it off. I was setting my hat on a rock when I saw the glint of metal tucked down in a crack in the rock. I glanced around, but no one was watching, so I leaned down and looked closer, not believing my eyes. There, tucked into an opening in one rock, was a short metal cylinder, like nothing I had seen in this dimension so far. It was the D-Hopper. I carefully pulled it out, noticing that a folded piece of paper came with it. The map! For some reason Aahz and Tanda had left me the D-Hopper and the map. More than likely they had suspected Glenda, while I had been too blind with lust or love to see anything. I looked at the D-Hopper to make sure I wasn't hallucinating in the heat. It was real. I held it up like an idol and did a little dance of joy right there behind the rock. For the first time I had some options. I could do something instead of just waiting and hoping. The relief was almost more than I could take. "Slow down and think," I said to myself, hearing Aahz's voice in my head as clearly as if he were standing beside me. I took a few deep breaths of the hot air and looked out over the valley toward the town below. If Aahz and Tanda had walked up here to hide this for me, Glenda had beat them back to Vortex #6. And more than likely she had gotten the jump on them, which was what had kept them from coming back for me. That thought took all the excitement out of the moment. I just hoped they were still alive. Glenda didn't strike me as being bloodthirsty, but I had been wrong about her before. More than likely if she considered Aahz and Tanda competition in getting the treasure, she would do something to stop them. She hadn't considered me a problem. But something had stopped them from coming back, that much was clear. They were the ones that now needed rescuing, not me. The tables had turned and I needed to make sure I did this right. The life of my friends might depend on it. I tucked the map in my pouch and sat on the rock with the D-Hopper on my lap, trying to make myself think what I needed to do next. The D-Hopper was set for Vortex #6. That was good, but if I went there, and couldn't find Aahz and Tanda, could I get back here? At least here I could live on carrot juice and bad veggies. I didn't give myself much of a chance on Vortex #6, even with increased magik powers in that dimension. I had a slight working knowledge of the D-Hopper from carrying one on the shopping trip with Tanda. There was a place on the D-Hopper that set the current dimension as a return point. I carefully looked over the cylinder, then without changing the setting for Vortex #6, I set the current dimension as a return point. I double, then triple-checked myself. If I triggered the D-Hopper I would jump to Vortex #6. If I triggered it again, I would jump back to this spot. Okay, that problem was solved. I stood and was about to hop when I remembered what I might be going into. "Stop and think," I said aloud, again with Aahz's voice echoing through my head. With luck, the D-Hopper would put me back into the cabin, but in case it didn't, I needed to be ready. What happened if Glenda was still there with them? I needed something to fight her with. I picked up a good-sized rock that fit nicely in my hand. It wasn't much, but it might be enough if it came to a fight. "Okay," I said aloud. "Anything else?" I couldn't think of anything. And in the heavy coat I was starting to sweat more than I had before. "Think, then act," I said, repeating what Aahz had said a hundred times. "It's time to act." With one last look at the town of Evade down in the valley, I took a deep breath and triggered the D-Hopper. The storm slammed into me like a hammer. I tucked the D-Hopper into my shirt and focused on how Tanda had led us the other three times to the cabin. The dust didn't let me see anything around me, but I knew there were some scattered trees. We had passed them the last two times. Tanda had gone slightly downhill and to the right, so I figured out what I thought was directly downhill, then angled a little to the right, counting my steps to make sure that if I was on the wrong path, I could get back. After twenty steps could see the faint shape of a tree. I was sure that had been there the last time, so I kept going. Another thirty slogging steps and another tree loomed out of the blowing dust. I thought that had been there as well. So far so good. I kept moving for fifty more steps before I saw the faint light in the window of the cabin below me. I had almost missed it, walking too high-along the hillside. I eased my way down to the cabin and tried to look in the window, but the dirt and shades made it so that I couldn't see anything. It looked as if I was going to have to go in, hard and fast, like a soldier going after a dangerous outlaw. I got to the