Vale of the Vole Part 13

Now night was approaching. They had been to the verge of Centaur Isle and back in a single day, a journey that would otherwise have taken three. Chex faced the prospect of returning to Castle Roogna two days early. That would be fine if Esk and Volney were back early, but not good if they were not.

She considered as the castle came into view, then made her decision. "Ivy, if Millie and the Zombie Master are willing, how would it be if we stayed here for two days?"

"Ooo, goody!" Ivy exclaimed, clapping her hands. "I can play with Zomonster all I want!"

So it was decided that simply. Castle Zombie seemed positively attractive, now.

Chapter 7. Gateway.

Esk brought out the pill somewhat doubtfully. Ivy had brought three of them from the Castle Roogna armory, telling him that there were plenty of them and that she used them all the time when she was in a hurry. He had hardly wanted to suggest that the child was not telling the truth, so he had accepted them. But now that Chex had trotted off south with Ivy, and Volney was tunneling to his mission, he was worried. Suppose they didn't work?

Well, in that case he would have to proceed the old-fashioned way, hoping he could make it in time. He had slogged by foot from home to Castle Roogna; he could slog down to Lake Ogre-Chobee. But he hoped the pills worked!

He put one in his mouth and swallowed it. Nothing changed. It was supposed to enable him to travel almost ma.s.slessly, so that he could cover a great distance without impediment or fatigue. But maybe its enhancement only worked on the child whose talent was Enhancement.

He took a step-and shot through a tree. He had paused on the path that started out toward the lake. It curved, so a tree was ahead of him some distance ahead. Now it was behind.

Could his step have taken him through the tree? He reached slowly back and touched the trunk and met only slight resistance. The tree seemed to have become an illusion.

Which was the way the pill was supposed to work. The tree was as solid as ever; it was Esk himself who had become very much like an illusion. His ma.s.s had been nulled out, though he looked and felt the same as before. Ivy had told him true.

If Chex had pills like these, she would be able to fly! But of course she wanted to fly regularly, not just during the span of one dose.

He faced southeast and started walking. His feet touched the ground and sank into it slightly, giving him necessary traction. His body zoomed along as if it weighed no more than a feather. Obviously that was the case, though he felt the same. His leg muscles, primed to propel his full ma.s.s, had only a tiny fraction of it to move now, so had a great deal of extra strength. He tended to leap when he intended only to push off, and to sail through the air far further than he could normally have jumped. He had trouble keeping his balance, because what he thought were trifling corrections became powerful shoves. He careered through trees with impromptu abandon, lunging through a seeming forest of phantoms.

Soon he got it under control, however, and concentrated on rapid forward progress. It hardly mattered whether he stayed on the path; he could pa.s.s through brush and other obstacles with almost equal ease. When he tried to go through a hill he slowed, though, because the resistance of the ground against his body was greater than that against his feet. He had to go into a swimming motion, and this was less efficient. So he stayed above, and avoided trees when he conveniently could, so that they would not drag against him.

He admired the whizzing scenery. The nearer trees were pa.s.sing so rapidly that they blurred, while distant ones were slower, and far mountains hardly changed at all. He tended to plow into hills, then to sail when descending their far slopes. He saw wild creatures, who were unable to move out of the way before he was upon them, but he was beyond them before they decided what to do. He spied a snoozing griffin and kicked at its nose without effect; the creature shifted its head, startled, as he left it behind. This was fun!

He was traveling rapidly, but he did have a good distance to go, so it was near nightfall before he came to the broad sh.o.r.e of Lake Ogre-Chobee. At last the pill was wearing off, and his normal ma.s.s was returning. Now he wished he had been less wasteful in the expenditure of his energy; his foot and leg muscles were tired in unusual ways because he had not been walking in the normal manner. The more the pill wore off, the less comfortable he became; he was good and sore!

He set about eating and making camp for the night, not too close to the water, because he didn't like the look of the green reptilian creatures in it. He was lonely now; he had gotten used to company, and decided that he preferred it. He finally settled in a tree for sleep; it wasn't comfortable, but it was relatively safe. He could tell any creature no, but he had to be awake to do it. He should be able to hear anything that tried to climb the tree in the night, or anything that landed in its foliage.

In the morning, cramped, he took care of routine needs, then addressed the problem of entry into Gateway Castle. The problem was that it was under the water. The only surface entrance was via a great whirlpool, and he didn't trust that. He could take another pill and become less dense than the water, and walk down through it and the castle wall-but then he would be inside in no state to talk with the inhabitants, and when the pill wore off they might not appreciate the manner of his intrusion. It would be better to apply at the front gate and be admitted legitimately. But where was the front gate?

Well, there must be a route for supplies. The curse fiends were said to be insular, caring little for outsiders, but they had to go out for food, wood, and other necessities. He would locate that supply route, and intercept someone on it, and explain his mission. Since he was related to these people, it should be possible to get some attention.

