ittle 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 seeing 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.


        Chapter Fourteen

     "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 seconds," 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 changing," 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  background 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 sleeping 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.
     "Anything but carrot juice," Aahz said, smiling at me.
     "Not funny," I said.
     Harold looked at both of us and  shrugged,  clearly having no idea what
we were talking about. "I  can make  you a horse-steak sandwich, a  cucumber
sandwich, or a salad  with fresh  tomatoes. And I've got either orange juice
or water to drink."
     "Wow, you eat better than the rest of your people," Tanda said.
     "I do?" he asked, surprised. "It's been so  long since I've been out of
these rooms, I wouldn't know."
     "A lot better,"  I said, "but at the moment  I'd just like  a glass  of
water."
     Aahz and  Tanda  agreed and as he  got  the water Aahz prompted him  to
start his story  again. "You got up to the point where your people and Count
Bovine's  people had  come to an agreement, his  people were changed to cows
for most of the month, and this place was sealed off. What changed?"
     "Actually," Harold said, "I changed it."
     "Why?" Aahz asked, a fraction of a second before I could.
     "Because I  thought I knew better,  knew what was best  for  my people,
knew how to change things back to a better world."
     "Better  back up and  tell us how that kind of  thinking got  started,"
Tanda said.
     Harold nodded.  "I  met a dimension traveler named Leila. I was running
this  little restaurant  and bar  just down  the road  from here  when Leila
walked  in.  We got talking, she told me about the big world outside of this
dimension,  and  then offered  to  let  me be her apprentice. She said I had
great magical potential."
     I glanced at  Aahz,  who ignored  me. Not once had Aahz ever said I had
great magical potential, and I certainly wasn't  going to ask him  if I did.
He'd just say no and laugh. Mostly laugh.
     "Leila  took  me  dimension-hopping with  her,  showed me  hundreds  of
different  places,  taught me some basics  of  magik, then got killed  by an
assassin."

     I  could tell from  the look in Harold's eyes that even though that had
been  some time  ago, he still missed  her. And might even have been in love
with her.
     "So after she was killed I got a D-Hopper and came back here. The magik
block over  this  old castle was pretty basic,  intended to just keep  Count
Bovine and my people out. But I had been trained in some magik, so I got in,
knocking the block down.
     "A little knowledge can be dangerous," Aahz said, glancing at me.
     It was my turn to ignore him.
     "It sure can be," Harold said. "I sat up house right here and found the
room you stayed in last night, and started learning about what had  happened
to  my  people. And the more  I read, the more  convinced I became to try to
save my people and wipe out the vampires once and for all."
     "In other words," Tanda said, "you started the war again."
     Harold nodded at Tanda's blunt statement. "Basically, I did. Yes."
     "So what went wrong?" Aahz asked.
     "Count Bovine came back," Harold said.
     "What?"  I said. "How could he? He'd have to be thousands and thousands
of years old."
     "He is," Harold said.
     Aahz stared at me. "When are you going to get it through your head that
powerful vampires, like powerful magicians, live a very long time?"
     "Okay, okay," I said. "Go on with your story."
     "I actually  didn't  know  that  Count  Bovine could be  alive either,"
Harold said. "Since I  was free from  the  magical spell that kept  the cows
safe, I started gathering up help. One  by one, I gathered a gang, broke the
spell over  them, and started  planning. When  there were about fifty of us,
all trained  and  on horseback, we set  about rounding up  cows and  killing
them."
     No one said  a word, so Harold went on.  "As we went,  on our  army got
bigger and bigger, and more  and more cows died. Every skull of every cow we
brought back here to make us stronger. It was a heady time."
     Harold looked like an old man, thinking back to his party days.
     "When did Count Bovine show up?"
     "Oh, about four months into  our little  war. He  and five of his  most
powerful  vampires walked in here one night and killed every  one of my  men
without so much as a fight."
     "Bet you thought you had it shielded, didn't you?" Aahz said.
