Chapter Seventeen
"I've heard of goldbricking, but this is ridiculous"
Midas Rex
"Skeeve," Aahz said, "can you see where the flow for Count Bovine's spell leaves the main energy?"
We had moved around to the side of the room where Count Bovine's spell took its energy from the river of flowing energy pouring out of the ground.
"Yes, right in front of us," I said.
I pointed out where it left and how high it was to Aahz, who nodded.
I was using a part of my mind that allowed me to reach out for energy and do spells myself. That part allowed me to see the energy, where Aahz, who had lost his powers, could not.
Where the energy for Count Bovine's spell left the main stream was like a branch on a big tree. It sort of cut it off of one side of the main flow, moving up and sideways. The moment the secondary flow was sideways to the main one, it vanished into the spell it was being used for. We had about a body length, right above where I stood, to cut that side-flow off and send it along in the main flow. At least, that was the theory on what we were going to try. Sort of like trying to dam up the side branch of a river in one quick move, without getting wet. But even that side-branch of this energy, where I could see it, had to be ten paces across. Far, far wider than my little gold shovel. Yet from what I understood, Aahz wanted me to try to divert or even stop that energy with my shovel. Not a chance in a Bovine hell.
Aahz moved over behind me. "We're going to have to do this together," he said. "Tanda, when I say 'ready' you
connect the gold in this shovel to whatever gold you can sense nearby. Pull in as much as you can."
"Oh, so you're going to make the shovel bigger?" I asked, starting to understand his plan.
"Exactly," he said.
Tanda nodded. "I'm going to have to make the gold wide, at least ten feet around."
Tanda could see the giant flow of energy as well as I could. She also knew how insane this attempt was.
"I know," Aahz said, nodding.
"Can you hold that much?" I asked. "I sure can't."
"We're both going to try," Aahz said. "You steer, I'll lift. I'm going to get under the shovel. When Tanda connects other gold to it and starts expanding it, it's going to get really, really heavy very quickly, so be ready the moment I say go. I don't want to drop it."
I nodded. This gold-plated shovel wasn't that light as it was. I couldn't imagine how Aahz and I could even try to hold up a gold block ten feet across, even a thin one.
"We have to keep it out of the flow until it's big enough," Aahz said.
"Okay," I said. "Let's do this and get on to the next life."
Aahz laughed. "That's what I like about you, apprentice. Always a good mental attitude."
"Give me something to be positive about," I said.
Aahz moved around and got under me, bracing himself solidly as I held the shovel up in position next to the side-flow of energy. When the gold got big enough for what Tanda was going to do, we were going to simply let the shovel fall to our right and cut off the side-flow to the spell. However, if we let the shovel fall forward into the main flow, there was no telling what would happen.
Aahz said he wasn't even sure what was going to happen when we cut the side-flow. He hoped nothing, but he didn't know for sure when I had asked him.
"Ready!" Aahz shouted, even though the room was empty and there were only the three of us in it.
To an outsider watching us who couldn't see the energy flow, we would have looked darned silly. Aahz crouched in front of me, holding onto the shovel I was holding in the air. Tanda beside us, her head tilted back, staring up into nothingness.
"Ready," she said.
I knew she was sending her mind out, linking gold, pulling it in to add to our shield.
"Now!" Aahz shouted again.
Instantly the shovel started growing in size and in weight. I braced myself as Aahz did the same. I was stunned at how heavy it got so quickly.
The shovel grew and I strained against dropping it, trying to do my job of just holding it steady.
"About half!" Aahz said, his voice strained from holding up the ever-heavier shovel. Aahz was one of the strongest demons I knew, and he was having problems. I did my best to help lift at the same time as holding the shovel in position. I doubted I was doing much good, but I knew for a fact the effort was going to cost me later.
The shovel was getting bigger and bigger, growing quicker and quicker.
"Almost!" Aahz said, his voice barely a croak under the weight. Above me the shovel looked like a massive gold coin.
