That was my trump card. If there’s anything Aahz hates, it’s wasting money. He got angry with me every time my dragon, Gleep, tore up something while playing, and the cost of repairs were taken from my wages. When it came to my money, Aahz was in complete control. And by the way he talked, we were always broke and about to go hungry.
“A scam, I’m sure,” Aahz said, turning away. “Just like you to waste money.”
I frowned. This was going to be harder than I thought. Normally, if there was any chance of making money at anything, he jumped at it.
Then it dawned on me I hadn’t told him what the map led to.
“Aahz,” I said to his back.
He didn’t move. Instead he just kept staring out the window at the courtyard.
“Aahz, you might really want to look at this. It’s a map to a creature called a cow.”
“So?” Aahz said, shaking his head. “Remember the last time we were at the Bazaar at Deva? Where do you think that steak you ate came from?”
I stared at him. I had no idea steaks came from creatures called cows. I had just assumed they came from creatures called steaks. Trout came from trout, salmon came from salmon, and duck came from duck. It was logical. Besides, there were no cows in this dimension. At least, none that I had ever met.
“Well,” I said, glancing at the parchment in my hand, “this is a map to a golden cow that lives in a golden palace and gives gold-laced milk.”
Aahz slowly turned to stare at me, his eyes slit as if he were trying to figure out if I was actually joking or not Then, in two steps, he was in front of me, snatching the map from my grasp.