Vale of the Vole (27 page)

"But I still wouldn't know where the zombie gourd is. I would just get lost again, trying to find it."

"That's ridiculous!" he snapped. "You could get a map or something, and find it. Someone in there has to know where it is!"

"You think I'm ridiculous!" she exclaimed, her brass face clouding up. "You embarrassed me!"

Oops. He had been trying to avoid trouble, but had somehow walked into it anyway. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"

"That's no way to apologize!"

Esk glanced at her, then at Latia, helplessly.

"Go ahead," the curse fiend said shortly. "Apologize the proper way."

"Uh, yes," Esk said. He stopped walking, and Bria stopped walking. He took her in his arms. "I apologize for embarrassing you," he said, and gave her a quick kiss.

She stood motionless, seeming to be a brass statue. "I don't think you did a good enough job," Latia remarked.

Esk tried again. "Bria, I'm very sorry I embarrassed you, and I humbly apologize," he said, and kissed her somewhat more authoritatively.

Still the brassie girl stood, absolutely frozen. It was as if she had been cast in metal and allowed to harden in place.

"You need instruction in kissing," Latia snorted disdainfully.

Stung, Esk wrapped his arms about Bria, swung her around, and gave her a kiss that threatened to bruise his lips.

Then at last Bria melted. "Accepted," she murmured.

"Now there's a girl who would be excellent on the stage," Latia murmured. "I have seldom seen better management."

"What?" Esk asked.

"Nothing," the old woman said, with the suggestion of a smirk.

They resumed their walk toward Castle Roogna, but now Esk's head was spinning in much the way it had the first time Bria had kissed him. He tried to remember exactly how he had embarrassed her, but was unable. He tried to figure out what the curse fiend woman meant about management, but drew another blank.

Before long they reached Castle Roogna. Princess Ivy danced out to meet them. "You found him!" she cried happily.

"Volney Vole sniffed him out," Latia said. "The centaur and the vole had to go on additional searches, but we brought him back here."

"He looks sort of dazed," the girl said.

"He was some time in the gourd."

"Oh. That would do it." Then she noticed Bria. "Hello. Who're you?"

"Just something he fished out of the gourd," Bria said.

"You're a gourd folk? How exciting!"

Esk found his tongue. "She's Bria Brassie. Her mother knew your mother."

"A brassie? Then her mother must be Blythe Brassie, who got the dent from Smash Ogre!"

Bria glanced sidelong at Esk, who almost choked.

Fortunately Ivy was prancing on to a new subject. "I found something to help! A pathfinder spell!"

"A pathfinder?" Esk asked, accepting the object she gave him. It looked like a bit of twisted wire.

"It's a spell, and it finds your path for you," Ivy explained. "Wherever you want to go."

"That's easy. I want to go and ask the ogres if they will help the voles. But I can't walk there and back within a week, unless you have some more of those speed pills."

"No, I don't dare take any more; someone'd notice. But this is just as good. Ask it for the path to the ogres!"

"You don't understand. I can find the ogres; I just need more time than I have."

"Then ask it for the path that'll take you there in the time you have," Ivy said brightly.

"That spell can do that?"

"Sure. But there's one problem. It works only once for each person."

"Well, I can follow the same path back; that's no problem."

The girl's forehead wrinkled. "I'm not sure it's like that. I don't think you can find the path again without it."

"I know a path like that," Bria remarked. "Only you can't find your way/rom it."

"Gee, that must be fun!" Ivy said.

"I suppose I could use the spell to get there," Esk said. "Then hope to make it back the regular way in time. Maybe it can be done."

"You can get back, stupid," Ivy said. "Just have a friend use the spell to find the return path."

"Why that's right!" Esk exclaimed. "I'm embarrassed! I should have thought of it."

"Uh-oh," Latia muttered.

"You embarrassed him," Bria said to Ivy. "You will have to apologize."

Ivy was interested. "Gee—how do I do that?"

"Like this," Bria said. She put her arms around Esk. "I apologize," she said. Then she kissed him.

"Extraordinary!" Latia murmured admiringly. "No opportunity wasted!"

"That looks like fun," Ivy said.

At that point there was a splash and yowl from the moat. "Oops— Moatie's teasing someone again. Gotta go!" Ivy dashed off.

Esk examined the spell. "I'll need someone to go with me, I suppose," he said.

"Have no fear; we are both going with you," Latia said.

"But I'm going to ogre country!" he protested. "It may be dangerous."