     "I did,"  Harold said. "I  was so  confident of  the  shielding  that I
didn't even have guards posted."
     "Wouldn't have done any good," Aahz said. Tanda nodded. I didn't have a
clue why he said that, but Harold seemed to agree as well.
     "Needless to say, Count Bovine was angry. He imprisoned me up here, and
put a spell on me so that every month, when  he and his people are dining on
my people, I'm a cow eating grass."
     "How long ago was that?" I asked.
     "I don't know exactly," Harold said. "No real reason to keep track.  At
least thirty years, maybe more."
     "And Bovine  and his people have been killing your people ever  since?"
Aahz asked, looking puzzled.
     "Actually, no," Harold said. "That just started a few  years back, when
Count Bovine was killed and his second-in-command, Ubald, took over."
     "Ubald's not one for keeping things in balance, is he?" Tanda asked.
     "Not worried about it at all," Harold said. "He told me that there were
enough of my kind around for his people to party for centuries."
     "At least he didn't undo the cow spell," I said.
     "Neither he nor Count Bovine could," Harold  said. "Ubald keeps trying,
though. He's using the cow skulls in the  other room there to  funnel energy
into breaking it."
     "Makes sense," Aahz  said. "A spell that major, in place for that long,
would be almost impossible to remove. But not completely impossible."
     "He's got time," Harold said.
     "So how did the map come about?" I asked.
     "When Count  Bovine was still alive, and had me locked up here, none of
them lived  anywhere  near  here.  One  day, this cartographer  showed up. I
wanted him to help me escape and he said he couldn't."
     "He can't," Tanda said.
     "Why?" I asked.
     "He  told me that, as long as he didn't involve himself in any activity
in  any dimension,"  Harold said,  "he was free  to  use his  magik  to move
anywhere he wanted, map anything he wanted, including through the magik that
Count Bovine had put up to hold me here in this castle."
     "I'm puzzled," Aahz said, "How  did you get him to lie that there was a
cow here who gave gold milk and draw a treasure map to it?"
     "It never  says anything  about a cow  giving gold milk," Harold  said,
laughing. "I'm  the cow the map leads to, and I was willing to give anyone a
lot of gold if they found me."
     "Makes sense to me," Tanda said, laughing.
     I was enjoying the different emotions playing over my mentor's face. We
had deciphered the map, found  the cow, and were entitled to the  gold. That
made Aahz's mouth  water,  I could tell. But, at  the same time, getting the
gold  out of  here, with all our blood still inside our bodies, was going to
be another matter.
     Harold noticed Aahz's face. "You're a Pervert, right?"
     "Pervect," Aahz said, showing all his teeth.
     He hated being called a Pervert,  and  often  was, since that  was  the
reputation of the demons from his dimension.
     "Sorry," Harold said. "But you love money and gold, don't you?"
     Now it was Tanda's and my turn to laugh. Aahz just gave us both a dirty
look and then said, "Of course."
     "You are  welcome to  all the treasure-gold if you  want- you can carry
from here," Harold said. "There's tons of the  stuff in the  back. The rocks
of this mountain are full of it. All you have to do is help me escape."
     I  knew there wasn't a sunbeam's chance on  Vortex #6 that  Aahz  would
turn down that offer. But I didn't really mind. I sort of liked Harold.  And
besides, I'd lost a mentor once myself,  and we apprentices  needed to stick
together.
     "You know of a way to escape from here?" Tanda asked Harold, staring at
how Aahz's eyes had glazed over at just the idea of a lot of gold.
     "If I did, would I still be here?" he said, his voice sad.
     Aahz looked at me and I shrugged. "Why not?"
     Aahz looked at  Tanda.  Tanda sighed.  "Sure. As you've been saying all
along, we've come this far."
     "Great," Aahz said. "We'll help you."
     I knew for a fact  that Aahz didn't have  a  clue how we were going  to
help Harold escape, but the promise sure cheered up our host.
