As we passed in front of Audry’s, my friend the bartender waved from inside the window. I tipped my hat back at him. These people might be strange vegetarians who were afraid of the dark, but they sure were nice. We passed the hotel without Aahz even hesitating. And I didn’t say anything either. The last thing I wanted to let my mentor know was that the fear the locals felt had gotten to me as well during my one-night stay here. On the other side of town we stepped off the sidewalk and just kept walking, past a few homes with the shutters already drawn and bolted. Ten minutes later, with the sun still not touching the tops of the hills to the west, Aahz gave the all-clear.
Again I touched each of them, pulled in the power, and lifted us, sending us down the road as fast as I dared take us, considering I had to make sharp corners and steep hills.
This time I lasted ten minutes before I had to stop. Water and a quick rest got me going again, just as the sun started to set. From what I could tell, we were a long way yet from Baker. It was getting noticeably cooler, which was also helping me.
“Can you keep going?” Tananda asked as I stopped for a second time and sat down on a rock beside the road.
“We’re making good speed,” Aahz said, clearly satisfied with our progress.
“We are,” Tananda said, “but this is hard on Skeeve.”
“I can keep going,” I said, taking one more drink and then standing. “I just need to rest every ten minutes or so.”
“Understandable,” Aahz said. “For someone of your level of skill.”
“For someone of any level,” Tananda said, stepping to my defense. “There’s not much power in this area. He’s having to pull from a ways off.”
“That true?” Aahz asked me.
“It is,” I said. “But I said I can keep going and I can.”
“Then we go when you’re ready,” Aahz said. “We don’t have much light left and we won’t be able to make the speed we are making now at night.”
It was clear we were going to spend a night outside on Kowtow and face what an entire population was afraid to face.
Aahz didn’t seem to be worried.
Tananda had said nothing.
I was just the apprentice. What place was it for me to say anything?
In the west the sun was slowly setting. In the east an almost full moon was starting to come up over the horizon. In a few days the full moon would signal another fear in the people who lived here: the round-up.
I pushed the thoughts and fears from my mind, focused on bringing in as much power as I could, then lifted us knee-high off the ground and headed down the road as fast as I could take us.
The sun had almost set completely by the time I stopped for my next break. There was still no sign of the town of Baker.
Okay, I’m the first to admit when I’m being stupid, if it’s pointed out to me. Luckily I had had enough common sense to not tell Aahz and Tananda how worried I was about the darkness, so they didn’t get the chance to point any of my stupidity when we ran into no problems at all after it turned dark.
The first part of the trip was fairly easy. It took me three more rest stops, and, it was well after the sun had set by the time we got to Baker. The town was buttoned up tighter than anything I had ever seen. In the moonlight the buildings looked haunted and strange, more like monster-boxes than structures. Very little light got past any of the shutters, but the almost-full moon was giving us enough light to see by to stay on the road.
Baker looked to be about twice the size of Evade, and was spread out over more than just a Main Street. It was tucked into a small valley, with flat farmland going off in both directions from it.
We walked into town, following the road and staying off the wooden sidewalks so that we wouldn’t make any noise. The town was just flat empty. Not even a horse had been left outside. Nothing was moving, and as far as we could tell, nothing lived here, even though we knew better.
“This is very strange,” Tananda said as we got near the center of town. “How boring would it be to go to bed when the sun set every night? I’d go stark-raving crazy in a matter of days.”
Tananda was the kind of person that always had to be doing something: going on adventures, shopping, or partying. I had no doubt that it wouldn’t take her days to go crazy here.
“I just wonder what they are afraid of,” Aahz said. He pointed to one building. “Those shutters look as if they could take a pretty good pounding and still hold.”
“It was the same way in Evade,” I said. “But I was awake all night and never heard a sound from outside.”
“More than likely this is just an old custom,” Tananda said, “and we’re still so far out in the sticks, away from any larger cities, that the custom remains.”
“Are there larger cities in this dimension?” I asked.
“Who knows?” Aahz said. “Just stay alert and watch for anything unusual.”
He didn’t have to tell me to do that, since I was already on full alert. And even though flying, combined with no sleep the night before, had me exhausted, I doubted I could sleep now even if I wanted to try.
Aahz found a sliver of light coming from the shutters of one store and stopped. He unfolded the map and we gathered around, trying to be as quiet as we could while we looked for our next destination.
“You were right, Skeeve,” Aahz whispered, patting me on the back.
The map had changed.
Baker, the city we were standing in, was now the focal point of the map, and two roads led toward two other towns from Baker. The treasure was now marked in a town called Silver City. Dodge City wasn’t even on the map. Glenda was going to be mad. I wished I could be there when she discovered how stupid she had been.
“So which way do we go?” Tananda asked.
