Harold looked at both of us and shrugged, clearly having no idea what we were talking about. “I can make you a horse-steak sandwich, a cucumber sandwich, or a salad with fresh tomatoes. And I’ve got either orange juice or water to drink.”
“Wow, you eat better than the rest of your people,” Tanda said.
“I do?” he asked, surprised. “It’s been so long since I’ve been out of these rooms, I wouldn’t know.”
“A lot better,” I said, “but at the moment I’d just like a glass of water.”
Aahz and Tanda agreed and as he got the water Aahz prompted him to start his story again. “You got up to the point where your people and Count Bovine’s people had come to an agreement, his people were changed to cows for most of the month, and this place was sealed off. What changed?”
“Actually,” Harold said, “I changed it.”
“Why?” Aahz asked, a fraction of a second before I could.
“Because I thought I knew better, knew what was best for my people, knew how to change things back to a better world.”
“Better back up and tell us how that kind of thinking got started,” Tanda said.
Harold nodded. “I met a dimension traveler named Leila. I was running this little restaurant and bar just down the road from here when Leila walked in. We got talking, she told me about the big world outside of this dimension, and then offered to let me be her apprentice. She said I had great magical potential.”
I glanced at Aahz, who ignored me. Not once had Aahz ever said I had great magical potential, and I certainly wasn’t going to ask him if I did. He’d just say no and laugh. Mostly laugh.