Vale of the Vole Page 8

  “I suppose that makes sense,” Esk said. Centaurs were known to have an impervious sense of ethics, which had both advantages and disadvantages for others who dealt with them.

  They moved well, encountering no more dragons; it seemed that the little smokers had finally gotten wherever they were going and left the path. As night approached, they judged that they were near Castle Roogna.

  They set up an overnight watch system as before, not quite trusting the safety of the path. Nothing happened, and in the morning they feasted on fruits and tubers and resumed walking.

  There was the sound of hooves ahead. “That’s a centaur!” Chex exclaimed. “Oh, I’m nervous!”

  Esk could understand her feeling. He was nervous too, but for a different reason; he had never been to Castle Roogna, and wasn’t certain how the King would feel about a human-ogre crossbreed. Of course he was only bringing a message, at this point, about the absence of the Good Magician; still, he worried. Volney Vole did not look any more comfortable.

  They drew to the sides of the path, so as to let the centaur pass if it had a mind to. But now Volney was sniffing the low-lying air nervously. “Ventaur—and dragon,” he announced.

  Chex immediately unslung her bow and nocked an arrow, and Esk moved to stand before the vole, so that he could say no if the dragon attacked.

  “And human,” Volney added.

  A party of three—centaur, dragon, and human? How strange! Then he realized that their own party of centaur, vole, and human (approximately) was equivalently strange.

  The centaur came into sight. It was a stout male, with a little girl on his back. A truly formidable dragon whomped along behind. Esk’s nervousness increased; this could be a great deal of trouble!

  “Uncle Chet!” Chex exclaimed, delighted.

  The centaur slowed, startled. “Graywing!” he exclaimed.

  “He calls me that,” she murmured, flushing slightly with pleasure. “He doesn’t mind my—”

  “Who?” the little girl asked, as Chet stopped before them, and the dragon whomped to a halt behind, puffing steam.

  “I’ll introduce ours, and you introduce yours,” Chet said briskly. “I am Chet Centaur, foaled of Chester and Cherie Centaur; this is Ivy Human, daughter of King Dor and Queen Irene; and beyond is Stanley Steamer, formerly known as the Gap Dragon.”

  Esk almost swallowed his tongue. The daughter of the King, and the Gap Dragon?

  But Chex was doing her side of the introduction. “I am Chex Centaur, filly of Chem Centaur and Xap Hippogryph; this is Esk Human, son of Smash Ogre and Tandy Nymph; and this is Volney Vole from the Kiss-Mee River Valley, otherwise known as the Vale of the Vole.”

  “The Kiss-Mee River!” Ivy exclaimed excitedly. “I’d love to visit that!” She seemed to be ten or eleven years old, pretty in an elfin way, with very light green hair and eyes to match. “Is it really true that anyone who touches its waters gets so affectionate she just has to kiss the first person she meets?”

  “Not anymore,” Volney said grimly. “It hav been ruined by the demonv. Now it iv called the Kill-Mee River, and anyone who touchev it feelv like killing hiv neighbor.”

  “Say, Volney, do you have trouble with your—” Ivy started.

  “We three met on the way to the Good Magician’s castle,” Chex explained quickly. “We all have Questions, but the Magician wasn’t there, so—”

  “Why, we were just on our way to see Magician Humfrey ourselves,” Chet said. “He hasn’t been answering his mirror, so we decided to go and see if there was any problem.”

  “Perhaps we should find a place to settle more comfortably, so we can compare notes,” Chex said. “We seem to have much to discuss.”

  “Evidently so, cute niece,” Chet said. He eyed her up and down. “You have filled out nicely since I saw you last.”

  “I’ve been exercising to develop my pectoral muscles, but it hasn’t enabled me to fly.”

  “I can fix that!” Ivy exclaimed. “Let me ride you instead of Chet, and—”

  “Wait, Ivy,” the male centaur said. “First let’s get to a better place, as she suggested. Then we can discuss everything, and try everything, without blocking traffic.”

  Traffic! Esk almost laughed. There was no other traffic on this path.

  “Tangleman’s close by,” Ivy said. “He has a nice glade.”

  “Who?” Chex asked.

