Vale of the Vole (4 page)

"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."