door, braced myself, and eased open the door latch then shoved hard, the rock from Kowtow ready in my hand as I stumbled in. My momentum pushed me three steps into the room before I caught my balance and stopped. I had the rock raised to hit at Glenda, who I expected to be standing there, ready to fight me. She wasn't there. The cabin was warm and comfortable, just like the last time I had seen it. Tananda and Aahz were sitting at the table, eating what smelled like beef stew with slices of homemade bread. "Nice entrance," Tanda said, smiling at me. "What took you so long?" Aahz just shook his head. "Shut the door, would you?" I stood there with the rock in the air over my head, not really believing what I was seeing. I had so convinced myself that Aahz and Tanda were in trouble that I couldn't believe that they were simply having lunch and waiting for me. Why had they let me stay the entire day and night in Kowtow? Why had they chanced that I would even find the D-Hopper where they had left it? "Door!" Aahz said. "You born in a barn or something?" Behind me the storm was raging, blowing dust into the cabin. I lowered the rock, tossed it out into the dust, and then closed the door. Tanda stood and came up to me, smiling. "Aahz, I told you he'd make it just fine," she said, giving me a hug that convinced me that she was just fine, and I wasn't dreaming all this. Aahz snorted. "After all the mooning over our friend Glenda, I didn't think his brain would ever work again." I asked the one question I wanted to know most of all. "Why didn't you come back?" "We couldn't," Tanda said, patting me on the back and leading me to the table, where she slid some bread toward me as I sat down. I stared at my mentor, who was just eating and not paying much attention to me at the moment. He did that when he was very angry or very happy, and at the moment I honestly didn't know which it was. "Stew?" she asked, holding up a pot of what was making the room smell so good. "Glenda left us enough food to last for a few weeks at least." "Nice of her," Aahz said, the anger clearly there. "When you didn't come back for me I thought you were both dead." "We would have been dead in four or five weeks," Aahz said. "When the food ran out." Tanda served me up a dish of the stew and then sat down next to me after patting my shoulder. "So why couldn't you come back?" I asked, not wanting to eat until I had some answers. "What happened?" "Well," Aahz said, still not looking at me, "we both knew Glenda was up to something, and was going to try to double-cross us." "And we expected her to leave you on Kowtow," Tanda said. "You expected that?" I was stunned and suddenly angry. "Why didn't you at least warn me?" Aahz looked me directly in the eye. "Would you have listened, apprentice?" "Yes," I said defensively. Now they both laughed. Clearly they thought I had been too much under Glenda's spell. And the more I thought about it, the more I saw that they were right, at least to a point. When Glenda started her act on the bartender, I started to get suspicious, but not enough to think it through. "You were the closest to her, apprentice," Aahz said, his voice stern and in lecture mode. "You should have been warning us about her, not the other way around." As normal, Aahz was right. "So what happened here?" I asked, trying to not admit I had been wrong, even though we all knew I had been. "We headed up to the rocks and left the D-Hopper and the map," Tanda said, "then I jumped us here." "And right into Glenda's waiting arms," Aahz said. "Just as she had been planning." "She used a dimension-blocking spell on me," Tanda said. "She searched us for the D-Hopper, wished us both luck when she couldn't find it or the map, and hopped out." "I assume she's going after the treasure," Aahz said. "And now she's got a full day's start on us." So what I had been feeling from Aahz was anger, both at me and at the fact that we might lose the treasure, after getting so close. "So what's a dimension block?" "A spell that keeps another person from jumping out of a dimension," Aahz said. "Some cultures use it to imprison people. It's a pretty basic spell." "That you haven't taught me yet," I said. He shrugged. "There's a lot I haven't taught you. And after falling so easily for this Glenda's charms and smooth talk, I'm not sure if I ever will." Tanda patted Aahz's green hand across the table. "Easy on your apprentice. He's young and full of hormones. He did get back here, didn't he?" I wanted to ask what a hormone was, but figured I'd get that information from Tanda later, when Aahz wasn't around to make fun of my stupidity. He was disgusted enough with me as it was. And this time around I agreed with him. I shouldn't have been so easily taken with Glenda. She'd given me a couple of