     After another hour of talking with Harold to make sure we hadn't missed
anything  important, I knew enough  about this Ubald vampire guy  to make me
want another shot of  carrot  juice. The guy was just  plain mean, almost as
old as Count Bovine  had been, and not at all happy with the situation as it
stood.
     On top  of that, he liked to party, and party hard. By the time the sun
was ready  to  come  up on  the last morning of the  full moon, Harold said,
Ubald  and  his  group  were stumbling  idiots.  Still  very  dangerous, but
stumbling,  and it often  took the men with the golden shovels days to round
up all  the cattle from the different rooms of the castle and take them back
to their private pastures.
     The idea of coming into  a huge bedroom suite to find two cows standing
on  a rumpled bed was  too much  for  me. Tonight was that  night,  the most
dangerous night of the full moon according to Harold. I could hardly wait.
     Finally  Aahz decided we had talked  enough and we all headed back into
the library area.  Aahz wanted to  have Harold show us  the books about  the
spells put over this castle, the spells put on everyone by Count Bovine, and
what Harold knew of the magik energy surrounding this castle.
     But first we had to wake up Glenda. Snoring, drooling Glenda. As far as
I was concerned,  she could just stay  right there, sleeping  for  the  next
hundred  years,  or  until she died  of hunger  in her sleep, whichever came
first.

     But it seemed that Harold  and  Aahz had other ideas for her which they
were not sharing with me.
     "Are you confident she's cured?" I asked  Harold as we stood staring at
her.
     "Completely," Harold said. "The magik rope there does the trick."
     "Well, just to be sure," I said, "can we put the rope around her  again
tonight, before the sun sets?"
     Aahz laughed. "Trust me, she'll have the rope on tonight. You can count
on it."
     I stared at him as he moved  to her and  untied the knot  in the golden
rope, then pulled it free, wrapping it in his hand.
     After what Glenda  had done to us, I figured it would  have  served her
right to become a cow for most of every  month for the rest of her life. She
was  already a self-centered bloodsucker; why shouldn't she have the  entire
cow package?
     After  Aahz pulled the rope off of her,  she awoke, groaned and somehow
managed to sit up, her face pale and her eyes glazed. "What happened?"
     "You slept through the night just fine," Aahz said.
     "Snoring like a horse," Tanda said.
     I wanted to ask her how she knew horses snored, but figured this wasn't
the time to push too much into her personal life.
     Glenda's hand went to her  neck,  where  there  was now no sign  of the
vampire bites. I could tell that she was surprised when she touched her neck
and it didn't hurt. Surprised and confused. Then she  noticed the gold laced
rope Aahz  was holding.  For a  moment  she looked  into  his eyes. Then she
asked, "Was I going to turn?"
     "You were," Harold said. "It was why Ubald and his vampire  friends let
you live."
     "And the rope is what I think it is?" Glenda asked, not taking her eyes
from Aahz.
     Aahz held it up. "Just to be  safe,  you're going to wear it tonight as
well. I promised my apprentice there for his peace of mind."
     She stared at  the rope for  a moment, then nodded. "I suppose I should
thank you."
     "Just help us all get out of here and we can call it even," Aahz said.
     "I'll do what  I  can," she said, "but  first, can  I have a  glass  of
water?"
     Harold laughed. "You are cured. I'll get it for you."
     I had no idea  why Harold  thought that Glenda getting a glass of water
meant  she was  cured.  Seemed  like a somewhat silly sign  to me.  Or maybe
vampires were only thirsty for blood?
     Harold headed out the panel toward his kitchen area. When he was safely
gone  Glenda  looked up at Aahz, the anger clear  and at full force  in  her
eyes.
     "Why didn't you just stake me when you had the chance?"
     I was stunned  by the question.  And her anger  at Aahz for not killing
her.
     "I thought about it," Aahz said.
     He pointed to  a sharp stake on  top of an antique  dresser  beside the
couch she was sitting on. I hadn't  noticed it before. Again  I was stunned.
Aahz went on.
     "I figure  you can be of  help to all of us, something you haven't done
much of up to now."
