MYTH-Interpretations: The Worlds of Robert Asprin by Robert Asprin

exclaimed my dragon. I glanced over at him. Instead of a green dragon with vestigal wings, a large, brown fluffy dog sat looking at me with huge blue eyes. Once I got past the shock I realized the transformation really rather suited him. I pulled a knife out of my pocket and looked at my reflection in the shiny blade. The face looking back at me was tawny skinned with topaz-yellow eyes like a snake and a crest of bright red hair. I shuddered.
    "What if I don't like the changes?" I asked Alder.
    Meditatively he peeled a strip of bark off the back of one arm and began to shred it between his fingers. "Well, there are those who can't do anything about it, but I'm betting you can, friend. Seeing as how you have a lot of influence."
    "Who with?" I demanded. "What's the name of this dimension? I've never been here before."
    "It ain't a dimension. This is the Dreamland. It's common to all people in all dimensions. Every mind in the Waking World comes here, every time they go to sleep. You don't recognize it consciously, but you already know how to behave here. It's instinctive for you. You're bending dreamstuff, exerting influence, just as if you lived here all the time. You must have pretty vivid dreams."
    "This is a dream? But it all seems so real."
    "It don't mean it ain't real, sonny," Alder whistled through his teeth. "Look, there's rules. The smarter you are, the more focused, the better you get on in this world. Lots of people are subject to the whims of others, particularly of the Sleepers themselves, but the better you know your own mind, the more control over your own destiny you've got. Me, I know what I like and what I don't. I like it out in the wilderness. Whenever the space I'm in turns into a city, I just move on until I find me a space where there ain't no people. Pretty soon it quiets down and I have things my own way again. Now, if I didn't know what I wanted, I'd be stuck in a big Frustration dream all the time."
    "I just had a Frustration Dream," I said, staring off in the general direction in which Aahz had disappeared. "How is it that if I have so much power here I couldn't catch up with my friend?"
    "He's gone off on a toot," Alder said, knowingly. "It happens a lot to you Waking Worlders. You get here and you go a little crazy. He got a taste of what he wants, and he's gone after more of it."
    "He doesn't need anything," I insisted. "He's got everything back at home." But I paused.
    "There's got to be something," Alder smiled. "Everyone wants one thing they can't get at home. So what does your friend want?"
    That was easy: Aahz had told me himself. "Respect."
    Alder shook his head. "Respect, eh? Well, I don't have a lot of respect for someone who abandons his partner like he did."
    I leaped immediately to Aahz's defense. "He didn't abandon me on purpose."
    "You call a fifty-mile bridge an accident?"
    I tried to explain. "He was excited. I mean, who wouldn't be? He had his powers back. It was like...magik."
    "Been without influence a long time, has he?" Alder asked, with squint-eyed sympathy.
    "Well, not exactly. He's very powerful where we come from," I insisted, wondering why I was unburdening myself to a strange old coot in the wilderness, but it was either that or talk to myself. "But he hasn't been able to do magik in years. Not since my old mentor, er, put a curse on him. But I guess that doesn't apply here."
    "It wouldn't," Alder assured me, grinning. "Your friend seems to have a strong personality, and that's what matters. So we're likely to find your friend in a place he'd get what he wanted. Come on. We'll find him."
    "Thanks," I said dubiously. "I'm sure I'll be able to find him. I know him pretty well. Thanks."
    "Don't you want me to come along?"
    I didn't want him to know how helpless I felt. Aahz and I had been in worse situations than this. Besides, I had Gleep, my trusty...dog...with me. "No, thanks," I said, brightly. "I'm such a powerful wizard I don't really need your help."
    "Okay, friend,