compliments and I'd been putty in her hands. I looked at Tanda. "So once you jump out of here with the D-Hopper, the spell is broken?" "Exactly," she said. "Finish up," Aahz said. "We've given her enough of a head start as it is." "So how do we get the treasure home once we find it?" I asked, then instantly realized just how stupid my question was. It had been Glenda who had told us we were too far from any of our known worlds to dimension-hop safely. That had been another of Glenda's lies. Tanda shook her head. "I think that's where Glenda got me. She blocked my sense of dimensions when we got near her. When we jumped back here from Kowtow, into the storm, I could sense Vortex #4 and Vortex #2. We can get home any time we want." My relief at that, combined with my relief at finding Aahz and Tanda all right, was more than I could handle. I stared at my stew, trying to make myself eat as much of it as I could. Doing anything else and I just might fall apart completely. "So what did you do when she left you?" Tanda asked. I shrugged, making myself focus on what I had managed to do right. "Paid our bill by doing the dishes so no one would be chasing me, then explored the town to see what I could see, then sat and waited, staying in the open so that you could find me." "And slept?" Aahz said, his voice sounding disgusted. "Not really," I said. "I got a hotel room because those people are deathly afraid of being outside at night. And of something called a round-up." "Really?" Tanda asked. I glanced up from my stew. Even Aahz was now showing interest. "Yeah, they bolt their doors and shutter every window, every night," I said. "I couldn't think of a way to ask them what they were afraid of without tipping my hand that I was a demon. And at that point I had other problems to figure out, like what to do next if you two didn't come back." Aahz nodded. "So we need to be careful at night." "The bartender guy said the round-up was still a few days off, since it wasn't the full moon yet." "I wonder what they're rounding up?" Tanda asked. "Or who's doing the rounding?" Aahz added. "There's a lot to Kowtow we don't know. You have the map?" "I sure do," I said, taking it out of my pocket and handing it to him. As I did I had another realization. The map was magik. It hadn't shown us the right path to Kowtow until I took the magik out of it, but back on Kowtow the magik had returned to the map. "Aahz," I said, smiling at my mentor, "you know, don't you, that the magik returned to the map when we reached Kowtow?" "Yeah," he said, almost sneering at me. "So? Glenda saw it as well." "Exactly," I said, smiling at my green mentor, "Glenda looked at the map while we were in Evade. Right?" Suddenly Tanda burst out laughing, long and hard and so loud I thought she might hurt herself. I smiled at the puzzled expression on my mentor's face. Considering how stupid I had been lately, getting back on top and giving him some good news felt good. "The map is a puzzle," I said. "That basic nature of the map won't change just because we reached Kowtow." Suddenly the light in Aahz's eyes brightened and slowly a smile crept over his green-scaled face. "Glenda has the wrong location." "Exactly," I said. "The map changes every time we get closer, just as it did with dimensions. I'm betting it will do that on Kowtow as well." Aahz put the folded map back in his belt pouch and stood, suddenly in a hurry. "Great thinking, Skeeve," he said. "Let's get back to Kowtow. Glenda is going to come looking for us to get the map when she discovers she has wrong information. And when she does, I want to be ready for her this time." I liked that idea a lot. Chapter Eight "Flying. It's the only way to travel!" B. HOLLY We arrived back at the cliff face on Kowtow with less than two hours of daylight left. The day was still hot and dry, and nothing had changed in the general area since I had left a few hours before. I quickly disguised all three of us again in the standard wear of the people of this dimension. We had packed some food and containers of water. Aahz didn't much like the idea of eating vegetables. Pervects were mostly meat-eaters. Aahz checked over the D-Hopper and then reset the dimension and hid it in his shirt. "Ahh, that feels good," Tanda said, stretching toward the sun, her white hat tipped back, her large belt buckle glistening in the sun. "The heat?" I asked. "Nope. The dimension block being lifted. Amazing how much you miss the ability to hop after you've had it and then it's taken away." "Yeah, I know," Aahz said. "Oh, sorry, big guy," she said. "Gotten used to it," he said. I couldn't even imagine how Aahz felt, once being a powerful magician and then having his powers taken away from him because of a practical joke by my previous mentor. My mentor had been