How dare she tell me what I needed? How dare Aahz leave my juice behind? Hadn't I trusted him with that juice?

"I don't need to rest," I said, my voice sounding funny to my ears.

"How about you just lie down for a few minutes and then we'll talk about it," Tanda said, helping me to me feet and moving me over to the soft-looking bed against one wall.

"Well, maybe just a minute," I said.

What could a minute hurt? I'd get back some of my en ergy, and then convince Tanda to hop me back to get my juice.

"Only one minute," I said.

Or at least I think I said that. I might not have, because from the moment my head touched the pillow, I don't remember another thing.

I woke up with a blinding headache and a taste in my mouth that was a cross between horse droppings and stale carrots. I rolled over and the pain hit me even harder, smashing into my head like someone was taking a hammer and pounding me right between the eyes.

"Ohhh," I said, putting both hands to my head trying to stop the agony.

"The sleeping apprentice awakes," Aahz, said, his voice far too loud for the size of the space between my ears.

"And in pain, it seems," Tanda shouted.

"Please whisper," I said, but my throat was so dry the words didn't really come out.

I wanted to die. Why hadn't they just killed me as I slept? Or maybe they had tried, which was why I hurt so much.

I also wanted to be sick, but that wasn't possible since there wasn't anything left in my stomach. But my stomach still felt like it wanted to twist inside out and come up through my throat. And the world spinning didn't help that feeling at all.

And, most of all, I really wanted to forget all the night mares I'd had about cows turning into vampires, and the people of a dimension being nothing more than food stock. What an awful nightmare. That was the last time I had carrot juice if it caused those kind of visions.

Tanda came over and knelt beside me. I could feel her hand on my forehead, then a soft energy flowing through me, washing the pain and nausea with it. Whatever she did, it was nice.

After a moment she moved away and I opened my eyes. My head didn't hurt as much, and the world that felt as if it was smashing down on me from all sides had retreated.

I also realized that what I had thought were carrot-juice-induced nightmares had actually happened. "That help?" Tanda asked.

I nodded, wishing I hadn't almost at once. She had taken away the pain, but the rest of the problems-upset stomach and spinning world-were still with me.

She brought me a glass of water, helping me sit up to drink it.

"Well, hangovers are sure fun, aren't they, apprentice?" Aahz asked.

"No," I managed to croak out after I took a small drink, "they are not."

"Good thing to remember next time you go bingeing."

The thought of even seeing another carrot made my stom ach twist.

"Was there alcohol in the carrot juice?"

"No, but it had other stuff in it," Aahz said, "Stuff I'm guessing make the people of those towns good eating for the vampires."

My stomach twisted.

"And maybe help keep them under control," Tanda said, looking at me. "Think you can come to the table and try to eat a little something?"

"I can try," I said, "but no promises."

"Good enough. You need to eat."

"How long was I sleeping?" I asked as I stood and shuffled my way to the table.

I dropped into a chair and then tried to remain still while the world spun for a moment.

"About twelve hours," Aahz said. "We were just getting ready to head back to Kowtow when you started to wake up."

"Without me?" I asked, staring into the eyes of my mentor.

He smiled at what must have been my shocked expression.

"Just to explore and get a little closer to Donner while the vampires were back being cows. We would have left you shielded and been back in a few hours."

"You still want to see if you can get to the treasure?" I asked, not believing that Aahz would even want to go back to the place again, let alone try to get a golden-milk-giving cow that turned into a vampire.

"Sure," he said. "We're too close to turn back now."

"And just what are you going to do when you find this golden cow?"

"I asked him the same thing," Tanda said.

"I'll figure that out when we find it," Aahz said.

I nodded. "Glad I woke up then."

"I doubt you're going to be up for coming along just yet," Tanda said, putting a little sandwich and another glass of water in front of me.

"I'll be fine," I said. "Just a little carrot juice and I can fly a long ways."

The silence in the cabin was intense.

I looked at Aahz, then at Tanda and smiled. "Just kid-ding."

For some reason, neither of them laughed.

Along the way there were more and more cattle, bigger herds than we had seen at any other place. I was just glad that none of them were lined up along the road watching us.

The countryside was becoming pretty hilly, and the road looked like it was headed right at a fairly large mountain range. I hoped Donner was on this side of the range and not the other. My question was answered almost at once as we topped a slight ridge and could see off ahead.

I somehow managed to bring us to a stop and lower us to the ground. Considering what we were facing, I thought that was pretty good concentration.

From the top of this hill we could see Donner. It had been built going up the side of a gentle hill. From here it looked as if the buildings down low were all like the ones in the towns we had already seen, but the farther up the hill you went, the larger the buildings, the more ornate.

At the top was the palace. Only this wasn't like anything on this planet. It was made of stone and inlaid with gold that shimmered in the afternoon sun. It was like a second sun, only golden.

"Oh, my," Tanda said softly.

"No wonder there's a treasure map to this place," Aahz said. "I've never seen anything like that."

"Neither have I," Tanda said.

Well, if the two experienced dimension travelers in the group had never seen anything like the golden palace we were staring at, I sure hadn't either.

After a moment I asked what I thought was the obvious next question.

"So now what do we do?"

"We go take a closer look," Aah2 said, laughing. "See what we can see."

I glanced at my mentor. He was always happy when there was a chance we might end up with a lot of money. I didn't want to ask him how he thought we were going to get any of the gold we could see from here, but clearly he had ideas, and the ideas were enough to make him smile.

All his smile did was worry me.

I flew us two more small hills closer to the city before Aahz said we had better walk the rest of the way. There was so much energy in this area that I didn't even feel tired from the effort of flying. It had come easy, which meant that all magik was easy in this place. That was both good and bad.

Ahead of us on the road were some walkers, plus a wagon full of vegetables being pulled by two horses. Cows filled the fields, paying no attention to anything.

Up closer, the town of Donner was even bigger than I had first thought, with a very wide, boulevard-like main road head ing straight through everything. The golden castle on the top of the hill was massive. It looked like it could swallow the entire royal palace and courtyard of Possiltum and not even burp. I wonder if this place had a royal magician. Maybe I could apply for the job, but I doubted I would pass the cow physical.

We had just crested the last small hill and were starting down toward the edge of the city when a dozen men on horseback came galloping out of the city, kicking up a cloud of dust behind them. A few people ahead of us on the road stepped out of the way. And the wagonload of veggies had to move almost off the road and into a small ditch.