The two towns next in line from Baker were named Bank and Keep. Both looked to be about the same distance from here, but Bank was to the right in the north and Keep was to the left in the south.
“Bank,” I said, before I even realized the word was out of my mouth.
“Why?” Aahz asked, staring at me, his intense eyes scary in the semi-dark.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It just seems right, and starts with the same letter as Baker.”
Tananda laughed, but had the decency to not say anything.
Aahz just shook his head, folded up the map and put it away.
“Bank it is,” he said, moving out into the middle of the street and walking on toward the west end of town.
“I could be wrong,” I said, walking between him and Tananda.
“More than likely,” Aahz said.
“So why go with my suggestion?”
“Because I have none better to offer.”
“Neither do I,” Tananda said. “Besides, if you’re wrong, we can blame you.”
“Terrific!” I said. “As if I don’t get in enough trouble as it is.”
Both Aahz and Tananda chuckled, but said nothing the rest of the way to the edge of town.
It was easy to find the road to Bank. At a fork in the road a hundred paces outside of the main part of town there was a sign, clear and readable even in the moonlight, pointing to the right.
Aahz glanced around, and then turned to me. “Ready?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Keep it slower than before,” Aahz said. “We don’t want to run into anything out here.”
I concentrated on the power coming into my body, easier here than back near Evade. When I had enough I lifted us slightly off the ground and headed down the road. Outside of town the road was straight, running between what looked like pastures, and even in the moonlight I could get us up to a pretty decent speed.
In the pastures along both sides of the road animals were grazing. When I finally had to stop to rest, a number of the grazing animals looked up at us, big eyes glowing in
the moonlight. They almost looked surprised to see us.
“Cows,” Tananda said, pointing at the large creatures staring at us from the field.
They looked fat and heavy, with white and dark areas over their bodies. In the half-darkness, they seemed almost sinister with their big eyes and long ears.
“So how come they aren’t inside like everything else?” I asked as Tananda gave me more water and a little bit of a snack to eat.
“You’re asking me?” she said. “Maybe they’re not bothered by whatever worries the people around here.”
That made sense, in an odd sort of way.
“Maybe they are what worries the residents,” I said, staring into the deep pits of eyes of the closest cow.
Both Aahz and Tananda laughed as if that was the funniest thing I had ever said.
I didn’t see what was so funny. Cows looked nasty to me, and I couldn’t imagine trying to get milk, golden or not, from any of the ones I could see.
By the time I was rested enough to get us farther down the road, a bunch of the nearby cows had sauntered over and were gathering near the road watching what we were doing. It was creepy, and I was glad to get on the way.
From that point onward there were cattle along the road watching us, as if something had told them we were coming. When I asked Aahz what made them do that, he said he didn’t know He’d never seen cattle act that way.
Tananda said she hadn’t either.
That answer didn’t comfort me at all.
I kept us going longer and longer, not wanting to rest and have all the cows gather close to us. By the time the sun came up I had flown us to the edge of Bank City. I was exhausted and was going to have to get a few hours sleep before we went on.
At first light, the moment the sun peeked over the edge of the nearby mountains, the cows stopped watching us and went back to grazing.
For some reason that bothered me a lot more than them staring at us.
I WAS SO tired that even the short walk into the center of the town of Bank darned near killed me. All I wanted to do was fall down and sleep, at least for a few hours. Aahz promised me that was going to be possible very soon, so I limped along with them.
The merchants were opening up the stores and the shutters had all disappeared from the windows. Horses pulling wagons were lined up outside a few stores, and, just like in Evade, a guy wearing a hat and carrying a shovel was going around cleaning up after the horses. Clearly that was a standard job in every town. I couldn’t imagine a kid wanting to be the horse-poop cleaner when he grew up. But maybe in this culture, that was the top job.
Bank looked a lot like Evade, just bigger. The buildings were all the same size, and there were wooden sidewalks.
We found a small establishment like the one Glenda had left me in, and sat down at a table near the front window. We were the only ones in the place. It felt great to be off my feet and not moving. I might be able to sleep right there in the chair if they let me.
As I looked around I realized this place was almost identical to Audry’s in Evade, with the bar down the left side and wooden tables and chairs.
“What can I get for ya, folks?” A man asked as he came out from the back room.
He was just like the guy in Evade, right down to the white apron and the dirty towel.
“Could we trouble you for just one glass of your best juice?” I asked.
“Not a problem at all,” he said, smiling. “You want some breakfast? I just got a fresh load in this very morning. Good and crisp.”
“Sounds great,” I said, “maybe later. But I think first we just want to sit a spell.”
The guy came back with the carrot juice drink and slid it onto the table with a smile before he headed back into the kitchen area.
“You’ve picked up the lingo pretty well,” Tananda said. “A night alone in a place do that for you?”
“I suppose,” I said, taking a sip of the juice. “Isn’t it creepy how all these people seem the same from town to town?”