     "You know I'm going to have to wear that rope for the rest of my life,"
she said, "on every full moon, every time I hop dimensions, every night?"
     "I know," Aahz  said, his voice cold and low and sounding just about as
mean as  I had ever heard him sound. "And if you don't help us, I'm going to
free  you into the  countryside  here, in  this dimension, without the rope.
You'll be a cow for most of the rest of your life."
     I stared  at  him, seeing a side  of my  mentor I didn't often see.  It
seemed that, as always, he had known more  than he was telling me,  and that
helping her had just  been a ruse to keep her with us and under his control.
He tucked the rope into his pouch and crossed his arms.
     "And if you want the rope to stay  alive tonight,  you're going to work
with us and not pull any of your tricks. Understand?"
     Glenda  glared  at him,  then  slowly nodded. "I understand."  Well,  I
didn't, but I didn't want anyone trying to  explain it to me  with  all  the
anger flowing around at the moment.


        Chapter Fifteen

     "Go with the flow."
     M. TWAIN

     Sometimes  in  grand adventures,  there  are  times  when just  nothing
happens. The  rest of the third day  of the full-moon cycle was one of those
times.
     Aahz, Tanda, Harold, and Glenda spent the entire day poring over  books
and old scrolls, trying to  find answers on how to get out. I mostly sat and
listened, falling asleep every  few minutes until  my  head bobbed enough to
wake me up enough to listen until I fell asleep again.
     And over and over  that pattern went. My neck was sore by the time  the
day was over.
     About thirty minutes  before the  sun set Aahz had Glenda lie down on a
couch, and then he  tied the  gold-laced magikal rope  around her.  She fell
asleep instantly.  That rope was the  best sleep aid I had ever  seen.  Aahz
should take it back with us to Possiltum to make money. On bad nights, I bet
the king would pay a ransom for it.
     If it had been up to  me, I'd have sent Glenda out into the  hallway to
be  a cow,  eating grass  and being  followed around by a guy in a white hat
with a shovel. But it wasn't up to me, so Aahz put her to sleep.
     About twenty minutes before the sun set Harold shut us into the library
again and went to his grass to become a cow for the night.
     I slept off and on all night. Aahz and Tanda did as well, reading while
they were  awake. By morning,  when Harold opened the door and let in a  few
wonderful rays of sunlight from the living area, I was well-rested and bored
to tears.
     Aahz untied Glenda to wake her  up,  pouched  the rope, and we all went
out into the kitchen  area to  have Harold  cook us horse  steaks covered in
tomatoes. He called  it his celebration breakfast. He  said he had it  every
month after the last full moon night.
     I  had to admit, it was surprisingly  good. After  breakfast  the  talk
turned  to escape, which,  after the boring day and the fear of cow vampires
all night, was the most interesting topic I could imagine.
     Aahz  took charge of  the discussion and ticked off our options. "First
chance we have is to lower the dimension-hopping screen. If we could do that
for even an instant, we'd be out of here."
     "I've  never run  into a screen like it,"  Tanda said, "even in  all my
years of being an assassin. It's more solid than a rock."
     "More than likely coming from the energy in the mountain," Aahz said.
     I thought about the  map on the ceiling, and how Aahz  hadn't mentioned
it to  either Harold or  Glenda.  I had no idea what he was thinking,  but I
sure didn't want to mess up what he was doing by blurting something out. I'd
done enough of that in the past.
     "Our second option is to just find a way out of the castle."
     "Right," I  said, "and sneak all the  way  through  Donner and past the
posse."
     "Posse?" Harold asked.
     "Mounted riders who knew we were coming far outside of town."
     "They picked me up as well," Glenda said.
     "So  they  have some  magik that  tells them enemies are coming,"  Aahz
said. "We could be screened against that."
     "If we knew what kind of magik it was," Tanda said.
     "I'm stuck  here anyway," Harold said. He pointed to what I had assumed
was the front door to the suite. "It's like walking into a wall trying to go
through there."
