Vale of the Vole Read online

  He completed his lunch and resumed walking. He did not know how far distant the Good Magician’s castle was, but doubted that it was far. He knew a little geography, of course: his folks lived in the heart of Xanth, and to the southeast was Lake Ogre-Chobee, and Lake Wails to the east, and the great Gap Chasm to the north. The only direction remaining was west, where there was the Good Magician, and beyond him Castle Roogna, where King Dor lived. The King was a friend of Smash Ogre, but they hadn’t been in touch for a while. Apparently King Dor had a child or two, and a pet dragon; that was about the extent of what was known.

  There was a noise ahead. Esk paused, listening. That sounded like a small dragon, but it couldn’t be, because it was on the path. But what else could pound and hiss like that? Now he smelled smoke, and that too suggested dragon. Dragons came in a number of varieties, adapted for land, water, and air; some were fire-breathers, some steamers, and some smokers. Suddenly he wished he were armed, but all he had was a walking staff.

  The thing came into sight—and it was a dragon, a small brown smoker with bright claws and dusky teeth, because of staining by the smoke. This was not the worst variety of dragon, but any variety was trouble, because all dragons were tough and hungry. What was it doing on the enchanted path?

  Esk had no time to ponder, because the dragon was charging him, mouth agape. He hefted his staff, but it seemed feeble even in the face of this rather small dragon; one chomp would break the staff in two. He thought to jump out of the way, but here the path was lined with curse burrs and worse.

  The dragon scrambled right up to him, puffing smoke. It was about Esk’s own mass, and however small that might be for a dragon, it was big enough to be a real threat to the tender flesh of a man. The jaws were big and the teeth like little daggers.

  Those jaws and those teeth snapped at him. “No!” Esk said.

  The dragon’s snout moved aside, and the teeth chomped on air. The smoky eyes looked startled. It was wondering how it could have missed so ready a target. It reset itself and aimed another chomp.

  “No.”

  Again the bite missed. An angry plume of smoke issued from the monster’s mouth, bathing Esk and making him cough. He fanned the air with his hands, dissipating the smoke, but it clung to his clothing. Now he would smell like a smoker!

  The dragon, slow to grasp the nature of the opposition, made a third attempt. Its jaws opened wide.

  “No,” Esk repeated, poking at the mouth with his staff.

  The jaws froze in their open mode. They could not bite down on the staff, because of Esk’s magic. Disgruntled, the monster backed away, and then it was able to close its mouth.

  The dragon pondered. Just as the thought that perhaps it should try once more started to percolate through the somewhat dense substance of its head, Esk said “no” once more.

  This time the thought itself was balked. Out of sorts, the little dragon moved on down the path, giving up on this particular prey.

  Esk resumed his hike, disturbed. If this path was enchanted against predators, why had the dragon been on it? If it was not, was it the right one? He didn’t want to be on the wrong one. Yet it was the only path he had found; if it was wrong, where did it lead?

  He sighed. For now, he would continue along it. Possibly it was an unenchanted tributary, and in due course it would intersect the enchanted one. If not—well, then he would simply have to scout cross-country for the right one.

  As the day waned, the path gave no sign of merging with any other. It curved along contours and around large trees and crossed small streams just as if it had every business doing so. It certainly extended too far to be justified as a false path!

  Then another little dragon appeared. Naturally it charged him. “No,” he told it firmly several times, and finally it gave up and smoked on down the path.

  Two dragons! One might have been a fluke, but two of a similar type? The enchantment was definitely flawed!

  Now there was a notion: the spell might indeed exist, but have a glitch in it so that a certain type of creature could slip through. That would mean that this was after all the right path.

  But as evening drew nigh, he worried. Even if it was the right path, there were dragons on it. How could he lie down and sleep, if a dragon might come upon him? He could only tell them no while he was awake; if he got chomped in the night he could cry no and stop it, but the original damage would still have been done. If he got chomped badly enough before he woke, he could be dead. Even a little dragon was nothing to ignore.