“I was noticing that as well,” Tananda said. “The guy shoveling dung looks just like every other guy I’ve seen shoveling dung.”
Aahz laughed and I just stared at her, too tired to even try to figure out what she had just said.
“I wonder why there’s no milk,” Aahz said, staring at the carrot juice with a look of disgust on his face.
“I don’t think you want to ask, even if they had any,” I said. “I was in a kitchen of one of these places, and there was nothing there but veggies, and not a clean surface in the room.”
“Ughh,” Tananda said. “More than likely you could get us arrested for even thinking of drinking milk in a dimension full of cows.”
“You two have far too active an imagination,” Aahz said as he pulled out the map and opened it.
Again it had changed.
I kept sipping my carrot juice as I studied the parchment. Bank, the town we were in, was the main town on the map now. And the treasure was now located in a city called Placer. Three roads left Bank and headed off in three directions, all, in one fashion or another, getting to Placer after a few more towns.
“Now which way?” I asked, staring at our options.
They were towns called Chip, Pie, and Biscuit. Weird names. Everything about this dimension was starting to seem weird to me.
Tananda pointed to one of the towns. “Following Skeeve’s plan of going to towns that start with the letter B, we head for Biscuit.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said.
Aahz just shook his head in amazement.
“As good as any, I suppose.”
He studied the map for a moment more and then folded it up and put it away.
Biscuit was on the road that stayed north going out the west side of Bank. I doubted it would be hard to find. I took another sip while Tananda wrinkled her nose at my drink and me.
“It’s an acquired taste,” I said, realizing what I was doing. I had finished almost half the glass.
I offered the rest to her, but she shook her head.
“No, thanks. Not in a million years.”
I shrugged and took another drink. The stuff wasn’t bad at all, once you got past the initial taste of smashed and juiced carrots.
“So how you feeling?” Aahz asked.
“He’s going to have to rest,” Tananda said, not letting me answer.
“I know that,” Aahz said. “I was just wondering how we were going to do that. We don’t dare go back to the cabin because Glenda might be there. I don’t want to deal with her just yet. So we have to find some private spot.”
“Actually,” I said, stopping the fight before it got started, “I’m feeling pretty good. A little juice here and some time sitting down and I think I can go again for a while.”
Tananda looked into the orange liquid.
“What did they put in there?”
“You know,” I said, looking at the juice, “I don’t know, but it really is helping.”
We sat for another ten minutes while I finished off the carrot juice, then I went over and asked how I could pay the man for the drink.
“Come back for a dinner,” he said. “That’s payment enough.”
I thanked him for his hospitality. I had no idea how this bartering system in this dimension worked, but it sure made everyone friendly.
We headed toward the west end of town, walking down the sidewalk and tipping our hats at the smiling people we met. I felt great again. Drinking that juice was like getting a good night’s sleep. I had no idea what was in one besides carrots, but I could easily get hooked on them.
It wasn’t going to be a problem taking the wrong road because there was a sign saying Biscuit and a big arrow at the fork in the roads. Around us were buildings and homes and several hundred of head of cattle grazing, so we started off walking
, going slow and steady as the sun got hotter.
Finally, after maybe a mile, we were far enough out in the country to not chance being seen flying.
“You sure you’re all right?” Aahz asked.
“Never felt better,” I said.
“You know, at the next town, I’m trying some of that juice,” Tananda said.
As I reached out with my mind searching for power, it became clear that we were in an area much more powerful than where we had started. It was easy for me to get enough to lift the three of us knee-high off the ground and whisk us along.
We had to stop flying and walk a half dozen times over the next few hours when we saw people coming, or a house was too close to the road. And we must have passed at least a million cows along the way. Not one had actually looked at us. And not once did I have to actually sit down and rest.
Amazing juice.
BY THE TIME we reached Biscuit, it was mid-afternoon and I was starting to get tired again. We found a place to sit in a bar that looked just like Audry’s and the one in Bank. Now all of us were growing bothered by the similar nature of the places. I wanted to run from the bar when a man who looked a lot like the previous two, down to wearing a white apron and carrying a dirty rag, came out of the kitchen and asked us what we wanted.
“Just two glasses of your finest,” I said.
“Sure you all don’t want an early dinner?” he asked. “I just got a fresh load from the fields. Really crisp. We all need our energy, you know, with the round-up coming.”
I glanced at Aahz, then Tananda, then answered the guy’s question.
“After we sit awhile we just might.”
He smiled real big, like I had said the right thing, then went and brought us our juice. He had disappeared into the back room before any of us said anything.
“So someone want to explain to me what’s going on?” Tananda asked.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Aahz said. “I thought you two were just imagining things at the last stop. But these three places are almost identical.”
“Are we going in circles or something?” I asked. “Is it possible that all these towns are the same one?”
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