MA11-12 Myth-ion Improbable Something Myth-Inc Read Free

golden cow out there?”
    “I didn’t say that,” Aahz said. “I just said the map was likely to be real.”
    I frowned and Tananda laughed.
    “Mini is populated by Minikins, who have this awful power of never telling a lie about anything. They do not do well at the Bazaar at Deva, for obvious reasons.”
    “But what happens if the guy who sold it to me wasn’t a Minikin?”
    “If he had been there for more than a day, he had to tell the truth about the map as well. That’s why we got out of there so fast. Truth is not a good influence when you are shopping.”
    At that I had no firsthand knowledge, but I figured Tananda was the expert.
    “Come on,” she said to Aahz. “Dig out the map. We’re wasting time. Let’s do this.”
    “Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” Aahz asked as he pulled out the parchment, unfolded it, and put it on the bed so all three of us could look at it.
    I had no idea what I was looking at, but Tananda seemed to. She pointed at the upper left corner.
    “That’s Minikins’ Dimension.”
    Even I knew that, since it was labeled Mini.
    “So we start there?”
    Aahz nodded. So did Tananda, for which I was grateful. If they both agreed, at least we had something solid.
    Tananda ran her finger along the only line leading from Minikin. It ended at a dot that was labeled Vortex #1. She studied that for a moment, and then glanced at Aahz.
    “You have any idea what that means? Or where it’s at?”
    “Not a clue,” he said.
    Now I was stunned. It wasn’t often that my mentor admitted he didn’t know something. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time that it had happened, if ever. I wanted to point that out to him, but this just didn’t seem to be the right time, so I went back to studying the map.
    I could see that on the map Vortex #1 had six lines leading off to six unlabeled points on the paper. And lines led off of each of those points to other vortex dots. There were seven more vortexes listed, and a big “x” marking the cow in the lower right corner of the map. Only one line led from Vortex #8 to the cow.
    It was clear that there was no straight line from Mini to the cow. And no right path. From the looks of it, we could go any of a dozen different ways, through different points labeled vortexes, taking different lines. If nothing else, this was going to be an interesting puzzle.
    Aahz had told me that dimension-hopping was dangerous because a person could hop to an unknown dimension and never get back. I wondered now how safe it was going to be following a map through some of these dimensions, especially when even the map was confusing.
    “Well,” Tananda said, turning to Aahz. “It looks like we’re going to need some more help if we’re going to find this golden beast.”
    Aahz looked at her and then slowly shook his head.
    “You can’t be thinking what I think you’re thinking.”
    “I’m thinking it,” she said.
    “No!” Aahz said, his voice firm, I knew for a fact that when he said no like that there was no changing his mind.
    “Yes,” Tananda said, smiling at him with a smile that could melt a belt-buckle right off a guy’s pants. She reached up and touched one of the green scales on his cheek.
    “No,” Aahz said, but this time it wasn’t as firm. Not even a Pervect could stand up against Tananda’s charms.
    “Yes,” she said, turning the smile up one more notch and stroking Aahz’s green neck just below his ear.
    I was glad she wasn’t doing that to me. As it was, just watching I was almost a puddle on the floor. And I didn’t even know what they were arguing about.
    Aahz wasn’t faring much better. He shook his head, and then said, “It’s a mistake.”
    “How else are we going to find what dimension to jump to from Minikin?”
    She stroked his cheek and then moved right up against him.
    No sentient male being could have withstood that attack.
    Aahz didn’t.
    I was sweating hard just watching. Much more and I would need to change