     "And the same for how we came in?" Tanda asked.
     "Oh, I can go all the way to the entrance into the ballroom through the
skull room," Harold said. "Then I hit the screen."
     "How about through the floor, or the window?" I asked.
     "Haven't tried either," he said.
     "I doubt it would work," Aahz said.
     "Yeah," Tanda said, "captive  spells, which  I  think this sounds like,
are  all-around  prisons.  It's like  being  in  an  invisible,  unbreakable
bubble."
     "So to get Harold out with us," I said, "we have to break that spell as
well."
     "You're coming with us?" Glenda asked.
     "I'm going to try," Harold said. He didn't add that there was gold  for
getting him out, and none of the rest of us filled her in either.
     "So, old mentor," I  said to  Aahz,  "how do we go about  breaking  the
spells,  since it seems to me that both our  main ways of escape are blocked
by them?"
     He looked at me with a harsh look, then answered my question. "A couple
of ways  to break a spell. Either  put a counter-spell on it, or cut off the
source of power to the spell."
     "Since  this  place is  flowing  with energy,  the second doesn't sound
likely. How does a counter-spell work?"
     "I've tried every one I know," Harold said.
     I glanced at Aahz. "My mentor hasn't even taught me any yet."
     "When you  gain enough self-control to use  them," Aahz said,  "I might
think about it."
     "I tried  a number of them the  first day  I was  here,"  Glenda  said.
"Didn't even dent the dimension-hopping shield."
     "I tried all the ones I  knew as  well," Tanda said, frowning. Since we
were all still here, I assumed she had had the same result as Glenda.
     "And I saw  nothing  in any of the books back there to give us any help
either,"  Aahz  said. "In fact, I think it's  worse  than we are assuming. I
think the spell that  keeps all the vampires as cows, and your  people under
their  spell and  not killing the cows every month, is tied up with the very
spells we are trying to break."
     "If that's  the case," Harold said, sounding defeated,  "to free me,  I
must release  all my people from the spell that has held them for centuries,
and free all the vampires to kill them at the same time. I can't do that."
     "Actually," Aahz said, smiling, "there  might  be  a way that it  would
work, if we could shut everything down at once and at an exact time."
     "How?" Harold asked.
     "I wouldn't mind knowing the same thing," I said.
     Tanda laughed with Aahz. "Do it during the middle of the day."
     I  frowned  and  looked at  Aahz, who was nodding and laughing  at  me.
Harold was frowning as well.
     Glenda was laughing, but not very much.
     "All the cows are out in pastures," Aahz said, his voice taking  on the
tone he got when  I was being so stupid he  couldn't believe I could be that
stupid.
     "Daylight," Tanda said. "Vampires?"
     "Oh," Harold said. "Of course. Sunlight kills vampires."
     "Of  course," I  said out loud,  pretending I had just forgotten,  even
though I had never known that fact about vampires. Why would I have? Until I
came to this stupid dimension, I had never seen or even heard of a  vampire.
I just figured they had something to do with full moons.
     "So if we shut off  the power to the big  spell  somehow," Harold said,
"all the vampires on one half of the planet would die."
     "Exactly," Aahz  said, "And  the ones on the  night side  would have to
find shelter by sunrise, giving your people time to kill many of them."
     "Aahz, I just have one question."
     He looked at me and said nothing.
     "How do you propose to shut off the energy flowing in this area?"
     Aahz smiled. "That's our problem, isn't it?"
     "Why  do I think I'm  not  going  to like what you're thinking at  this
moment?"
     "Oh, maybe because I'm thinking that's where you're going to come in."
     Tanda laughed.
     "It's not funny," I said.
     "Sure it is," Tanda said.
     I  just stared at Aahz. Someday I'd love to figure out a way to get him
his powers back so I wasn't the one doing the dirty work all the time. I had
a hunch, from the look on his face, that this was going to get  really dirty
for me. Center-of-the-mountain-kill-the-energy-at-its-source dirty.
