"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, step ping toward the man. "We are powerful magicians from an other 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 ex actly 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 whip ping 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, climb ing 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, glanc ing 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 an other way out, and grab a little gold along the way."