Vale of the Vole (34 page)

It turned. The door opened out of the wall.

Startled, they piled through. They entered a large gallery in which many lovely pictures were hung.

"Exhibitions at a picture," Chex remarked, looking around.

The path led past scenes of rivers and lakes and waterfalls, past scenes of deserts and badlands and dry holes, past scenes of snowy forests and flowering bushes, past scenes of strange houses, including one with chicken legs, until it stopped at a portrait of a gargoyle. A stream of water was issuing from the monster's mouth and splashing into a pond below.

Their path went up the wall and into the pond in the picture.

Esk sighed. "I'll try it," he said.

He poked his finger at the pond. His finger passed into the picture, and he felt the wetness of the water. He pushed his arm through, and it got wet too. Finally, he put both arms into it, ducked his head, and dived forward into the picture.

He splashed in the pond, which was deeper than it looked. He swam, and in a moment hauled himself out onto the pavement beyond the pond, dripping. He looked back, but saw nothing except the rest of this landscape, which was a pleasant country village whose source of water was evidently this fountain. The sun was high in the sky, buttressed by fleecy clouds. He had entered the world of the picture.

The path traveled on down a road, which led into an ordinary forest. There was nothing to indicate that this was the world of the gourd.

There was a splash behind him. Volney Vole appeared in the water. In a moment he caught the rim of the pond and hauled himself out, as Esk had done.

Then Marrow arrived, appearing from nowhere. The skeleton could

not swim; he simply put his bone feet down and walked along the bottom until he came to the edge. Then Esk reached down and caught a bone hand, and helped haul Marrow up and out.

"There will be a splash," Marrow warned.

Indeed there was, as Chex landed in the pond. This time Esk was watching closely. She appeared as if jumping out of a mirror: first her front section, then her hindquarters. The mass of her body caused the water to rise and overflow. She had a difficult time climbing out of the pond; she got her forepart clear, but Esk had to catch her hands to help her brace and lift a hind foot, and Marrow grabbed that hind foot and lifted it to the rim. Then they helped roll her up and over that brink as she hauled her other hind foot up. She got on her belly, precariously poised by the pond, and finally managed to tilt her body away from it so she could get back to her feet.

"If this is the easiest and safest path," she grunted, "I would very much dislike the most difficult and hazardous one!" She shook herself, spraying water out. "I hope we don't have far to go yet!"

They walked down the road to the forest. As they passed the first trees, the path abruptly diverged from the road and plunged into the thickest tangle of vegetation.

Chex sighed. "I should have known."

But something was nagging Esk. "This path seems familiar, somehow."

"Naturally," Marrow said. "It is the Lost Path."

"And the lost containment spell will be on this path!" Esk exclaimed. "We're getting close!"

Buoyed by this realization, they piled onto the devious path. Only Marrow seemed apprehensive. "There will be no escape by having your eye contact with the window to the gourd broken, this time," he warned,

That chilled Esk's enthusiasm. But he saw no alternative but to forge ahead. If they became trapped on the Lost Path despite the guidance of the pathfinder spell, then their dream of saving the Vale of the Vole was vain. But if they did not take this path, the dream would be abandoned.

Chapter 14. Elements

1 he path was inordinately convoluted, but as they traveled it, it seemed clear enough, just as had been the case when Esk was on it before. Soon the familiarity was unmistakable; he remembered the contours. Before long they would come to the place where—

"Say, Marrow!" he exclaimed. "Will you be where you were?"

"I am here, of course," the skeleton said.

"I mean that if you entered my world the same way I entered yours, just in mind rather than in substance, your body should—"

"I doubt it. We magical creatures lack your grip on reality; we are entirely where we appear to be. So neither I nor Bria Brassie will be on this path; you found us, so we are no longer lost."

Chex nodded silently; she had evidently figured this out for herself.

"That makes sense," Esk said. But he remained nervous; suppose the skeleton did appear in the path?

But when they came to that spot, only the dent left by Marrow's hipbone remained in the ground. Marrow's explanation had been correct. His whole existence was where it seemed to be. There were indeed differences between the living and the magical creatures.

Before, he had had to hold Marrow's bone hand to get him unlost; now Marrow was walking independently, because he had been found. Evidently the pathfinder's path superseded the qualities of the Lost Path, and none of them was lost.

Something red bounded away. Chex was startled, but Esk reassured her. "That's only a roe. Roes are red."

She gave him a peculiar look, but did not comment.

Then they reached the potted plant. "That's a violent," Esk said nonchalantly. "Violents are blue."

She looked at him again, and again stifled her comment.

"It was supposed to be planted on a median strip, but they rejected it," Esk continued.

She finally bit. "Why?"

"Because they didn't want any more violents on the media," he explained innocently.

"That does it!" she exclaimed. "I am going to throw you into the thorn bushes!"

"Please don't; that would nettle me."

She took a step toward him, but was interrupted by Volney's squeal of laughter. Embarrassed, she faced away instead.

"1 suspect she is the one who got nettled," Marrow remarked. They went on in silence. Soon they passed the eye queue vine, and the lost vitamin F, and the other items, until they passed the place where Bria had been. Esk remembered her kisses of apology, and felt himself flushing.

"Here is where the brassie picked up that accommodation spell," Marrow remarked.

"The what?" Esk asked, startled.

"The lost accommodation spell. Elves and other creatures use them when they want to breed with folk the wrong size or type."

"How can it be lost, if the elves use it?" Chex asked.

"It's not listed in the Lexicon, just as the eye queue is not, so it is lost," Marrow explained patiently.