killed before he could lift the joke. Now Aahz just had to wait for the joke to wear off and his powers to come back, which he said would take more time than I wanted to think about. Aahz unfolded the magik map and laid it on the top of a rock so we could all study it. The town of Evade was clearly marked as our starting point, with a road leading from it to a town called Baker. In Baker two roads split off to two other towns, then two roads left each of those towns. Eventually a few of the roads led to Dodge, where it was marked that the treasure was. Where Glenda was heading. But was the golden-milk-giving cow there? I was betting it wasn't. I was betting the map would change when we reached Baker. And then keep on changing with every city after that until we finally found the right city. Glenda was going to be angry, and it served her right. I didn't want to see what Aahz would do to her the next time he saw her. Pervects are not to be messed with, and she had left him to die on a frozen planet. What he would do to her wasn't going to be pretty. "So we're back needing horses," Aahz said, tracing along the distances between the towns. Then he looked at me. "Unless you think your flying spell is good enough here to work for us." Flying wasn't the strongest of my magik, but it was one of the things Aahz had trained me to do first. It had saved us from a hanging and a few other tight spots in our last few adventures. But I wasn't sure if I could lift all three of us and carry us any distance. "I can try," I said, wishing I hadn't said those words the moment I heard them come out of my mouth. "Concentrate," Aahz said, going into teacher mode. "Search for your lines of power and use them, pull them in, let them flow through you." "You can do it, Skeeve," Tanda said. I wasn't so sure. Each place had power lines, invisible things that all magicians got their energy from. Some places, like the area of the cabin in Vortex #6 were jam-packed with power. Back at the cabin I could have flown fifty people, but here there wasn't much magik power. In fact, it seemed almost empty. I stretched out my mind, holding onto the power that I could feel, and then concentrating on bringing it in and using it to lift all three of us. A moment later we all were off the ground and into the hot air. "Not too high," Aahz warned. "Keep us just three or four paces off the ground." I was glad to do that, because it was easier. And much safer to boot. I lowered all three of us back to a position just above the top of the boulders and held us there for a few moments to make sure I could do it, then I lowered us back to where we had started. When I let us go I could feel the energy drain away. I was sweating and short of breath and needed a drink of water, but at least I had done it. "Nice job," Tanda said, handing me a canister of water. "How long do you think you could keep that up?" Aahz asked, watching me with a look that I knew meant he could see through any extra bragging I might try. "Honestly, I don't know," I said after I took a long drink of the wonderfully cold liquid. "With rests, and touching each of you as I do it, maybe fifteen minutes at a time. The lines of power are weak in this area. They may be stronger in other areas and then I could last longer." Aahz nodded, seemingly satisfied with my answer. He turned to Tanda. "Can you do a cushion spell, in case he drops us?" "Not a problem," Tanda said. "What do we do if someone sees us?" I asked. "I'm not sure that I can do a bird disguise spell as well as keeping us flying." "We're not going to worry about that," Aahz said. Clearly he didn't think I could either. "We'll walk when we see someone," Tanda said, staring at the town below us in the valley. "Just keep us close to the ground and over a road." I nodded. "Whenever you're ready." "Good," Aahz said. "Take us down to Evade, we'll walk through town and out the other side." I nodded, glancing at how low the sun was getting in the sky. We'd have to deal with where we were going to stay later. I doubted that Aahz would want to stay in Evade. With luck we'd reach Baker, and they'd have a hotel there as well. I moved over and stood between Aahz and Tanda, putting a hand on each of their arms. Then I concentrated on taking in what power I could find and lifting us about a pace off the ground. "Hold on to your hats," I said as we lifted into the air. I floated us down to the road and then picked up speed, skimming us toward Evade a lot faster than even a running horse could take us. To an outsider we must have looked very strange. Three strangers seeming to be just standing, but moving along the road at a very fast clip. After only two minutes I was starting to feel the wear, but before I had to stop Aahz said, "I think we're close enough now." What