  “Tangleman. He’s a tangle tree.”

  “A tangle tree!”

  “But don’t worry,” the child continued brightly. “He’s reformed since Grandpa Trent turned him into a jolly green giant.”

  They made their way to Tangleman’s grove. They had to cut through the jungle, but the dragon whomped ahead; any potential predators vacated the region in a hurry. The two centaurs walked side by side, and Esk and Volney brought up the rear.

  Tangleman’s glade was indeed nice, maintained as only the tangle trees knew how. Tangleman himself was a huge green man with writhing tentacles for hair and barklike clothing. He looked formidable indeed, but grinned broadly when he saw Ivy and her party. Obviously they had maintained cordial relations for years.

  There was another round of introductions. Then Stanley and Tangleman settled down to a game of Dumpings and Dragons, which looked more like a battle than a friendly contest, but since Ivy wasn’t concerned, the others weren’t.

  They compared notes and details. “So nobody remains in the Good Magician’s castle,” Chet said, perplexed. “We wondered, when we couldn’t get through. But sometimes those mirrors get perverse, so we decided to check. Ivy likes to visit Hugo and the Gorgon anyway, and Stanley has a thing with the moat monster, so—”

  “The moat monster’s gone too,” Chex said. “All the creatures have been released.”

  “That is very strange,” Chet said. “The Good Magician can be taciturn, but he takes good care of his environs, and he almost never lets a creature go before its term of service is done. It’s as though they have moved out permanently.”

  “Yes—but on very short notice,” she said. “Things were interrupted in progress.”

  “We shall have to tell King Dor of this,” Chet said.

  “But it will have to wait a few days, because he and Queen Irene are away on business, up at the Water Wing. We were going to take a few days for the trip, but there doesn’t seem to be much point, now.”

  “Don’t you want to verify what we have told you?” Esk asked.

  “Verify a centaur’s report? Whatever for?”

  Chex smiled. “He has not had much contact with centaurs, Uncle.”

  “Oh.” Chet turned to Esk. “A centaur’s accuracy of observation is perfect, and a centaur’s word is inviolate. It would be a waste of time to recheck my niece’s findings; they represent the same information I would obtain.”

  “Oh. Then I guess we can go on to Castle Roogna,” Esk said said, out of sorts. He had known about centaur accuracy, but as usual hadn’t been thinking clearly. Sometimes he regretted his ogreish descent.

  “That, too, is pointless, until the King returns,” he said.

  “You mean we should just wait here?” Esk asked.

  “Of course not,” Chet said. “That would be wasting time.”

  “Then—?”

  Chex laughed. “We shall simply have to find something else to do for a few days,” she said.

  “Let’s figure out where Magician Humfrey is,” Ivy said brightly. “Then we can tell my father where to find him.”

  “You have a map that locates lost magicians?” Chet inquired wryly.

  “Well, no, not exactly. But I know who does: Chem. She has maps for everything!”

  “My dam!” Chex exclaimed. “I haven’t seen her in a year!”

  “And my sibling,” Chet said. “It has been longer than that, for me. She doesn’t come around Castle Roogna often, now.”

  “Because of me,” Chex said, casting down her gaze.

  “Because our dam is just a bit conservativ
e,” Chet said. “I believe it is time to face that issue directly.”

  “That was my conclusion,” Chex said.

  “Of course. That gives us two reasons to go to see Chem.”

  “But we need three.”

  “Three?” Ivy asked.

  “Centaurs need three reasons for doing things,” Esk told her. He felt a mild and foolish gratification at this chance to show that he did know a bit about the breed.

  The child considered. “That’s right; I’d forgotten. We were going to Magician Humfrey’s castle because he didn’t answer his mirror, and I wanted to share another punwheel cookie with the Gorgon, and Stanley wanted to wrestle the moat monster. Three reasons. Now we know Humfrey’s gone, so we don’t have three reasons anymore.”

  “Where iv the mapmaking centaur?” Volney asked.

  “Oh, she’s doing a detail map of the Gap Chasm,” Chet said. “It is very convoluted.”

  “Stanley needs to see the Gap Chasm!” Ivy exclaimed. “He’s going to take it over again any year now, so he needs to keep updated.”