  He concluded that he could not afford to sleep. Not until he knew it was safe.

  Then he heard a commotion ahead. “Go away! Shoo! Shoo! Away!” It sounded like a woman.

  He ran toward it. Soon he discovered not a woman but a centaur—a filly, with helplessly flapping wings and an ineffectively wielded staff in her hands. Another little dragon was attacking her, being held off only by the staff. The dragon evidently knew it could get by the staff before long. Smoke was puffing from it, as its internal fires heated.

  Esk readied his own staff. “Get out of here!” he yelled at the dragon. Startled, it whipped around to face him, its smoke cutting off for a moment as it held its breath. Then, deciding that this was a possible rival for the prey, it let out its smoke with a ferocious growl and leaped at him.

  “No!” Esk cried. The jaws snapped in air as the dragon drew its snout aside. It landed, disgruntled, beyond him. It started to turn back. “No,” he repeated, and it traveled on away from him, too stupid to realize that this had not been its own decision.

  “Oh thank you, traveler!” the filly said. “I don’t know what I would have done, if—”

  “Uh, sure,” he said, looking at her more carefully. She had gray eyes and a brown mane, and the wings were gray, matching the eyes. She wore a petite knapsack, across which a sturdy bow was hung. The points of several arrows projected beside the knapsack. Evidently the dragon had come upon her so suddenly that she had not had a chance to set up with her bow. Her head was somewhat higher than his; this was because the human aspect of a centaur began above the equine aspect. Her shoulders were actually narrower than his.

  Now he did a double take. Wings?

  “Don’t stare at me as if I’m a freak!” she exclaimed.

  “I, uh, just never saw—that is—”

  “My father is a hippogryph,” she said. “I inherit my wings from him.”

  “Uh, yes, of course,” he said. “But why didn’t you just fly away?”

  She put her face in her hands and burst into tears.

  Completely discomfited, Esk stood on one foot and then the other, uncertain what to do.

  In a moment her mood shifted somewhat. “I can’t fly!” she said despairingly. “These wings just don’t have enough lift!”

  “Uh, sorry,” he said awkwardly.

  “Anyway, thank you for rescuing me from the dragon. I didn’t expect anything like that here; the path is supposed to be safe.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Esk said. “But that’s the third little smoker I’ve seen on it.”

  She brushed back her mane, which was just like the tresses of a human woman, and took a deep breath, which accentuated a bosom that also resembled that of a human woman, only more so. Centaurs, of course, did not wear clothing; they considered it to be a human affectation. “Hello,” she said brightly. “I’m Chex.”

  “I’m Esk.”

  “Did you notice that we match?”

  “Hair and eyes,” he agreed. And wings, he added mentally; they matched his suit in color and, to a moderate but reasonable extent, in texture.

  “My father is Xap Hippogryph. My mother is Chem Centaur.”

  She was making the introduction easy enough! “My father is Smash Ogre. My mother is Tandy Nymph.”

  “So you’re a crossbreed too!” she exclaimed happily.

  “Quarter ogre, half human, quarter nymph,” he agreed.

  “The human portion is half curse fiend, technica
lly. I’m going to see the Good Magician.”

  “Why so am I! What a coincidence!”

  “Well, we are on the same path.”

  “Only one of us must be going the wrong way.”

  “Well, I live east of his castle, so I’m going west,” Esk said.

  “And I live west of it, so I’m going east.”

  They stood there, considering. “Maybe there’s a turnoff one of us missed?” Esk said after a pause.

  “That must be so,” Chex agreed. “I was traveling pretty fast; I could have trotted past one.”

  “I was traveling slowly; I don’t think I did.”

  “Then let’s go west,” she said brightly. “And look to the sides.”

  “You are easy to get along with,” he remarked. They walked west, with him parallel to her front section. This was a little crowded on the path, but there didn’t seem to be any better way to do it.

  “I’m just mostly tired of traveling alone,” she confessed.

  “That dragon—how did you get rid of it so easily? I couldn’t make it quit.”