had cost me an hour of walking earlier had only taken two or three minutes of flying. Why hadn't I thought of that this morning? I slowed and put us down at a normal walking pace. The moment I let go of the power I stumbled, but Tanda kept me from falling on my face. It was as if every bit of energy had been drained from my muscles, leaving them weak and noodle-like. "You'll be fine in a moment," Aahz said, keeping us walking at a good pace toward the now close edge of town. He was right. A few more steps and I was sweating like a dam had broken, but I was able to walk. Tanda gave me some more water, and that brought even more of my energy back. I was starting to believe that I could do this. And flying, even though it tired me out, was a lot better than riding horses, let alone doing the job it would take to pay for one. We got into town as people were starting to close up their businesses and shutter the windows. "You weren't kidding, were you?" Tanda said as we walked down the now mostly deserted sidewalk. "They're afraid of something that comes out at night," I said. "I have no idea what it might be." As we passed in front of Audry's, my friend the bartender waved from inside the window. I tipped my hat back at him. These people might be strange vegetarians who were afraid of the dark, but they sure were nice. We passed the hotel without Aahz even hesitating. And I didn't say anything either. The last thing I wanted to let my mentor know was that the fear the locals felt had gotten to me as well during my one-night stay here. On the other side of town we stepped off the sidewalk and just kept walking, past a few homes with the shutters already drawn and bolted. Ten minutes later, with the sun still not touching the tops of the hills to the west, Aahz gave the all-clear. Again I touched each of them, pulled in the power, and lifted us, sending us down the road as fast as I dared take us, considering I had to make sharp corners and steep hills. This time I lasted ten minutes before I had to stop. Water and a quick rest got me going again, just as the sun started to set. From what I could tell, we were a long way yet from Baker. It was getting noticeably cooler, which was also helping me. "Can you keep going?" Tanda asked as I stopped for a second time and sat down on a rock beside the road. "We're making good speed," Aahz said, clearly satisfied with our progress. "We are," Tanda said, "but this is hard on Skeeve." "I can keep going," I said, taking one more drink and then standing. "I just need to rest every ten minutes or so." "Understandable," Aahz said. "For someone of your level of skill." "For someone of any level," Tanda said, stepping to my defense. "There's not much power in this area. He's having to pull from a ways off." "That true?" Aahz asked me. "It is," I said. "But I said I can keep going and I can." "Then we go when you're ready," Aahz said. "We don't have much light left and we won't be able to make the speed we are making now at night." It was clear we were going to spend a night outside on Kowtow and face what an entire population was afraid to face. Aahz didn't seem to be worried. Tanda had said nothing. I was just the apprentice. What place was it for me to say anything? In the west the sun was slowly setting. In the east an almost full moon was starting to come up over the horizon. In a few days the full moon would signal another fear in the people who lived here: the round-up. I pushed the thoughts and fears from my mind, focused on bringing in as much power as I could, then lifted us knee-high off the ground and headed down the road as fast as I could take us. The sun had almost set completely by the time I stopped for my next break. There was still no sign of the town of Baker. Okay, I'm the first to admit when I'm being stupid, if it's pointed out to me. Luckily I had had enough common sense to not tell Aahz and Tanda how worried I was about the darkness, so they didn't get the chance to point any of my stupidity when we ran into no problems at all after it turned dark. The first part of the trip was fairly easy. It took me three more rest stops, and, it was well after the sun had set by the time we got to Baker. The town was buttoned up tighter than anything I had ever seen. In the moonlight the buildings looked haunted and strange, more like monster-boxes than structures. Very little light got past any of the shutters, but the almost-full moon was giving us enough light to see by to stay on the road. Baker looked to be about twice the size of Evade, and was spread out over more than just a Main Street. It was tucked into a small valley, with flat farmland going off in both directions from it. We walked into town, following the road and staying off the wooden sidewalks so that we wouldn't make any