     "Before we can figure out how to block the energy for the spells," Aahz
said, "we have to know how it flows through the castle."
     He said that and I just shuddered.
     I  could feel  how  much of the energy flowed in this place any  time I
opened my mind to it. It came from down in the mountain, flowing up and out.
Usually energy for magik was in lines flowing through  the sky that I had to
reach up and tap to work a  disguise spell, or a flying spell. Or, if  there
was no air energy, I  went  for ground energy flowing deep under the surface
and rocks. Air energy was easier to get, and Aahz had taught me to always go
for it first.
     But this castle was built right on a  place where energy flowed up from
below and  out  into  the sky in all directions. Mapping  meant someone  who
could read energy lines had to somehow get above the castle and look down at
it all.
     "So what do we do?" Tanda asked. "How do we start doing that?"
     "First," Aahz said, "we try  to figure  out how  the energy flows  into
that skull  room. It was strong and getting stronger in  there right  before
all the cows turned to vampires the other night."
     "Really?" Harold asked.
     I was surprised that Aahz had wanted to start there, but it made sense.
We  had  to map the  energy patterns,  and starting where  we knew a lot was
being tapped seemed logical.
     Suddenly I realized what I had been thinking about.
     "Map," I said aloud.
     Everyone sort of turned and stared at me.
     "Map,"  I  said  again, smiling at them. I reached  into  my  pouch and
pulled out the magik  map we had  used so often  to get into this fix. If it
got us here, it just might be able to get us out.
     "Oh, heavens, yes," Aahz said, smiling at me. "Great thinking, Skeeve."
     That was the third time he had complimented me  on something to do with
the map. I was  going to have to keep this parchment with  me at  all times.
Aahz hadn't given me that many compliments in the last year.
     I opened up the map. It was completely blank. Nothing on it at all. For
some reason, that wasn't what I was expecting. I'm not  sure exactly what  I
was expecting, but a blank parchment just flat wasn't it.
     "Perfect," Aahz said, looking at the empty sheet.
     I  handed  it to him, flashing it so the others could tell it was blank
as well. If he liked a map with no lines, he could have a map with no lines.
     "Was that the  map the cartographer  did?"  Harold asked. "The one that
got you here?"
     "Sure was," I said.
     "What happened to it?" Harold asked.
     "It got us here," Tanda said.
     "Oh," Harold said.
     "Tanda," Aahz said, "do you know how to do a mapping spell?"
     Tananda shook her head. "Beyond me, I'm afraid."
     "Glenda?"
     "Nope," she said. "When I needed a map I went to a cartographer's booth
on Deva and bought one."
     "Same with me," Harold said.
     Aahz turned and looked at me. "Guess it's up to you, apprentice."
     "Okay,"  I said, "but don't you think I need  a little practice at this
spell first?"
     Aahz held up the paper. "This is the only piece of magik paper we have.
You only get one shot at it."
     "No pressure," I said.
     "If  I didn't believe you could do  it," Aahz said, "would I be wanting
you to try?"
     I didn't think I should remind him he had  offered  the job to everyone
but me to start  with. No point in ruining the mood when  he was  trying  to
boost my confidence. He did that less often than he complimented me.
     "We'll be back shortly," Aahz said to everyone as he motioned for me to
follow him, "I hope with a map."
     "Yeah, me too," I said.
     Aahz headed us across the carpet of  grass. We had to sidestep around a
pile of cow droppings on the way. I guess that Harold didn't have a man with
a golden shovel standing behind him at  night. At the hidden entrance to the
skull room Aahz stopped and turned back to Tanda.
     "Are we going to be shielded out there?"
     "Doing magik?" Tanda asked. "Some, but it might show through."
     I didn't like the sound of that. The last thing we  needed up  here was
the posse.
     Aahz  stopped  and thought for a minute. "How about in the back library
area?"
     "That's so shielded, nothing could get out," Tanda said.
     "I agree,"  Harold  said. "It would be  much  safer to  do  spells back
there."
