It wasn’t always easy, being the son of an ogre and a nymph. Sometimes the ogre started smashing things just for the joy of it, or squeezing the juice from stones one-handed, making an awful mess. Sometimes the nymph was rather empty-minded, or threw a tantrum. That was why Esk had made this cosy hideout that no one else knew about. Whenever things became too difficult at home, he came here to relax and unwind. He loved his parents, but there was virtue in solitude too.
He paused to look about and listen carefully. He didn’t want any creature of Xanth, tame or wild, seeing him enter, because then the location would be no secret, and sooner or later his folks would learn of it, and his privacy would be lost.
His hideout was in the hollow trunk of a dead beerbarrel tree. He had been lucky: he had been in the vicinity in the month of AwGhost, when barrel trees gave up the ghost if they were going to, and had seen the spirit departing. “Aw, Ghost!” he had exclaimed in the classic ogre manner, and that had enchanted the tree so that he could take over the busk without creating a local commotion. He had cut a door in the fat trunk that sealed tightly so that it didn’t show from outside, and made vents so that the steamy beer smell could dissipate; his mother, Tandy, would never understand if he came home reeking of beer! Then he had set straw in the bottom, and brought in pillows from a nearby pillow bush, and carved decorative scenes in the walls, and made it perfect. He was rather proud of himself; his only regret was that he could not afford to boast of his accomplishment, because of the necessity for secrecy.
All seemed clear. He hooked his nails into the crevice and pulled the door open. It was a small door, with an irregular outline, so that its contour was not obvious. He ducked down to step through, then drew it carefully closed behind. He stepped across the floor and dropped onto his nest of pillows.
“Ouch!”
Esk jumped. “Who said that?” he demanded.
“Get your fat mule off me!” The voice came from below.
Esk finally got a glimmer of the word that was being sought. He got quickly off the pillows. “Where are you?”
The pillow shifted outline. A mouth formed in its center. “Here, you oaf! What did you think you were doing, putting gross anatomy like that in my face?”
“Well, I—”
“Never mind. Just don’t do it again, moron.”
“But pillows are supposed to be—”
“Oh? Did you ever ask the pillows’ opinion about that?”
“Well, actually, no, but—”
“So there, imbecile! Now get out and let me sleep.”
Esk got out. Then, as he wended his way home, he pondered. How had he been able to talk to a pillow? He knew of only one person who could talk to an object, and that was the King of Xanth, Dor. Since it was generally understood that talents did not repeat, except in the case of the curse fiends, that meant that it wouldn’t be Esk’s talent. Beside that, he already had a talent: that of protesting. Sometimes his mother said he protested too much, but she did not deny it was magic. Since no one had two magic talents, that, too, eliminated the possibility of talking to inanimate things.
Finally he worked it out. He was not the smartest person, being quarter ogre, but he never let go of a problem, being half human, and usually was able to come to some kind of settlement, however crude. It wasn’t his magic, but the pillow’s magic. He must have picked a special pillow, without realizing: one that was alive. All he needed to do was take it back out to the pillow bush and exchange it for another, and his problem would be solved.
Reassured, he continued on toward home, having forgotten whatever problem had brought him to his hideout. As he neared it he smelled the delicious odor of purple bouillon. That meant that his father, Smash, had gone into his full ogre guise and foraged for the makings. Smash was actually only half ogre, for Esk’s grandparents on that side had been Crunch Ogre and an actress from the curse fiends. But when Smash got ogreish, no one could tell him from a full ogre; he swelled up horren-dously and burst out of his trousers. Tandy, however, being of nymphly
stock, preferred Smash as a man, so usually that was what he seemed to be.
Esk could not voluntarily turn ogre, but when he got mad enough or desperate enough he did develop some ogre strength. It never lasted long, but of course it didn’t need to; one strike by an ogreishly-powered fist could pulverize the trunk of a rock maple tree. Similarly, he was normally inept at acting, but when he really had to he could become temporarily proficient. That was his heritage from his curse fiend grandmother. Most of the time it was his human heritage that dominated, since he was part human through both of his parents. He was a pretty ordinary person, with gray eyes and nondescript brown hair. He often wished he were otherwise, but really had no choice; he was obviously not destined for any sort of greatness.
But there was no use worrying about that; there was purple bouillon to be eaten!
Two days later, being bored, Esk returned to his hideout. He entered and checked the pillows. They all looked normal. “Which one of you is the live one?” he inquired, but had no answer.
He shrugged. He picked up the whole mass of them and took them out to the pillow bush, unceremoniously dumping them beside it. Then he picked several new ones. He had to do this periodically anyway, so they didn’t get dirty and stale. He carried these to his tree and plopped them down inside.
He hesitated, then eased himself down on them. Contrary to what the living pillow had said, his posterior was not fat; in retrospect he wished he had corrected the pillow about that matter. But he always thought up the smart responses way too late. That, again, was part of his heritage: neither ogres nor nymphs were known for their quickness of wit.
He was hungry, so he brought out a pie he had picked some time ago. It was a humble pie, and they were always best when properly seasoned. This one was decked with sodden raisins, and had a crust that was rock-like, while its main body seemed to be decomposing. It was definitely ready for consumption.
He brought it to his mouth and took an ogreish bite. His teeth came down, dug in—and the pie erupted in his face. Raisins popped out and flew at his eyes, and the crust writhed against his lips. “Get your ugly cat out of here!” the pie exclaimed.
“My ugly what?” Esk asked, startled.
“Your ugly kitten, feline, grimalkin, tabby—”
“Oh, you mean my ugly puss?” he inquired, catching on.
“Your ugly whatever,” the pie agreed, forming a wide mouth. “Just what did you think you were doing, ogreface?”
“Ogreface?” Esk repeated, appreciating the compliment. Then he realized that the pie probably hadn’t meant it that way. “I was trying to—”
“Oh you were, were you! Well, don’t do it aga’n!”
“But—”
“You never asked the pie whether it wanted to be chewed on, did you?”
“But it’s humble pie! It’s meant to be eaten!”
“A likely story. Now get your dim-witted face out of here so I can rest.”
“Listen, pieface, this is my hideout!” Esk said, developing a smidgeon of heat. “I just tossed out an obnoxious pillow, and I’ll do the same with you! You sure aren’t very humble!”
“You just try to toss this cookie, and you’ll be sorry, bean-brainl”
That did it. Esk carried the pie to the door, pushed the door open, and skated the disk out into the forest. Then he plumped down on his bed of pillows for a snooze.
It was a moderately cool day, and while true ogres loved cold weather, Esk didn’t. He cast about until he found the tattered old blanket he had salvaged for this purpose, and drew it over him.
The blanket writhed and wrapped itself around his feet. Then it squeezed his legs, and inched up his torso, constricting as it did.
“Hey!” Esk exclaimed.
“Hay yourself, moo-brain!” the blanket said, forming a mouth on its surface. But it did not pause in its squeezing; Esk’s legs were getting uncomfortable.
Abruptly concerned, he thrust his legs apart, the ogre strength coming to him. The blanket tore—but then it fogged and rose up as a flying thing, hovering before him. “Listen, dung-head,” its mouth said, “now I’m really going to make you sorry!”
But Esk’s ogre dander was up. He grabbed the blanket with both hands. “We’ll see about that, threadface!” Then he tore it asunder.
The pieces fogged again. The whole thing became vapor. This time it re-formed into the shape of a demoness. “You’re stronger than you look, bug-wit. But how long do you think you can oppose me?”
“What wit?” Esk asked, confused again.
“Flea-wit, ant-wit, chigger-wit—”
“Oh, nitwit!”
“Whatever. Why don’t you answer the question?”
Now at last Esk caught on. “The pillow—the pie—they were all you! You assumed their forms!”
“Of course I did, genius,” she agreed. “I was trying to get rid of you gently. But now it’s no more Miss Nice Gal. I’m going to twist you into a pretzel and feed you to a dragon.” In her natural form she had arms and hands, which were now reaching for him.
“Dragons don’t eat pretzels,” he said, realizing he was in trouble. Demons (or demonesses) were notorious; they had inhuman strength and no conscience, and they could pass right through solid walls. If he had realized what he was dealing with, he would have left her alone. Now it was too late.
“I’ll jam you down its mouth anyway,” she said grimly. “Maybe it will forgive me in a century or two.” The hands closed on his neck and squeezed.
But this stimulated his ogre strength to full potency. Contrary to popular lore, ogres didn’t really like getting twisted into pretzels, whatever they- might do to others. Esk grabbed her wrists and wrenched them apart. “Who are you?” he demanded.
“I am the Demoness Metria,” she replied, fogging again. Her arms and hands reappeared at his throat, leaving his own hands empty. “DeMetria for short. Who are you?”
Esk grabbed her wrists again, and wrenched them outward again. “I am Eskil Ogre, and I’m not going to let you choke me.”
“That’s what you think, mortal,” she said. Her substance fogged yet again and re-formed, and this time her arms were linked by a length of thin rope. She hooked this over his head and looped it around his neck. “You can’t get this off before you’re done for.”
“No!” Esk gasped.
Now she seemed startled. “No?” Her grip relaxed.
Esk balled a fist and smashed her in the face. The blow was solid, but her head simply folded back on the neck, as if hinged, then snapped back into place as he withdrew his arm. She looked slightly aggravated.
“No,” he repeated. “I protest it.”
She reconsidered. “Well, maybe not. I suppose it would be pointless to kill you; your body would only stink up the region, and I don’t care to haul it far enough so the smell wouldn’t carry.” The cord dissolved into vapor and coalesced about her arms; it was evidently part of her substance.
“Well, I’m going to throw you out of here!” Esk said, his ogre aspect still in force.
“I’d like to see you try it, mundaneface.”
Mundanefacel Her insults were getting more effective. That kept his ogre aspect in force. “I’ll try it!”
He tried it. He grabbed her about the middle and hauled her off her feet. Then he paused. Her body was humanoid and naked and voluptuous, and was now tightly pressed against him. He had been distracted by her words and actions, but now was noticing her shape. This was a new experience.
“Well, now,” she said, smiling. “I didn’t realize that you wanted to be friendly. Just let me get your clothes off—”
He dropped her. “Just get out!” he exclaimed, disgruntled.
“Forget it, junior. I found this place and it’s mine.”
“I made it and it’s mine!” he retorted.
She arched an eyebrow. “You made a beerbarrel tree?”
“Well, not that, but I adapted it after it gave up its spirit. That’s close enough.”
“Well, I like it, but I don’t like you, so I’m going to get rid of you.”
“No.”
She paused, studying him. “Ah, that’s your magic, isn’t it! When you say ‘no,’ you stop a creature from doing what she intends. That’s why I’m changing my mind, against my better judgment.”
“Yes.” His talent was not exactly magician class, but it served him in good stead when he needed it.
“So I’d better not make any more threats because you’ll just say no to them,” she continued. “But I’ll bet it isn’t all inclusive. You can’t say ‘no* to the whole category of what I might try to do to get you out, but you can say it to each individual thing as I try it.”
“Yes.” She was catching on with dismaying rapidity. Obviously there was no ogre blood in her lineage.