"Now!" Aahz said.
I pushed sideways, letting the shovel fall toward the side-flow of energy as Tanda kept adding more and more gold to it.
Like a gold knife, the shovel cut through the blue energy.
At that moment everything in the room seemed to explode.
I was smashed back against the stone, banging my head hard.
Tanda tumbled across the floor toward the door, coming to rest pressed against the wood. Her eyes were closed and I couldn't tell if she was hurt or not.
Aahz was pressed against the stone wall beside me.
Forces like I had never felt before held me in position as the gold cut through the flow just as we had planned. So far it was working. I couldn't believe it.
But then the shovel kept growing and growing as more and more gold poured into it. Something was wrong. Tanda should have unlinked the gold in the shield we built from the other gold around the area when the shield hit the energy. But there was clearly still more and more gold pouring into that shield. It had cut the side-flow, but now it was falling slowly toward the main flow, cutting into it as well as it kept growing.
Then the room seemed to expand outward and the pressure of my head against the stone sent me down into a blackness I didn't much like.
"Skeeve!"
"Skeeve! Can you hear me?"
The voice sounded far off, like it was coming from over a hill. I didn't care. It was still dark out and I wanted to sleep some more.
"Skeeve!"
The voice was getting closer, or so it seemed. I was in blackness. Pitch-black blackness. I tried to open my eyes, but everything still remained black. Every muscle in my body ached, and somehow I seemed to have fallen out of bed.
"Skeeve, if you can hear me, light the torch."
Now I understood the blackness, but I still couldn't remember where I was. I could hear something moving around, but it was so dark, I couldn't see a thing. More than likely it was Aahz trying to figure out what had happened to the lights.
I felt around on the floor beside me, but I couldn't find a torch. There wasn't one near me. I'm not sure why I expected there to be on the floor, but still I couldn't find it. The floor I was on was cold, like stone, and hard as a rock.
"Skeeve, some light."
Aahz was starting to get on my nerves. It was dark out. Why couldn't he just let me sleep? I reached down and ripped off a little piece of my shirt. I seemed to remember that some time in the past I had done that same thing. But the memory was foggy.
Holding the piece of cloth up in front of me, I focused my mind, trying to find some energy to take and light the cloth. It
was hard, but I finally found enough to catch the cloth and start a small flame.
The room around me flickered into being. Aahz was sitting against a stone wall with Tanda's head on his lap about ten paces from me. There was nothing else in the room except a big hunk of thin, gray metal covering the center of the room.
"I was worried about you, apprentice," Aahz said. "Glad to see you alive."
"I was worried about me as well," I said.
Slowly I was remembering. We were here to cut the energy from a big spell done a long time ago by a Count Bovine, and the big pancake-like gray thing in the middle of the floor was my shovel, or what was left of it.
Tanda moaned on Aahz's lap and tried to sit up.
"Take it easy,"
Aahz said. "You got a nasty bump on the head."
"I can feel that," Tanda said. Then she looked around and smiled at me. "Good to see you made it as well."
"I'll tell you in the morning if I made it," I said as more memories flooded back in.
She laughed and then clutched her head from the pain.
"I told you to go slow," Aahz said.
"Well," Tanda said after a moment. "Did we succeed?"
"I don't know," Aahz said. "Skeeve, did we succeed?"
It took me a moment of sitting there with my back against the wall and the cloth burning in my hand to understand what he wanted me to do. Then it dawned on me. Look to see if the energy flow to the Bovine spell had stopped.
I could do that. Or at least I thought I could do that. I opened up my mind, searching for the blue energy stream that had filled this room just a short time ago. Nothing. The side stream and the main stream were now gone completely. The room was as empty energy-wise as it was furniture-wise.
"Oh, yeah," I said. "We succeeded. Maybe a little too well."
"All gone?" Tanda asked, not moving her head.