He walked along the sh.o.r.e, looking carefully for signs of activity. But the lake was huge, and the walk was long. The chobees came out, scrambling toward him on fat green legs. Their teeth were plentiful, and he didn't trust them, so he retreated into the forest until they did not follow.

Eventually he did discover evidence of activity. There was a region with cultivated trees, and that meant that someone was cultivating them. There were blue trees, and red trees, and orange trees, their fruits ripening nicely; there were yellow, green, and blue berry bushes. There were many different kinds of pie trees, and blanket trees, and all the other agricultural staples that a community of human beings required. He was definitely in the right region!

Sure enough, before long he heard voices, and came across young women harvesting an a.s.sortment of slippers from a grove of shoe trees. They wore simple blouses and skirts, evidently harvested from other trees at other times, in an a.s.sortment of pastel colors. Matching kerchiefs bound their tresses fetchingly.

He approached them. "Excuse me," he called. "I am looking for Gateway Castle."

"Eeeek! A man!" they cried with flattering alarm. Then they began counting: "One, two-"

"No!" he exclaimed, realizing what they were up to. The curse fiends, unlike other creatures, shared a common talent: that of cursing. A ma.s.sed curse could be devastating; even his mother's tantrums, which were related, were bad enough. He did not want to be hit by a several-girl curse.

His "no," of course, stifled that; they lost their count and did not try to curse him. Still, they backed away from him distrustfully. "Don't hurt us, sir; we are only working girls," they exclaimed.

"I am only a traveler looking for Gateway Castle," he repeated. "But I don't know how to get in."

"Are you sure you're harmless?" one asked him.

"Quite harmless," he a.s.sured her.

"Then we will take you in with us when we go," she said. "But you will have to check in with the authorities."

"I shall be glad to," he said. "Meanwhile, may I help you harvest?"

They giggled, and decided to let him help. So for the next two hours he helped them select ripe shoes. It was important that there be pairs that matched in size and type and color; many excellent ones had to be left because they had no mates. Thus, this was not as easy a job as it had seemed; indeed, in some cases it seemed that it would have been about as easy to make the matching shoes as to find them.

It was fun doing this work, not because Esk had any particular affinity for work, but because the girls were of his own age, and flirted with him constantly, making remarks about lady slippers without mates. Esk realized that there might be more for him at Gateway Castle than just his mission. After all, his grandmother had been a curse fiend.

Then the time came for them to reenter the castle. They trooped along with their baskets of shoes, and Esk went with them. He had been tired when he encountered them, but did not feel so now. In fact, he was feeling very positive.

They came to a pier that projected some distance into the lake. They walked out on this and waited, and soon a thing appeared, rising from the deep water. It resembled a boat, and seemed to be made of wood, but it managed to sail under the water rather than on it. This was decidedly strange to Esk, but the girls crowded toward it without hesitation.

The top opened, and there was a hole down into the boat. The girls stepped across in turn, clinging to the handholds set inside the hole and pa.s.sing their baskets of shoes across. Then they called to Esk, and he crossed too, and found that there was a ladder. He descended it until he was well below the surface of the lake, his feet finally touching the floor. Then one of the girls climbed back up. He glanced up to see what she was doing, and had to look away before he embarra.s.sed himself by blushing. He had seen right up her skirt.

"Get it tight, Doris!" a girl called.

Tight?

Then the light diminished, and he realized what she was doing: pulling closed the lid to the boat. In the abrupt darkness, someone hugged him and another kissed him on the cheek, giggling. Then a lantern came on, and all the girls were standing sedately around him, not one giving evidence of having done anything untoward.

It was a stern woman with the lamp, coming from another chamber in the boat. "Everybody aboard?" she asked briskly.

"Yesm'-plus one!" There was another giggle.

The woman brought the lamp about, and spied Esk. "A man!" she exclaimed disapprovingly.

"We found him hi the shoe trees," Doris said. "May we keep him, Matriarch?"

"Certainly not. He's going right back where he-"

"No," Esk murmured.

The woman looked nonplused. "Well, the authorities will have to decide. Put him in the hold for now."

So Esk was conducted to the hold, which was simply the cargo compartment of the boat. He settled down among the baskets of shoes, while the girls sneaked winks at him from the adjacent compartment.

The boat began to move. First it sank, so that he knew it was under the water, even the entrance hatch, and that was eerie. Then it slid forward, propelled by some unknown mechanism. He couldn't tell whether there were men in another chamber poling it along as he and Chex had poled their raft, or whether it was magic.

In due course the boat b.u.mped to a stop. A girl climbed up to the hatch and opened it, and fresh light descended.

Now the girls picked up their baskets and hauled them out of the craft. "Bye, Esk," each murmured as she pa.s.sed, in low tones that the matron was not supposed to hear.

When all were gone, the matron strode up. "Come on, intruder," she snapped. "You'll be seeing the Magistrate."