  “I just told it no. That’s my tatent—to protest things. The effect doesn’t last long, but dragons aren’t very smart, so it works well enough.”

  “I wish I had a talent,” she said. “It used to be that centaurs weren’t supposed to have magic, but now it’s acceptable for the younger ones. My female parent is a mapmaker; she can project a map of anything. She told me how to reach the Good Magician’s castle; it’s hard to imagine that she could have been mistaken.”

  “Geography changes,” he said. “Tangle trees make new paths all the time when the old ones get too familiar, and streams change their courses when their old beds get too rocky. The path must have changed since your mother surveyed it.”

  “That must be it,” she agreed.

  “And you probably have a talent; it just hasn’t manifested yet.”

  “You’re pretty easy to get along with yourself,” she remarked with a smile that became her marvelously.

  “I suppose I’m tired of traveling alone too.” They laughed together. Esk realized with a tinge of guilt that he was finding it much easier to relate to this filly than to a real girl. Perhaps this was because nothing much was expected of a relationship between a man and a centaur; it was strictly convenience and company.

  Now night was closing. “Perhaps we should stop for supper and a place to sleep,” Chex said. “Do you think there will be other dragons?”

  Esk had been thinking the same thing; his legs were tired. “I had feared I couldn’t afford to sleep; maybe now we can take turns watching.”

  “Yes!” she agreed gladly.

  They foraged for fruit, then set their watches: Chex would stand guard until she got sleepy, then would wake him for a similar spell. She assured him that she would not fall asleep without knowing it; some centaurs slept on their feet, but her legs tended to buckle, waking her.

  Esk retreated to some bushes for natural functions, which modesty Chex found amusing, then piled some leaves beside the path and lay down. But though he was tired, he was not yet sleepy. “Are you going to the Good Magician to ask what your talent is?” he inquired.

  She swished her tail as if snapping off a fly. “No; I’m afraid I would have to serve a year for news that I have none. My concern is more—well, awkward.”

  “Oh. I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “It’s all right. I can talk to you. It isn’t as if you’re a centaur.”

  “I’m not a centaur,” he agreed. How well her sentiment echoed his own!

  “It’s to find out how to fly.”

  Of course! He should have guessed. “You know, your wings don’t seem as big as those of the big birds,” he said. “I’m not sure they could support you in the air even if they worked perfectly. I mean, they might lift a smaller creature, but not a centaur.”

  “That’s obvious,” she said somewhat coldly. “I’ve been practicing flapping them for months, developing my pectoral muscles, and as you can see they have filled out, but I just don’t have the lift I require.”

  Esk was too embarrassed to tell her that he had taken her front muscles for breasts, and rather well-formed ones too. Centaurs wore only occasional harnesses or protections against heat or cold, and never concealed their sexual attributes. The breasts of female centaurs tended to be impressive by human standards, perhaps because they were structured to provide enough milk for offspring whose mass was several times that of human babies. Chex appeared to be no older than he was, but her breasts would have been considered more than generous on any human woman. Obviously, he had let himself be deluded by a preconception.

  “What I meant to say was,” he said somewhat awkwardly, “could it be that your magic talent is flying? That your muscles and wingspan only provide a small part of it, and magic the main part?”

  “If it is, then why can’t I fly?”

  “Well, if you were flapping your wings instead of doing your magic, then it wouldn’t work.”

  “But how would I work my magic?” she asked plaintively. “I have thought of that and tried to will myself into flight, but nothing happens.”

  “I don’t know. I think you’re right: you must ask the Good Magician. Maybe he will be able to tell you some spell you can invoke that will make it work.”

  “That is my hope,” she said. “Why are you going to see him?”

  “I have to find out how to get rid of a demoness who threatens my family.” He explained the rest of it, except for the business of Metria’s amatory offerings. That matter was too embarrassing.

  “I’m surprised she didn’t try to tempt you sexually,” Chex said. “Human males are known to be vulnerable to that kind of inducement, and demons are unscrupulous.”

