most, then there was Brawn, then Bent, and finally, to the north, Bethel. The golden treasure was marked as being in a place called Donner. "Well, so much for that system," I said. "And it was working, too," Aahz said. "You know, maybe I could drain off the magik from the map again." I had just finished my entire glass of carrot juice and was feeling really, really alive and well. Aahz glanced at the kitchen door again, then asked me, "You feel up to it?" "I feel like I'm getting stronger the farther we come," I said. "Let him try," Tanda said. "Might save us a lot of back-tracking." Aahz looked at me, then nodded. "Give it a shot." I took a deep breath and let my mind search out the power in the map. For an instant I didn't think anything was going to happen. Then I felt it. The power rushed through me from the map as I hastily directed it into the ground. My head spun for a second, and it was done. The power was gone and the map was normal...for now. I took a deep breath, again feeling the strain. I needed more carrot juice. "It worked," Aahz said. "Nice job, Skeeve." It wasn't often that I got a compliment from my mentor, so I savored the moment. Tanda patted me on the arm and gave me a kiss on the cheek for a reward. Nothing like doing a job and doing it well. I took her glass of carrot juice and sipped from it while we studied the map. Only one road led from Biscuit where we were, through Bethel and then to Donner. Donner actually was the place with the golden cow. We had been closer than we thought. But from the look of the map, it was a long way to Bethel, and even farther to Donner. Just getting to the first place was going to take to the middle of the night. I just hoped the cows didn't watch us. "You rested enough to get going?" Aahz asked me. I downed half of the glass of carrot juice and nodded. "Put this in one of our water containers, would you?" Tanda nodded as I stood and moved to the door into the back room. I knocked and the guy came out. "What can we do for you in exchange for the wonderful drinks you served?" He smiled, as if I had again said some magik words. "Just come back for food sometime soon." "I promise we will," I said. I tipped my hat at him. "Thanks." He stood there smiling, watching us leave like we were his children headed off to school. We went through Bethel in the middle of the night. The town looked like all the others, and, even though it was locked up tight and shuttered, I recognized the Audry's-place-look-alike as we passed it. For the past few hours, since a stop we made right after dark, the cows had again watched us. We were the cow entertainment for the night as we sped past pasture after pasture. Thousands and thousands of cows lined the road, ready for us to come flashing past. I had no idea why they did it, or how they knew we were coming, but there wasn't a stretch of road that didn't have cows lined up beside it all night long. And even though there were no fences, none of them came into the road to stop us. After a while I stopped looking at them as well. Their big eyes, shining in the moonlight, just unnerved me. My flying was getting better and better as the trip went on, and since the moon was almost full the road was easy to see. I could manage almost an hour of nonstop flying before I had to rest, and, because of the mostly flat land, we were making great time. Even though I wanted to drink it earlier because I was feeling tired, I forced myself to wait until we were walking through Bethel to finish the last of the carrot juice I had had Tanda save. Just that half a glass gave me enough energy to keep on going, as if I had slept a full night. It seemed to allow me to use every bit of the power around me to keep us above the road and speeding toward the treasure. At sunrise the cows stopped watching again, going back to gra2ing as if we didn't matter at all. For a while I felt almost insulted, before I realized what I was thinking. How could a cow not wanting to watch me fly past ever insult me? Made no sense. About halfway through the morning, still a long distance from Donner, we came on a small town. It couldn't have been half the size of Evade, and not more than a dot on the map. The juice I had drunk in the middle of the night had long ago worn off and I was so tired that I was just about falling down. As I had hoped when I saw the little town, right in the middle was a place that looked a lot like Audry's. It was empty and we went in, taking what I was starting to think of as our normal table. I slouched in a chair in front of the window, glad to still be alive. There was only one thing bad about the carrot juice. When you came down off of it, you came down hard. Right now, if we were going to get to Donner by the middle of the night, I needed another fix