Roc And A Hard Place (22 page)

Metria realized that this was mostly to help get Chena settled, as the filly still looked pretty wild.  So while Kim erased a shelter for the night.  Jenny worked with a comb to get the tangles out of Chena's hair and tail, and to brush her coat down.  It seemed funny to hear Jenny's muttered cursing, but it was the only way to get curse burrs off.  Sammy Cat located food for them, and Dug brought it in.  Arnolde and Ichabod talked with the filly, and began to get her story.  Then Jenny started humming.

On Centaur Isle a filly named Chena was foaled with a magic talent.  The cursory magic inspection which all foals were given did not pick it up, so she lived for some time in blissful ignorance of her critical liability.

Chena had a loving sire and dam, two older colt brothers, and many peer-group friends.  She was contented in a completely normal way:  She groused about having to spend so much time in centaur school, she was furious at herself when she missed the bull's-eye once during bowmanship practice, annoying the bull, and was mortified when one foot got sore.

“Dam, I have foundered!” she cried as she limped home.

“Don't use language like that,” her dam reproved her.

“Laminitis.  Say it correctly.  Night mares founder; centaurs suffer inflictions of laminitis.”

“Yes, dam dear,” Chena replied obediently.

“Now, go to the doctor for some enchanted balm of Gilead to put on it.”

“Enchanted!” Chena said, appalled.  “But isn't that magic?”

“Magic in itself is a useful and sometimes necessary thing,” her dam said sensibly.  “In fact, it can even be endearing, in lesser species.  Just so long as it is not too closely associated with a centaur.”

“Oh.” Chena had thought, from the attitudes of her siblings and friends, that magic was somehow dirty.  Now she understood the distinction between using magic and possessing magic, and realized that her friends were actually somewhat ignorant about it.

So she went to the centaur doctor.  “I need a bomb of Gilead,” she told him.  “For my sore foot.”

He smiled in that annoyingly superior manner of adults everywhere.  “Which digit do you need detonated?”

“My right forefoot,” she said, lifting it.

“Indeed,” he said, examining it.  “Well, here's the bomb.” He rubbed some thick fragrant ointment on it, and the pain exploded outward and dissipated.

“Oh, thank you.  Doctor!” she cried, dancing on the painfree foot.

“And here is some more, in case the infliction of laminitis returns,” he said, giving her a vanilla envelope.

Apart from routine things like that, Chena was a happy camper and homebody.  Her main hobby was magic rocks, now that she knew that it was all right to use magic things.

Some stones were pretty, and some were useful, but to her the most fascinating ones were magic.  Some were known to everyone as magical, but were difficult for most folk to activate, such as charmstones and hearthstones.  Others didn't seem magical at all, but Chena was able to divine their hidden powers.

In fact, she didn't know it, but she had a magic talent.  It was the ability to activate magic rocks.  It was not her words or insights that did it, but her hidden talent.

So she became a collector of magic stones.  She always wore a pouch around her waist filled with different kinds of gems and pebbles.  Rolling stones, for example, rolled without being pushed; they also, for some unknown reason, played music.  Rock music, of course, and Stone Age melodies, and pebble tunes.  They refused to be put in the same pouch as moss agate, not because it was soft and green, but because rolling stones gathered no moss.  Then there were ope-als, which opened doors, and sapph-fires, which burned with blue fire, useful for igniting wood.  Rubies would rub against her, and spinels would spin in dizzy circles.

One rock in the pouch was neither lovely nor useful.  It was grayish and ordinary, and seemed to have no magic.

Chena kept it because she felt sorry for it.

Then one unlucky day a centaur Elder saw Chena playing in the street with her pebbles.  “Filly, what are you doing with those rocks?”

“I'm studying them,” she replied, in some surprise.  “I want to be a mineralogist when I grow up, and classify all the magic stones of Xanth.”

“Magic stones?”

“Yes.  I am very good at recognizing them and figuring out how they work.  See, here is a gall stone.”

“A gall stone?”

She held it up, and the stone made a galling remark.

“What's it to you, horseface?  You got a sore on your rump?”

