Myth-ion Improbable

by Robert Asprin

"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 go
ing 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."
r />   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.