or two of the golden liquor. This place didn't just look like Audry's; it could have been Audry's. And when the guy with the white apron and dirty rag came out of the back room, I wasn't surprised in the slightest. "What can I get for you, strangers?" "If you wouldn't mind," I said before either Tanda or Aahz could speak, "could I trouble you for three glasses of your best?" The guy beamed, wiped his hands with the towel, and said the words I was expecting. "Not a problem. Sure I couldn't interest you folks in some lunch as well? Just got a fresh wagon-load in. Everything's really crisp. You all need your strength, what with the round-up coming." "Thanks, partner," I said. "That sounds really good, but I think we'll just start with the juice right now, if you don't mind." "Not at all," he said. A few moments later he came back with three glasses of the carrot juice, smiled at us as he put them down, then headed off into the kitchen. "Okay, that does it," Tanda said, staring at where the guy had gone. "I'm officially completely creeped out." "What?" Aahz asked. "All the staring cows last night didn't do it for you?" "Okay, double creeped out," Tanda said. I downed about a half a glass of carrot juice and sat back, letting the wonderful flavor warm me. How I had ever lived without the stuff was beyond me. "I think you might want to go easy on that juice," Aahz said. He was looking as tired as I had felt a few minutes ago. "I think you might want to try some," I said, "if you're expecting to get to the treasure tonight." He shook his head. "I think one of us hooked on carrot juice is enough." "Your loss," I said. He just frowned and pulled out the map. This time the map hadn't changed. My magik had worked. We were still headed for Donner, which looked to be a good distance from here. I was going to need all the energy I could get. I downed another quarter of the glass. By the time we left the place, with me running through the same routine with the guy in the apron, promising we might be back for dinner, I had downed a glass and a half of the juice, and had the rest in the water containers. I was good to go through the night. As far as I was concerned, Tanda and Aahz could sleep while I flew. They weren't doing anything, so why not? Later that afternoon I think they both did actually fall asleep while flashing along knee-high off the road. It was lucky for all of us I had my carrot juice. As it happened, we were approaching another tiny little town along the road to Donner as the sun set. On the map this place wasn't even listed. It had maybe twenty buildings, all of them boarded up and shuttered. Still, Aahz figured there was no point in taking any chances, so we walked into the tiny town. We were just about through the town when, at once, every door in the town slammed open. It was a dark and quiet night, with the sun down and the moon not yet up. That much sudden noise and movement darned near scared me right out of my skin. "What's happening?" Tanda asked. I didn't have a clue. From what I could tell, every person in the town, all dressed in different clothing, some in nightshirts, walked into the street like zombies, turned, and in a line headed out of town to the west. We quickly stepped up onto the sidewalk to get out of the way as the chain of people moved past down the center of the road. There was no life in any of their eyes or fighting against what was happening to them. "Be ready to take us back to Vortex #6," Aahz whispered to Tanda. "Oh, I've been ready for days," she said. The last person moved past us, leaving the town empty and every door standing wide open. I had no idea what we should do. I took the canister out of my pouch and downed the last of the second glass of carrot juice, just to be ready for whatever was coming. Aahz motioned that we should follow them, so, moving slowly about thirty steps behind the last person, we followed the line of people out into the countryside, along the very same road we had planned on traveling. The farther out we got, the more I expected to see the cows waiting for us, watching the zombie townspeople now. But there were no cows to be seen. But there were a lot of naked people, yawning and stretching scattered around the fields, as if they were just waking up from a long nap. The townspeople kept doing the zombie march as the naked people in the fields moved toward them. The first naked guy to reach the line near us grabbed an old man in a nightshirt, tipped back the old guy's head, and bit into his neck. "Vampires," Tanda whispered. Behind us the full moon was easing up over the edge of the hill, shining light on the feast as more and more vampires picked a meal and bit in. So this was what the round-up was all about? I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The