noise. The town was just flat empty. Not even a horse had been left outside. Nothing was moving, and as far as we could tell, nothing lived here, even though we knew better. "This is very strange," Tanda said as we got near the center of town. "How boring would it be to go to bed when the sun set every night? I'd go stark-raving crazy in a matter of days." Tanda was the kind of person that always had to be doing something: going on adventures, shopping, or partying. I had no doubt that it wouldn't take her days to go crazy here. "I just wonder what they are afraid of," Aahz said. He pointed to one building. "Those shutters look as if they could take a pretty good pounding and still hold." "It was the same way in Evade," I said. "But I was awake all night and never heard a sound from outside." "More than likely this is just an old custom," Tanda said, "and we're still so far out in the sticks, away from any larger cities, that the custom remains." "Are there larger cities in this dimension?" I asked. "Who knows?" Aahz said. "Just stay alert and watch for anything unusual." He didn't have to tell me to do that, since I was already on full alert. And even though flying, combined with no sleep the night before, had me exhausted, I doubted I could sleep now even if I wanted to try. Aahz found a sliver of light coming from the shutters of one store and stopped. He unfolded the map and we gathered around, trying to be as quiet as we could while we looked for our next destination. "You were right, Skeeve," Aahz whispered, patting me on the back. The map had changed. Baker, the city we were standing in, was now the focal point of the map, and two roads led toward two other towns from Baker. The treasure was now marked in a town called Silver City. Dodge City wasn't even on the map. Glenda was going to be mad. I wished I could be there when she discovered how stupid she had been. "So which way do we go?" Tanda asked. The two towns next in line from Baker were named Bank and Keep. Both looked to be about the same distance from here, but Bank was to the right in the north and Keep was to the left in the south. "Bank," I said, before I even realized the word was out of my mouth. "Why?" Aahz asked, staring at me, his intense eyes scary in the semi-dark. "I don't know," I said. "It just seems right, and starts with the same letter as Baker." Tanda laughed, but had the decency to not say anything. Aahz just shook his head, folded up the map and put it away. "Bank it is," he said, moving out into the middle of the street and walking on toward the west end of town. "I could be wrong," I said, walking between him and Tanda. "More than likely," Aahz said. "So why go with my suggestion?" "Because I have none better to offer." "Neither do I," Tanda said. "Besides, if you're wrong, we can blame you." "Terrific!" I said. "As if I don't get in enough trouble as it is." Both Aahz and Tanda chuckled, but said nothing the rest of the way to the edge of town. It was easy to find the road to Bank. At a fork in the road a hundred paces outside of the main part of town there was a sign, clear and readable even in the moonlight, pointing to the right. Aahz glanced around, then turned to me. "Ready?" "Sure," I said. "Keep it slower than before," Aahz said. "We don't want to run into anything out here." I concentrated on the power coming into my body, easier here than back near Evade. When I had enough I lifted us slightly off the ground and headed down the road. Outside of town the road was straight, running between what looked like pastures, and even in the moonlight I could get us up to a pretty decent speed. In the pastures along both sides of the road animals were grazing. When I finally had to stop to rest, a number of the grazing animals looked up at us, big eyes glowing in the moonlight. They almost looked surprised to see us. "Cows," Tanda said, pointing at the large creatures staring at us from the field. They looked fat and heavy, with white and dark areas over their bodies. In the half-darkness, they seemed almost sinister with their big eyes and long ears. "So how come they aren't inside like everything else?" I asked as Tanda gave me more water and a little bit of a snack to eat. "You're asking me?" she said. "Maybe they're not bothered by whatever worries the people around here." That made sense, in an odd sort of way. "Maybe they are what worries the residents," I said, staring into the deep pits of eyes of the closest cow. Both Aahz and Tanda laughed as if that was the funniest thing I had ever said. I didn't see what was so funny. Cows looked nasty to me, and I couldn't imagine trying to get milk, golden or not, from any of the ones I could see. By the time I was rested enough to get us farther down the road, a bunch of the nearby cows had