"So, is there such a golden cow?" I asked, moving over and standing beside him in the big window so he couldn't ignore me.

In the courtyard below the window, Gleep was running in circles chasing his tail. Thank heavens he wasn't near anything, because when a dragon started chasing his tail, things got knocked down, trampled, and just flat destroyed. Especially when it was young dragon.

What was even more amazing was that Aahz didn't seem to be noticing what Gleep was doing. Clearly the map meant something to him.

"The golden cow?" I asked again, "Is it real?"

Aahz slowly turned and looked at me.

"A myth. There are a lot of them in the different dimen sions."

"You're kidding! You mean there is more than one golden-milk-giving-cow myth?" Considering that I had never heard of a cow before today, I found that a little hard to imagine. I'm not sure exactly why I thought even one golden cow was easy to imagine, but dozens of them were just too much. Maybe there was an entire dimension with a race of them.

Aahz sighed. When he sighed like that, it usually meant I was being extra stupid or dense.

"Every tenth dimension has a myth about an animal or person doing something with gold. One has a goose laying golden eggs, another has a fish touching things and turning them to gold, another has a duck with golden feathers."

"One heavy bird," I said, trying to imagine the duck cov ered in gold.

Aahz sighed again.

"The feathers become gold when they fall off."

"Got you," I said. "You ever been near or seen one of these golden animals?"

Aahz laughed, his demon-sound shaking the room.

"If I had, would I be here, in this dump of a palace, with an apprentice as stupid as you?"

I had to admit he had a good point, but I didn't really want to agree with him.