Vale of the Vole (25 page)

Well, she had a source of information. "Marrow, what would be the consequence if you did not manage to return to your realm in the gourd?"

"I would slowly fade away," he said promptly. "I am after all, merely the stuff of bad dreams."

"Then if Bria, to take a random example, wished to remain here, she could not?"

"She could not—unless she got access to a soul."

"Access to a soul?"

"We creatures of the dream realm have no souls, of course. That is our primary distinction from you living folk. If we had souls, we would come alive, and be able to survive normal terms here."

Now Chex remembered: there was a great demand for souls in the gourdl The reason was suddenly clear. "My dam gave up half her soul to the night mare Imbri."

"Yes, half a soul becomes a whole soul, as it fills out. This takes time, but is done on occasion."

"So if someone were to give you half a soul, you would be able to live here indefinitely?"

"True. But of course I have no wish to live. I am surprised that you folk put up with the awkwardness and occasional messiness of it."

Chex nodded. She believed she had worked out a solution to Esk's problem, if it developed. If she survived this mountain hike. She was sure that Esk would not be able to devise a solution on his own; he lacked centaur rationality.

She came out of her reverie to discover the trail narrowing. They were well up the mountain now, and the slope was becoming sheer; there was barely room for her hooves on the slightly diminished slant that was the path.

Then it became too slight for her; the girth of her body caused her center of gravity to be too far out from the face of the mountain to remain stable. If she tried to go any farther, she would inevitably fall.

She stopped; she had to. The suggestion of the trail continued on around the curve of the mountain, with an awesome height of wall above, and a mind-blanking depth of drop below. She could not climb that cliff, and would certainly die if she fell. What could she do?

"I don't suppose you know of a nearby cave?" she asked Marrow.

"No cave," the skeleton replied.

"Then I fear we cannot continue. This is, as far as I know, the only trail, and it is too narrow for my body."

The skeleton considered. "It does not appear to be too narrow for my body."

"That may be true. But I am the one who must reach the meeting

plateau and address the winged monsters; they would not listen to you, as you are not winged."

"Still, I think I might assist you. Could you manage that path if you had a line to cling to?"

"Yes, I suppose I could. But I don't carry a line; I'm a bow and arrow centaur. My arms aren't strong enough to sustain my full weight on a line, you see. My grandsire Chester has very strong arms; he could do it, but not me." She clenched her teeth with frustration. "Oh, how I wish I could fly!"

"But you could hold on, with support for your feet."

"Yes. But even if I had a line, I could not attach it, because I can't even see the other end of the trail."

"I shall look." Marrow dismounted and walked along the trail. As the ledge narrowed, he had to turn sidewise and step carefully, but it was evident that he had no fear of heights or of falling. That seemed to be another advantage of being nonalive. He moved on around the curve and disappeared from sight.

After a while he returned. "There is a rock that I could cling to," he announced.

"How nice for you," Chex said, trying not to be cutting.

"So if you will just kick me apart, then swing me around so that I can grasp on with one hand, it will be all right."

Chex's dismay received a jolt. Was Marrow proposing suicide in his fashion? "What?"

"Just let me take hold here, so I don't fall off the ledge," he said. "Now kick me hard."

"But that would destroy you!" she exclaimed, appalled.

"Oh, no, we can re-form readily, when prepared. Kick me apart; then I will explain the next step."

Chex had considerable difficulty accepting this, but finally did what he asked. She retreated along the trail until it widened, turned around, and backed up to the place where he was holding on to a solid rock. Then she gave him a tremendous kick on the hipbone with a hind foot.

The skeleton flew apart. The bones sailed into the air, disconnecting. But then something strange happened. The bones did not disconnect all the way; instead they formed into a line that flopped down the mountainside.

"Now haul me up," Marrow's voice came.

She walked back to the turnaround point, then came forward again. She braced herself and peered down over the ledge.

The line of bones extended well down the slope. About halfway along it was the skull. "Haul me," it repeated.

This was strange magic! She took hold of a bone and drew it up. Marrow's finger bone was no longer connected to his hand bone, or his hand bone to his wrist bone; one finger bone was connected to another and another, forming the line. She hauled the line up hand over hand, noting that the finger and arm bones connected to rib bones and neck bones and finally the head bone.

"Now swing the rest out around the mountain," the skull told her. "Up to the level of the trail; the rock is not far beyond your vision."

Chex obeyed. She started the line of bones swinging back and forth, pendulum fashion, until she was able to bring the end of the line high enough. Then, just at its height, she let go, and it flung out, slapping against the mountain.

"Got it!" the skull exclaimed. "Now pull me tight."

Chex gazed at the arc of bones. "But if I pull too hard, won't you come apart?"

"I don't think so. I will warn you when my limit approaches."

So she hauled on the line again, and the line tightened, until when she held an arm bone the skull called out "enough."

"What now?" she called back.

"Touch the arm bone to the hand bone."

She held a loop of the bone line. She brought the arm bone to the hand bone—and immediately the two snapped together as if magnetized.

"Now use me to keep your balance," the skull called. "Try not to put too much strain on me."

Chex looked at the narrow path, with the bone line now stretched above it. It seemed perilously precarious. But Marrow had known what he was doing before, so she had to trust him now.