"All gone, main stream and all."
"Well, that's going to be interesting," Aahz said.
The cloth was starting to get close to burning my fingers, so I scooted slowly over on the floor to where the torch lay and lit it. Then I held it up and looked around. On the other side of the room, where I was fairly sure there hadn't been a door before, was now an open archway. A breeze blew in from the archway, through the room, and into the tunnel we had come out of.
"I think we'd better go see what we've done," Aahz said. "Can you both walk?"
I tested my legs as Tanda tested hers. It seemed that, besides a lot of bumps and bruises, we had all come out of everything pretty well. It was going to be interesting to see how the rest of the inhabitants of this castle fared.
"Do we have to go back up the tunnel?" I asked, trying to imagine making that climb in the condition I was in.
Aahz shook his head. "If this didn't work to stop Bovine's spell, nothing is going to, and that means we're never getting out of here, so why bother continuing to hide?"
"I thought I had the positive attitude," I said.
"I can learn from an apprentice," Aahz said.
We limped our way toward the door with the wonderful fresh breeze blowing in. It led us into a corridor that turned after about fifty paces. After the turn there was a flight of stairs. Painful stairs, but at least stairs that had fresh air blowing down them.
At the top, the corridor turned again and went out an archway covered in a mass of flowering plants. Aahz pushed through the plants and I helped Tanda follow.
We stepped out into the beautiful sunshine of a wonderful afternoon. After being under tons of rock, getting knocked out by an energy explosion, and waking up in pitch darkness, the sunshine was beyond words.
There was a shovel lying on the lawn in front of us. It was the same shape as the golden-plated shovel we had used, only there was no gold left on it.
"Would you look at that," Aahz said.
On the corner of the lawn was a smoking pile of what looked like a cow.
"Looks like we broke Bovine's spell," I said.
"Sure does," Tanda said, pointing to the shovel. "On both sides of it. Whoever had that shovel has left. And the front gates of the castle are standing wide open."
She was right, but what I also noticed was that the gold trim that had decorated the gate was gone, and the gold along the top of the walls was gone. I looked slowly around. There wasn't a speck of gold in sight. Tanda's spell must have used it all around this area.
We walked across the soft grass toward the burning pile until the smell stopped us twenty feet away. It had been a vampire cow all right, but now its legs were sticking straight up in the air and its skin was burnt to a crisp. It looked as if had burst into flames and died almost instantly, before even turning completely back into its vampire form.
"What a waste," Aahz said, staring at the burning creature.
"What are you talking about?" I asked. "That was a bloodsucking vampire."
"No," Aahz said, shaking head. "I mean what a waste of good meat. No one eats their steak well-done these days."
He turned and smiled at me. "What was the chef thinking?"
"That it will be years before I eat another steak," I said.
Chapter Eighteen
"So where's the profit?"
Terectus
Victorious or not, we were still pretty tired by the time we made our way back to where we had left Harold and Glenda. Something I've noticed in the past about playing with channeling energies: when it's over, what you feel is drained.
The first thing that was noticeable was that apparently Harold had untied Glenda, as she was conscious and perched in a chair across the table from him. The second was that Harold himself seemed far more composed as he rose to greet us.
"Ah, my friends! It seems that congratulations are in order," he said, smiling broadly. "All indications are that you were successful in your efforts to shut down the spells."
"That's not all that's in order," Aahz said darkly, folding his arms across his chest. "I think, at this point, we're due a few explanations. Beyond the tale you told us originally, that is."
"But of course," Harold said, gesturing for us to pull up chairs. "I take it that you have already determined that my story was not quite complete."
"Let's just say that the facts as they were presented to us don't quite add up," Tananda said through tight lips.
Harold nodded. "It is true that there were a few minor points that I omitted or altered slightly when I explained the situation you."
"Why don't you just fill us I on those points now," Aahz said, "and let us decide for ourselves how minor they are."