cows were vampires, and their feeding stock was the people. No wonder all the people in all the towns all ate vegetables and were afraid of the night. The people who lived in the towns were nothing more than cattle, being fattened for slaughter every month. It was the cows that were the masters. "You are not in the round-up line," a deep and pleasant voice said from behind us. All three of us spun around as one to face two naked people. One was a man, one a woman. Their bodies were perfectly formed, their muscles toned, their eyes large and brown, like the cow's eyes along the road every night. The woman was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen without clothes on. No, make that the most beautiful. And with one glance into her eyes, I wanted to give myself to her. I didn't care if she bit me or not. The next instant the dust storm on Vortex #6 slammed into me, snapping me out of my desire to make a fool of myself with a beautiful woman for the second time in a week. Chapter Ten "I can quit anytime." S. HOLMES The hundred slogging steps through the dust storm to the cabin seemed to get longer and longer every time I had to do it. I had no idea why we just couldn't D-Hop right into the cabin and skip all this dust and wind. I was going to ask Tanda that, as soon as things settled down. As we got near the cabin, Tanda held up her hand for us to stop. I could barely see the dark shape of the building in the storm. There was no light in the window this time. She did something with both arms I assumed was some sort of scanning magik that assassins knew, then motioned that it was clear and we should move forward. Therefore, Glenda wasn't here waiting for us. I had the sudden image of one of the cow-vampires bending her over and sucking on her neck in the middle of some road somewhere. Considering what she had done to me, it was one of the nicer thoughts I had had about her in days. We got inside and the door closed against the storm. "Are we shielded?" Aahz asked Tanda. "Up and solid," she said. "Skeeve was right; there is powerful energy here. I can hold the shield for as long as we need it." "So Glenda can't pop in and surprise us?" I asked, moving to the stove to get it started before I took off my coat. "Not a chance," Tanda said. "She hops back here, she's going to get awful dirty standing out there in the dust." Aahz laughed. "Couldn't happen to a nicer demon." "Want something to eat?" Tanda asked, working around in the cabinets as I sat at the table. "Just more carrot juice," I said. I could feel my body starting to get really tired, as if someone had pulled the energy plug and what I had left was draining onto the floor. I dug into my pouch for the canister that I had been carrying. It was gone. I checked again and it was still not there. I couldn't remember doing anything with it, but I might have dropped it in the excitement of watching cows become vampires and bite on people. "You have the other canister of juice?" I asked Aahz. "Afraid not, apprentice," he said. "Left it back on Kowtow when we hopped out of there." My first reaction was not to believe him. Then it became clear that he had left the rest of my carrot juice, and my reaction was anger. "How could you do that?" I shouted. "Easy," he said. He showed me by reaching into his pouch, taking out an invisible canister, and dropping it to the floor. "But what am I going to do without it?" Again I shouted. I needed that carrot juice; right down to the very bottom of my soul I needed it. "You're going to sleep for a long time," Tanda said, smiling at me. Just her mention of sleep made me sleepy. I couldn't believe they had done this to me. "Taking a guy's carrot juice isn't nice." "I know," Tanda said. "But we're doing it for your own good. You haven't slept in at least three days. You need to stop moving and just lie down." The tiredness was washing up over me like a wave on the beach. It was everything I could do to even think about saying I didn't need sleep. How dare she tell me what I needed? How dare Aahz leave my juice behind? Hadn't I trusted him with that juice? "I don't need to rest," I said, my voice sounding funny to my ears. "How about you just lie down for a few minutes and then we'll talk about it," Tanda said, helping me to me feet and moving me over to the soft-looking bed against one wall. "Well, maybe just a minute," I said. What could a minute hurt? I'd get back some of my energy, and then convince Tanda to hop me back to get my juice. "Only one minute," I said. Or at least I think I said that. I might not have, because from the moment my head touched the pillow, I don't remember another thing. I woke up with a blinding headache and a taste in my mouth that was a cross between horse droppings and stale