“So I’ll just have to find a way to make you want to leave,” she concluded. “I can’t hurt you directly, but you can’t hurt me either, so we’re even, for now.”
“Why are you here?” he asked plaintively.
“Because it’s getting too annoying back where I come from,” she said. ‘The hummers, you know.”
“The what?”
“Never mind. Mortals can’t hear them, generally. But they drive demons crazy. They’ve gotten really bad recently, there in the Vale of the Vole, despite all we’ve done to eradicate them. So I’ve had enough; I’ve moved to where I can be comfortable, after my fashion.”
“But you’re trying to take the place where / can be comfortable, after my fashion,” he protested.
“So sue me.”
“What?”
“It’s a mundane term. It means ‘What are you going to do about it, stink-nose?'”
“I don’t understand. Is Sue a girl?”
She laughed, her whole torso jiggling. “I suppose we’re stuck here together, junior. Might as well make the best of it. Maybe we’ll even get to like each other, though that may be stretching a point. Come, let me initiate you into the ways of demon sex.” She advanced on him.
“No!” he exclaimed.
She stopped. “There’s that magic of yours again! I really wasn’t going to hurt you, you know, this time. I can be very affectionate, when I pretend to be. Let me demonstrate.”
“No.” He was afraid of her now, as he had not been before, and ashamed for his fear. It wasn’t because he thought she would use a pretext to get close to him and then try to choke him again; it was because he was afraid she would do exactly what she threatened, and that he would like it. He didn’t trust a demon-stration.
She eyed him speculatively. “How old are you, Esk?”
“Sixteen.”
“And I’m a hundred and sixteen, but who’s counting? You’re old enough, in mortal terms, and I’m young enough, in immortal terms. Why don’t you let me buy this den from you, and pay for it with experience? I can show you exactly what it’s all about, so that you will never have to embarrass yourself by being clumsy with a mortal girl.”
Esk barged by her, dived out the door, and headed for home. Only when he was well away from the hideout did he ask himself why. Was he afraid that she would somehow lead him into some much worse embarrassment than he could guess? Or that he thought that what she offered was simply wrong? But was it wrong? He wasn’t sure.
He thought about asking his parents about the matter. But then he’d have to tell them about his hideout, which he didn’t want to do. Also, he suspected that they just wouldn’t understand. His mother had never said much about it, but he understood that a male demon had once approached her, and that she had been horrified. He could guess how she would react to news of a demoness’s approach to her son. She might even throw one of her tantrums at him, and that would hurt. His father loved those tantrums, because they reminded him of ogre slaps, but an ogre slap could knock a grown tree askew or put a network of cracks in a rock.
So he kept silent. Maybe Metria would tire of his hideout and go away. Demons were known to be inconstant, after all.
Several days later he ventured again to the hideout. He entered cautiously. There was no sign of the demoness. But he knew that she could be concealed as anything; only time would tell whether she really was gone.
He sat on the pillows, and there was no outcry. He shook out his blanket, with no protest. He found a piece of redberry pie and ate it without event. He began to hope.
It was surprising how quickly boredom set in. One thing about his experience with Metria: it had been interesting, in more than one way. Now that it was too late, he wondered whether he had been mistaken in turning down her oifer. She might have provided him with some phenomenal experience!
He dug out his game of pebbles. His collection of stones had served well in past times to while away dull hours. They were of several different colors, and he had fashioned a game by drawing them out of the bag one at a time and setting them down on the floor in patterns. Each stone had to be set next to one of its own color to form a line or curve. The object was for one color to circle another. He might draw several red stones in succession, not looking at each until it was clear of the bag, and Red would make progress against White; then White would produce several and reverse the advantage. Blue and Green and Gray were also in there fighting. Sometimes the colors made alliances, ganging up against each other. The game could get quite exciting, as he animated the personalities of the colors in his mind. The patterns could become quite convoluted.
He brought out the first stone. It was glistening black. He set it down, starting the game.
“Hey, freak, what do you think you’re doing?” the stone asked.
He snatched it up and thrust it back into the bag and twisted the opening tight, trying to seal it in. But smoke issued through the material and swirled before him, and soon Metria was there. “I thought you’d given up and left it to me,” she remarked.
“I thought you’d given up,” he retorted.
“Demons never give up unless they want to. Come on, I really want this place. Can’t we deal?”
“No.” But then his foolish curiosity overcame him. “Why are you so insistent on this place, instead of just becoming a bird and perching on a branch or something?”
“This place is secluded and comfortable, and other creatures don’t
know about it. We demons need to spend most of our time in solid state, and it’s easiest to do it while sleeping, so a good private place is valuable.”
“I thought demons didn’t need to sleep.”
“We don’t need to sleep, mortal. But we can sleep if we choose, and often we do. This is a perfect sleeping place, so I mean to have it.”
“Well, I don’t mean to let you have it.”
Her lips formed a pout. “I’m trying to be nice about it, Esk. It’s an effort. Suppose I give you two great experiences?”
“Two?”
“Sex and death.”
“You already tried to kill me!”
“I mean the other way around. You can kill me, after you enjoy me.”
“Demons can’t be killed.” But he found himself guiltily intrigued.
“We can’t die, but we can do extremely realistic emulations of dying. You can choke me, and I’ll gag and turn purple and my eyeballs will bulge way out and I’ll struggle with diminishing force until finally I sag down and stop breathing and my body turns cold. It will be just like throttling a living woman.”
“Ugh,” Esk said, revolted.
“Well, what do you want, then? Three great experiences? Name your stupid price.”
He was tempted to ask about the third experience, but decided that he probably would not like it any better than the second. “No.”
“I’ll even throw in the first one free,” she said. “Just so you can fully appreciate what I offer. I can assume any form you wish, just to make it interesting. Is there any particular mortal girl you’ve been wanting to—”
“No!” he cried.
“Look, there’s no obligation! I just want to demonstrate my good faith! I really want this den, without getting bothered all the time. I know an awful lot that you could hardly learn in a year, let alone in a day, and—”
“No!”
“Don’t be so stuffy.” She inhaled, making her breasts stand out splendidly, and leaned toward him.
“I said no three times,” Esk said querulously. “Why aren’t you stopping?”
“Because I’m not doing, I’m persuading,” she said. “And you want to be persuaded, don’t you, Esk?”
He was afraid that anything he said at this point would be a lie. He lurched out of the hideout, ashamed of himself. He had to get rid of the demoness, before she succeeded in corrupting him!
He stayed away a full ten days this time. But he felt out of sorts without the use of his hideout, and realized that he was actually giving it up to her without a fight. He had to go there and pester her until she left, instead of allowing her to do it to him.
He braced himself and went to the beerbarrel tree. All was quiet, outside and in, but he knew this was no certain indication of her absence. He sat on the pillows, shook out the blanket, ate a scrap of cheese, dumped all the colored stones out on the floor, and poked everything he could think of. There was no response from any of it. Could she really be gone this time? Or was she merely lying low, waiting until he relaxed, before appearing with some new offer? How many such offers could he resist, before he succumbed to the temptation. How many did he want to resist?
Already she was corrupting him, and she wasn’t even trying!
Still, if she never manifested, then the hideout was his, even if she was here. Except that if she should be watching and listening to everything he did here, how could he ever really relax? He had to be sure she was gone, and not just out doing some temporary mischief elsewhere.
He heard something, faint in the distance outside the tree. He held his breath, listening.
“Eskil! Eskil!”
That was his mother’s voice! She was searching for him, calling his name, and if he didn’t show up soon, she was apt to discover this hideout! He scrambled out and ran to her, not directly but in a roundabout way, so as not to give away the location of his secret place.
“What is it, Mother?” he called when the direction was suitable.
Tandy turned to face him. She had kept much of her nymphly figure, and was a pretty figure of a woman. There was the corruption of the demoness again: How could he presume to notice such a thing about his own mother?
“Oh, Eskil,” she said. “You must come home right away! It’s horrible!”
He was gripped by sudden alarm. “What’s horrible?”
“Your father—some other ogre smashed him, I think, and—”
His alarm became horror. “He’s hurt?”
“He may not survive the hour! We have to get some healing elixir before it’s too late!”
“I know where there’s a spring!” he cried. “I’ll go get it!” He took the little bottle she carried, and charged off through the forest, his heart pounding from more than the exertion. His father, dying!
He reached the spring and swooped with the bottle dipping out the healing elixir. Then he ran back toward the house.
He charged in. “Where is he?” he cried, panting.
Tandy turned from the table, where she was preparing leftover soup. “Where is who, dear?” she inquired mildly.
“Father! Smash Ogre! I have the elixir!”
Smash emerged from another room. He was in his human mode. “You called me, son?”
Esk looked from one to the other. “You—you’re not hurt!”
Tandy’s brow furrowed. “Whatever gave you the idea your father was hurt, Esk?”
“But you were just telling me, out in the forest—”
“I have not left the house all afternoon, dear,” she said reprovingly.
“But—” But obviously it was true. His mother never interrupted leftover soup for anything short of a dire emergency, and it seemed there had been not even a mild emergency. How could he have thought—?
Then he understood. Metria! She could emulate anything or anyone! She had pretended to be his mother, and he had been completely fooled.
“I—I guess I had a dream,” he said awkwardly. “I thought Father was hurt, so I fetched some elixir—”
“That was nice of you, dear,” Tandy said, and returned her attention to her soup.
“But save the elixir,” Smash said. “Never can tell when that stuflTll be handy.”
“Uh, sure,” Esk said, looking for a stopper for the vial. But now the vial fuzzed into vapor, and the elixir spilled to the floor. What a fool he had been!
Next day he returned to the hideout. “Metria!” he bawled. “Show yourself, you damned demoness!”
She appeared. “Why, I do believe you are having a change of mind,” she said. “You never complimented me like that before.”
“You made me think my father was dying!” he accused her.
“Of course, Esk. If one thing doesn’t work, I try another. How else am I to be left in peace here?”
“You mean you’re going to keep on doing things like that? Making me think my folks are in trouble?”
“Why of course not, Esk! Obviously that didn’t work either, because here you are again.”
He didn’t trust this. “Then what—”
“I’ll just have to do something real to your folks, so you won’t have time to bother me.”
It took only a moment for him to grasp that, despite his quarter-ogre heritage. “No!”
“That’s a category denial, Esk. You know you can’t enforce that. I’ll get your folks one way or another, in time. You can’t watch them both all the time.”
He leaped at her. She started to dematerialize, then reconsidered. Instead she met him, flinging her arms about him. “But I’m still willing to deal for the den, and even to give you the free sample, if—”
The force of his leap was carrying them on, and now they landed together on the pillows. Metria wrapped her legs about his body and her arms about his head, hauling him in to her for a kiss. “I’m really being more than reasonable, for my kind,” she whispered against his cheek. “All I want is to be left alone in my den.”
“My den!” he gasped.
“Which I am offering a generous price for,” she said. “Most men would grasp most eagerly at the chance, not to mention the flesh. Now just let me get these clothes off you—”
He wrenched himself away from her. “No!”
She sighed. “Well, no one can say I didn’t try. I really have nothing against your folks, because they don’t even know about the den. But if that’s what it takes to—”
“No! I’ll—I’ll leave you alone! You leave them alone!”
