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Some place like Kansas, only not as hilly

"I wish," I said, puffing hard because ere running flat out "I really, really wish You would Develop your People skills"

"Bitehard

I&039;d have rolledIt wasrain on us like daggers Despite this, there were a nury locals hot behind us, either a lynch mob or an auto-da-fe, which I think is Latin for barbeque The crowd supplied the both torches and ropes

No shoddy workmanship for Terrin, who is a wizard When he decided to piss a person off he always put a two hundred percent effort into it On this occasion, for reasons best known to himself, he caused a bouquet of purple daisies to sprout out of the bald head of the town&039;s h, but they&039;d been infested with soly hives

Unfortunately for us, the e relatives all intent on avenging the fa overhead and the hiss of falling water kept ht be As I had the better eyesight after dark, I led the way, hoping to find soround for acrystals had been charged up for weeks, but tiood on this stopover, so we&039;d put off leaving

I had only a sketchy idea of the lay of the land here We&039;d left the town in a rando off over ice rink-flat farm country No matter where ent, we&039;d be seen

"House," I said, pointing to a hu range that e

"Okay" Terrin was shorter, but round,hts showed ahead At this hour any sensible farh the stor now if Terrin hadn&039;t wanted to iven the mayor a little tummy ache instead? I hate those

The house turned out to be a barn Good Then ouldn&039;t have to deal with yet another irate local trying to kill us One h We ripped around and found a door, dragging it open

Inside, I curled my lip at the sudden stink of damp livestock, then violently shook water from my soakedout in clu would have to wait "How soon?"

Terrin heezing hard, but already shrugging off his oversize backpack "Gier than that for hi to block the door in case the mayor&039;s relatives turned out to be ainst one wall I grabbed one in each hand and hauled theed My ears swiveled to track their scattered retreat, and I had to repress an urge to lunge Not that I&039; theet wound up about, put it down to my weird DNA mix

I slammed the bales behind the door and went back for another two, then two more But that wasn&039;t the only entrance to the place Another, larger door was at the far end I didn&039;t think there&039;d be time to take care of that one, too

"Terrin?"

He was still ru in the backpack

"What&039;s the holdup?" I asked "You didn&039;t lose the iht!" he snapped

I took that to be a request, not an explicative, and shrugged my own pack from my shoulders It was nearly pitch dark, for hi I don&039;t always reht exactly where it was supposed to be One click and its beam shone into Terrin&039;s search area

"Don&039;t you throw anything out?" The inside of his bag looked like a Dued up two perfectly formed clear quartz crystals They were about an inch in diaavethe floor to o Outside, the first of the ainst the door You&039;d have thought the deluge would have put them off The bales would hold them forat all The top one tumbled down in a squashy crash as people on the other side applied lee ensued as they inched the door open against the rest of the barrier

At the far end ca on that door Until it burst open A bunch of really big guys flooded in, wearing even bigger grins And I thought I had teeth

"Get &039;eed forward Just then the group at the first door succeeded in their assault, sending the last bales tu over into the path of their friends It was a wonderful pile-up, but not enough to stop theely calainst all sense, I shutmob, the disturbed livestock, the splat of rain on thatch, abruptly faded I thought I felt the brush of a hand grabbing h h part Well, it&039;s not that tough, and I should be used to it by now It&039;s the ets tothe process, but tonoise, a swirling, that sudden twist, and the awful feeling thatto catch up with the rest ofwhen they did

Whoosh Sla for the next shoe to fall, but it never does Oncewith relief

Terrin said, "Why do you always groan like that? That was fun!"

"If you&039;re an astronaut riding the voht day The barn and storone, left behind on yet another world "Where are we? Is it home yet?"

"I don&039;t think so There wasn&039;t tiain"

"Dah it was nice and soft It had that fresh after-dawn tinge and felt like a late spring or early surass covered gentle hills, a living invitation to roll around and act silly

Grass is coo-ool

"Argh!" said Terrin, clapping a hand over his eyes against the daylight He dropped and began hurriedly rooting in his pack again "Sunglasses! Where are my shades?"

Mine were zipped in ht in its designated pouch My bag had been within Terrin&039;s circle, thankfully Some of the debris fro co on ood head-shake and it would dry just fine in the open air

The rest of h In silent comlasses and a purple fishing hat "I don&039;t like this place," he gruht" Under his short red hair he had naturally pale skin, so he had a right to complain More than once I&039;d seen him lobster out after just an hour Not a happy experience for either of us

"You always say that, unless it&039;s a night landing"

A grouchy snarl as he continued digging "Giave it over He put it in a s with his own quartz, safety-pinned it to the top of his hat, then pulled the hat do over his brow The crystals could start charging up with sun energy right ahile alked, an ingenious idea Mine, as a matter of fact He was a brilliant wizard, but I have my moments, too

"So what happened?" I asked as he repacked all the junk he&039;d tossed around in his searches

"What d&039;ya -sleeved shirt and wrapped a bandana around his exposed neck to keep fros; my body-fur was better than sunblock-50

"The mayor, the irate citizens, the mob, the chase scene I just want to knohy We had a nice spot there"

"Mayor pissedto act like he knew everything Frigging amateurs They do a little weather charot the whole Multiverse in their hand when it&039;s the other way around I was trying toaround with; you can&039;t just poke sticks at elementals for the fun of it Unless you knohat you&039;re doing - and he didn&039;t - all kinds of shit can happen"

"Weather? That storm?"