     Aahz indicated I should follow him and again we went around the pile of
cow droppings, across the  room and through the bathroom to the old library.
I had spent so much time in this room already, I really didn't want to be in
here  again.  Aahz pushed  the door closed behind  him, then  laid the empty
paper on top of the desk he had sat at last night.
     "This is going to work even better in here," he said. "I want you to do
this in two parts."
     "Give it to me clearly and I'll try."
     My  mentor nodded. "First, we're going to imprint that ceiling  map  on
this paper."
     I glanced up, then back at Aahz. "Good idea. How do I do that?"
     "This part is going to be pretty easy," Aahz said. "Simpler than flying
or doing disguise spells."
     I nodded. I liked the  sound of simple at this point. Since  I was only
getting one try, simple was the best.
     "Open your mind, take in the  energy as you have practiced, controlling
the flow to a medium level." "Now?" I asked. "Now," he said.
     I did as he instructed. Since we had been together I had practiced this
so  much  it had become almost  second  nature  to me. I  could do it almost
instantly  when  needed. When we first left  my old mentor's cabin, Aahz had
told  me that would happen, but back then it had been so hard to do I didn't
believe him.
     Now, reaching out with my  mind and getting  energy  was easy, and with
this  much  energy  flowing around  me, the trick was getting only enough so
that I could control what I was doing.
     "Got it," I said after a moment. The energy flow was moving through me,
ready to power anything I told it to.
     "Now, in one motion," Aahz  said, "without  a break, picture the map on
the ceiling and then picture the same map on the paper."
     I  did it, letting the energy help  me get a clear image of the ceiling
map, then a clear image of the same lines and shapes and words on the  magik
paper.
     I let go of the energy and opened my eyes. "Perfect," Aahz said, actual
excitement  in his voice.  I glanced at the roof. The map  was still  there.
Good, I hadn't harmed it.
     Then I looked at the paper, almost afraid of what I might see. The same
map  was reproduced  there, only the lines were much clearer, and there were
words on  the  paper that I didn't remember even seeing on the  ceiling. And
none of the dust and dirt obscured it either. I  couldn't believe  it. I had
done a new spell perfectly the first time!
     "Now don't go getting a swollen head,"  Aahz said, as if he  could read
my thoughts. "That was the easy part."
     I didn't care. I had done it, and done it right the first time. For the
moment that was all that mattered.
     "So what's next?"
     "We do  the same spell with energy lines," Aahz said, "imprinting  them
on this map of the castle."
     I  knew  that  was  what  he was going  to  want, but doing  that meant
stepping out of my  mind to look down on the energy lines through the entire
area. And the last time I had tried that I almost hadn't made it back inside
my own  mind. Of course, Aahz didn't know I had even tried. I didn't want to
tell him because I knew he'd be angry.
     "This is" going to take some preparation," Aahz said.
     "I'd hoped it would."
     He  put the map on the floor and had  me stand right over it. "See  the
images there?"
     I  nodded,  staring  down  at  the map I  had  just created.  It was  a
beautiful thing indeed.  "Now, when we  start," Aahz said,  "I  want you  to
imagine yourself floating  above the energy lines,  above  the castle if you
have to, in the same fashion you use  to reach out for the energy lines in a
spell."
     "Okay," I said, still  staring  down at the map at  my feet, "but isn't
there a risk  I will just float  away?" Standing above the map like this, it
almost felt as if I was already floating.
     "Good  question, apprentice,"  Aahz  said. "Just put a string  on  your
foot."
     "A  what?"  I looked  up into my mentor's  eyes.  I  could  tell he was
concerned with me even trying this. I didn't know if the concern was for me,
or for what would happen if I failed, but at least he was concerned.
     "A string, like  a  kid's balloon  string," he said.  "Imagine one tied
from the foot of  your  real body to the foot  of  your imaginary body as it
floats upward. Then when you want to return, just go back down the string."
     I nodded. That was such a simple image, even I might  be able to handle
it.