He went where directed, climbing up and out of the hatch. He found himself inside a room whose floor was water. The boat was sitting in this, its hatch beside another pier. This time Esk could see down around it, as the water was illuminated and clear. Now the mechanism for the craft's travel was apparent: there was a winch and a rope attached to it! The boat had simply been hauled in to the underwater city, as it had probably been hauled out to the edge of the lake. Obviously, there would be no people sneaking in by night; the boat would not be sent out for strangers. He was lucky he had cultivated the girls. Not that he had minded that particular diversion; he had not realized before how pleasant such an a.s.sociation could be!

The matron marched him upstairs to a grim office. Here the Magistrate frowned from his desk. "What do you mean by intruding where you aren't welcome?" the man demanded.

Esk was tempted to say that the girls had made him welcome, but suspected that would not be smart. "My grandmother was a curse fiend," he said. "I came to ask a favor from my relatives."

"A favor? A favor?" the man demanded, reddening. "We don't do favors for anyone; we curse!"

"Not even for relatives?"

The Magistrate huffed indignantly, but evidently felt obliged by his office to investigate this matter. "Who was your grandmother?"

"Well, I don't know what she was called here, because she gave up that name when she married my grandfather. But maybe you know of the case. She was an excellent actress-"

"All of us are excellent thespians," he said stuffily. "The theater is our vocation."

"Who impersonated an ogress," Esk finished. "My grandfather is an ogre."

"An ogre?" the man demanded, outraged. "None of our citizens would touch so brutish a beast!"

"I understand he abducted her from a set. But she married him from choice."

The man turned to a shelf behind him and pulled down a ma.s.sive tome. He set it on the desk, opened it, and turned the pages, running his forefinger down the margins. "Ogre, ogre," he muttered as he searched.

"Crunch Ogre," Esk said helpfully.

The Magistrate grimaced. "Yes, here it is. Helpless damsel abducted by villainous ogre. We blasted him with a ma.s.sive curse that killed all the trees of the region, but apparently the brute escaped."

"He became a vegetarian," Esk said. "The curse couldn't find him, because it was looking for a bone cruncher."

"A loophole!" the Magistrate said with withering disgust.

"They had a son named Smash, who married a nymph named Tandy, and I am their son," Esk said. "So I am related to the curse fiends, and now I come to ask a favor of my relatives."

"You may be related, barely, in a distasteful technical sense, but that gives you the right only to visit, not to make demands on us. I will grant you a two-day visa; after that you will be banned."

"Oh, I don't intend to stay longer. All I'm asking is help for-"

"Don't tell me your business!" the man exclaimed. "You have no right even to ask, unless you earn it."

"Earn it? How do I earn it?"

"By providing something we need. What can you do?"

Esk considered. Obviously they would not be impressed by his ogre mode, even if he could invoke it, and he doubted that his sometime acting ability would be anything remarkable here. Then he remembered something his grandmother had mentioned that had seemed like a joke. "I can be an audience," he said.

"Someone must have told you," the Magistrate grumped.

"My curse fiend grandma," Esk agreed smugly, though he was surprised that this had worked. "You have everything you need except advance audiences, right? You need to try out your plays on ordinary folk, before your season commences, to be sure they register correctly. Well, I'm about as ordinary as they come."

"I'll grant you that, youngster. Very well, it is evident that you do have curse fiend lineage, even if you are a bad actor. Here is your visa; you have two days to be a good enough audience to warrant our consideration of your plea. Don't waste them."

"I won't," Esk promised. "If you will just tell me where to go to get to work-"

"First you must clean up. Did you expect to perform as an audience in that condition?" The Magistrate's nose wrinkled. He snapped his fingers, and a girl appeared.

Esk recognized her. She was Doris, the one he had seen on the ladder.

"Take this person to a guest room and clean and dress him appropriately," the Magistrate said.

"Yes, sir," the girl said meekly. She turned to Esk. "If you will follow me, person."

"His name is Esk," the Magistrate said. "He will be a sample audience for two days only."

"Yes, sir," Doris repeated. "Please follow me, Desk."

"Esk!" the Magistrate roared. "Can't you servants get anything straight?"

"No, sir," Doris said.

Esk followed her, intrigued. Doris knew his name; why was she pretending not to?

As soon as they were alone in the hall, he found out. "I subbed for the girl on duty," Doris confided. "If the Magistrate caught on, he'd have me flayed."

"But why? You've already put in a day's work harvesting shoes."

"I think you're cute. I thought if I showed you my legs, you'd like me. Now I get to wash you. That will be fun!"

"You-on the ladder-on purpose?" he asked, almost choking.

"Wasn't I naughty?" She giggled. "I knew you'd look."

But now the other part of this situation registered. "You are going to wash me?"

"It's part of the duty. We're servant girls, until we serve our apprenticeship. Then those with proper promise get to try out for parts, unless we manage to marry above our station. What's your station?"

Now it was clarifying. She was looking for a way to get a better position; her interest in him was little more than an act, taking advantage of an opportunity. He had been fascinated by what he had seen of her legs, but he found her motive less appealing. "My station is very low," he said. "I'm a crossbreed."

She gazed at him, appalled. "What a dirty word!"

"Yes. So you don't want anything more to do with me."