The golden cow.
The treasure we had come so far to find. It was one secret door away, in a room called the Meadow.
“Take a look at this,” I said, spreading the map out for everyone to see.
“Now what do we do?”
Aahz looked at the map and smiled.
“We go capture us a leader as a hostage and make sure we get our freedom.”
“Sounds good to me,” Tanda said.
“Why don’t I think it’s going to be that easy?” I said.
“Because it never is.” Glenda said.
Around me the empty-eyed cow skulls started to hum faintly and vibrate a little, filling the room with a noise that ate at my very soul.
“Whatever we’re going to do,” Tanda said, her hands over her ears, “let’s do it fast.”
Again I stuffed the map in my pouch and, with my hands over my ears as well, I headed through the middle of thousands of humming skulls toward the secret panel in the far wall.
By the time I got there the sound from the skulls in my head was so painful I didn’t even stop. I just went right on through and out onto a thick carpet of beautiful grass.
Aahz, Tanda, and Glenda followed me, with Aahz shutting the secret panel behind us, instantly stopping the painful energy pounding at my head. I would have been relieved if I hadn’t been so stunned at what faced me.
There was a guy, sitting in a lounge chair on the other side of the field of grass, reading a newspaper. If he had had on a white apron, he would have looked almost exactly like the guy who had waited on us in Audry’s.
The setting sun was pouring through one of the room’s giant windows and turning the nearby hills to a wonderful shade of gold and pink and red.