“Why how nice of you, Esk,” she said. “You are becoming reasonable. I shall be glad to leave all of you alone, as long as you do not come here.”
Esk got to his feet, turned around, and walked away from her. He knew he had lost, and it galled him, but there seemed to be no other way.
Could he trust her to leave his folks alone? The more he thought about it, as he walked, the more he distrusted it. The demoness might decide she liked the house better than the tree, and act against the family anyway. Demons had no conscience; that was their great strength and weakness.
He had to get rid of Metria. Only then could he be quite sure that his family was safe. But how? Every time he tried to make her move, she tried to seduce him, or worse, and she seemed a lot closer to victory than he. Where could he find the answer?
Then he realized where. He would go ask the Good Magician Hum-frey! Humfrey knew everything, and for one year’s service would answer
any question. It was a steep price, but would be worth it to save his family from the possible malice of the demoness.
His decision made, Esk felt better. Tomorrow he would start his trip to the Good Magician’s castle.
Chapter 2. Chex
1 andy hadn’t wanted to let him go, of course, and he had been unable to tell her that it was to protect her and Smash and their house that he was doing it. So he had told another aspect of the truth: that it was time for him to take his Ogreish Rite of Passage (obviously the word was “right,” but ogres weren’t much on spelling) and perform some mighty act of destruction to become an adult, and so he wanted to go to the Good Magician to get advice. Smash had endorsed that enthusiastically, so Tandy really couldn’t prevent it. And, in a sense, it was true; it was time for him to assert himself, and he did need advice. But the great act of destruction he contemplated was reversed; he actually wanted to prevent it by getting rid of Metria before she hurt someone. He hoped that wasn’t too great a stretch of the reality.
“But the Good Magician requires a year of service for each answer!” Tandy had protested. “I know, because I served that year, when—”
“When he put you together with me,” Smash had reminded her. That had ended that; of course she wasn’t going to claim that the Good Magician had served her ill. He had indeed solved her problem by providing her with a companion who could stand up to the demon who threatened her.
And what companion could enable Esk to stand up to Metria? he wondered. What he really needed was a spell to make her simply go away and stay away, no questions asked. He would ask for it at the outset, so that he could banish her immediately; then he would serve out his year, satisfied that there was no threat to his folks.
Now he hiked west through the brush, garbed in the gray shirt and trousers his mother had insisted he wear, which matched his gray eyes. Such things were important to mothers. He was seeking one of the magic paths that led to the Good Magician’s castle. They were enchanted to protect all travelers, so the trip should be easy enough. Here near home he was familiar with the land, so readily avoided problems, but when he
hit strange territory he wanted to be on a path. Even as minor a nuisance as the curse burrs could be bad, if one stumbled into a bed of them unaware. Major threats, such as large dragons—well, it was best just to avoid those.
He found a path, but distrusted it, because it was too convenient. Sure enough, it led directly to a tangle tree. A full ogre might tramp down it anyway, being too stupid to know the difference, and bash the tree, being too strong to care, but Esk was only a quarter ogre and had to exercise some discretion. So he shunned the path—and sure enough, he blundered into a patch of curse burrs.
“Confound you!” he exclaimed as one dug into his leg. That one hesitated, then dropped off; his curse had been pretty mild. Too bad he didn’t have any harpy blood; a harpy could curse so villainously that the foliage around her dirty body smoked. Curse burrs never bothered harpiesl
Three more burrs were pricking him. “Go jump in the lakel” he exclaimed, and one fell off, reluctantly. “Your parent is a weed!” and another loosened. “May a dragon roast you!” and the third let go.
His problem was that he had never learned to curse effectively. Tandy, being a gentle creature, had not been any suitable role model in this respect, and Smash was not all that verbal; when annoyed, he simply turned ogre and bashed whatever bothered him. Esk knew that his education had been neglected in this respect, but it was rather late to do much about it.
There were two more burrs pricking his ankles. They were difficult to reach, because when he bent over his backpack tended to shift, so he sat down. Unfortunately, there were more burrs below, and what the demoness had termed his mule landed solidly on them.
Esk stared after them. He hadn’t realized that he knew language like that! Of course, he had been stung hard in an indelicate place, so had reacted involuntarily. Still . . .
He tried to recall what he had said, but could not. Apparently this was like his ogre strength or his curse fiend acting that came only in extreme need. Too bad.
He resumed his trek, and in due course encountered a promising path. It did not lead to a tangle tree or a dragon’s lair, so seemed good. He wasn’t sure how to tell whether it was enchanted, but if no hostile creatures appeared on it, he would assume that it was.
He stopped for lunch. Tandy had made him blueberry sandwiches, his favorite, and current pie. His teeth received a pleasant little shock when
he bit into the pie and caused the current to flow. The sandwiches were delightfully cold, because the berries had been harvested when blue with cold, in the month of FeBlueberry, and retained their frigid nature. Tandy had a special touch with food, which she said she had learned while serving the Good Magician.
Well, maybe he would pick up useful skills too, while serving his term. By all accounts, the service the Magician required was not arduous, and was often beneficial to the server in unanticipated ways. The monsters that came with questions served as guardians, and Tandy had served as a housekeeper. Smash Ogre had performed a task in lieu of a year, traveling with Tandy and guarding her from danger. Esk would be willing to perform alternate service, especially in the company of some young woman resembling his mother in certain respects.
But that reminded him of Metria, who had offered him entirely too much companionship. He still wondered why he had so resolutely refused her offer. It wasn’t because he really valued his hideout; he could have fashioned another in a different region of the forest. Probably it was because he simply wasn’t ready for the type of experience she offered—at least, not with a creature who was totally cynical about it. A real girl, with real feelings and sensitivities and concerns—that would have been most interesting. But a century-old unhuman creature who did it purely as a matter of bargaining—that was frightening. She could have gotten him fairly into it, then changed into a harpy or something, and laughed her demoniac head off. He did not trust her at all.
There, maybe, was the real key: trust. Demons were absolutely untrustworthy, because they had no souls; everyone knew that. The only safe way to handle a demon was to stay away from it, because there was no telling what it might do next. Metria had first tried to kill him, then to seduce him; now she threatened his family, and that only confirmed the popular wisdom. He hoped he reached the Good Magician’s castle soon, so that he could set that matter right.
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 walk-big 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 crosscountry 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, technically. 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 talent—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 watch,” 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.
She handed him the pie and reached for another. “Thank you,” he said, fixing his gaze on the pie. But he didn’t even notice what kind it was; he just bit into it and chewed.
They resumed their walk, and after an hour came to an intersection. “There it is!” Chex exclaimed happily, seeming not at all dismayed at this proof of her prior oversight. “The path I missed!”
“But there are two,” Esk pointed out. “Which should we take—the one going north or the one going south?”
“That depends on whether the path we’re on passes north or south of the Good Magician’s castle.”
“I know the Gap Chasm is north, but I don’t know how far,” Esk said. “Maybe if the north path leads there—”
“Then the south one leads to the castle,” she finished. “So let’s try the south, and if it’s wrong, why, we’ll just go north. It can’t be far now.”
They turned south. The trees grew larger, putting the path in the gloom of perpetual shade; then they grew smaller, letting the sun shine down hotly. “I hope we encounter water soon,” Chex said. “Fm sweating.”
Esk hadn’t realized that females of any persuasion sweated, but certainly her brown coat was glistening. “Maybe if you fanned yourself with your wings—” he suggested.
“Why, I never thought of that,” she said. “I need to exercise them anyway.” She spread her wings and moved them, generating a draft whose fringe he could feel. “Yes, that’s much better, thank you.”
The way opened out further, and now they came to a small lake. The path crossed it, passing right along the surface of the water.
They exchanged a glance. “Can a path go on water?” Chex asked.
“If it’s an enchanted path,” Esk replied doubtfully.
“Well, we’ll see.” She stepped forward—and her front hooves passed through the visible path and sank into the water with splashes.
Immediately, there was a stir in the lake. A wake appeared behind something huge and dark that was speeding toward them. No part of it
quite broke the surface, and its outline was obscured by the refraction of the water, but it seemed exceedingly sure of itself.
Chex quickly stepped back. “I think we should go around the lake,” she said. “If it was enchanted to enable travelers to cross over the water, that magic has been lost.”
“Good thought,” Esk agreed.
They started around, but the reeds at the edge twisted and bent toward them, showing moist surfaces that looked somewhat toothy. Esk knocked several away with his staff, and they withdrew with faint ugly hisses—but those on the other side leaned closer.
“Esk, I think we had better move rather quickly through this section,” Chex said. “The footing beneath seems fairly firm; I believe I could carry you, if you would not consider this to be an indiscretion on my part. Then I could gallop—”
“Another good thought!” he said quickly.
He gave her his staff to hold, then she put her right hand back over her torso, and he took hold of it from her left and she helped draw him up onto her back. “Take good hold of my mane,” she advised.
He got a double handhold, up between her wings. Then she moved out, quickly advancing from walk to trot to gallop, while he hung on somewhat desperately. Water splashed up from her hooves.
About halfway around the lake, Chex turned her head around to face him. Esk was startled by the elasticity of her torso; from what would have been the human waist, she was able to twist halfway, and her neck twisted the other half, so that she was abruptly facing him, with her chest in profile. “I wonder if you could take your staff?” she inquired.
Then he saw her concern. Several rather mean looking birds were winging toward them. Their necks were crooked and their beaks curved, and they looked hungry.
“If you go slowly, I’ll try to fend them off,” he said, as he unclenched his fingers from her mane and took back his staff.
She slowed to a walk, using her own staff to knock at the leaning reeds. He balanced himself and squinted at the ugly birds. He thought he could stop them, if they came down singly.
But about five of them folded their wings partway and dived at him together. Their beaks looked very sturdy and sharp.
“No!” he cried as they converged.
It was almost too late for them to change course. Two birds plummeted into the water. Two more swooped just overhead, striving desperately to rise. The fifth did a crazy wiggle in air, using its wings to brake,
and barely managed to reverse course before colliding with Chex’s shoulder.
The wake in deeper water was coming toward them again. Esk tucked the staff under one arm and grabbed new holds on the mane. “Resume speed!” he said.
Chex resumed, flapping her wings to assist her progress. They made it around the rest of the lake without further event, rejoining the path.
Esk slid down. “I think we make a fair team,” he said. “You have the go, and I have the stop.”
“That’s a nice way to put it,” she agreed. “I was terrified!”
“Well, you’re a filly; you’re supposed to be frightened of violence.”
“And you aren’t?”
“Yes, I’m not supposed to be.” He smiled. “Just don’t ask me how it really is.”
“No questions,” she agreed.
The more he got to know her, the better he liked her. Despite their differences of culture, she tended to understand the fundamentals well enough.
They walked again. Soon they encountered a mountain. The path went through it, forming a dark tunnel around itself.
They paused. “It’s supposed to be safe,” Esk said. “But after the dragons and the lake, I’m nervous.”
“Suppose we went in—and it wasn’t safe?”
“Let’s not go in.”
“I like your thinking.”
“But how do we get around it? I see tangle trees on the slopes.”