"Very well. First, perhaps things will be clearer if I admit that my name is not Harold. In truth, I am Count Bovine himself."
“The vampire?” I said, not able to keep the horror and fear from my voice.
“I am the Count,” said Harold/Bovine, “but a vampire no longer. That, perhaps, is at the heart of the dilemma I found myself in.”
“You’ll recall my telling you about my old mentor, Leila. Well, one of the things she taught me was how to shed the trappings and needs of a vampire and to lead a normal life. That is, as normal as life can be for one who practices magik.”
I could identify with that last observation, but the Count was continuing
“We returned to this dimension with the intent of converting my fellow vampires into regular humans, thus allowing all the inhabitants to live and work together as equals. Unfortunately, the other vampires did not share my humanitarian views and wished to continue their roles are masters and rulers. That was when I attempted to lead the humans in a uprising, which ended with my mentor’s death and my being im-prisoned here. It was Ubald who attacked us. Other than that, my story was essentially true.”
“So why didn’t you tell us this in the first place?” Tananda said. “We might have helped out for a worthy cause.”
“Perhaps,” said Bovine. “Unfortunately it has been my experience that it is easier to get people to assist you out of motives of greed than of good will. Particularly if you are a vampire, or a converted vampire, seeking aid from humans.”
“Speaking of which,” Aahz said, “I believe there was some mention of a reward?”
Bovine spread his hands expressively.
“What can I say?” he said. “When I made my offer I was quite sincere, but I hadn’t anticipated that your solution to the cow spell was going to convert all the gold in the dimension to lead.”
I glanced around the suite, and saw that what he said was apparentiy true. Where once there was gold in abundance in the decorations and trim, there was now nothing but a dull, silverish metal.
“What I real!y hoped,” Bovine continued, “was that I could convince you to stick around for a while and help me reestabli
sh order here. You’ve all obviously been around the dimensions, and your knowledge and experience would be invaluable. I’m sure that, in the long run, we could work something put to compensate you for your time.”
“I think that’s my cue to be moving on,” Glenda said, rising to her feet. “World-building is definitely not my cup of tea. It’s time for me to cut my losses and head for home.”
“What? Without your share of the reward?” Tanda said tersely.
“Big deal,” Glenda said. “An equal share of nothing is nothing.”
“Don’t you mean two equal shares?” I said quietly.
For several heartbeats the whole room looked at me with blank expressions. Then Glenda giggled.
“So, you finally figured it out, did you?”
“You’re the Shifter from the Bazaar. Right?” I said. “You jumped ahead of us to try to cut yourself in for two shares instead of one, and even tried to ditch us so you could keep it all for yourself.”
“Hey! You can’t blame a girl for trying” Glenda shrugged. “After having seen so many parties come traipsing through trying to follow that map, I figured I’d try tagging along and see if I could make a difference. I mean, I had a lot of effort in-vested in this treasure hunt, but hadn’t seen even a copper in return so far.”
“But when you first met us on Vortex, you said you weren’t a Shifter,” Tanda said.
“I lied.” Glenda said simply. “One of the most closely guarded secrets of Shifters is that we can hold one shape if we set our minds to it. When Skeeve here asked me so abruptly, I thought he was guessing, so I ran a little bluff. I’m a bit curious as to how he figured it out.”
“At the time, I was guessing,” I admitted. “I didn’t really put it together until after you ditched me on Kowtow.”
I looked over at Aahz and Tanda.
“I know you both thought I was making a fool of myself over a pretty face when I let Glenda sucker me so badly,” I said, “and to a certain degree you were justified. I know me better than you do, though, and the more I thought about it I couldn’t believe I had been that gullible. Then I remembered the compulsion spell from the Shifter hut. That was it, wasn’t it, Glenda? It’s my guess that I’m exceptionally sensitive to that particular spell, and the residuals were enough to guarantee my co-operation.”
Myth-ion Improbable Page 17