sauntered over and were gathering near the road watching what we were doing. It was creepy, and I was glad to get on the way. From that point onward there were cattle along the road watching us, as if something had told them we were coming. When I asked Aahz what made them do that, he said he didn't know. He'd never seen cattle act that way. Tanda said she hadn't either. That answer didn't comfort me at all. I kept us going longer and longer, not wanting to rest and have all the cows gather close to us. By the time the sun came up I had flown us to the edge of Bank City. I was exhausted and was going to have to get a few hours sleep before we went on. At first light, the moment the sun peeked over the edge of the nearby mountains, the cows stopped watching us and went back to grazing. For some reason that bothered me a lot more than them staring at us. Chapter Nine "It's an acquired taste." H. LECHTER I was so tired that even the short walk into the center of the town of Bank darned near killed me. All I wanted to do was fall down and sleep, at least for a few hours. Aahz promised me that was going to be possible very soon, so I limped along with them. The merchants were opening up the stores and the shutters had all disappeared from the windows. Horses pulling wagons were lined up outside a few stores, and, just like in Evade, a guy wearing a hat and carrying a shovel was going around cleaning up after the horses. Clearly that was a standard job in every town. I couldn't imagine a kid wanting to be the horse-poop cleaner when he grew up. But maybe in this culture, that was the top job. Bank looked a lot like Evade, just bigger. The buildings were all the same size, and there were wooden sidewalks. We found a small establishment like the one Glenda had left me in, and sat down at a table near the front window. We were the only ones in the place. It felt great to be off my feet and not moving. I might be able to sleep right there in the chair if they let me. As I looked around I realized this place was almost identical to Audry's in Evade, with the bar down the left side and wooden tables and chairs. "What can I get for ya, folks?" A man asked as he came out from the back room. He was just like the guy in Evade, right down to the white apron and the dirty towel. "Could we trouble you for just one glass of your best juice?" I asked. "Not a problem at all," he said, smiling. "You want some breakfast, I just got a fresh load in this very morning. Good and crisp." "Sounds great," I said, "maybe later. But I think first we just want to sit a spell." The guy came back with the carrot juice drink and slid it onto the table with a smile before he headed back into the kitchen area. "You've picked up the lingo pretty well," Tanda said. "A night alone in a place do that for you?" "I suppose," I said, taking a sip of the juice. "Isn't it creepy how all these people seem the same from town to town?" "I was noticing that as well," Tanda said. "The guy shoveling dung looks just like every other guy I've seen shoveling dung." Aahz laughed and I just stared at her, too tired to even try to figure out what she had just said. "I wonder why there's no milk," Aahz said, staring at the carrot juice with a look of disgust on his face. "I don't think you want to ask, even if they had any," I said. "I was in a kitchen of one of these places, and there was nothing there but veggies, and not a clean surface in the room." "Ughh," Tanda said. "More than likely you could get us arrested for even thinking of drinking milk in a dimension full of cows." "You two have far too active an imagination," Aahz said as he pulled out the map and opened it. Again it had changed. I kept sipping my carrot juice as I studied the parchment. Bank, the town we were in, was the main town on the map now. And the treasure was now located in a city called Placer. Three roads left Bank and headed off in three directions, all, in one fashion or another, getting to Placer after a few more towns. "Now which way?" I asked, staring at our options. They were towns called Chip, Pie, and Biscuit. Weird names. Everything about this dimension was starting to seem weird to me. Tanda pointed to one of the towns. "Following Skeeve's plan of going to towns that start with the letter B, we head for Biscuit." "Sounds good to me," I said. Aahz just shook his head in amazement. "As good as any, I suppose." He studied the map for a moment more and then folded it up and put it away. Biscuit was on the road that stayed north going out the west side of Bank. I doubted it would be hard to find. I took another sip while Tanda wrinkled her nose at my drink and me. "It's an acquired taste," I said, realizing what I was doing. I had finished almost half the glass. I offered the rest to her, but she shook her