Robert Asprin - Myth-ion Improbable

I stood and moved over to where Aahz and Tanda were sitting at desks pouring over books. Glenda was still asleep on her couch, the golden rope tied around her.

"Have a good nap?" Aahz asked.

"A productive one," I said.

He looked at me with his normal puzzled frown and then pointed at the book he had open in front of him.

"Says here that this area around the castle is the magik focal area of the entire dimension. Before Count Bovine took it over, it was a spa area where demons from all the dimensions nearby came to soak up the concentrated magik forces and become rejuvenated."

"Powerful stuff," I said.

"More than anything I've seen before," Aahz said.

Tanda pointed at what she had been reading. "This book says that the war between the vampires and the normal folks lasted for over two hundred years and killed almost everything. This was one of the last books put in here before the exodus."

"Exodus?" I asked.

Aahz nodded. "It seems, from what we can gather, that when the compromise was reached to save both sides, Count Bovine and his people left this area, this castle, putting a shield up around it to keep everyone out of the magik."

"It seems the count didn't trust his own people with this kind of power," Tanda said.

"So what became of this count?" I asked.

Aahz shrugged. "Maybe Harold will tell us in the morning."

"Well, before that I've got something to show you."

I had them follow me back to my couch.

"I really don't feel like a nap," Aahz said.

"Just trust me," I said, pointing to a pile of furniture ten paces away. "Pull that other couch over here."

He shook his head, but did as I suggested.

"Now both of you lie on that couch," I said, dropping onto the one I had been on for hours earlier. "And lie on your backs."

Neither of them moved, and both looked annoyed. "What, can't trust me for five seconds?" I asked, smiling up at them.

Aahz snorted and then lay down, scooting over enough to give Tanda a little room as well.

I pointed upward. "What do you see?"

"A dark ceiling and a lot of dust," Tanda said.

"I see myself wasting my time," Aahz said. "There's a lot of information here that we need to-"

Silence filled the old library. After a few long seconds I said, "Interesting, isn't it?"

"What?" Tanda demanded. "Would you stop playing games and just tell me what is going on?"

To me the map was now as clear as if it were printed on a white piece of parchment. "It's a drawing," I said, pointing to the clearest lines to Tanda's right.

"It's a map," Aahz said.

"Exactly," I said. "And if you study it long enough, you can see where we are."

"Oh, my heavens," Tanda said to herself, now clearly see­ ing the drawing of the castle.

"After a few minutes of looking at it, the lines become clearer," I said. "Take a look to the right of the room we're in."

I didn't say anything else, giving them both time to study what I had been looking at for hours. Then finally Aahz said, "It looks like there's a corridor there."

"Where?" Tanda demanded.

"Off the room shown as a private library," I said. "On the opposite side from the royal suite."

"And it leads downward," Aahz said.

"To this area's power," I said. "Do you have any idea what standing in the middle of that kind of energy focal point would feel like?"

Both Tanda and Aahz looked at me.

"Like nothing you could ever imagine, apprentice," Aahz said.

"True," Tanda said, going back to staring at the drawings on the ceiling, "but Skeeve might be the only one who can go down there."

"I know," Aahz said, also going back to studying the roof over his head.

"Exactly what do you mean by that?" I asked, not liking the idea that I might have to take that old corridor alone into the middle of the mountain.

Aahz sighed. "I've lost my powers; Tanda is an assassin, not a magician, and we can't trust Glenda. You're it, apprentice. If one of us has to go down there, it has to be you."

I stared at the roof, following the ancient corridor down into the center of the mountain to a place of unimaginable power. For the moment, the idea of getting my blood sucked by a vampire cow didn't seem so bad.

"Things are looking up."

MICHELANGELO

The rest of the night just crawled past. Aahz and Tanda stayed on the couches with me for the longest time, studying the map and trying to figure out how we were going to get out of here. I noticed that, once Aahz discovered there was no golden cow, and that the map had been a sham to get someone to save Harold, he became very interested in just leaving. I supposed that was better late then never.

Aahz was sitting at one of the desks while Tanda and I stood beside him when the wall opened up and Harold stepped in. Through the opening I could see daylight flooding into the main area beyond the bathroom. It seemed we had survived another full-moon night in the land of cow vampires.

Harold stepped in and glanced at where Glenda was still sleeping. She hadn't moved at all during the night.

"Did she try to get away?" Harold asked.

"Only when the sun went down, and only for a few sec onds," Aahz said. "The rope held her."

"Then she's safe," Harold said.

"What did the rope do?" I asked, not really clear on the concept that a simple rope like that could hold even a child, let alone a person who wanted to be a vampire.

"Basically, the magik in the rope stopped her from chang ing," Harold said. "And leaving it on her all night cleaned her system of any chance of it ever happening. Check her neck if you want to make sure."

I moved over to Glenda. Drool had run out of her mouth and formed a wet spot on the blanket. And she was snoring lightly. I put a finger on her temple and eased her head over so I could see the vampire bite marks on her neck. Where her skin had been red and inflamed, it had now returned to normal. Only a few faint marks that looked more like freckles were left of the infection.

"Amazing," I said.

Aahz had moved up behind me. "It sure is."

"Leave the rope on her for a while longer and let her sleep," Harold said. "It will do her good, give her body time to replace the blood drained from it."

I glanced at Glenda again. For a moment I almost felt sorry for her. Almost. Then I remembered she had stranded me in this world with no thought of ever coming back for me, and the feeling-sorry emotion left quickly.

"So how did you survive the night?" Tanda asked.

Harold just shrugged. "The same way I have survived every full-moon night for more years than I want to think about. I turned into a cow, ate grass, and slept standing up."

"Oh," Tanda said. "You going to explain that to us in the rest of your story?"

Harold laughed. "It's a part of it." Then he looked around. "This is a pretty amazing room, isn't it?"

"It is," Aahz said. "We learned some interesting history from some of these books."

I noticed that Aahz didn't say anything about the ceiling map, and I sure wasn't going to either. I wondered if Harold even knew about it.

"Good," Harold said. "That will give you some more back ground on what happened with me, and how we got like this. Shall we go back out into the sunlight?"

"What about her?" I asked, motioning toward the sleepi ng Glenda.

Harold shrugged. "She won't wake up as long as the rope is on her. She'll be fine right there."

We followed him out into the main room. It felt great to see light again. Spending the night in a dusty room worrying about what might happen at any moment wasn't my ideal evening.

"Anyone like something to eat?" he asked, moving into the kitchen area. We stood around the counter, watching him.