Tanda smiled. “I thought so. Mini.”
“So what’s so special about that dimension?” I asked. It hadn’t seemed like much to me, although Tanda had not wanted to stay there long on our shopping trip.
“Actually,” Aahz said, “it makes this map more likely to be real.”
“Almost certain.” Tanda laughed.
“You’re kidding?” I asked. “You really think there is a golden cow out there?”
“I didn’t say that,” Aahz said. “I just said the map was likely to be real.”
I frowned and Tanda laughed.
“Mini is populated by Minikins, who have this awful power of never telling a lie about anything. They do not do well at the Bazaar at Deva, for obvious reasons.”
“But what happens if the guy who sold it to me wasn’t a Minikin?”
“If he had been there for more than a day, he had to tell the truth about the map as well. That’s why we got out of there so fast. Truth is not a good influence when you are shopping.”
At that I had no firsthand knowledge, but I figured Tanda was the expert.
“Come on,” she said to Aahz. “Dig out the map. We’re wasting time. Let’s do this.”
“Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” Aahz asked as he pulled out the parchment, unfolded it, and put it on the bed so all three of us could look at it.
I had no idea what I was looking at, but Tanda seemed to. She pointed at the upper left corner.
“That’s Minikins’ Dimension.”
Even I knew that, since it was labeled Mini.
“So we start there?”
Aahz nodded. So did Tanda, for which I was grateful. If they both agreed, at least we had something solid.
Tanda ran her finger along the only line leading from Minikin. It ended at a dot that was labeled Vortex #1. She studied that for a moment, then glanced at Aahz.