  Chet nodded. “That is true.”

  “And that’s three!” she cried jubilantly. “’Cause Chem’s at the Gap Chasm!”

  “She does have a point, Uncle,” Chex said, smiling. “We need a map, and to fetch my dam, and to take the dragon to the Gap Chasm.”

  “So it seems,” he agreed.

  “And we can learn all ’bout each other on the way!” Ivy said. “Oh, this is fun!”

  “Never become temporary guardian for a little Sorceress,” Chet said with resignation.

  “And now let me see if I can make Chex fly,” Ivy continued with unabated enthusiasm. She ran to Chex. “Lift me up!”

  Chex, bemused, assisted the little girl in mounting. “Now flap your wings,” Ivy directed. “Real hard.”

  “Really hard,” Chet and Chex said together.

  “Oh, pooh, you centaurs are all alike! Just do it!”

  Chex spread her wings and flapped them. There was indeed muscle on her chest; Esk tried not to stare at the way her breasts rippled as she made the effort.

  “That’s it!” Ivy cried. “Harder!”

  Chex flapped harder—and an expression of surprise crossed her face. “I have more lifting power!” she said.

  “Sure you do, ’cause that’s my talent. Enhancement. Now take off.”

  It almost seemed that it was going to happen. Chex’s front legs lifted from the ground. But no matter how hard she flapped, she could not get the rest of her body up; she remained standing on her hind legs.

  “That’s enough!” she gasped, dropping back down. “I’m winded!”

  “Awww,” Ivy said, disappointed. “Maybe you need to exercise some more.”

  “Perhaps I do,” Chex agreed, flushed with her effort. “But for the first time, I came close! It was a wonderful feeling.”

  “It does seem odd that you should have functioning wings that don’t quite do the job,” Chet said. “Perhaps they require magic enhancement.”

  “I thought the Good Magician would know,” Chex said.

  “Sure he does!” Ivy said.

  “Surely,” Chet and Chex said together.

  Ivy didn’t even bother to say pooh. She jumped down and skipped off to the gaming monsters. “Time to get moving, boys!” she cried, wading into the melee. “We’re going to the Gap!”

  That got Stanley’s attention immediately. The engagement broke up and the two lined up for the trip.

  The party proceeded north, again cutting its own trail. Once a sleeping flying dragon woke, belching fire. Tangleman leaned over it and opened his mouth. The dragon gazed at the huge wooden teeth and scooted away. Another time a small tangle tree—one in the vegetative state—menaced them as they passed. Stanley reared up and puffed steam at it, and the tree quickly wilted back.

  “I could get to like this sort of travel,” Esk mumured.

  “Yeah, it’s real fun with them,” Ivy said.

  “Yes, it’s really,” both centaurs called.

  Ivy stuck out her tongue. Esk buried a smile. He liked the little girl, even if she was a princess.

  By nightfall they were near the Gap. They camped by a spring and posted no guards; they needed none in the present company. Esk noted with private satisfaction that Ivy was just as secretive as he was about natural functions; the centaur way was not the only way. In fact, Ivy was a fine antidote to the centaur attitudes.

  In the morning they reached the Gap. It was a monstrous crevice whose faces descended clifflike to a narrow base far, far below. Esk felt dizzy just peering into it.

  “We shall have to travel along it until we find a way down,” Chet said. “That may require some time. There are bridges across it, but my sibling should be down inside it.”

  Volney sniffed the ground. “No need to vearch,” he said. “The old vole holev remain; a large one will take uv down.”

  “Voles are very good with tunnels,” Esk explained to the others as Volney moved along.

  “But he’s going away from the chasm,” Ivy protested.

  Then Volney found what he was sniffing for: the cavelike entrance to a large tunnel. “You may wivh light,” he said as he plunged on in.

  “I saw some lightning rods close by,” Ivy said. She dashed off to pick them. They glowed more brightly as she held them, enhanced by her magic. Soon everyone who wanted one had a glowing rod, even Tangleman. They trooped down after the vole.

  The tunnel was long and dank, and branched many times, but they followed Volney with confidence, and eventually came out at the base of the Gap. The vole hole had saved them a good deal of trouble.

