“At least he didn’t undo the cow spell,” I said.
“Neither he nor Count Bovine could,” Harold said. “Ubald keeps trying, though. He’s using the cow skulls in the other room there to funnel energy into breaking it.”
“Makes sense,” Aahz said. “A spell that major, in place for that long, would be almost impossible to remove. But not completely impossible.”
“He’s got time,” Harold said.
“So how did the map come about?” I asked.
“When Count Bovine was still alive, and had me locked up here, none of them lived anywhere near here. One day, this cartographer showed up. I wanted him to help me escape and he said he couldn’t.”
“He can’t,” Tanda said.
“Why?” I asked.
“He told me that, as long as he didn’t involve himself in any activity in any dimension,” Harold said, “he was free to use his magik to move anywhere he wanted, map anything he wanted, including through the magik that Count Bovine had put up to hold me here in this castle.”
“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.