“And dozens more of those birds roosting on the upper slopes,” she said. “You know, I am quite sure there was no such mountain or tunnel on the map my dam showed me.”
“Your damn what?” he asked, disgruntled by her language.
“My dam. My—you would call it mother.”
“I wouldn’t call my mother a damn anything!”
She laughed. “I suspect we have a barrier of communication. I mean that my mother’s map did not have this particular feature of geography on it, so this must be the wrong path.”
“Oh. Yes. Then we shouldn’t have to try to pass this damn—this mother of a mountain.”
She looked at him somewhat curiously. Evidently the barrier was still in operation. But they were agreed. They would turn back and try the north fork. He did not relish the return trip around the lake, but at least that was a known hazard.
Chapter 3. Volney
1 he lake wasn’t fun, but this time they were prepared, and they made it around without damage. They celebrated by pausing for lunch and drink. Chex had a cup she produced from her pack, with which she dipped water from the fringe of the lake and drank delicately. Then they traveled at a more leisurely pace north. In due course they reached the intersection, and this time proceeded along the north extension.
Yet another little dragon appeared. “I’m fed up with this!” Esk exclaimed. He charged forward, wielding his staff, feeling his ogre strength manifesting unbidden. He struck the dragon on the head, then rammed the staff under its body, picked it up, and heaved it into the forest. The dragon was not actually hurt, but was so surprised that it scuttled for cover elsewhere.
Chex was amazed. “That dragon weighed as much as you!” she exclaimed. “Yet you tossed it like a toy!”
“I told you, I’m quarter ogre,” he said, relaxing. “Every so often something triggers it, and I do something ogreish.”
“Evidently so,” she agreed. “I can’t say I was ever partial to ogres, but I must confess it was a pleasure watching that dragon fly!”
“It would be more of a pleasure if I could summon that power at will,” he said. “But it’s involuntary, like a sneeze, and it doesn’t last long. My father is much more of an ogre than I am, and my grandfather Crunch—”
“I’m happy with you,” she said quickly. “After all, an ogre’s intellect is inversely proportional to his strength.”
“And his strength is directly proportional to his ugliness,” he added.
“And to his taste for violence,” she agreed.
“Well, of course. A good ogre can make a medium dragon turn tail just by smiling at it.”
“A good ogre would do the same for me!”
“While a good ogress can sour milk by looking at it.”
“And turn it to petrified cheese by breathing on it,” she concluded. “Enough of ogres, let’s see if we can reach the Good Magician’s castle before nightfall.”
They resumed their trek The path wound onward, finding its way into craggy country that hinted of the great Gap Chasm to come “This isn’t promising,” Chex muttered
Esk didn’t comment, because he agreed. Since this was the fourth direction they were exploring, one way or another, and there were no more, it had to be the one
There was a sound ahead “Not yet another dragon!” Chex exclaimed impatiently “Those little monsters are positively swarming!”
“It’s not growling,” Esk pointed out
“True But it’s not walking like a man or a centaur “
They stopped, waiting for whatever it was to come into view In a moment it did so, surprising them both
It was a creature larger in mass than Esk, but smaller than Chex. It had a lemon-shaped gray body, a small snout m front, and tiny feet.
“Why, that’s a huge mole,” Esk said.
But Chex’s mouth was striving to fall open. “I thought they were extinct'” she said
“Oh, no, there are many moles underground,” Esk assured her. “I’ve seen them—”
“That’s no mole1” she said impatiently“That’s a vole!”
“A what1*”
But now the creature had spied them It lifted its head, showing tiny eyes just beneath its fur The eyes were brown. “Eh1*” it inquired
“Where are you from”” Chex asked the creature. She did not seem to be afraid, so Esk judged it to be harmless.
“Eh7 A ventaur,” it said
“That’s centaur,” Chex said pnmiy “I am Chex Centaur Who are you7”
It peered more closely at her. “I am Volney Vole Pleav allow me to paw “
“Don’t you know you’re supposed to be extinct?” she asked.
“Volev don’t vttnk,” it retorted indignantly
“It has trouble with esses,” Esk said, catching on
The snout turned toward him “And who are you, vir?”
“I am Esk “
“Hello, Evk Pleav allow me to paw “
“We aren’t trying to prevent you,” Chex said. “Just to learn about you”
“I have important buvinew with the Good Magivmn. Pleav let me paw”
“But we’re looking for the Good Magician too!” Esk exclaimed. “We thought he was up this path!”
“Not thiv path,” the creature assured him “Only the Gap Chavm.”
“But then the Good Magician is nowhere!” Chex said despairingly. “We have looked along all the other paths!”
The vole studied them. “Brown and gray,” it remarked. “Good colorv “
‘That’s right, we all match!” Chex said. “Only you’re brown in the eyes, not the fur “
“Thiv iv my vurfave vuit.”
Chex paused, translating it. “This is your surface suit?”
“That’v what I vaid, Chekv. I reverve it below.” And the vole performed a sudden convolution, becoming brown. The most surprising thing was that its eyes turned gray. Now the three of them aligned as perfectly as they were able
“Volney, I think we should have a talk,” Chex said. “I think we are all in trouble, because we can’t find the Good Magician.”
“But I muvt find the Magivian!” the vole said, sounding desperate. “It iv movt important!”
“It’s important to us too,” Chex said. “I think we’ll find him faster if we compare notes and make common cause.”
Volney considered. “Common cauve,” he agreed. Then he convoluted again, changing back to his surface outfit, eyes and all.
“You see, Esk came looking for the Good Magician from the east,” Chex said. “I came looking from the west. We both followed a path to the south, but it wasn’t there, so now we were trying the north path—”
“And I came from the north,” the vole finished. “It iv not there.”
“So we seem to have a problem,” she concluded. “We all need to see the Good Magician, but none of us can find him. Have you any notion how we should proceed?”
“What did you find to the vouth?”
“A mountain with a tunnel. That wasn’t on the map my dam showed me”
“Your damn what7” the vole asked
“Never mind1 I’m sure the map was accurate.”
“But featurev change “
“Yes Still—”
“We muvt go to the end of that path,” the vole decided. “That iv where it hav to be “
Chex sighed. “I suppose you’re right. But we really don’t find the prospect of going through that tunnel appealing. There have been signs that the enchantment on the path has been unpaired, so that it is no longer completely safe for travelers. If the tunnel were to collapse—”
“A vole hole never collapvev,” Volney said with certainty.
“That’s right—you were a burrowing species,” she said. “You must know about tunnels.”
“All about them,” the vole agreed. “If that tunnel iv not vafe, I will vimply make another.”
Chex glanced at Esk. “Do you concur?” she asked. “Shall we try the south path again?”
“I guew we’d better,” he said.
She shot him a marvelously dark look, and he realized that it really wasn’t very funny. His efforts at humor, like his efforts at original thought, tended to fall flat.
They proceeded back south, Chex leading, then the vole, then Esk. But it was now late in the day, and they realized that it would be night by the time they reached the tunnel, and that did not appeal at all. So they paused at the cross paths and ate some more fruit. Fruit was new to Volney, because he was not a climbing or reaching creature, but he liked it. Then he sniffed out some edible roots that were new to Esk and Chex, but that were similarly palatable after being washed in the fluid from some water chestnuts Chex plucked.
While they ate, they conversed. Esk and Chex told of their backgrounds and missions to the Good Magician, and Volney told of his.
The civilized voles were not, he explained, extinct. They had merely departed for a greener pasture, some centuries ago. The larger family of voles comprised burrowing creatures ranging from the tiny, vicious wiggle larvae to the huge amiable diggles, with many varieties of squiggles between. Because the civilized voles avoided publicity, most other creatures hardly knew of them, and regarded the squiggles as the dominant representatives of the type. The region of Xanth between Castle Roogna and the Gap Chasm had been getting crowded, so the voles had in due course traveled into the wilderness to the east, where they had settled by the meandering shores of the friendly Kiss-Mee River.
“Yes, I saw that on Mother’s map,” Chex said. “The Kiss-Mee River connects Lake Kiss-Mee with Lake Ogre-Chobee. It is an almost unexplored region of Xanth, and little is known about the details of its geography.”
“Which iv the way we like it,” Volney responded. “For centuriev we have burrowed there in private comfort. But now—”
“Something happened?” Esk asked, getting interested. Geography was not his favorite subject, but happenings had greater appeal.
“Divavter,” Volney agreed. “It iv that horror I have come here to ameliorate. I wav choven to make thiv divreputable journey becauve of my ekvellent command of the vtrange language of the vurfave folk.”
“Yes, you speak it very well,” Chex said quickly, forestalling the somewhat less sensitive remark Esk was about to make.
“However, I note you have vome difficulty with your ewev,” the vole said discreetly.
“Some dif—” Esk started, but was cut off by a flick of Chex’s tail that stung his mouth with uncanny accuracy. The strike was not hard, but made him feel strangely light-headed. Sometimes she understood him almost too well!
“We all must do the best we can,” Chex said gently. “Even those of us who have difficulty with our esses. Just what is this disaster you have come to ameliorate?”
“The very devtrucvion of the Vale of the Vole,” he pronounced with feeling.
“The Vale of the Vole!” Chex repeated. “What a marvelously evocative name!”
“But the foul demonv devavtated it,” Volney said sadly.
Esk lifted his head. “I smell smoke,” he said.
Sure enough, another little smoker was coming along the path from the west. It spied them and let out a hungry puff.
“Get on the south path!” Esk snapped. Chex and Volney scrambled for it, leaving the east-west path clear.
Esk stationed himself just south of the intersection and waited. As the dragon charged up, he murmured “no.”
The dragon tried to stop, but Esk said “no” again. Therefore the creature’s feet kept going, carrying it right on by the intersection. In a moment it was out of sight, still traveling east.
“Very nice,” Chex said. “First you stopped its attack, then you stopped its reversal. It had to keep on going, by which time it had lost track of what it had been after.”
She understood his effort almost better than he did!
“That iv uvful magic,” Volney agreed. “I regret I have no vuch talent.”
“Don’t voles have magic?” Esk asked.
“Nothing vignificant. We merely dig.”
“You were about to tell us what happened to the Vale of the Vole,” Chex said.
“Ah, yev, and a vad vtory it iv,” Volney said sadly. He went on to describe how the foul demons, who had previously shared the Vale almost unnoticed, decided to destroy the friendly Kiss-Mee River. Apparently its meandering contours displeased them, so they invoked monstrous magic and pulled the river straight.
“No more curves?” Chex asked, shocked. She was, of course, a creature of many esthetic curves.
“Does it matter?” Esk asked, somewhat duller about the esthetics. He was a creature of irregular lines and bumps.
“Of course it matters!” Chex exclaimed, her eyes almost flashing. “Just how friendly do you suppose a straight-line river is?”
“It iv unfriendly to the land, too,” Volney said. He explained how the water now coursed directly down the straight channel, not pausing to support the fish isolated by its loss of loops and eddies, and was leaving many water-loving plants dry. The lush vale was becoming a barren valley. The lovely moist soil that the voles had dug in was now turning to dry sand and dust, and their tunnels were eroding. Paradise was converting to wasteland. Indeed, the remnant of the waterway was now known as the Kill-Mee.