carrots. I rolled over and the pain hit me even harder, smashing into my head like someone was taking a hammer and pounding me right between the eyes. "Ohhh," I said, putting both hands to my head trying to stop the agony. "The sleeping apprentice awakes," Aahz, said, his voice far too loud for the size of the space between my ears. "And in pain, it seems," Tanda shouted. "Please whisper," I said, but my throat was so dry the words didn't really come out. I wanted to die. Why hadn't they just killed me as I slept? Or maybe they had tried, which was why I hurt so much. I also wanted to be sick, but that wasn't possible since there wasn't anything left in my stomach. But my stomach still felt like it wanted to twist inside out and come up through my throat. And the world spinning didn't help that feeling at all. And, most of all, I really wanted to forget all the nightmares I'd had about cows turning into vampires, and the people of a dimension being nothing more than food stock. What an awful nightmare. That was the last time I had carrot juice if it caused those kind of visions. Tanda came over and knelt beside me. I could feel her hand on my forehead, then a soft energy flowing through me, washing the pain and nausea with it. Whatever she did, it was nice. After a moment she moved away and I opened my eyes. My head didn't hurt as much, and the world that felt as if it was smashing down on me from all sides had retreated. I also realized that what I had thought were carrot-juice-induced nightmares had actually happened. "That help?" Tanda asked. I nodded, wishing I hadn't almost at once. She had taken away the pain, but the rest of the problems-upset stomach and spinning world-were still with me. She brought me a glass of water, helping me sit up to drink it. "Well, hangovers are sure fun, aren't they, apprentice?" Aahz asked. "No," I managed to croak out after I took a small drink, "they are not." "Good thing to remember next time you go bingeing." The thought of even seeing another carrot made my stomach twist. "Was there alcohol in the carrot juice?" "No, but it had other stuff in it," Aahz said, "Stuff I'm guessing make the people of those towns good eating for the vampires." My stomach twisted. "And maybe help keep them under control," Tanda said, looking at me. "Think you can come to the table and try to eat a little something?" "I can try," I said, "but no promises." "Good enough. You need to eat." "How long was I sleeping?" I asked as I stood and shuffled my way to the table. I dropped into a chair and then tried to remain still while the world spun for a moment. "About twelve hours," Aahz said. "We were just getting ready to head back to Kowtow when you started to wake up." "Without me?" I asked, staring into the eyes of my mentor. He smiled at what must have been my shocked expression. "Just to explore and get a little closer to Donner while the vampires were back being cows. We would have left you shielded and been back in a few hours." "You still want to see if you can get to the treasure?" I asked, not believing that Aahz would even want to go back to the place again, let alone try to get a golden-milk-giving cow that turned into a vampire. "Sure," he said. "We're too close to turn back now." "And just what are you going to do when you find this golden cow?" "I asked him the same thing," Tanda said. "I'll figure that out when we find it," Aahz said. I nodded. "Glad I woke up then." "I doubt you're going to be up for coming along just yet," Tanda said, putting a little sandwich and another glass of water in front of me. "I'll be fine," I said. "Just a little carrot juice and I can fly a long ways." The silence in the cabin was intense. I looked at Aahz, then at Tanda and smiled. "Just kid-ding." For some reason, neither of them laughed. Along the way there were more and more cattle, bigger herds than we had seen at any other place. I was just glad that none of them were lined up along the road watching us. The countryside was becoming pretty hilly, and the road looked like it was headed right at a fairly large mountain range. I hoped Donner was on this side of the range and not the other. My question was answered almost at once as we topped a slight ridge and could see off ahead. I somehow managed to bring us to a stop and lower us to the ground. Considering what we were facing, I thought that was pretty good concentration. From the top of this hill we could see Donner. It had been built going up the side of a gentle hill. From here it looked as if the buildings down low were all like the ones in the towns we had already seen, but the farther up the hill you went, the larger the buildings, the more ornate. At the top was the palace. Only this wasn't like anything on this planet. It was made of stone and inlaid