"Was his fault, notout the far rain away fro balances, but he didn&039;t want to hear that Nothing pissesstupid He wanted things to be growing in his row to restore the balance"

"The purple daisies"

Terrin snickered "Yeah You should have heard everyone screa when those sprouted out"

"I did That&039;s why I came downstairs with our packs" For the sake of survival I was forever prepared and alert to the signs that a hasty exit was at hand Screa people was one of the the coood ic on that? It&039;d have been better to punch him in the nose; the saic, I transferred soy in a different direction There was h off that storm for iant carrot guy fro?"

"Yeah, but the Howard Hawks version, not the other filh that would have been fun"

Terrin had some really warped ideas of what constituted fun Most did not bear thinking about

"I had to transfer energy anyway, use up the surplus," he added "That wannabe Oz dufus with his grandstanding was too busy floating his ego with all the applause to pay attention to his storood hail fall Would have ruined all the crops I took the edge off with that daisy gag"

"The bugs, too?" It hadn&039;t been a pretty sight watching the s And it got downright revolting when he frantically started ripping his clothes off, the better to scratch at the hives

"Those drained off the tornado that was coeneration of life for using up excess power"

"Sure you didn&039;t use soaunt"

"I just played traffic cop, and it&039;s this da with my looks"

He was touchy about his appearance, so I let it drop "Will he ever get rid of the daisies and bugs?"

"Not anytime soon He&039;ll have to find another wizard to fix it back, and that will cost him Maybe he&039;ll learn a lesson or the other wizard can talk so worse than Talents who think they know everything about the Art They&039;re way erous than those of us who do"

Terrin was an expert, and he did know a lot, but for the ain I kept quiet on that sensitive point and nodded toward a hill "I think there&039;s a road over there"

"What ht way to go You got your o find out where we are I&039; ater, but those were for e stopovers in truly barren worlds Whenever possible, we tried to live off the land That usually ing and story-telling, and when he had the energy, Terrin would trade ic was accepted Otherwise, he bartended

Once upon a tio, we lived on Earth - our Earth, the one you&039;re on, not any of these other spots that called themselves by the same name Terrin had a nice little metaphysical bookstore and coffee shop that afforded him the freedoetting laid - one ofThe techno club raves he frequented in Deep Ellum in Dallas provided outlets for both I&039;m more of a rock and roller Techno is okay, just not for irls are just as cute

I should really introduce h I&039;m Myhr - rhymes with purr - just Myhr, no other name that I can remember What makes me more obviously different from most people are my cat features on a man&039;s body Just the face, I don&039;t have a tail, though a lot of girls have enthusiastically assured

And no, I auy on that TV series If that was true I&039;d have hit him up for an introduction to Linda Hamilton

Where I caical experienetics I do have plenty of feline DNAwhoopee in h cash working in Terrin&039;s store to have a teston the door to make an issue of it Terrin said he&039;d put up a protection spell around hty altruistic of him, but I&039; with the annoyance Anything that keeps hi laid is an annoyance

My lack ofup on Terrin&039;s doorstep never bothered me much Not that I wouldn&039;t like to know, but I don&039;t stay up nights worrying about et bent out of shape over the big "Who am I?" question, but include me out It&039;s better to enjoy the sty stuff to the heavy-duty thinkers Bet if they got laid more often they wouldn&039;t put so ot bounced off our Earth and ended up ping-ponging froet around to when I&039;reen hill and down another and, sure enough,us to a thin dusty ribbon of a road

"Which way?" asked Terrin He stretched his back, ht, up, down, inside-out?"

"Left" I didn&039;t knohy, but that was the way To what, I also did not know, though it usually meant people and food That&039;s how I found Terrin&039;s shop after all He&039;d fed me, so I stayed on

"My left or yours?"

Mine, of course He could have probably figured it out hi his own internal compass, but the one in ical effort Traveling spells and transferring weather energy around was exhausting, though he&039;d never admit it; better for him to conserve himself until we had a handle on this particular stop He looked pretty pooped

A couple of hours laterthe signs of civilization, a slow and easy one, represented by a siain, with a penchant for thatched roofing I&039;d have thought ere still back on the previous world but for the subtle differences in building design Also, this house ashed in a dull brown color The other place went in for bright prih wall ardens; the gate was unlocked, so ent in

"Hello!" I called toward the house Someone was home; smoke rose from the chimney

We paused a short, respectful distance from the front porch so as not to make the owner nervous about our intentions It was usually safer to assume people everywhere were paranoid After a ed from the dark interior to stare at us Well, mostly atthrough Could you tell us how far it is to the next town?"

He stared sohop patuuny mafork?" he asked