“But can’t you dig out new curves for the river to kiss?” Chex asked. “Can’t you restore it to its natural state?”
It turned out that the voles could not, because the demons maintained guard and harassed anyone who tried to tamper with their inimical design. The voles were diggers, not fighters, and were helpless before the violence of the demons. If they could not restore the river, they would have to leave—but they knew there was no other region of Xanth as good as the Vale of the Vole had been. So Volney was now coming to ask the Good Magician for the answer to their problem: how to stop the demons from interfering with the restoration of the Kiss-Mee River.
“That’s funny,” Esk said.
Chex stared at him. “I find nothing humorous about the situation,” she said severely.
“I mean, I’m looking for the Good Magician to learn how to stop another demon,” he explained. “She came to take my hideout because things weren’t so nice back where she came from. If the demons live in the Vale of the Vole, and they have fixed it up to suit themselves, why did she have to leave?”
“Maybe she came from some other area,” Chex said.
“No, she mentioned the Vale, or maybe the Kiss-Mee, I’m sure of that. I remember it clearly because she—” But he didn’t want to talk about the
kisses the demoness had offered him. Because it hadn’t been exactly kisses proffered.
“Perhapv vhe iv an unlovely demonew,” Volney said. “Vo the otherv vent her away.”
“No, she’s a lovely creature,” Esk said. “That is, I mean, she can assume any form she wants, and that includes luscious—I mean sexy— uh, that is—”
“We are getting a notion what that is,” Chex remarked dryly. “She did vamp you, didn’t she!”
“Well, she offered, but—but I—I am trying to get rid of her. Anyway, what would be ugly to a demon, who can assume any shape? I don’t think she would have left for that reason. Actually, she said it was the hummers that drove her away.”
“Hummingbirds?” Chex asked, perplexed.
“No, these are something that mortals can’t hear, but that drive demons crazy. So she left. So maybe it’s ironic, that they straightened out the river but still aren’t satisfied.”
“Hummerv,” Volney repeated musingly. “We may have heard of them. One of us overheard a demon say it was to get rid of them that they straightened the river. But we don’t know what they are.”
“Well, it seems to me that if you could just find out what they are,” Chex said, “you might use them to make all the demons move out. Then you could restore the river, and the Vale of the Vole would be friendly again.”
“Yev. Maybe the Good Magivian will tell uv that.”
They moved on south along the path, through the big trees. But they had used up time resting and talking, and darkness was looming up from the gloom below the forest. “We had better make a good camp for the night,” Esk said. “Maybe we can set up some stakes to hinder the dragons.”
There was a crack of thunder. “We’ll need more than that to keep from getting soaked,” Chex said.
Esk squinted at the looming clouds. “We won’t get soaked. That’s a color hailstorm!”
She looked more carefully. “Why so it is! We had better get under cover. There’s no telling how large those hailstones will be. And of course we’ll still get wet when they melt.”
“A storm iv bad?” Volney asked.
“It can be bad,” Chex agreed. “It is best to play safe, and find suitable cover. But there seems to be little loose wood here to fashion a shelter; we may have to lean against the lee side of trees.”
“Why not go under?”
“Under what?” Esk asked.
“Underground. We never vtay up when it iv uncomfortable above. In fact, we veldom vtay long above anyway.”
“I can’t go underground!” Chex protested.
Indeed, it would take a giant tunnel to get her below! But the storm was looming closer, and a veil of pastel colors was drawing down. They were certainly in for it.
Esk spied a fallen trunk. Abruptly he strode over to it, his ogre strength surging. He picked it up and swung it against the trunk of a giant standing tree. It splintered. He picked up the largest fragment and broke it against the tree, then took several of the remaining pieces and wove them together, forming a crude platform. He jammed the stoutest fragments into the ground vertically, then heaved the platform onto them.
Then his strength receded, and he was normal again, and tired. “You’ll have to finish it,” he gasped. “That’s just the frame.”
“That is good enough!” Chex exclaimed. She swept up an armful of brush and heaved it onto the platform. “That should stop the hailstones,” she said as she gathered more. “When they melt, it will drip though, but I can stand getting wet. Thank you, Esk.”
Meanwhile, Volney was digging. Where he had been there was now a mound of dirt and a hole in the ground. He was fast, all right!
The storm struck. Yellow hailstones crashed down through the foliage and bounced on the ground, leaving little dents.
Chex got under her shelter. She had to duck her head and finally lie down, because it wasn’t high enough, but it did provide protection.
Volney’s snout appeared in the hole. “Evk!” he squeaked. “Here! There iv room!”
Esk scrambled for the hole as the hailstones bounced around him. They were becoming blue, now, and he knew that those were colder and therefore harder than the yellow ones. They would hurt!
He half slid into the hole. It descended for a body length, then curved, descended some more, and curved again. Hailstones were following him, rolling down. Then it rose, and debouched into a larger section; he could tell by the widening of the walls, but could not see anything in the dark. He moved into this, and came up against warm fur.
“There iv room for both,” Volney said. “The stonev and water vtay below.”
This was a nice, cozy design! The vole had hollowed out a den that was
bound to remain dry, unless there got to be so much melt that it filled the whole tunnel.
“But suppose a dragon comes?” he asked.
“Then I vtrike the vupport, and the tunnel collapvev,” the vole replied confidently. “No predator ever caught a vole in a hole.”
And of course the dragons would not be foraging far during the storm, Esk realized. They didn’t like getting battered any more than other creatures did. That meant that Chex should be safe enough too.
After a brief time the storm passed on. Esk sought to return to the surface, but the tunnel was entirely blocked by hailstones.
“Have no convern,” Volney said. “I will make a new ekvit.” In moments he did so, tunneling down, then around and up. The excavated dirt piled into one side of the main chamber, evidently intended for such storage.
Esk followed the vole, amazed by the velocity of the digging. “How do you do it so fast?” he asked.
Volney paused in the darkness, turning within the tunnel though it was only his own body width in diameter. “My vilver talonv,” he explained. “Feel.”
Esk felt, cautiously, and found cold metal. It seemed that the vole donned the talons as a man would gauntlets. “Where do you carry such things? I never saw them before.”
“I have a pouch for nevevvary toolv,” Volney explained. Then he turned again and resumed his digging. Esk had to crowd to the left to avoid the dirt flying on the right.
Soon they broke surface. A shower of melting hailstones came down. They scrambled up through them, and stood knee-deep on Esk, waist-deep on Volney, in the forming, colored slush. Much had fallen in that brief span!
Chex was under her shelter, almost hidden, for the stones were mounded above and around it. “I was worried you would drown down there!” she called.
“No, Volney has a really cozy den below,” Esk said. “He is a truly amazing digger!”
“No, only average,” the vole demurred. “It is merely my volivh nature.”
Nevertheless, Esk was discovering Volney to be as interesting and useful a companion as Chex. This group of travelers was random, but seemed about as good as could have been chosen for such a journey.
They set up a three-way guard roster, with Esk taking the first watch and Chex the last, in deference to the amount of time she had spent the
prior night. Esk doubted that any dragons would appear until the slush had subsided, but he didn’t care to gamble, and neither did the others.
Volney disappeared into his hole, and Chex settled down on a nearby elevation she cleared of slush. The shelter was useless for the time being, because of the mass of dripping slush on top.
He walked up and down the path, keeping himself alert as long as he could. The stars came out and flickered at him through the waving foliage. It was pleasant, and he was not at all lonely. He knew he would have been, by himself. It was nice making new acquaintances who had a similar mission and dissimilar talents. Too bad they would soon find the Good Magician’s castle and have to separate.
When sleep threatened to overtake him despite his efforts, he went to the vole hole and called down it. “Volney! Volney! Are you ready for your watch?”
There was a subterranean snort as the vole woke. “Ready, Evk.” The snout poked into the starlight.
Esk crawled down and around and into the den and curled up hi the warm spot left by the vole. The den was rounded in such a way that the earth tended to support a curled body, and was really quite comfortable. He had hardly completed that realization before he slept.
When he woke, there was a warm body next to him. Volney was back, and Esk realized that the vole had finished his shift and turned it over to the centaur.
He crawled out, and discovered it was dawn. Chex was picking fruits and setting them on the platform. “No dragons!” she said briskly as she saw him.
Esk had a call or two of nature to answer. He nerved himself to do it hi her presence, knowing that the sooner he navigated this social hurdle the better it would be. He started to take down his trousers.
“Don’t do it here,” she said. “We don’t want the smell in our breakfast.”
Oh. Well, he had made the gesture, such as it was. With relief he retreated to a more distant site and did his business. He didn’t have to actually do it in her presence; he just had to be able to if the need arose.
They ate, and drank some meltwater Chex had saved in a pair of cups. Then Volney emerged, bringing out some tubers he had found somewhere underground, and they traded some of the remaining fruit for these. It was surprising how good the tubers were; the vole evidently had a fine nose for such things.
They resumed their walk along the path. When they reached the lake, Volney was taken aback. “I can’t crow that water!” he protested.
Obviously he couldn’t. Esk wasn’t certain whether voles could swim, but it hardly mattered; the giant monster out there made swimming hazardous. If the vole tried to splash around the edge, the way Chex had, he would be half floating, because his little legs were too short to achieve good purchase beneath the water. The reeds would eat him alive. If he tried to tunnel under, he would simply encounter muck that filled in as fast as he dug. There was no question: water was a formidable barrier.
He looked at Chex. No, it didn’t seem feasible for her to carry the vole. Volney was too big, and not constructed for riding. Also, how would he, Esk, get around the lake, if she carried someone else?
“I think we should construct a raft,” Chex said. “There is driftwood at the shore, some fairly substantial pieces, and if we use vines to bind it together, and long poles to move it, it should serve.”
“A raft?” Volney asked. “What is thiv?”
“It’s like a boat, only clumsier,” Esk said.
“What iv a boat?”
Chex looked at Esk, then back to Volrtey. “Your folk aren’t much for water, are they?”
“We have great revpect for water,” the vole protested. “We drink it, we bathe in it, we guide it into our burrowv for the nourivhment of root farmv. The meandering Kivv-Mee River wav the life-vevvel of our Vale.” His whiskers drooped. “But now, of courve, the Kill-Mee River poivonv uv.”
“But you don’t go on it?” she persisted. “You don’t swim or sail?”
“Vail?”
“A boat is a craft that floats on the surface of the water, carrying folk across it A raft does this too. A sailboat is propelled by a sheet stretched out against the wind. You do not know of these things?”
“It voundv like movt intriguing magic.”
She smiled. “Well, we’ll try to demonstrate this magic for you, so you can tell your folk when you return. It should facilitate your use of the river. But tell me, how do you cross the Kiss-Mee?”
“We have bridgev over it and tunnelv under it,” Volney explained. “They were much labor to convtruct, but give good vervice. Unfortunately, when the demonv vtraightened it, these crowingv were left vtranded by vacant channelv, and now are uvelew. The volev on the far vide are unable to join thove on the near vide.”
“Couldn’t you make new bridges or tunnels?” Esk asked.
“Not while the demonv guard the channel. They permit no activity of that nature.”
