I looked at the D-Hopper to make sure I wasn't hallucinating in the heat. It was real. I held it up like an idol and did a little dance of joy right there behind the rock. For the first time I had some options. I could do something instead of just waiting and hoping. The relief was almost more than I could take.

"Slow down and think," I said to myself, hearing Aahz's voice in my head as clearly as if he were standing beside me.

I took a few deep breaths of the hot air and looked out over the valley toward the town below. If Aahz and Tanda had walked up here to hide this for me, Glenda had beat them back to Vortex #6. And more than likely she had gotten the jump on them, which was what had kept them from coming back for me.

That thought took all the excitement out of the moment. I just hoped they were still alive. Glenda didn't strike me as being bloodthirsty, but I had been wrong about her before. More than likely if she considered Aahz and Tanda competition in getting the treasure, she would do something to stop them. She hadn't considered me a problem.

But something had stopped them from coming back, that much was clear. They were the ones that now needed rescu ing, not me. The tables had turned and I needed to make sure I did this right. The life of my friends might depend on it.

I tucked the map in my pouch and sat on the rock with the D-Hopper on my lap, trying to make myself think what I needed to do next. The D-Hopper was set for Vortex #6. That was good, but if I went there, and couldn't find Aahz and Tanda, could I get back here? At least here I could live on carrot juice and bad veggies. I didn't give myself much of a chance on Vortex #6, even with increased magik powers in that dimension.

I had a slight working knowledge of the D-Hopper from carrying one on the shopping trip with Tanda. There was a place on the D-Hopper that set the current dimension as a return point. I carefully looked over the cylinder, then without changing the setting for Vortex #6, I set the current dimension as a return point.

I double, then triple-checked myself. If I triggered the D- Hopper I would jump to Vortex #6. If I triggered it again, I would jump back to this spot.

Okay, that problem was solved.

I stood and was about to hop when I remembered what I might be going into.

"Stop and think," I said aloud, again with Aahz's voice echoing through my head.

With luck, the D-Hopper would put me back into the cabin, but in case it didn't, I needed to be ready.

What happened if Glenda was still there with them? I needed something to fight her with. I picked up a good-sized rock that fit nicely in my hand. It wasn't much, but it might be enough if it came to a fight.

"Okay," I said aloud. "Anything else?"

I couldn't think of anything. And in the heavy coat I was starting to sweat more than I had before.

"Think, then act," I said, repeating what Aahz had said a hundred times. "It's time to act."

With one last look at the town of Evade down in the valley, I took a deep breath and triggered the D-Hopper.

The storm slammed into me like a hammer. I tucked the D-Hopper into my shirt and focused on how Tanda had led us the other three times to the cabin. The dust didn't let me see anything around me, but I knew there were some scattered trees. We had passed them the last two times.

Tanda had gone slightly downhill and to the right, so I figured out what I thought was directly downhill, then angled a little to the right, counting my steps to make sure that if I was on the wrong path, I could get back. After twenty steps could see the faint shape of a tree. I was sure that had been there the last time, so I kept going.

Another thirty slogging steps and another tree loomed out of the blowing dust. I thought that had been there as well. So far so good.

I kept moving for fifty more steps before I saw the faint light in the window of the cabin below me. I had almost missed it, walking too high-along the hillside.

I eased my way down to the cabin and tried to look in the window, but the dirt and shades made it so that I couldn't see anything.

It looked as if I was going to have to go in, hard and fast, like a soldier going after a dangerous outlaw.

I got to the door, braced myself, and eased open the door la tch then shoved hard, the rock from Kowtow ready in my hand as I stumbled in.

My momentum pushed me three steps into the room be fore I caught my balance and stopped. I had the rock raised to hit at Glenda, who I expected to be standing there, ready to fight me.

She wasn't there.

The cabin was warm and comfortable, just like the last time I had seen it.

Tananda and Aahz were sitting at the table, eating what smelled like beef stew with slices of homemade bread.

"Nice entrance," Tanda said, smiling at me. "What took you so long?"

Aahz just shook his head.

"Shut the door, would you?"

I stood there with the rock in the air over my head, not really believing what I was seeing. I had so convinced myself that Aahz and Tanda were in trouble that I couldn't believe that they were simply having lunch and waiting for me. Why had they let me stay the entire day and night in Kowtow?

Why had they chanced that I would even find the D-Hop per where they had left it?

"Door!" Aahz said. "You born in a barn or something?"

Behind me the storm was raging, blowing dust into the cabin. I lowered the rock, tossed it out into the dust, and then closed the door.

Tanda stood and came up to me, smiling. "Aahz, I told you he'd make it just fine," she said, giving me a hug that convinced me that she was just fine, and I wasn't dreaming all this.

Aahz snorted. "After all the mooning over our friend Glenda, I didn't think his brain would ever work again."

I asked the one question I wanted to know most of all.

"Why didn't you come back?"

"We couldn't," Tanda said, patting me on the back and leading me to the table, where she slid some bread toward me as I sat down.

I stared at my mentor, who was just eating and not paying much attention to me at the moment. He did that when he was very angry or very happy, and at the moment I honestly didn't know which it was.

"Stew?" she asked, holding up a pot of what was making the room smell so good. "Glenda left us enough food to last for a few weeks at least."

"Nice of her," Aahz said, the anger clearly there.

"When you didn't come back for me I thought you were both dead."

"We would have been dead in four or five weeks," Aahz said. "When the food ran out."

Tanda served me up a dish of the stew and then sat down next to me after patting my shoulder.

"So why couldn't you come back?" I asked, not wanting to eat until I had some answers. "What happened?"

"Well," Aahz said, still not looking at me, "we both knew Glenda was up to something, and was going to try to double-cross us."

"And we expected her to leave you on Kowtow," Tanda said.

"You expected that?" I was stunned and suddenly angry. "Why didn't you at least warn me?"

Aahz looked me directly in the eye. "Would you have lis tened, apprentice?"

"Yes," I said defensively.

Now they both laughed.

Clearly they thought I had been too much under Glenda's spell. And the more I thought about it, the more I saw that they were right, at least to a point. When Glenda started her act on the bartender, I started to get suspicious, but not enough to think it through.

"You were the closest to her, apprentice," Aahz said, his voice stern and in lecture mode. "You should have been warning us about her, not the other way around."

As normal, Aahz was right.