The Elder did not know very much about stones, but he did know something about magic.  He took Chena at once to the Building of Magic Inspection to have her reexamined.

The magic detection tool they had there was the kind that responded only to active magic.  Naturally her talent was active only when she was around magic rocks, which was why it had not registered before.  This time she had the stones in her pouch. “Show them your gall stone,” the Elder told her.

She brought it out, and it made another galling remark. “I resent the implication, founderfoot,” it said bitterly.

The instrument hummed, pointed directly at Chena, and indicated the use of a magic talent.

That was enough.  That same day, Chena was exiled from Centaur Isle for obscenity.  She gathered her few possessions, bid tearful farewell to her sire and dam and siblings, who tried to pretend that she had not deeply shamed them, and quietly left.  She held her head high, refusing to let any emotions show, because she was, after all, a centaur, even if she was a filly of tender years.

Once she had been rafted to the mainland and was entirely free of the Isle and alone, she paused to release her pent-up emotions.  To her surprise, she discovered not grief but anger.

“I like my magic talent,” she said defiantly to the forest.

“They can humiliate me in public and even exile me because of it, but they can't make me ashamed of it!” Suddenly the young filly's anger exploded in one sentence:  “I wouldn't go back there even if I could!” But there was just a suggestion of a trace of a tear in an eye and a thought of a tremble on a lip.  She was, after all, only eleven.

Chena began to adapt to the wilderness, little by little, or even tiny by tiny, in the course of the next few hours, venturing slightly farther inland from the coast.  She knew enough to avoid tangle trees and carnivorous grass—there were, after all, such things even on Centaur Isle, carefully fenced off and labeled as examples of what life was like elsewhere—and to be alert for stray dragons.  With the aid of a chunk of magic searchstone, which her talent had enabled her to recognize and activate, she managed to search out pie trees and other food-supplying plants.

She also discovered the full range of her talent, now that she no longer had to hide it from herself.  For example, when she accidentally cut herself on a thorn bush, she was able to use a piece of bloodstone to stanch, the blood.  If she wanted to go fishing, she could use a garnet to net gar.  If she was thirsty, and didn't trust the local groundwater (love springs and hate springs weren't common, but why take chances)?, she could get lime juice from a limestone, olive juice from olivine, or several quarts of milk from milky quartz.  Gradually Chena came to realize that her talent was more powerful than the Centaur Isle Elders had suspected.  It wasn't Sorceress or neo-Sorceress level, but it was still an excellent talent to have in the uncharted Xanth wilderness.  They might have thought she would soon perish, alone, thus enabling them to get rid of her without having to execute her themselves, keeping their dirty hands clean.  They would be disappointed, maybe.

Chena did not take unnecessary chances.  She was, after all, a centaur, and possessed of excellent intelligence and judgment.  She stocked up on pies at the first pie tree she found, lest she not find another soon.  That night she ate a banana cream pie, because it was too squishy to last long in her knapsack, and a key lime pie, which was already getting overripe.  She carefully picked the keys out, leaving the limes alone, and was about to throw them away when she decided to save them.  She might need those keys later.  Ope-als couldn't open everything, after all.

Now where was she to go?  She had no idea.  It wasn't as if she had planned this excursion.  She couldn't stay long in this vicinity, because centaur hunting parties came here regularly.  She didn't even dare use their trails, because she would be killed if any Isle centaur saw her.  Unfortunately, she was sure that the farther she got from the Isle, the more dangerous the land would become.  She had been allowed to take no weapon, which made her situation that much worse.

She might be able to fashion a crude staff or club, but what she really needed was a good knife or bow.

“I wish I had a really good bow and arrows,” she murmured.  “And I wish I knew what to do.”

Then she heard something.  It sounded like trotting.  Was it a unicorn—or a centaur?  She quickly concealed herself in a place few folk would even think to look:  behind a tangle tree.  She could do this because she could see by the fresh bones that the tree had recently feasted.  That meant it should be quiescent for another day or so.  It was a nervy thing to do, but not as nervy as remaining in sight for a centaur archer to spot.