  “Now to find Chem,” Chet said. “Stay with us, Stanley; we don’t want Stella to find us and take us for prey.”

  “Stacey,” Ivy said smugly.

  “What?”

  “Her name is Stacey Steamer,” Ivy said.

  “But she’s listed as Stella.”

  “But I named her, same as I named Stanley. I can’t help it if the ass who made the Lexicon got it wrong.”

  “The ass didn’t get it wrong; he listed both,” Chex said. “There’s an ambiguity, that’s all.”

  “But when I’m here, my name is right,” Ivy said.

  Chet shrugged, unable to refute that. Again the little princess had gotten the best of the centaur. Esk enjoyed that, privately.

  Again Volney’s nose simplified things. “They went that way movt revently,” he announced, pointing west.

  They traveled west, and in due course came upon Stacey and Chem. They were exploring an offshoot of the chasm, one with jagged walls angling upward. Chem was projecting an image of it and comparing the details to the real one, so as to match them perfectly. She was a lovely brown-maned, brown-eyed creature with a family resemblance to Chex.

  Chex embraced her dam. “My, how you’ve grown, dear!” Chem exclaimed.

  “I exercised.”

  “But whatever brings you here? I thought you were trying to learn how to fly.”

  “That’s why I finally went to the Good Magician.” She proceeded to that story, and to their need for a suitable map.

  “But I cannot show the Magician on a map!” Chem protested. “I don’t know where he is!”

  “We thought you might be able to show a detailed map of where he might be,” Chex explained.

  “I suppose I could do that. Certainly I can detail any of the geography of that region for anyone who wishes to search for him.”

  So Chem reluctantly agreed to accompany them back to Castle Roogna. Her sibling and her filly understood her reticence; she had no more desire to brace her sire and dam on the matter of mixed-breed offspring than did Chex. But they all agreed that the time had come to do it.

  Stanley decided to stay in the Gap awhile and visit with Stacey. Ivy pouted but yielded to necessity; she could not keep the Gap Dragon out of the Gap forever. They were now near one of the enchanted crossings, so would need no protection once they got to the u
pper level.

  There was no vole hole in this particular section, but Chem had mapped it and knew a good way out. It was along a side crevice on the north slope. They trooped up the jagged V of it, following only the branches Chem indicated, and made their way through the puzzlelike labyrinth to the surface. Then they took the invisible bridge across, which was a novel experience for Esk. He peered down beyond his seemingly unsupported feet, and felt dizzy. After that he followed Volney’s example and closed his eyes.

  Tangleman departed for his glade, leaving just the three centaurs, two human beings, and one vole. They camped for the night, and when it rained they moved under a large umbrella tree. Volney didn’t need it, of course; he simply dug one of his cozy burrows. Ivy insisted on spending the night there, to Esk’s annoyance, until Chem projected a map of this region that showed where a good pillow bush grew. Then Esk gathered a fine pile of pillows and settled down in comfort.

  They did not hurry in the morning. Centaurs were creatures of integrity, but somehow none of these three found reason to rush on to the castle. Actually, there was no reason; King Dor and Queen Irene were not due to return for another day. Chester and Cherie were supervising the grounds during the royal absence, as it happened, and keeping an eye on Ivy’s little brother, Prince Dolph. That, Chet remarked, was challenge enough, for little Dolph could change form instantly to anything, and tended to become a mouse and sneak out when he was supposed to be studying boring Xanth history.

  But, being the centaurs they were, they did not dawdle unduly either. Thus at midday they arrived at Castle Roogna.

  Esk was impressed. He had seen the Good Magician’s castle, so knew the general nature of such structures, but this was on a grander scale. Its walls towered above the moat, and the moat had not one but several monstrous monsters. The grounds were girt about with an orchard containing every kind of exotic tree, and beyond were more agressive trees that were able to move their branches to block unwanted trespassers. To one side was the zombie graveyard, whose occupants would rise up in all their sodden horror when required in defense of the estate. There were even, Chet assured him, several ghosts in the castle, though these were relatively harmless, merely waiting for their stories to be told.