  He felt himself blushing in the darkness. “Uh, well—” “Oh, that’s right—you humans are sensitive about that sort of thing, aren’t you! How quaint!”

  “Quaint,” he agreed. Then, not wishing to discuss the matter further, he closed his eyes, and in a moment he slept.

  She woke him in deep darkness. “Esk! Esk!” she whispered urgently.

  It took him a moment to get oriented. “Oh, yes, my turn to guard.”

  “No, I think a dragon’s coming.”

  Suddenly he was completely alert. “Where?”

  “From ahead. I smell the smoke. After my prior experience, I am more sensitive to that signal.”

  Now Esk smelled it too. “That’s dragon, all right! I wish I could see it so I could know when to tell it no.”

  “Use your staff,” she suggested. “I’ll use mine, too.”

  “But I can’t hit the dragon if I can’t see it!”

  “I mean as a sensing device. Hold it out in front of you, and when—”

  “Right.” He hefted his staff and pointed it toward the smell of smoke.

  Now they listened, as the dragon huffed closer. Was his staff pointed correctly? Suppose the dragon slid under it or climbed over it? The monster seemed very close! The odor of the smoke was strong. If he waited too long, and got chomped before he—

  “No!” he cried.

  The huffing paused. “It’s still some distance away,” Chex murmured reprovingly. “Does your protest work at a distance?”

  “No,” Esk said, chagrined.

  The dragon seemed to have paused because of the sound of his voice. Now it had a good notion where he was. It growled and charged.

  “No!” Esk cried again. “NoNoNoNoNoNo!”

  The dragon made a disgusted noise and retreated. They heard the scrabble of its claws on the path. “One of those nos must have scored,” Chex said.

  “Um,” he agreed, embarrassed. He knew he had panicked, and come reasonably close to making a fool of himself. Again.

  “I’m glad you are here,” she said. “I could not have diverted it in the dark, and perhaps not in the daytime either. I would have had to run—and that has its own hazards, in the dark.”

  “My turn to keep watc
h,” he said, preferring to change the subject.

  “As you wish.” He heard a gentle thunk as she lowered her body to the path. He wondered how the forepart of a centaur slept; did it lie flat on the ground or remain vertical? But he didn’t care to inquire.

  It turned out that she had kept watch for most of the night. Before very long the sky to the east lightened, and dawn was on the way.

  As the morning arrived, he saw that neither surmise was quite right. Chex’s humanoid torso was neither upright nor flat as she slept, but half-leaning back on her equine torso, above her folded wings. Her arms were clasped below her breasts—her pectoral muscles, he corrected himself. Her brown hair merged prettily enough with her mane. She was right, he thought; the hue of her hair matched his exactly, as if they were brother and sister. Could there be siblings of different species? Perhaps not directly, but if they had been born at the same time, when the order for deliveries was for brown hair and gray eyes … well, with magic, anything was possible. At any rate, she was a very pretty figure in this repose.

  A beam of sunlight speared down through a gap in the foliage and touched her face. Chex woke, blinking. “Oh, it’s morning!” she exclaimed, lifting first her upper section, then her remaining body. “Let me urinate, and we can get moving.” She stood at the side of the path, spread her rear legs and did it, while Esk stood startled. He knew that such things were unimportant to centaurs, and that he should simply accept her ways without reaction, but he knew he was about to flush embarrassingly.

  Then he had a bright notion. “Me too,” he said, and quickly made his way to a concealing bush and did his own business. She would think it was because of his quaint human modesty, and that was true, but it was mainly to give himself a chance to clear his flush before rejoining her.

  “You really ought to do something about that foible,” she remarked innocently as she plucked a pie from an overhanging tree. Her greater height, in the front section, caused her breas—her pectoral muscles to lift to his eye level as she reached up.

  Esk did not respond, because he wasn’t sure to which foible she referred. But he suspected she was right, and he resolved to try to learn how to perform natural functions in her sight without blushing. After all, each culture had its own ways, and he wasn’t among human beings now. Certainly he never wanted to be caught staring at what he wasn’t supposed to notice anyway.