Chex sighed. “You need the Good Magician’s counsel, certainly! Well,
let’s get to it. We must gather as much wood as we can, as large and dry as we can, and tie it together. We should be able to fashion a raft large enough to support us all.”
“You wivh dry wood?” Volney asked. “Will it not get wet when it touchev the water?”
“Dry, so that it isn’t waterlogged, and will float better.” She found a piece and picked it up. “We can make a pile here beside the path.”
“Now at lavt I comprehend,” Volney said. He set off in search of wood.
There was more driftwood and fallen wood in the vicinity than had been at first apparent, and before long they had a huge pile. They found strong vines, some of which they used to make a harness so that Chex could haul the largest pieces. Then they used that vine to tie the wood together.
By noon they had a large, ungainly structure that most resembled a pile of refuse. But when they heaved it into the water and shoved it to the deep region, it floated. They climbed aboard, with Esk and Chex wielding long poles, and by dint of pushing at the nether muck caused it to travel out toward the center of the lake.
Both stared at him. “Whatever for?” Chex inquired.
“Uh, no reason,” he said, embarrassed. What could he have been thinking of?
The monster of the lake coursed close. “Go fry in the sun!” Chex called to it impolitely. “You can’t get near us!”
The monster, irritated, charged the raft. Its bulk loomed huge. But Chex simply poked at one of its eyestalks with her pole, and it retreated. “Bullies have no courage when they face anything as large as they are,” she remarked with satisfaction.
“OoOoOo,” Volney moaned.
“What’s the matter?” Esk asked. “That monster can’t touch us.”
“I feel ill,” the vole said. Indeed, his fur seemed to be developing a greenish tinge.
“You’re seasick,” Chex said. “Here, I have a pill for that.” She produced a green tablet from her knapsack.
Volney swallowed the pill. In a moment his fur turned gray again. “Much better,” he said. “I don’t like being veavick.”
They continued poling, and made steady, slow progress across the lake. They paused midway for a lunch break; Chex had thoughtfully
harvested some fruit and put it aboard. Then they completed the voyage, bumping up against the far shore. They splashed to land and hauled the raft as high as they could, so that it would not drift away. They knew that they might need it again.
They resumed travel along the path, heading for the mountain. But the building of the raft and the voyage across the lake had taken much time and strength, and they decided to spend another night on the road before tackling the mountain. They were now becoming seasoned travelers, and no storm approached, so they had no significant problems this time.
Chapter 4. Mystery
1 hey arrived at the mountain. It loomed as massively as before, with its deep dark tunnel through.
Chex shuddered. “I dislike confessing this, but I am slightly claustrophobic. I don’t think I can walk that passage even if it is guaranteed safe. I’m afraid the mountain will collapse on me.”
Volney sniffed at the rising bank. “But there iv no mountain,” he protested.
“You can’t see the mountain?” Esk asked, surprised.
“I vee it, but it ivn’t there.”
“You’re not making sense.”
“I will vhow you.” The vole moved forward, into the bank—literally. His body disappeared into it.
“What?” Esk and Chex said together.
Volney’s snout poked out of the slope. “It iv illuvion,” he explained.
“Illusion!” Chex exclaimed. She reached out with one hand, and the hand passed into the apparent substance of the mountain. “Why so it isl”
“We never touched it!” Esk said, chagrined. “We just assumed it was real!”
“That explains why it wasn’t on my dam’s map!”
“What type of map?” Volney asked, confused. “An evil one?”
“Never mind. I just knew there wasn’t supposed to be a mountain here —and there wasn’t! What a relief!”
“Does this mean we can walk right through it?” Esk asked.
“Evidently so,” Chex said, walking into it. For a moment her equine forepart was hidden, while her human upper portion remained in view, and, disconnected, her equine rump. Then the rest of her disappeared, and the shaggy slope of the mountain was unbroken.
Esk reached out to touch the visible surface. His hand encountered nothing; it vanished in the rock.
This was one persistent illusion! They knew it for what it was, yet it remained as clearly as before.
“But it’s dark in here,” Chex’s voice came.
“Darknevv divturbv you?” Volney asked. “I have no problem with it.”
“Suppose there’s a wall or something?” she demanded. “I’m not worried about a mountain of illusion falling on me, but I don’t want to bang my face.”
“I can lead you,” Volney said. “Volev never go bump in the night.”
They set up a column, with Volney leading and Esk at the rear. They marched along the approximate route of the path, but it didn’t matter since there was no mountain. At times Esk saw the light that shone down the tunnel and highlighted the contour of the rock, with Chex’s body passing in and out of it; the effect remained eerie. But as they penetrated more deeply, the light diminished, until all was dark.
“Vtop!” Volney exclaimed abruptly. “There iv a chavm!”
“A chasm!” Chex echoed. “Can we go around?”
“I will ekvplore.” They waited while the vole moved along, first to one side, then the other. “No, it crowev the full region.”
“You’re sure it’s not an illusion?” Esk asked, half facetiously.
“Quite vure. I cannot tell how deep or wide it iv, but it iv definitely prevent.”
“Perhaps I can fathom it,” Chex said. “I can explore it with my staff.” There was the sound of the staff tapping. “It is too deep; I can’t find the bottom.” Then, “But I can find the far side! It is not too far; I could hurdle it.”
“I cannot jump,” Volney said. “But I could tunnel under it, if there iv rock below.”
“Maybe that’s best,” Chex agreed.
There was the sound of rapid digging. Then there was the noise of splashing. “Oopv! I cannot tunnel through water!”
“Well, we got you across the lake,” she said. “We should be able to get you across the chasm. After all, it’s not exactly of the scope of the Gap Chasm.”
“Can’t tell,” Esk said. “The Gap Chasm has extensions that jag a long way north and south. This could be one of those.”
“You are not much help,” she said.
“Maybe we could help him cross,” Esk said. “We have our staffs; if we made a temporary bridge—”
“No, they aren’t long enough. I touched the far side only at full extension.”
“Well, if we tied them together—”
“They would bend in the middle, and then the ends would slide off.”
“But if we stood on either side and held on to them—”
She considered. “Perhaps. But we would have to be very sure of our hold.”
“You truvted me to lead you,” Volney said. “I will truvt you to hold me.”
They used the length of vine Chex had thoughtfully saved to bind the ends of the two staffs together as securely as was feasible. Then she made a leap in the dark and landed on the far side of the chasm. Then Esk poked the lengthened pole across, and she caught hold of it.
Now Volney donned his gripping talons—it seemed he had several sets for different applications—and took hold of the staff. He was not, as he had said before, a climber, but he could cling to a small root, and this was similar in diameter. He moved carefully out over the chasm, while Esk clung tightly to the end.
The pole sagged, for the vole’s weight was formidable. Then an end slid toward the brink as the staffs formed a V in the center. Esk now regretted his notion; he was afraid that something would break, and Volney would be dumped into the dark depth. Fortunately he felt his ogre strength coming into play; he would not let Volney fall.
Then the pull changed. Esk’s staff angled further toward the horizontal. The vole’s weight was now on Chex’s staff.
“I tire!” Volney’s voice came. “I cannot climb!”
“Esk, let go your end!” Chex called.
“But—”
“I’m going to haul him up! Let go!”
Hoping he was doing the right thing, Esk let go. His staff immediately slid over the brink and clattered down.
But now there was the sound of motion. Chex was using her centaur strength to pull her pole up, the vole along with it. There was a rasping and a clatter. How was it going?
Then Volney’s voice came. “I am here!” It was from Esk’s level; the vole had reached the far side!
“I’m glad,” Chex gasped. By the sound of it, she had been tiring too; her human arms were weak compared to her equine legs.
The rest was routine. Chex made sure Volney was all right, then leaped back across the chasm. Esk got on her back and she made one more leap, carrying him across.
Then they proceeded on through the mountain, and finally emerged into daylight on the south side. Esk knew that his relief was no greater than that of his companions.
Before them stood the castle. It had a moat and a solid outer wall. The drawbridge was down, and on it was a big empty cage.
They stopped just before the moat. “The Good Magician’s castle is always beset by challenges,” Chex said. “That is because the Magician doesn’t want to be bothered by querents who aren’t serious. But I don’t see what kind of a challenge an empty cage would be.”
“I’ve heard that the challenges are always slanted toward the visitors,” Esk said. “Does an empty cage mean something to one of us?”
They exchanged glances. None of them had a notion.
“I suppose we could just go on in,” Chex said. “But I distrust this. It is never supposed to be easy to get in, and if it seems so, then that must be a false impression. I would much rather understand the situation before committing myself.”
Esk could only agree. “But how are we to understand it, if we don’t go farther?”
“Oh, we should be able to reason it out to some degree,” she said. “The intellect is always superior to blind action.”
“That’s not the ogre view,” Esk said.
“We have uved vome intellect and vome acvion,” Volney said. “If one doev not work now, we can try the other. But I find it odd that we have encountered vo many challengev on the way to the cavtle, and none now that we’re here.”
“That is strange,” Esk agreed. “It’s almost as if the challenges were in the wrong place.”
“Or were they?” Chex asked, her wings flapping in her excitement. “Could that be the way the Good Magician planned it?”
“But aren’t they supposed to be at the castle?”
“We assumed so, but how do we know? The Good Magician makes his own rules! He could have put the challenges anywhere along the route.”
“But if they are slanted for particular visitors, how would the right ones be there for the right visitors? There are three of us.”
But her excellent centaur mind was operating now. “I think he knew we were coming, and from which directions we were coming, so he could have set things up for each of us that the others wouldn’t encounter.”
“But he didn’t!” Esk pointed out. “We all encountered the little dragons.”
She looked at the cage. “Look—there are dragon droppings in there, and the bars are soiled with soot. Those little smokers were in there, but they got out!”
“They were let out,” Volney said. “That cage hav a clavp only a human paw could operate. Mine couldn’t.”
“Why would they be let out before they were used?” Esk asked.
Chex shook her head. “I don’t have the answer to that, but let’s see if we can work it out. We three arrived together, and we helped each other get here. Does that seem usual?”
“No,” Esk said. “I thought it was supposed to be one at a time.”
“Well, let’s pattern it. If things hadn’t gone wrong, who would have come here first?”
“You would. You overshot the intersection; otherwise you would have arrived first, and then me, and finally Volney.”
“So it seems reasonable that the Good Magician was setting up for me first. Now what would have been good challenges for me?”
‘The mountain!” Esk exclaimed. “You’re claustrophobic, so you were afraid to go into the tunnel until you realized that it was all illusion.”
“And that could have been my first challenge,” she said. ‘To figure out the nature of the mountain, as I certainly should have done, because of my dam’s map. But I failed that challenge and turned back.”
‘Then I failed it too, because I was with you.”
“But if you had come alone, you would have gone on through the tunnel, because you aren’t claustrophobic,” she said. “So it wasn’t a challenge for you; it didn’t matter whether you caught onto its nature.”
“But that chasm inside—that would have stopped me, if I didn’t fall into it.”
“Whereas I had no trouble with that,” she said excitedly. “So maybe those were two challenges, one for each of us, set up together because we were likely to arrive so close together that there wasn’t time to set up complete alternates. It is making sense!”
