Robert Asprin - Myth-ion Improbable

"You didn't answer his question either," Aahz said. "And why should we give you such a large share of the treasure?"

She laughed. "Besides getting you out of this place? This is only one of the problems you face. My father tried a num ber of times to go the distance before he sold the map the first time, but he always had to turn back. There are many problems ahead. I know what they are. You need me."

"And your father thinks Skeeve can make it?" Tanda asked. I would have been unhappy with the sound of disbelief in Tanda's voice if I didn't feel exactly the same way.

Glenda reached over and touched my hand on the table. Electric shocks went up my arm and I am sure my face again turned a bright shade of red. I couldn't even begin to think about moving my hand away from hers. And I didn't want to. She was doing things to me I had only dreamed about, all with a single touch of her hand.

"My father has the ability to see the true nature of people," Glenda said, "and their true strengths."

She rubbed the top of my hand and it was everything I could do to not let out a long, loud sigh.

"If he thinks Skeeve can get to the golden cow and win over the problems that lie ahead, then I believe in Skeeve as well."

I just smiled at Aahz, giving him my widest grin. In all our time together, I had never seen him look so disgusted.

It felt wonderful.

And so did Glenda's hand on mine.

Okay, so there was tension in the small cabin. Lots of it, of all kinds. I have to admit that having a girl my age along on this crazy quest sounded just fine by me. Especially one that thought I was special without really knowing me, and could make my entire body tingle at the touch of a hand. I liked the advantage of that. With her, I didn't have any past mistakes to climb over or make up for.

Aahz and Tanda, on the other hand, weren't so certain about taking Glenda along and cutting her in on the possible prize. And that wasn't good tension at all. And since none of us knew her, there was that tension as well.

But the way I figured it, there really wasn't much choice. Tanda couldn't hop us back to any dimension she knew of. It was just too far, and we didn't dare just risk hopping dimen sions trying to get close enough. We would end up lost, or more likely dead from something like those snakes or creepy identical-people on that street.

We needed Glenda. And besides, I wanted her along. It would be fun getting to know her.

"So now there's four of us," I said, smiling across the table at Glenda and ignoring the scowls coming from my mentor.

"Great," Glenda said. "You won't regret it."

I doubted I would either.

"We split the treasure four ways," Aahz said, making the deal clear.

"After the Shifter's part is taken out," I reminded him.

"Yeah, after the Shifter's twenty-five percent."

He almost spat the last few words of the sentence as he glared at Tanda.

"There'll still be more than enough for everyone," Glenda said as she offered everyone some fresh bread. "If we can get to the golden cow and make it ours."

I took a large piece and them some of the wonderful apple jelly she had on the table. After one bite I knew that fresh bread and jelly was the best-tasting thing I remembered having in a long, long time. It more than melted in my mouth as it turned my taste-buds into a wonderful world of flavors. Man, if Glenda could make all the food she cooked do that, I was never leaving her side.

After we were all eating-and I noticed that even Tanda and Aahz enjoyed the bread-Glenda looked at me. "Dig out the map and let's figure out where we're headed next."

I pointed to Aahz. "I'm letting the big guy carry it."

I thought Aahz would choke on the bread.

Tanda laughed, and the tension in the room eased a little.

Aahz took out the map and unfolded it on the table.

Glenda moved around so that she stood beside Tanda. I scooted over to get a better look as well.

Again the map had changed.

No surprise there. We were on Vortex #6, which was now clearly highlighted on the map. There were four lines from our dimension headed to four different places. I didn't like the sounds of the four dimensions at all.

Febrile was the one on the right, Hostile the next one, Durst the next, and Molder the farthest left.

Tanda shook her head. "I don't know any of them."

"Neither do I," Aahz said.

"No way that you could," Glenda said. "They are even farther removed from Deva than this place."

She glanced at me to make sure I was listening, then pointed to Febrile.

"That place's coolest temperature is over one hundred and twenty. We wouldn't last five minutes there."

"Nice that the map designer put it on the map," I said.

"Traps," she said. "The Cartograms loved to make these sorts of things."

"Cartograms?" I asked.

She gave me another of her wonderful smiles.

"They are an entire race who explore and map dimensions, and any time they find a treasure, they do one of these trea sure maps to the location of the treasure, and then sell the map."

"I'd heard about them," Tanda said. "Never bothered to buy a map from one of them, though."

"They have booths in the Bazaar at Deva," Aahz said. "Never had the need to use their services."

"Did they do the map on the wall in the Shifter's tent?" I asked.

Glenda nodded. "I'd bet that any kind of map that shows different dimensions was done by a Cartogram. Every trea sure map they do is magik and often contain puzzles and traps just like this one."

"Good to know," I said, glancing at Aahz. It was clear he hadn't known about the traps when we started out after this golden cow.

My mentor just frowned at me.

Glenda went on. She pointed at the dimension with the name Hostile.

"We don't even want to think about going there. Makes Febrile look cool."

Aahz nodded.

Glenda pointed to the next one. "Durst no longer exists. Something destroyed the entire dimension thousands of years ago."

"That leaves Molder," I said. "What's it like?"

"Only been there for a few moments with my father, track ing what happened to this map three buyers ago," Glenda said, shaking her head. "It's a dark, damp place where everything always seems to be changing. Even the ground seems to grow and move under your feet."

"So tell me," Tanda said to Glenda. "You've gone after this treasure with your father, and seen others do it. You must know the path at least a few steps ahead. Why can't we just jump over this step. Don't you know where the map will lead us?"

I had to admit that Tanda had a good point there. It would sure be a lot easier.

Glenda sighed, and even the sigh was a wonderful sound to my ears. She could sigh at me all she wanted.

"I wish I could," Glenda said.

"The map is magik," Aahz said. "It's never the same. Right?"

"Exactly," Glenda said. "Except for going through these Vortex locations at one point or another, the map changes the correct path with every user, and every attempt."

"Hmmm." Aahz said, staring at the piece of parchment. "Too bad we can't just take the magik out of the map and have it tell us the only true path to the dimension with the golden cow."

That gave me an idea. It was so simple it was probably stupid, so I didn't say anything aloud. Still, the thought kept rattling around in my head as the others continued their conversation.

What if I tapped into the magikal energy of the map, just like I did with the energy lines when I was casting a spell? Wouldn't that draw off the magik?

I made myself relax, then reached out with my mind and touched the map Aahz was holding, working at absorbing energy as I did.

At first nothing happened. Then the parchment began to tremble and an energy line sprang into being, running from the map to me.