with gold that shimmered in the afternoon sun. It was like a second sun, only golden. "Oh, my," Tanda said softly. "No wonder there's a treasure map to this place," Aahz said. "I've never seen anything like that." "Neither have I," Tanda said. Well, if the two experienced dimension travelers in the group had never seen anything like the golden palace we were staring at, I sure hadn't either. After a moment I asked what I thought was the obvious next question. "So now what do we do?" "We go take a closer look," Aah2 said, laughing. "See what we can see." I glanced at my mentor. He was always happy when there was a chance we might end up with a lot of money. I didn't want to ask him how he thought we were going to get any of the gold we could see from here, but clearly he had ideas, and the ideas were enough to make him smile. All his smile did was worry me. I flew us two more small hills closer to the city before Aahz said we had better walk the rest of the way. There was so much energy in this area that I didn't even feel tired from the effort of flying. It had come easy, which meant that all magik was easy in this place. That was both good and bad. Ahead of us on the road were some walkers, plus a wagon full of vegetables being pulled by two horses. Cows filled the fields, paying no attention to anything. Up closer, the town of Donner was even bigger than I had first thought, with a very wide, boulevard-like main road heading straight through everything. The golden castle on the top of the hill was massive. It looked like it could swallow the entire royal palace and courtyard of Possiltum and not even burp. I wonder if this place had a royal magician. Maybe I could apply for the job, but I doubted I would pass the cow physical. We had just crested the last small hill and were starting down toward the edge of the city when a dozen men on horseback came galloping out of the city, kicking up a cloud of dust behind them. A few people ahead of us on the road stepped out of the way. And the wagonload of veggies had to move almost off the road and into a small ditch. The thundering horses came on, riding hard, the men's black hats pulled down tight on their heads. I didn't have a good feeling about this, but at the same time there was no reason to think they were after us. We moved to the side of the road as they neared, but instead of riding past, then stopped, sort of forming a circle around us, pinning us against a pasture full of cows. I clearly should have trusted my bad feeling. "You are under arrest," a man sitting on a big black horse said. "Please come with us into the city." "It's a posse," Tanda said, the surprise in her voice clear. "Never thought I'd ever see one." "A what?" I asked. "Never mind," she said. "Under arrest for what?" Aahz demanded of the guy on the big horse. The guy, whose face looked very similar to the guy who had been the bartender in Audry's, smiled. I didn't like the look of his little teeth at all. "You have been charged with not complying with round-up procedures," he said, "and the unlawful use of magik." I glanced at Aahz, then at Tanda. Now we knew for sure that this dimension knew about magik. As far as I was concerned, right about now would be a great time to beat a hasty retreat to the wonderful dust of Vortex #6. But it seemed Aahz had other ideas. "We demand to be taken to your leader," Aahz said, stepping toward the man. "We are powerful magicians from another dimension with important information your leader will want." The guy actually laughed, which rocked Aahz back on his heels. Not too many people actually laughed at my mentor and got away with it. "Drop my disguise," Aahz said, whispering to me. I shrugged. At this point, it couldn't get any worse, so I did as he asked. Not a one of the men on the horses even seemed to notice that there was now a green-scaled ugly Pervect standing in front of them. Not even their horses cared. That was not what Aahz was expecting. The guy again just laughed. "You can drop the act," he said. "Our leader knows exactly why you are here." Then the guy did something that just flat scared me to death. He pointed a finger at Aahz and a moment later the map came floating out of Aahz's belt pouch, unfolded in midair, and fluttered there. Then it refolded and returned to the pouch. "Now please come with us," he said. He turned his horse and started at a slow pace toward the city. I glanced at Aahz, who was looking almost stunned, then at Tanda. "Don't you think this might be a good time to head for home?" I asked. "I wish we could," Tanda said. Sweat dripped off her forehead as we all stepped back onto the road to follow the guy who had done the talking. The rest of his group of riders waited and fell in behind us. "Excuse me?" I said. "How about