“The lake!” Volney said. “I could not crow the water! That wav my challenge! And the chavm too, becauve there was more water below it, ekvending down and down.”
“Yes. Because we were with you, we got you across, just as you got us through the mountain. We helped each other past each other’s challenges! I doubt we were supposed to.”
“But what about the little smokers?” Esk asked. “We did not release them.”
She contemplated the open cage. “I think that collection of dragons would have been a formidable challenge for any of us. How could we have gotten by that?”
“I might have,” Esk said. “I could have climbed over the cage, and said no to any that tried to grab me through the bars.”
“True. So that wasn’t your challenge after all. But it would have been much more difficult for me or for Volney, because we don’t climb. Just
hanging onto our staffs across the chasm was all he could do. I suppose I might have tied a line to the cage and hauled it out of the way, but he—”
“I fear I would have had to turn back,” the vole said. “Unlew I had thought of your idea to uve a raft, then uved the branchev to fill hi the chavm vo I could crow that too.”
“But as it happened, someone released those dragons, and we encountered several along the paths,” she said. “We really must fathom that mystery before we can make sense of the larger picture.”
“Obviously, something is wrong,” Esk said. “Those smokers weren’t meant to be loose, they were meant to be caged, and only get loose if the challengee messed up. Someone cut off the challenge before it started.”
“So it seems,” she agreed. “Would the Good Magician himself have done it?”
“I don’t see why. If he didn’t want the dragons here, he would not have brought them.”
“The Gorgon, then?”
“She wouldn’t mess up what he set up!”
“I agree,” she said. “Could someone else have done it?”
“It doesn’t seem likely.”
“So we are left with the inexplicable,” she concluded. “Perhaps now it is time to enter the castle, expecting the unexpected.”
Esk nodded consent, nervously. Volney did not look any more comfortable.
They stepped on the drawbridge. They hauled the empty cage off, then crossed on over.
Suddenly an ogre loomed up before them. The thing was monstrous and hairy and ugly, and both Chex and Volney retreated in alarm.
But Esk’s reaction was opposite! “Grandpa!” he exclaimed.
But it was not Crunch Ogre. It was some other male, not quite as ugly, but still quite formidable. It blocked their way.
“We’re only coming to talk to the Good Magician,” Esk said, strongly suspecting that this would not provoke any reasonable response. “Will you let us by?”
He was correct. The ogre ope’d his ponderous and marbled maw and made a bellow of rage that shook the castle.
How was he to get past with his companions? Esk realized that this was a challenge, and it was his to meet and solve. But almost nothing could make an ogre stand aside; he was in a position to know that. Nothing except—
Except another ogre. There was the key!
But Esk could not invoke his ogre self just because he wanted to. It came of its own accord, when triggered by erratic circumstances.
Still, sometimes it was possible to arrange the trigger. It was risky— but so was standing before an ogre as if ready to be eaten.
“Wish me luck,” Esk muttered back to the others. Then he strode forward, directly into the ogre.
For a moment the ogre was startled by this temerity. Then it grabbed for him with a ham hand.
Esk saw that meat hook coming, and his ogre nature reacted. Suddenly he roared, his ogre strength surging. “Go ‘way, me say!” he bellowed, and bit at the other’s paw.
The other reacted astonishingly. It shrank away, literally; as it retreated, it became smaller, until it looked very much like a man, and Esk towered over it. But Esk, his ogre dander up, wasn’t satisfied; he smashed at it with his own ham fist.
Something shattered. Fragments of glass flew out, and the other ogre was gone. Esk stood before a man-sized frame from which jags of glass projected.
“It was a mirror!” Chex exclaimed. “Except—”
Esk’s ogre nature left him. As he returned to the human condition, his intelligence increased, and he understood. “A reverse mirror!” he said. “It showed only the other side of me—the side that I wasn’t. So when I was a man, it was my ogre self, and when I turned ogre, it turned human. Only I was ogrishly stupid and aggressive, and broke it when I didn’t have to.”
Chex approached. “I don’t think it was just a mirror,” she said. “Vol-ney and I saw it too, and it looked and sounded like a real ogre. Your state may have governed it, but it was real enough in its fashion. Like the illusion of the mountain, it was enough to do the job. If you hadn’t cowed it—”
Esk shrugged. “Maybe so. Certainly it was my challenge, not anybody else’s. This one wasn’t let out early!”
“It wasn’t alive,” she pointed out. “The inanimate challenges remain in place; only the dragons are loose, and maybe whatever other animals were supposed to be used.”
“It wasn’t alive, so it didn’t leave,” he agreed, understanding. “So we still don’t know whether anyone is in charge of the challenges. I don’t like this.”
“Neither do I,” she said.
“Unlew thiv iv the challenge?” Volney suggested.
Chex paused thoughtfully. “This mystery? This is the true challenge? Meant for all three of us to solve, together?”
“I do not know, I only guew,” the vole said.
“It is a most interesting conjecture,” she said. “We knew to expect the unexpected, and that’s about as unexpected as anything could be. It seems reasonable to conjecture that a more sophisticated challenge would be required to handle three dissimilar querents simultaneously.”
“But why should there be three at once?” Esk asked. “We would have come separately, if we hadn’t met on the paths.”
“True. It does seem largely coincidental.” She quivered her wings, pondering. “Is it possible that our missions are linked? That we did not arrive coincidentally, but that the three of us are destined to cooperate in some greater endeavor so that a single answer will serve us all?”
“But you knew nothing of the Kiw-Mee River,” Volney protested.
“Yet Esk did encounter the sultry demoness from that region,” Chex pointed out. “So his mission may have a common motivation with yours. I confess, however, that my own mission does not seem to connect. I think this is too speculative to be taken as fact, at least at this stage.”
“Maybe the Good Magician will tell us soon,” Esk said.
“Maybe,” she agreed, but she seemed dubious.
They proceeded on into the castle proper. It was silent; no more challenges manifested.
“Halooo!” Esk called. “Anybody home?”
There was no answer.
They passed into the residential section of the castle. This should be beyond the region for challenges, ordinarily, but no one met them. “Maybe they stepped out for a bite to eat?” Esk suggested facetiously, but the humor, if any existed, fell flat.
They walked through chamber after chamber. All were cluttered with artifacts of magic and household existence; none had living folk. In the kitchen was a table with a petrified cheese salad in the process of composition; evidently the Gorgon had been making it when she abruptly departed. The greens were hardly wilted; she could not have left more than a day before. In a bedroom were toys and bins of assorted fruits: evidently the work of the Magician’s son Hugo, who Chex had heard could conjure fruits. But no sign of the boy. Upstairs, in a crowded cubby of a study, was a high stool by a table with a huge open book: the Magician’s Book of Answers, over which he was said to pore constantly. But no sign of the Magician himself. There was even a marker, showing the particular bit of information he had been contemplating; it seemed to relate to
the aerodynamic properties of the third left central tail feather of the midget roc bird.
“I didn’t know there was a midget roc bird!” Esk remarked.
“You’re not the Good Magician,” Chex reminded him.
“Obviouvly he was juvt finding hiv plave,” Volney said. “He wav about to revearch the propertiev of ventaur wingv,”
Chex and Esk stared at him. “That must be right!” Esk said. “To Answer your Question!”
Chex looked stricken. “But why did he go, then? I need that answer!”
“That veemv to be our challenge to divcover.”
It was the same situation throughout the castle: everywhere there were evidences of recent and normal activity, but nowhere did any person or creature remain. All servants, if there had been any, had departed; all creatures had been released, in the same manner as the little smokers at the moat. Indeed, they now realized that the moat itself was empty; the moat monsters were gone. That was almost unheard of for a castle. Yet there was no sign of violence; it was as if the Good Magician and his family had simply stepped out for a moment—and not returned. What could account for this?
One region remained to be checked: the dungeon. That was said to be the region of major activity for some castles. Could they have gone down to check something there, and somehow gotten trapped below?
But the stair down was not blocked, and no door was locked. It could not have been any simple entrapment.
“If something happened down there,” Chex said nervously, “it could remain dangerous. If, for example, he had a demon there—”
That sent a chill down Esk’s back. “A demon could account for it,” he agreed. “Some of them are just nuisances, like the one I encountered, but I understand that some are truly terrible. If he meant to keep it confined, but it got out—”
“Then it could have rampaged through the castle and smashed everything and everyone in it,” Chex finished.
“Exvept there wav no rampage,” Volney pointed out. “No vign of violenve.”
“Not all demons are violent,” Chex said. “Some are merely mischievous. They assume other forms, and tempt mortal folk into trouble. If the demon became a damsel in distress, right outside the castle, they all might have hurried out to help, and—”
“The Good Magician should never have been fooled by a demon,” Esk protested. “He’s the Magician of Information. He knows everything!”
She sighed. “I agree; it’s a weak hypothesis. Let’s gird ourselves and see what’s down there.”
They descended the stone stair. There was no sign of disturbance on the nether level either, and no sign of anything intended to confine a demon. Small vials crowded the shelves of storage chambers, all of them carefully stoppered; any severe activity should have shaken some vials so that they fell to the floor. This level was the same as the others: normal for its nature.
Except for one small chamber behind a closed door. Chex peered through the tiny barred window. “Activity,” she murmured tersely.
Esk felt that cold shiver again. “What is it?”
“It seems to be a—an experiment of some sort,” she said. “It’s hard to make it out properly. There’s a container on a hearth, and it’s boiling, and the vapors are overflowing across the floor.”
“He must have been cooking up a potion,” Esk said, “and forgot to turn it off when he left.”
“Then we had better turn it off,” she said. “There is no sense letting it boil away to nothing.”
Volney sniffed the air. “Beware,” he said. “That vmellv like . . .”
When he did not continue, Chex prompted him. “Like what?”
“What?” the vole asked in return.
“What does it smell like?”
“What doev what vmell like?”
“That potion!” she said impatiently.
“Povion?”
“The one you just smelled!” she said. “How could you have forgotten it already?”
“I—forget,” Volney said, seeming confused. “What am I doing here?”
“What are you—!” she repeated indignantly. “Volney, this is no time for games!”
“For what?”
Suddenly Esk caught on. “An amnesia ambrosia!” he exclaimed. “Volney’s nose is more sensitive than ours, and he’s closer to the floor. Those fumes must be spreading out and leaking under the door, so he got the first dose!”
“Amnesia!” she cried, alarmed. “We must get away from here!”
“Come on, Volney,” Esk said. “We are going back upstairs!”
“Where?” the vole asked.
“Up! Up! To get out of the fumes, before they get us all!”
The vole balked. “Who are you?” he asked.
“He’s forgetting everything!” Chex said. “We’ve got to get him out!”
“We’re friends!” Esk said. “We must talk—upstairs! come with us!”
The vole hesitated, but remembered nothing contrary, so followed them up. They slammed every door behind them, and wedged strips of cloth from the sewing room under the last, to halt the creep of the vapor.
“Now I think we know what happened to the Magician and his family,” Chex said. “That concoction got out of hand, and they forgot what they were doing!”