head. "No, thanks. Not in a million years." I shrugged and took another drink. The stuff wasn't bad at all, once you got past the initial taste of smashed and juiced carrots. "So how you feeling?" Aahz asked. "He's going to have to rest," Tanda said, not letting me answer. "I know that," Aahz said. "I was just wondering how we were going to do that. We don't dare go back to the cabin because Glenda might be there. I don't want to deal with her just yet. So we have to find some private spot." "Actually," I said, stopping the fight before it got started, "I'm feeling pretty good. A little juice here and some time sitting down and I think I can go again for a while." Tanda looked into the orange liquid. "What did they put in there?" "You know," I said, looking at the juice, "I don't know, but it really is helping." We sat for another ten minutes while I finished off the carrot juice, then I went over and asked how I could pay the man for the drink. "Come back for a dinner," he said. "That's payment enough." I thanked him for his hospitality. I had no idea how this bartering system in this dimension worked, but it sure made everyone friendly. We headed toward the west end of town, walking down the sidewalk and tipping our hats at the smiling people we met. I felt great again. Drinking that juice was like getting a good night's sleep. I had no idea what was in one besides carrots, but I could easily get hooked on them. It wasn't going to be a problem taking the wrong road because there was a sign saying Biscuit and a big arrow at the fork in the roads. Around us were buildings and homes and several hundred of head of cattle grazing, so we started off walking, going slow and steady as the sun got hotter. Finally, after maybe a mile, we were far enough out in the country to not chance being seen flying. "You sure you're all right?" Aahz asked. "Never felt better," I said. "You know, at the next town, I'm trying some of that juice," Tanda said. As I reached out with my mind searching for power, it became clear that we were in an area much more powerful than where we had started. It was easy for me to get enough to lift the three of us knee-high off the ground and whisk us along. We had to stop flying and walk a half dozen times over the next few hours when we saw people coming, or a house was too close to the road. And we must have passed at least a million cows along the way. Not one had actually looked at us. And not once did I have to actually sit down and rest. Amazing juice. By the time we reached Biscuit, it was mid-afternoon and I was starting to get tired again. We found a place to sit in a bar that looked just like Audry's and the one in Bank. Now all of us were growing bothered by the similar nature of the places. I wanted to run from the bar when a man who looked a lot like the previous two, down to wearing a white apron and carrying a dirty rag, came out of the kitchen and asked us what we wanted. "Just two glasses of your finest," I said. "Sure you all don't want an early dinner?" he asked. "I just got a fresh load from the fields. Really crisp. We all need our energy, you know, with the round-up coming." I glanced at Aahz, then Tanda, then answered the guy's question. "After we sit awhile we just might." He smiled real big, like I had said the right thing, then went and brought us our juice. He had disappeared into the back room before any of us said anything. "So someone want to explain to me what's going on?" Tanda asked. "I've never seen anything like this," Aahz said. "I thought you two were just imagining things at the last stop. But these three places are almost identical." "Are we going in circles or something?" I asked. "Is it possible that all these towns are the same one?" "No, there're different sizes and shapes and in different countryside," Tanda said. "No doubt we're in different towns," Aahz said, "all built, it seems, off the same pattern, with the same kind of people living in them." "Okay," Tanda said, "now I can safely say I've seen it all." "Not yet," I said. 'We've still got the round-up, whatever that is. And a golden cow." Tanda nodded and looked at Aahz with a serious face. "I'm starting to think this treasure isn't worth what we're risking." Aahz looked at her as if she had gone crazy. "Are you kidding? We've come this far. Only a few more towns to go." She nodded, but I could tell as I sipped my juice that this entire dimension was bothering Tanda a great deal. And in the time I had known Tanda, I had never seen anything bother her. Aahz glanced to make sure the guy was still in the kitchen, then opened up the map and spread it on the table. As every other time, it had changed again. This time, we had four roads to pick from, and all the towns started with the letter "B". Brae was the southern