jumping us to the dust storm?" "Trust me," she said, "I tried." "You what?" I couldn't believe she couldn't get us out of this mess. "We're blocked?" Aahz asked. "Tighter than a vault," she said. "Best block I've ever run up against." "How about I try to fly us out of here?" "Won't work either," Tanda said. "At the moment there's a block over all our magik." "Oh," was all I could say. Ahead, just over the head of the horse in front of me I could see the golden palace. It was the place, the treasure, we had been working and fighting so hard to reach. Right now it was the last place in any dimension I wanted to go. Chapter Eleven "Who are those guys?" B. CASSIDY No one in the city seemed to pay us any attention at all as we were marched into Donner and right up the wide Main Street of the city toward the golden palace on the hill. I saw at least a dozen Audry's-like places along the road, and this town had three guys in white hats and shovels cleaning up after the hundreds of horses. As we passed, all three of them tipped their hats and said, "Howdy." What really made this town different from all the others we had gone through, besides the golden palace towering over it, were the pastures between the buildings. About halfway up to the palace, on the right side of the road, was a beautiful, green pasture about the size of one building. It had one lone cow in it, grazing on the perfectly tended grass. A little farther up the hill there were more small pastures between buildings on both sides of the street, each with just one cow. And the higher we went, the more beautiful the pastures became, with ornate decorations and well-trimmed grass. Just under the palace were five pastures on both sides of the main boulevard, and in each of those manicured and ornately decorated lawns was one cow, and off to one side a guy wearing a white hat and carrying a shovel. Waiting. Now I knew what all the other shovel-carrying guys working the streets of all the towns were trying to advance their way up to. The guys on horses dismounted at a massive gate made of stone pillars and gold bars. The palace itself was surrounded by a tall stone wall that looked too high to even try to climb. The stone was highly polished and there looked to be gold lining the top. The guy in charge pointed us at the gate, but didn't follow us in. Instead, five other men in white robes with gold trim met us just inside the gate and indicated we should follow. Each carried a golden shovel like a cane, using it to walk. It was clear that a person who worked outside the palace and didn't have a golden shovel couldn't get into the palace. Why were we so lucky? "Would you look at all the gold!" Aahz said, his head whipping back and forth as he tried to take it all in. "Amazing," Tananda said, her voice soft and carrying the awe she felt. I couldn't say anything. The sight that greeted us inside that gate was beyond anything I had ever imagined. There was nothing but beautiful-trimmed lawns, gold ornaments, strangely shaped shrubs, and guys in white robes and white hats with golden shovels. Maybe a dozen different cows grazed on the beautiful lawns, clearly without a care in the world, all tended by guys in white robes with golden shovels. Our robed jailers herded us up the stone staircase, climbing through manicured lawn after manicured lawn, all surrounded by gold statues of different animals and gold artwork. The walls of the castle itself towered over us, the white stone and shining gold walls higher than anything I had ever seen before. We were finally taken through a big double door and headed down flights of stone steps. From there I got completely lost as we went through tunnels, down steps, around corners, down more tunnels, down more steps, all the time going deeper and farther under the castle. I didn't much like the idea of being trapped down under such a massive building, but the idea that we were being held prisoner by cows controlling guys with golden shovels bothered me even more. Especially since they were vampire cows. Finally we were herded into a big room with stone walls and left, a golden-barred door slamming closed behind us. There were five others in the big room, all looking tattered and exhausted. Ten beds were spaced around the walls and all the previous prisoners were lying on the beds, sleeping. "Glenda," Aahz said. It took me a second to recognize the figure on the bed across the room. It was Glenda all right, but not the alive, beautiful, and powerful woman I had remembered from just a few days before. This woman wore tattered clothing, had dirt and deep circles under her eyes, and a huge red mark on her neck. All three of us moved over to her. As we did her eyes fluttered open and she saw Aahz, then Tanda and me. "Found the treasure, I