She held on to the line and walked out along the precipice. The wall shoved her solid equine body out, and she could not brace with her feet. Her wings made it worse, because they added to the breadth of her body when folded, and there was no room to open them here. She clung to the line, her body increasingly off-balance, leaning out over the gulf below. She had never been afraid of heights, just of depths, but it would be easy enough to cultivate such a phobia now!

Her hands were becoming somewhat sweaty, but she could not clean them. She hoped the bones weren't ticklish.

"That's very good," Marrow's skull said, right under her hand.

Startled, Chex almost let go of the line. She had for the moment forgotten the nature of it! "Thank you," she muttered tersely.

She handed herself on along the rib bones and the backbones and the hipbones, closing her mind to the precise nature of them, not from any humanlike skittishness, but because she did not want to raise any question in her mind about how they were able to hold together in this format. Marrow was a more surprising creature than she had first thought!

Finally she reached the end, where the trail widened and the endmost finger bone clung. It had found a niche in the stone and hooked into it. Had she realized that this was all that supported the line, and therefore her tilting body, she would have been even more concerned than she had been!

She got her footing and let go of the line. "I'm across!" she called to the skull. "What now?"

"Haul me in," the skull called, as the line swung down from the other side. The far finger had let go.

She hauled hi the bones, hand over hand. "That's good," the skull said as it arrived, giving her a momentary stare with an eye socket.

"But how do you get back together?" she asked.

"For that I will require some assistance," the skull admitted. "You will have to set the bones together in the proper order."

"But I don't know the proper order, except in a very general way!"

"I will direct you."

And so it was. She touched each bone to the one the skull called out, and it anchored in place. Before too long Marrow was back in proper skeletal shape.

"The more I learn about you, the more I respect you," she told him as the job was completed. "I never realized that bones could be so versatile."

'Thank you. I must confess that your flesh is not nearly as clumsy or repulsive as I had anticipated."

"Thank you," she said with the trace of a smile.

They moved on up the mountain. The way was easier now, as the slope gradually leveled; they were nearing the crest. Just as well, for the day was drawing toward its close, and she did not want to be on the trail at night. If any of the winged monsters mistook her for nocturnal prey, her situation could become difficult.

Then they came to a cleft in the mountain. It cut right across the path, as though it had started as a crack and widened with time, until now it was a formidable gap. How was she to get across it?

She looked around. There were a few scrubby trees, and some dead wood, and some weeds, and assorted loose rocks. That was it. She looked

again at the cleft. It was plainly beyond her jump range. There seemed to be no narrowing of it to the sides; in fact, this was its narrowest part. The entire top of the mountain was split, and the meeting plateau was on the other side.

"I can perhaps throw you across," she told Marrow. "But it is too far for me."

"I see no handholds," the skeleton said. "And if there were, I fear I could not sustain your full weight. Cohesion only goes so far."

"To be sure," she agreed. "You have done more than enough; I would not ask you to attempt that, even if I had sufficient arm strength to manage such a crossing. There has to be another way."

But was there? None of the items of deadwood were large enough to form a bridge, and certainly the stones would not do it. Unless—

She got to work, not letting herself think about how risky it was. She picked up wood, and rolled rocks, forming a pile at the brink of the cleft. She packed them in as solidly as she could, fashioning a ramp whose height rose significantly above the ground.

Marrow appraised this activity with a tilted eyeball socket. "Isn't this a diversion of the strength you need to cross the cleft?" he inquired.

"I'm building a ramp," she explained. "My hope is that it will enable me to achieve a broader leap."

He considered. "Judging by your demonstrated power of foot and present mass, I believe you will fall short of the far landing by this amount," he said, holding his hand bones about a body width apart.

Chex remembered how accurate his estimate of her progress in the water cave had been. That dismayed her. She had hoped that the added elevation would do the trick. She had used up all the available materials; she could build the ramp no higher.

But she had one other chance. "I cannot fly, but my wings do provide some lift," she said. "Will that extend my distance enough?"

"I have no knowledge of the parameters of flying," he said.

"It will have to do," she said. "Let me toss you across now, and I will join you in a moment."

"As you wish."

She picked him up by neck bone and hipbone, swung him back, then heaved him across. He landed in a pile, but in a moment straightened out; he was not subject to bruises. Then she tossed her bow and quiver of arrows across, and her supply pack; she wanted to carry no weight she could avoid on the jump.

Then, reflecting, she caught up again on natural functions. That was

one more way to reduce weight. She had not eaten during this climb and was hungry, but at the moment that was for the best.

It was time. She trotted to the other side of the crest, then started her takeoff run. She accelerated steadily and smoothly, saving her peak effort for the conclusion. She hit the ramp, put forth her full strength, and galloped up it. At the very brink she leaped into the air.

The moment she was over the cleft, she spread her wings and flapped them mightily. She felt their downdraft, but knew it was not enough; her effort at flight was mere pretense.

Then her front hooves came down on the rock, and she knew she had made it. She brought her rear hooves up to overlap the prints of the front ones, securing her landing, and made a small secondary leap to reorient. For the first time in her life, her wings had made a significant and positive difference! How glad she was that she had built up her pectorals!

She came to a halt, then turned to face Marrow, panting. "I hope that's the last hazard of the trail!"

"Interesting," he remarked. "Your wings did extend your distance significantly."

"Most interesting," she agreed wryly. It seemed that skeletons were not much for emotion, other than the generation of terror in bad dreams.