"I'm puzzled," Aahz said, "How did you get him to lie that there was a cow here who gave gold milk and draw a treasure map to it?"

"It never says anything about a cow giving gold milk," Harold said, laughing. "I'm the cow the map leads to, and I was willing to give anyone a lot of gold if they found me."

"Makes sense to me," Tanda said, laughing.

I was enjoying the different emotions playing over my mentor's face. We had deciphered the map, found the cow, and were entitled to the gold. That made Aahz's mouth water, I could tell. But, at the same time, getting the gold out of here, with all our blood still inside our bodies, was going to be another matter.

Harold noticed Aahz's face. "You're a Pervert, right?"

"Pervect," Aahz said, showing all his teeth.

He hated being called a Pervert, and often was, since that was the reputation of the demons from his dimension.

"Sorry," Harold said. "But you love money and gold, don't you?"

Now it was Tanda's and my turn to laugh. Aahz just gave us both a dirty look and then said, "Of course."

"You are welcome to all the treasure-gold if you want- you can carry from here," Harold said. "There's tons of the stuff in the back. The rocks of this mountain are full of it. All you have to do is help me escape."

I knew there wasn't a sunbeam's chance on Vortex #6 that Aahz would turn down that offer. But I didn't really mind. I sort of liked Harold. And besides, I'd lost a mentor once myself, and we apprentices needed to stick together.

"You know of a way to escape from here?" Tanda asked Harold, staring at how Aahz's eyes had glazed over at just the idea of a lot of gold.

"If I did, would I still be here?" he said, his voice sad.

Aahz looked at me and I shrugged. "Why not?"

Aahz looked at Tanda. Tanda sighed. "Sure. As you've been saying all along, we've come this far."

"Great," Aahz said. "We'll help you."

I knew for a fact that Aahz didn't have a clue how we were going to help Harold escape, but the promise sure cheered up our host.

After another hour of talking with Harold to make sure we hadn't missed anything important, I knew enough about this Ubald vampire guy to make me want another shot of carrot juice. The guy was just plain mean, almost as old as Count Bovine had been, and not at all happy with the situation as it stood.

On top of that, he liked to party, and party hard. By the time the sun was ready to come up on the last morning of the full moon, Harold said, Ubald and his group were stumbling idiots. Still very dangerous, but stumbling, and it often took the men with the golden shovels days to round up all the cattle from the different rooms of the castle and take them back to their private pastures.

The idea of coming into a huge bedroom suite to find two cows standing on a rumpled bed was too much for me. To­night was that night, the most dangerous night of the full moon according to Harold. I could hardly wait.

Finally Aahz decided we had talked enough and we all headed back into the library area. Aahz wanted to have Harold show us the books about the spells put over this castle, the spells put on everyone by Count Bovine, and what Harold knew of the magik energy surrounding this castle.

But first we had to wake up Glenda. Snoring, drooling Glenda. As far as I was concerned, she could just stay right there, sleeping for the next hundred years, or until she died of hunger in her sleep, whichever came first.

But it seemed that Harold and Aahz had other ideas for her which they were not sharing with me.

"Are you confident she's cured?" I asked Harold as we stood staring at her.

"Completely," Harold said. "The magik rope there does the trick."

"Well, just to be sure," I said, "can we put the rope around her again tonight, before the sun sets?"

Aahz laughed. "Trust me, she'll have the rope on tonight. You can count on it."

I stared at him as he moved to her and untied the knot in the golden rope, then pulled it free, wrapping it in his hand.

After what Glenda had done to us, I figured it would have served her right to become a cow for most of every month for the rest of her life. She was already a self-centered bloodsucker; why shouldn't she have the entire cow package?

After Aahz pulled the rope off of her, she awoke, groaned and somehow managed to sit up, her face pale and her eyes glazed. "What happened?"

"You slept through the night just fine," Aahz said.

"Snoring like a horse," Tanda said.

I wanted to ask her how she knew horses snored, but fig ured this wasn't the time to push too much into her personal life.

Glenda's hand went to her neck, where there was now no sign of the vampire bites. I could tell that she was surprised when she touched her neck and it didn't hurt. Surprised and confused. Then she noticed the gold laced rope Aahz was holding. For a moment she looked into his eyes. Then she asked, "Was I going to turn?"

"You were," Harold said. "It was why Ubald and his vam pire friends let you live."

"And the rope is what I think it is?" Glenda asked, not taking her eyes from Aahz.

Aahz held it up. "Just to be safe, you're going to wear it tonight as well. I promised my apprentice there for his peace of mind."

She stared at the rope for a moment, then nodded. "I sup pose I should thank you."

"Just help us all get out of here and we can call it even," Aahz said.

"I'll do what I can," she said, "but first, can I have a glass of water?"

Harold laughed. "You are cured. I'll get it for you."

I had no idea why Harold thought that Glenda getting a glass of water meant she was cured. Seemed like a somewhat silly sign to me. Or maybe vampires were only thirsty for blood?

Harold headed out the panel toward his kitchen area. When he was safely gone Glenda looked up at Aahz, the anger clear and at full force in her eyes.

"Why didn't you just stake me when you had the chance?"

I was stunned by the question. And her anger at Aahz for not killing her.

"I thought about it," Aahz said.

He pointed to a sharp stake on top of an antique dresser beside the couch she was sitting on. I hadn't noticed it before. Again I was stunned. Aahz went on.

"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.