I glanced over at Aahz. When he said ‘most likely,’ and didn’t look at me, it meant he thought there might be a slight chance the map was real.
“Why only most likely?” I asked.
“Because,” Aahz said, “I saw a golden deer-dropping once.”
“Deer dropping?” Again I had no idea what he meant.
“Deer poop,” Aahz said, his voice showing he was getting very tired of my stupid questions. “Deer turds. Deer crap. Deer excrement. One dimension has a myth about a deer that drops gold. I saw one of the droppings. And…”
He stopped, still not looking at me. In all the time we had been together, I had never seen him like this before.
“And what?” I asked.
“And I saw part of a solid-gold elk antler at the Bazaar at Deva.”
I was stunned. A deer that pooped gold and an elk that had golden antlers.
“So the map might actually be real?”
“I doubt it,” Aahz said, glancing at it.
“But you don’t know for sure, do you?”
He shook his head.
“Not for sure.”
“So we’re going to check it out?”
He looked down at the map in his hand, then folded it and stuffed it in his pocket.
“I’ll be back in an hour.”
He pulled out the D-Hopper and twisted it to a setting. Back before he met me and lost his powers, he used to be able to jump through the dimensions without the use of a D-Hopper. Now he needed the help and he hated it.
“Wait!” I shouted. “You can’t go looking for it without me.”
“I’m not,” Aahz said. “And get that dragon of yours under control before he breaks something again and we have to pay for it. Be ready to go. One hour. And the dragon doesn’t come with us.”