And it was a centaur coming.  She peeked out between the listless tentacles of the tree.  In fact, it was her eldest brother, Carlton Centaur!  That terrified her, because when they played hide-and-seek, he had always been able to find her, no matter how cleverly she hid.

He galloped right toward her, and for a moment she was sure he saw her, but then he went on by.  Then he turned and trotted back, and halted.  Again she was sure he had seen her.

What was he going to do?  They had always gotten along well, but if there was one thing stronger than a centaur's marksmanship, it was his honor, and he would be honor bound to execute her if he ever saw her again close to Centaur Isle.

Carlton stood near her tree, but faced to the side.  “Now I don't see anyone,” he said to the forest.  “And I don't expect to.  But it occurred to me that if anyone happened to be lost around here, he might be able to use something, so I'll leave it, just in case.  And I might also remark that probably the best place for a person in doubt to go is to the human Good Magician, and ask a Question, any Question, because the Good Magician requires a year's service for an Answer, and I understand that querents are well cared for while performing such service.” He set down a long package.  “Of course, any lost person is surely greatly missed by his folks, even if they aren't able to say so, and I'm sure their best wishes go with him.  But there's no sense in talking any longer to myself, so I will depart and not return.” And he walked away, not looking back, and was soon gone.

The scene blurred, and Chena realized that there was no longer any mere hint of a tear in an eye, but a copious flow in both eyes.  Her dear brother had known she was there, and brought her a gift, and some excellent advice, and gone his way, not even able to remain for her thanks.

She came out and checked the package.  It was a fine bow, and a dozen perfect arrows, and one very sharp small knife.

With these she could defend herself from most predators, and do some hunting.  She lacked the muscle to kill a dragon at long range, but she could certainly score on small game at intermediate range, with an excellent weapon like this.  She knew that Carlton had not acted alone; their parents must have supported it, though they would never say so.  They couldn't stop her exile, but they did love her.

She donned the harness, so that the bow and quiver of arrows lay across her human back.  The bow was so long that its ends came close to the ground and well up beyond her head; she would have to stay clear of tight squeezes.  But it was wonderful having it.  She strapped the sheath of the knife to her human waist, where it was readily in-reach.  She felt so much better, with such equipment—and because of what it told her about the true sentiment of her family.

And what of the advice?  Well, it made sense to her.  Go ask the Good Magician a question, and have a year to learn how to get along in the big uncivilized world of Xanth.  Not only did it give her somewhere to go, it would give her a year's leeway before she had to make a decision about the rest of her life.  The Good Magician wouldn't care that she had magic; all human beings did have magic, so they saw little or no shame in it.  That was, of course, part of what made them lesser beings.

So she would do it.  She set her face to the north.  “Thanks, Carlton,” she said.  “Thanks, family.” Then she started on her long journey.

As dusk came, something dark and snarly loomed ahead.

Chena brought her bow about and nocked an arrow.  The thing hesitated, then charged.  It looked like a robert cat.  She loosed her arrow, but the cat saw it coming and dodged to the side.  The arrow caught it in the flank instead of in the heart, so wasn't fatal.  But the cat decided that this centaur filly wasn't as helpless as she seemed, and bounded away, leaving a trail of blood, but, unfortunately, taking the arrow with it.  Chena hated losing an arrow, but it was better than losing her life.

She found a reasonably safe niche by two intersecting wallflowers, and settled her rump there.  Then she set her bow and three arrows on the ground before her, and lay down.  If anything came in the night, it would have to come from the front, and she could put an arrow or three in it before it got close.  She slept, keeping her ears attuned to anything unusual.  But she was in luck; nothing came.

Sometime in the night there came not a predator, but a realization:  Her brother Carlton had magic too; he could find things.  That explained so much!  But of course, he could not admit it.  He had used it to find her, so he could give her the bow, knife, and advice, but could never demonstrate it elsewhere, lest he, too, be exiled.  She would certainly keep his secret.

So it was, in the next few days as she traveled north.  She encountered a small mean dragon, but two arrows dissuaded it.  She regretted this, because again she lost the arrows, and they were irreplaceable.  But at the same time she appreciated how very much worse it could have been, without the bow.