     "When you  get a  good  view  of all the flowing energy lines over  and
through the castle," Aahz said, "just do what you did with this map. Imagine
them as you see them; then in one motion imagine them on the paper."
     "Okay," I said. "I think I can do that."
     "When you're ready," Aahz said, stepping back. "Just do it."
     I looked at  the map at my feet, putting the image clearly in  my head.
Then I let myself go.
     That  is  what it  actually felt  like. I was  letting go  of what  was
holding me down. I was floating upward.  I checked  to make  sure  I  had  a
string attached to my foot. It was there, so I  relaxed and just kept going,
floating upward.
     I  went above  the  energy line  I had used to create  the  other  map,
through the roof of  the castle, and  then  stopped, floating right over the
top of the golden castle in the beautiful sunshine.
     Below me  rivers  of blue energy flowed, coming up out of the middle of
the castle like a well, splitting and flowing  off  in dozens  of directions
over the mountains and valleys.
     I let my mind accept  all the different levels of energy flow, all  the
way down into  the deepest area of the castle. I could  see all the streams,
all the different places they branched, and all the places they were tapped.
     Then,  when I had them all, I  held the image, imprinted it on my mind,
and then imagined it being overlaid in blue lines on the map at my feet.
     It only  took  an  instant. Then, with one  last look  at the beautiful
colors of the energy and the surrounding countryside, I tugged on the string
attached to my foot and I was back in my body, just like that.
     I opened my eyes and glanced at Aahz. My mentor was smiling like he had
just won all the riches of the Bazaar at Deva.
     "Amazing," he said. "Sometimes you just flat amaze me."
     I was afraid to look down, so instead I stepped back.
     Aahz  picked  up  the  map and held it for me to see.  There, in  black
lines, was the first map of the castle I had done from the ceiling.
     And over it were flowing lines  of  energy.  The magik of  the  map was
keeping the lines flowing in the image, just as I had seen it from above.
     I didn't know what  to say. He was holding something I had created, and
it was beautiful and working as it should.
     Better than  it should.  I had never expected the energy lines  to keep
moving, but they were.
     "Come on, apprentice.  Let's go show  the rest  what you  did. Amazing,
simply amazing."
     He turned and headed for the door.
     For  the first time  in all our time together,  I had sensed  a  little
pride  in  Aahz's voice.  I  might have  been imagining  it, but this time I
didn't think so.
     It was pride, and it made me feel good.


        Chapter Sixteen

     "Put your name on the map."
     A. VESPUCCI

     Everyone made great noises  about the map I had created. And Tanda gave
me a long and very nice hug. I didn't say much, since I was so proud of what
I had done, I was afraid I'd ruin the moment by saying something stupid.
     Finally, Aahz laid the map  out on  the table and said,  "Let's  get to
work. We need to find on here where the spell Count Bovine  placed over this
dimension is drawing its power."
     I studied the moving  blue lines with everyone else, watching how  they
seemed to come up out of the floor plan of the castle and into the air.
     The  map was magik, so  it  even  showed the  different levels  of  the
castle,  like  looking   into  a  fishbowl.  It  was   both   beautiful  and
disconcerting at the same time.
     "Look in the sub-level of the castle," Tanda said, pointing.
     I let my eyes adjust  so that  I could see the plan of the  castle that
far down. I instantly saw what she was pointing at. The wide, thick river of
energy that was  pouring up  from the  ground suddenly thinned,  like a good
part  of it had been drained away  into an unseen drain. That  unseen drain,
using  that much energy, could  only  be a spell large enough to  control an
entire dimension.
     "I think you have it," Aahz said, nodding.
     "I agree,"  I said, remembering what the energy below  that point  felt
like while I had been floating, and what it felt like above that point.
     "Where did you get this floor plan?" Harold asked, staring at it. "I've
never seen anything like this before. That corridor isn't there, and  I have
no idea what that tunnel goes to."
     I glanced at Aahz, who only smiled.
     "You've seen this  before," I said. "It's painted on the ceiling o