“But the magician was upstairs,” Esk said. “Those vapors sink; how could they have reached him there? They haven’t even left the dungeon yet, and would have been less extensive a day ago.”
She nodded. “True, true. I was thinking carelessly. Those fumes are a consequence of his departure, not a cause, probably. But we had better turn that pot off!”
They were agreed on that. But how were they to do it?
“Maybe there’s a counterpotion,” Esk said. “Something we can mix up and pour into the dungeon that will neutralize it. The Book of Answers might list it.”
They hurried up and checked the book. “What would it be listed under?” Esk asked, turning the ancient pages.
“M for memory, perhaps,” Chex said.
He found the Ms. “Magic,” he read. “What a lot there is on that subject!” He turned more pages. “Ah, here: Memory.” But he frowned as he tried to read the detail. “I can’t understand this! It’s so technical!”
“Technical?” Chex asked.
“Yes. What does ‘mnemonic enhancement enchantment’ mean?”
She pursed her lips. “It’s technical, all right,” she agreed. “Probably only the Good Magician can interpret it; that’s why he is the Magician.”
“We don’t have time,” he said. “We need something we can understand right now.”
“We need a sudden bright idea,” she agreed.
“I know little about magic,” Volney said, evidently recovering from his whiff of amnesia. “But ivn’t there a kind of wood that changev the magic polev?”
“Magic poles?” Esk asked blankly.
“Vo that whatever it iv, it iv not, and vive verva.”
“Whatever it is, it is not,” Chex said, piecing it out.
“And vice versa,” Esk concluded. “I don’t know—”
“I think it’v called reverve wood.”
“Reverse wood!” Esk and Chex exclaimed together. “That’s it!” one or the other added.
They hurried downstairs, checking shelves. “Found it!” Esk called, as
he opened a kitchen cupboard. “The Gorgon must have used it for cooking, so that everything she looked at wouldn’t be stoned.” He fetched down the chip of wood.
“But are you sure it’s the right kind?” Chex asked.
“We can test it,” he said. “Come toward me. If it reverses my magic—”
“I understand.” She strode toward him.
He held up the chip. “No,” he said as she drew close.
She leaped at him. Suddenly her rather soft front was pinning him against the wall.
“Oops,” she said, backing off. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“I told you ‘no’ on your advance,” he gasped. “But you accelerated it.”
“So it is reverse wood!” she said.
“I hope it’s enough.” He looked at the chip, thinking of the chamberful of amnesia fumes below.
“It will have to be,” she said firmly.
They took it down to the sealed door, unsealed the door, and hesitated. “We need to get it in the pot, I think,” she said. “But if we get close, we’ll forget.”
“Not vo,” Volney said. “Who holdv the wood—”
“Will reverse the amnesia!” Esk exclaimed. “I’ll do it!” He hurried down the steps, holding the chip ahead of him. When he reached the bottom, he strode to the closed chamber, wrenched open the door, waded through the pooling vapors, and dumped the chip of wood in the boiling pot.
The effect was dramatic. Not only did the amnesia reverse, as he could tell by his abruptly sharpened memory; the pot halted its boiling and froze.
He returned to the residential floor. “Mission accomplished,” he announced.
“Except that we still don’t know what happened to the Good Magician,” Chex reminded him. “So we still don’t have the Answers we came for.”
“Maybe a magic mirror can tell us where he went,” Esk suggested.
They located a mirror. But as they approached, it flickered. “Castle Roogna calling Magician Hurnfrey,” it said. “Come in, Humfrey. Over.”
“He’s not here,” Esk said to the mirror.
“Castle Roogna calling Magician Humfrey,” it repeated. “Come in, Humfrey. Over.”
“How do I turn this thing on to answer?” Esk asked.
The mirror formed an eye and eyed him. “You can’t, ogre-snoot,” it
said. “I respond only to authorized personnel. Tell the Good Magician to get his dinky posterior down here and answer the King.”
“But the Good Magician’s not here!” Chex exclaimed.
“I didn’t ask for excuses, nymph-noodle,” the mirror retorted. “Just get him here.”
“Listen, glassface!” Esk said, raising a fist.
“Uh-uh, mundane-brain,” it said. “I’m worth a lot more than you are. It’s a capital offense to break a mirror.”
“Just put the King through to us, and we’ll tell him what’s happening here,” Chex said angrily.
“Sorry, you don’t have proper clearance, ponytail.” And the mirror went blank.
“I can see why mirrors get broken,” Esk muttered.
“It’s just the perversity of the inanimate,” Chex said. “I greatly fear we’ll just have to go on to Castle Roogna ourselves, and tell them what we have found here, and see what they can do about it.”
“Cavtle Roogna?” Volney asked.
“It may be the only way we can make any progress toward the solutions to our problems,” she said.
So indeed it seemed.
Chapter 5. Ivy
1 hey spent the night in the Magician’s castle, and headed out for Castle Roogna in the morning. They brought along a ladder they found in a storage shed; Chex hauled it along by holding one end under an arm and resting the other end on her rump. The ladder interfered somewhat with her tail, so that the biting flies were more of a nuisance than usual, but the distance was not far.
They forged into the mountain of illusion, Volney leading the way. When he announced the chasm, Chex unshipped the ladder and pushed it out over the void. Then she secured one end, while Esk walked across it on hands and feet. At the other end, he sat and held it while Volney crossed. Finally they hauled the ladder the rest of the way across, and Chex made a running leap and hurdled the chasm as before. The whole business was accomplished much more swiftly and comfortably than their prior crossing.
They walked on out the north side and resumed the path. “You know, I wonder how those little smokers got across,” Esk remarked. “Could they hurdle that distance?”
“They’re pretty active,” Chex said. “I suspect they could. Perhaps they charged forward blindly, and some made it while some did not. We don’t know how many were in that cage.”
He nodded. Her surmise seemed reasonable enough. Perhaps they had been lucky that only a fraction of the dragons had surmounted the hurdle.
Then they came to the lake. “And how did they cross this?” Esk asked. “Do dragons swim, and if they do, does the water monster let them pass?”
Chex glanced at the open water, where the monster waited, then at the side, where the carnivorous reeds waited. “They must have had some other way.”
Volney sniffed the end of the path at the waterline. “If the mountain
wav illuvion, could thiv be illuvion too?” he asked. “Or could it be another avpect?”
“Another aspect of illusion?” Chex asked, puzzled.
The vole walked out across the water.
Esk and Chex stared. “It’s real!” Esk cried.
Chex slapped her own flank resoundingly. “A one-way causeway!” she exclaimed.
“I think not,” Volney said.
But they were already racing for the path. Both stepped on it—and both sank through it and into the muck.
Yet Volney remained above the water. “How—?” Esk demanded, somewhat miffed.
“I keep my eyev cloved,” the vole explained.
“Eyes closed?” Chex asked blankly as she hauled herself out.
“If what we vee iv not volid,” Volney said, “then vometimev what we do not vee iv volid.”
“What we do not see is solid,” Esk repeated thoughtfully.
Chex nodded. “Another reversal. The Good Magician seems very fond of that sort of thing.”
“Very fond,” Esk agreed, in no better mood than she. Had they realized this before, they could have saved themselves an enormous amount of difficulty.
“But if the lake monster should encroach—” she said
“It iv an enchanted path, iv it not?” the vole asked, proceeding forward.
She nodded. “True—it should be secure. The dragons were on it because they were travelers; the Good Magician let them go home early, for a reason we do not yet grasp. Other monsters should still be barred—and indeed, we have encountered no others on it. So the water monster should be barred.” She shivered. “Yet I begin to feel claustrophobic again. I am by no means eager to trust myself on that path blindly, though I hardly relish the mucky trip around the lake.”
Esk pondered. “Suppose you earned me, as you did before—and I kept my eyes open? Would the path become illusory because of me, or remain solid because of you?”
She smiled. “Let’s find out! I wouldn’t do this with just anyone, but I trust you, Esk.”
Esk found himself flustered by the compliment. Centaurs were notoriously distrustful of the judgment of others.
Chex closed her eyes while Esk mounted. Then he directed her toward the path. “Straight ahead—no, slightly to your right,” he said.
“That’s too clumsy,” she said. “Just gesture with your knees.”
“My knees?”
“Press with the one on the side you wish me to turn from. That’s much more efficient.”
“Oh.” He tried it, and sure enough, she moved quickly in response. In a moment he was directing her wordlessly.
He guided her onto the path, and the path held. It was, indeed, the walker’s vision that determined it; as long as she kept her eyes closed, her footing was firm. When she drifted toward one side or the other, he kneed her gently, and she moved immediately back to the center. The lake monster eyed them, but did not approach; the path was indeed enchanted. The trip across was surprisingly easy.
“Well,” Chex said as they arrived at the far side. “That is indeed a relief.”
Esk dismounted, and they walked on along the path, their spirits restored. Perhaps at Castle Roogna they would discover the answer to the Good Magician’s strange disappearance.
But as they drew closer to the castle, Chex became increasingly nervous. “Is something wrong?” Esk finally inquired.
She sighed. “I’m not sure. It is a personal matter.”
“Oh. Not my business, then.”
“Perhaps it is your business, because it may affect your reception, and Volney’s”
The vole’s little ears perked up. “There iv trouble at Roogna?”
“In a way. I shall have to rehearse some history to make it clear.”
Esk shrugged. “We’ll listen.” He was more curious than he cared to admit; what could bother a creature who was completely open about natural functions?
“I am, as you have noted, a crossbreed,” she said.
“So am I,” Esk reminded her. “We might even have a common human ancestor somewhere way back.”
She smiled briefly. “We might. But the centaur species, whatever its origin, considers itself a pure stock, and does not look kindly on adulteration.”
“Oho! So they may not like you much!”
“Some may not,” she agreed wanly. “Unfortunately, the ones who may look least kindly on my mixed ancestry are my grandsire and grandam on the centaur side.”
“My dam, Chem Centaur, did not find a mate of her own species. Centaurs are not common beyond Centaur Isle, so this problem can arise.
She—associated with a hippogryph. This is why I have wings. But because she was aware that such a liaison might not be approved, she did not inform her sire and dam of the matter. Only her brother, Chet, with whom she was closer. Thus, to the indiscretion of the liaison was added that of deceiving her sire and dam. Such things are not necessarily light matters, with centaurs.”
“But it really was her own business, wasn’t it?” Esk asked. “I mean, she wasn’t under any obligation to report to her parents, was she?”
“That was Chem’s conclusion,” Chex agreed. “It is possible that other centaurs might disagree.”
“And your—grandparents—are at Castle Roogna,” Esk concluded, getting the picture.
“I believe that they are.”
“And when they see you, with your wings—”
“I am uncertain of the nature of their reaction.”
“Maybe you can wait in the forest, while Volney and I go on in.”
She sighed. “No, thank you, Esk. I believe it is time to face the melody.”
“If that is the way you want it.”
“I believe it is the way it must be. I do not like deception, and to the extent that my very existence represents a deception, I owe it to myself to eliminate it.”
“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 diflFer-ent 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 little 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,” Chet said. “All the creatures have been released.”
“That is very strange,” Chet said. “The Good Magician can be taci-
turn, 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, 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 conservative,” 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.”