see," she said, her voice barely a whisper. Then she was back asleep, her breathing heavy, and her mouth hanging open. The red marks on her neck pulsed with the beat of her heart. "I don't like the looks of this," I said. "Any chance we can get out of here?" Aahz asked, glancing around the room. I did the same. None of the other prisoners in the place looked to be in any better shape than Glenda. And all of them had the red marks on their necks and were sleeping heavily, almost dead. Tanda shook her head. "Not a chance at all. The energy is back flowing to us, but the dimension hopping is still blocked completely. I've been trying to D-hop ever since we were captured." "Well," Aahz said, "we're just going to have to find another way out, and grab a little gold along the way." "How about the D-Hopper?" I asked. "They didn't search us. Maybe it would work." Aahz pulled the D-Hopper out, made sure the setting was right, then triggered it. We stayed right where we were. "Worth a try," I said as he put it back in his shirt. "I think we need some answers," Aahz said. He sat down on the edge of Glenda's bunk and then not so gently shook her awake. "No! No!" she said as she woke. Her hands went to her neck and then flinched away. Again it took a moment for her to recognize us. She blinked, then said, "Go away," and closed her eyes again. "We need some answers," Aahz said. He grabbed her by the shoulders, twisted her around, and sat her upright on the bed, her back against the wall. "Easy there, big fella," Glenda said, her voice hoarse. "We're all in this together." "I'm not in anything with you," Aahz said. Looking at the wreck she had become, it was hard for me to even remember why I had been interested in her in the first place. Could I be that superficial that she had to remain beautiful for me to care? Or did I no longer find her attractive or have any interest in her because she had betrayed us? It was an interesting question I'd have to talk to Aahz about once we were safely back home. "Oh," Glenda said, "trust me. If you're here, in this cell, then we're all in this together." "How'd you end up here?" Aahz asked. "How'd you find the place without the map?" She laughed. "I went to Dodge City, didn't find anything, so I asked this guy running a bar where the golden cow was, and he told me here." I shook my head. How simple that would have been. Why hadn't we thought of it? "Then what happened?" Tanda asked. "Didn't even make it into town," she said. "Got picked up by a bunch of guys on horses yesterday and tossed in here. Then last night I got hauled out to be a snack at the big party upstairs." Her hand again went to her neck and she flinched. The red marks there didn't look like they were healing very well. And I didn't much like the sound of being a snack like those people lined up on the road had been. "It was like a bad dream," Glenda said, her eyes distant. "They kept forcing glass after glass of carrot juice down me while taking turns sucking oh my neck. By morning I couldn't even walk. I don't remember how I got back down here." The thought of carrot juice ripped my stomach into a knot. "Who were they?" Tanda asked. Glenda shrugged. "Hundreds of beautiful naked people in this gold-covered ballroom way up in the castle somewhere." Aahz nodded. "Vampire cows." "What?" Glenda asked. "We saw a field of cows change into beautiful naked people last night," I said, "and snack on the townspeople who were waiting to be used." She looked at me, then at Aahz. "The kid's not kidding, is he?" Aahz shook his head. Glenda shook her head and then closed her eyes. "Drunk dry by bovine vampires. How ironic." She didn't say anything else, and Aahz didn't push her. She looked as if she had lost twenty pounds in one night. She had managed to outsmart us, find her way to the castle, and still get captured. If she couldn't get away, how were we going to do it before we became a full-moon snack? "We've got to get out of here before the sun goes down," Aahz said, standing and moving to the door. He gave it a couple hard hits, but it didn't move, and no one came because of the noise. Clearly none of the golden-shoveled guards were worried about a prisoner escape. "Even if we did get out," Tanda said, "it would take a map to find our way back through the castle." "Map," I said. "That's the key." Aahz turned and looked at me, giving me one of those I-don't-understand-how-you-can-be-so-stupid looks. I moved over to him and stuck out my hand. "Can I have the map, please?" "Why would you want it?" Aahz asked. I didn't want to tell him my idea without first seeing if I was right. "Just give it to him," Tanda said. Aahz shrugged and took out the map, handing it to me still folded. I opened it up, laying it flat on the nearest empty bunk so