"Just how does an accommodation spell accommodate?" Esk asked, now quite interested. He remembered how friendly Bria had become about that time, and wished he had realized the spell's nature before.

"If an elf wishes to breed with a human being, or an ogre or whatever, the accommodation spell, when invoked, makes them appear to be of similar size. Thus they can accomplish their desire with reasonable dispatch."

"Suppose they are different in type, rather than in size?" Esk asked. "If, for example, one were flesh and the other metal?"

"The spell would make them compatible," Marrow said. "Those elven spells are quite potent. They could breed."

"I suspect that someone has designs on someone," Chex remarked. She glanced at Esk's flush. "And that someone doesn't mind very much."

"Is it, uh, one of those one-time spells?" Esk asked. "Like the pathfinder, where one person can only—?"

"No, it's continually invokable," Marrow said. "I was haunting an elf once, in a dream, and he was living with a mermaid on a regular basis. He was afraid of death, not of loss of the mermaid, and he had been with her for years." He made a fleshless grin. "I assumed the semblance of an elven skeleton and chased him right to the edge of the water, but then the

mermaid put her arms around him and shielded him from the fear I represented, and I had to retire. She had a bosom like that of Chex, except that it was glistening wet."

"My pectorals get glistening wet when I exercise in hot weather," Chex remarked.

"But what—what about an unreal person?" Esk asked with tormented excitement. "How could she—?"

"We have already seen some progress, with Marrow himself," Chex murmured. "Sometimes the unreal becomes real, in association with real folk."

They continued walking the path, but Esk was hardly aware of the other details along the way. Had Bria's apologies really been because of the nature of her culture, or to impress him? She had impressed him, all right! But what had been her motive? Was her true interest in him, or in getting unlost, or in trying to become real?

The more he considered it, the more it seemed to him that she had wanted some avenue out of her predicament, and he was what had been available. So she had left the gourd with him, and now had independence of a sort. She could use that accommodation spell with any other male; why should she bother with him? He wished that thought did not bother him so much.

"Well, look at that!" Chex exclaimed, startling him out of his reverie. "Our path diverges from the Lost Path!"

"But the containment vpell—ivn't it lovt?" Volney asked.

"Perhaps not in quite the way we assumed," Chex said. "Or perhaps there is a section of this lost path that is neither easy nor safe, so we must detour past it."

They followed the pathfinder's path. It led into a region completely different from their recent experience. Splashes of color formed in the air above it, spreading and changing and dissolving. Strange sounds sounded, groans and whines and unpleasant laughter. Smells wafted by, some like perfume, some like rotting brains.

"It is good to return to conventional horrors," Marrow said enthusiastically.

"That's right," Chex said. "This is the origin of bad dreams; I had almost forgotten."

"Yes. These are the sensations experienced by those alone and nervous. Aren't they lovely?"

"Lovely," she agreed with resignation.

Then a huge face formed above them, its eyes glowing. "Whoo invades theese mmy premisesss?" it demanded windily.

"Oh, go retire to the Lost Path!" Chex snapped at it. **We've been through enough already.*'

"Oooh, sooo?" the face asked, scowling. The mouth opened wide, impossibly wide, until it was larger than the face itself. From it came another entire face, uglier than the first, with a hugh warty nose and dag-gerlike teeth.

"Tressspasssers!" this new face hissed.

"Look, would you mind?" Chex asked impatiently. "We are trying to get somewhere, and we're getting tired of routine spooks. Just let us alone."

"Aarrgh!" the face growled. It opened its mouth, and the dagger teeth flashed. From this orifice came a third face, even worse, with little dancing flames in lieu of eyes, and a beak instead of a nose, and a hole like a deep cave for a mouth.

"Will you leave oft?" Chex shouted. She unslung her bow, nocked an arrow, and let it fly at the beak.

"Uh, that might not be wise," Esk said, somewhat too late. He was amazed at the facility with which she had attacked the face. He had known that centaurs were good with bows, but had not realized just how good.

The arrow passed right through the beak, for it was only an image in the sky. But the face reacted with outrage. It roared, sending down a blast of frigid air admixed with sleet, and lunged down at them. Before they could move, the gaping orifice closed on them. The monster had swallowed their party whole!

The temperature plummeted, and the sleet quickly coated them with ice. In a moment they found themselves standing on a snow-covered hill, with the wind howling around them, driving off any heat remaining in their flimsy bodies.

"You're right," Chex said, her teeth chattering. "I shouldn't have done that."

They huddled together for scant warmth, except for Marrow, who wasn't affected, though the snow was caking on his bones. The storm raged around them, blotting out the sun and, indeed, the sky. They were unable to look into the wind; the whole scene was just the rush of air. It was mean in the belly of the air monster!

And it was increasing! The force of the wind was threatening to sweep them right off the mountain, even before they froze to death. "S-some easy p-path!" Esk chattered.

"I believe this is the realm of the Element of Air," Marrow com-

mented. "The gourd annex, of course. Air becomes quite stormy when aroused."

"Fanvy that!" Volney muttered from almost under the snow.

"Fancy that," Chex repeated. "Let's burrow down for some warmth until this passes."

"It will not pass," Marrow said. "When Air is offended, it will not rest until it destroys its offender."

Indeed, the storm was still intensifying. The sleet and snow blasted at them like sharp sand. Their huddle was not effective; there was too much exposed surface, and the wind and cold were too intense.

"We shall have to tunnel down below it," Chex said. "Only I am unable to tunnel well, and am afraid of close confinement. Only the knowledge that this is all the world of the gourd has enabled me to endure the subterranean passages we have navigated hitherto,"