred," Aahz said, "if I had my
powers back and I was close enough to them. Maybe between Tanda and me we
could find three or four hundred. With a really expensive D-Hopper we might
find another few hundred on top of that. But there are thousands and
thousands of dimensions. Maybe even millions, for all I know. The Shifters
are the travel agents of dimensions."
"What's a travel agent?"
I looked at Tanda, then at Aahz. Both were just shaking their heads.
"Never mind," Aahz said, waving the question away with his hand. Every
time he did that, I knew he considered the question too stupid for an
answer.
"So they charge for the information and the jump," I said, going on.
"Sounds reasonable to me."
"Well, it is and it isn't," Tanda said. "No one knows where the
Shifters come from. They are masters of disguise, and if you try to
double-cross them you will disappear, never to be seen again."
"More than likely off to some deadly dimension," Aahz said, shaking his
head.
"So we make sure they get their five percent of the golden cow if we
find it."
That seemed logical enough to me.
"I hope that's all it will take," Aahz said.
Tanda just nodded.
I didn't like that at all. Disappearing was not something I considered
in my possible future. I had plans. Better, bigger plans. Yet now I was
risking my life chasing a cow. Not smart at all as far as I was concerned. I
tried to think about something else besides a future where someone made me
vanish.
"How do the Shifters keep changing like that one did?"
"Disguise spells, maybe. I don't know." Tanda shrugged. "I've never
seen one really stay the same for very long."
I considered myself good at disguises, but I was a long way from being
able to do what that Shifter had been doing. Which meant that if they were
that good, it was possible that one of the shifters was with us right now,
disguised as something around the room.
The thought almost made me jump. I glanced around, trying to see
anything odd about the old log cabin. There was nothing but a dirt-littered
floor and old logs. Yet I now had a feeling we were being watched.
"So let's see if we can figure out where we are and how to take the
next step," Tanda said, scooting over beside Aahz.
I walked once around the small room, then moved over to where Aahz had
pulled out the map and spread it on the floor.
"Would you look at that?" Tanda said, pointing.
I saw instantly what she was talking about. The map had changed. I
studied what was there now, comparing it to what had been there before. Now
the lines from Vortex #1 were different, and the points at the end of each
were labeled. And the upper corner of the map had Deva listed, with a direct
line from Deva to Vortex #1.
"Amazing," Aahz said, his voice just a whisper. "A true treasure map."
"How did it do that?" I asked. Aahz laughed.
"Just as everything is done," he said. "Magik."
"It's a magik map, a true treasure map of the dimensions," Tanda said.
"I've only heard of such things."
She reached over and gave me a big hug, something I was more than
willing to continue as long as she wanted it to. Finally, far too quickly,
she let go and looked at me. "This was a great purchase on your part." I
shrugged. "Not unless it leads somewhere."
"True," Aahz said, not looking up from the map. I went back to studying
the map as well. As far as I was concerned, it was just lines and points and
a few names. I couldn't use it to find my way back to where we had appeared
here on Vortex #1, let alone to jump dimensions. "So the map changes. What
does that mean?" Tanda pointed at the point labeled Vortex #1. "Thanks to
the Shifter, we're here. From this point we have five choices of dimension
jumps."
She pointed to the five names the lines lead to from this place. "The
one called Bumppp looks the most promising." Aahz nodded. "And the
straightest line through the map as well."
"You know this Bumppp world?" I asked. "Or any of those places?"
She slowly shook her head.
"Aahz?"
"No, I don't."
I looked at him, then at Tanda, remembering what Aahz had told me about
dimension hopping. You had to know exactly where you were going, or you
couldn't jump.
"So we're stuck here?" I asked. "That's the end of the trip?"
"No," Aahz said, reaching into his belt pouch and pulling out a
D-Hopper.
He quickly scrolled through the listing of dimensions on the Hopper,
checking them with the names on the map. Finally, he sighed and put it back.
And with that sigh I knew we were done. The five possible places we
could jump to from this place was not on the D-Hopper either.
"Damn," Tanda said. "I was afraid this might happen."
She pushed herself to her feet and brushed off her pants.
"I hate this," Aahz said, standing. He carefully folded the map and put
it in his belt pouch.
"What are we doing now?"
Tanda motioned that I should come closer. Then she reached up, and
before I could stop her, she sealed my lips again.
"Sorry," she said. "Can't take the chance."
I tried to object, but the only thing that came out was "Wggghhh."
This was getting old. Too much more of this kind of treatment and my
lips were going to be sore for a week.
A moment later, without a warning from either Tanda or Aahz, we were
back standing in front of the Shifter in the big tent.
"There's no such thing as a free ride."
M.T.A.
"Ten percent for your solution," the Shifter said, its voice deep and
strong as it studied Tanda and scratched what seemed to be part of its neck.
I stared at it, not really looking at what it was at the moment, but
more studying how it was changing constantly. It was as if there was always
a part of it moving, morphing into the next character. The hair shifted, the
skin changed, the arms lengthened, nothing really staying complete for more
than a few seconds before starting to change into the next shape or color.
Its voice, its chair, its eyes all changed as well. That really impressed
me. When I did a disguise spell, I could do clothing and size and shape, but
never the quality of the eyes. From this Shifter's eyes it looked as if it
was actually fifty or a hundred different beings all melding together. For
all I knew, it was. I wanted to ask it how it did what it did, but then
remembered my lips were again sealed.
"Ten percent!" Aahz said through his teeth, his voice barely under
control.
"On top of the first five percent, bringing the total to fifteen
percent."
I thought I could see a blood vessel in Aahz's neck trying to break out
from under the green scales. Any moment Tanda was going to have to seal his
mouth as well, from the looks of it. I wanted to tell the Shifter how greedy
it was being, but luckily I couldn't.
"No," Tanda said. "We will give you another five percent, and five
percent more for each time we require your help in this journey, but not one
bit above that."
The Shifter had become a tall creature with a very thin face and
hundreds of tiny teeth crammed into a very ugly mouth. And at that moment
the mouth smiled, or at least did something I thought was a smile.
"Agreed," it said.
Aahz looked like he might have a small fit right there, but somehow he
managed to contain himself. I was impressed. It wasn't often that large