that we could all look at it. The map looked as I had expected. It had gained its magik back once we got inside the castle. It showed where we were, fifteen levels down and under a lot of rock and gold. It also showed the room where the golden cow was, far above us. And better yet, it showed us a path from where we were being held to what the map called a large ballroom. Clearly the map's designers had planned on continuing the game right to the very last room. It sort of made sense. Dimension to dimension until we found the right one, then town to town until we found the right one, now room to room until we found the right one. I didn't much like the game, but I understood the thinking. "Well, would you look at that?" Aahz said, stunned. Tanda studied the map, then looked at the wall near Glenda's bunk, then studied the map again. It didn't take me long to see what she was doing. The map showed a way out of this room that wasn't the main door. Maybe, just maybe, we had a chance. If we could escape the cell, then avoid hundreds of men with white robes and golden shovels, and then outrun the posse on horseback, we might be able to get far enough away from the castle to dimension-hop back to Vortex #6. It sounded impossible, but it was more than we'd had a moment ago. I folded up the map and put it in my pouch, then headed for the wall where Glenda was still sitting on a bunk. Her eyes were closed, and if her chest hadn't been moving I would have thought she was dead. "Wait," Tanda said as I started to get down on my knees to look for an opening in the wall under the bunk beside Glenda's, where the map indicated it would be. "We need to protect ourselves, not let anyone know what we're doing." "And how do you suggest we do that?" I asked. Aahz glanced around at the bunks and the blankets on them. "Skeeve, when Tanda gives the word, I want you to make the blankets on those three bunks look like the three of us." "Four of us," Glenda said, opening her eyes and looking clearly at Aahz. "If you've found a way to leave, I'm leaving with you." "Yeah," Aahz said, laughing, "like you took us with you on Vortex #6? I don't think so." "I don't go, I alert the guards," she said, staring at him. "And I've got enough power left to easily break an apprentice's disguise spell." For a moment I thought Aahz was going to strangle her, and I wanted to help. Then Tanda stepped between them, facing Aahz. "She's powerful and can help. Let her, or we might never get out of here." My mentor looked like he was about to explode. He hated doing anything he didn't want to do, and taking Glenda along was something he really didn't want to do. But Tanda was right; maybe Glenda could help. "All right," Aahz said, taking a deep breath and letting it slowly out. He stepped past Tanda and looked down at Glenda. "You work with us or we dump you faster than you dumped my apprentice in that bar. Understand?" She nodded, clearly very weak. "Let me help Tanda with the cover spell," she said. "I'm good at them." "I'm an ex-assassin," Tanda shot back. "I'm better." "I know you are," Glenda said. "I can just add some depth on the cover. And help support Skeeve's disguises. We're dealing with some good magicians here. Let's make sure they don't see us coming, or leaving as the case may be." For a moment Tanda stared at Glenda, then she nodded. "Follow my lead." "Completely," Glenda said. She took a deep, shuddering breath and braced herself against the wall, her eyes closed. I glanced around. The other three prisoners hadn't woken up. They looked to be in much worse shape than Glenda. Aahz turned to me. "Get ready. On Tanda's count, one at a time, disguise the four bunks." I took a deep breath and reached out for the energy it was going to take. Energy here wasn't a problem. It flowed all around us like a massive river, wider and stronger than I had ever experienced. I let it flow inside me, giving me strength. "Aahz first," Tanda said. "Now." On the farthest empty bunk I pictured Aahz lying there, sleeping, his mouth open. On the bunk Aahz appeared, just as I had pictured. I gathered more energy. "Glenda now," Tanda said. I imagined Glenda on the second bunk, sleeping in the same way we had seen her sleeping when we came in, red mark on her neck and all. Glenda appeared there. "Now me," Tanda said. I reached out and took the energy and put the image of Tanda sleeping in the next bunk "Now you," Tanda said. I did the same, although I had never seen myself asleep, I had an image of what I must look like, and I used that. It was strange to see myself sleeping there. Really strange. "All shielded," Tanda said. Glenda nodded. "Very strong. It should hold. And good job, Skeeve." I just nodded. I didn't need compliments from a woman who left me to rot in a town fu