"That is why we're going with you," Bria said. "Men always d<5 get into trouble on their own."

Esk wasn't completely certain of her logic, but he was still slightly unbalanced from the last kiss or two, so accepted it. He knew that Bria was mainly teasing him with those kisses, because she was of a different world, to which she would in due course return, but still the kisses had their impact. If only he could find a real girl like her!

"Then I'd better figure out how to use this spell," he said, looking at the pathfinder.

"That's no problem," Latia said. "We curse fiends have used them on occasion. Simply hold it up, focus on it, and say the name of the place to which you wish to find a path."

"Oh." Esk held out the wire and opened his mouth.

"But also specify that you want the shortest path," Latia added. "Otherwise you might get the scenic route; that would be longer than the one you would find on your own."

"Thank you for that little detail," Bria said.

Latia glanced at her. "Are you being snide, girl? That would embarrass me."

"No, not at all," Bria said quickly. "I was only being appreciative!"

"I thought as much."

When it came to management, Esk realized, the old woman was no slouch. Women of all ages seemed to be better at that than men were; even little Ivy had managed to get around her father's restrictions without much difficulty.

He addressed the pathfinder spell again. He focused closely on it. "The shortest path to the Ogre-Fen-Ogre Fen," he said.

He bunked, for there before him was a path he hadn't seen before. It was reasonably wide and firm and clear; there would be no trouble following it. But it was headed south.

"The ogre fen is in the north!" he objected. "This is the wrong path!"

"Poppycock," Latia snappped. "Pathfinders never err. Trust it instead of your private judgment."

Esk realized that he had no particular choice, because if he didn't take the proffered path, he would have to find his own way, which would take him a week or so one way. He stepped out on the path.

Latia and Bria followed. The path bore contentedly south, entering the thickest jungle. Then, safely out of sight of Castle Roogna, it changed course, curving back to the north. "See? It knows where it's going," Latia said.

"But how can it be the shortest path, when it just added this extra loop south?" Esk asked.

"Maybe it has a sense of privacy."

The path curved left, and continued curving, until it intersected itself slightly above its prior level. The curve tightened, completing a second loop, coming in just above and inside itself.

"This path is just playing with us!" Esk said. "It's not going anywhere."

"It probably has its reasons," Latia said. "Don't criticize it too sharply; you might embarrass it."

Esk didn't want to kiss the path, so he refrained from further comment. The spiral continued, until it became quite high and tight; they were circling in a narrow radius at treetop level.

Then at last the path took off to the north again, along the branch of a giant tree. "See, it just needed to wind up to its elevation," Bria said, pleased. "It must be a female path; it knows what it's doing, even if others don't."

Esk hoped so. The branch gnarled down into the depths of the foliage, and the shade deepened, so that they had to watch carefully to make sure of their footing. There were many side branches, but they could tell which one that path followed because it was well worn. Esk wondered about that; the Lost Path in the gourd had been tricky to follow in places because of disuse. Who used this one so much?

"Probably there are several standard paths," Latia remarked, answering his thought. "Maybe segments of them get assembled, end to end, to make a particular route to a particular destination. So this segment has been much used, but only by folk going to other regions. It hardly matters, so long as the programming is accurate for us."

They came to the trunk of the tree. There was a hole in it, and the path entered the hole. The interior was like a tunnel, surprisingly extensive; it continued long after it seemed to Esk that it should have emerged from the far side of the tree. The sides grew smoother, and assumed a faint glistening as if moist.

Then Esk encountered a stalactite. "Now wait a moment!" he exclaimed. "Stalacs are in caves!"

"That is curious," Latia agreed. She put her hand to the descending cone. "But this is after all wood."

Esk touched it. Sure enough, it was wood. The darkness had given it another semblance.

The tunnel finally emerged onto another branch. "Is this the same tree?" Bria asked, blinking in the sudden light.

Indeed, it seemed different. The bark was smoother, and the diameter of the trunk seemed smaller. Curious, Esk held on and worked his way around the outside until he could see the side they had entered.

There was no entry. The tree had a hole on only one side—the side from which they had exited.

He returned and peered back into the tunnel. It extended way back, and there was light at the end.

"You act as if you had never before seen a magic path," Latia remarked.

Esk was embarrassed, but struggled manfully to master it, fearing the consequence more than the embarrassment itself. He turned his face forward and strode out along the branch path.

This one had smaller branches that extended up, overhanging it, and

some of these bore fruit. Esk reached up and plucked a plumb that was bobbing below a stringlike twig. Plumbs always grew that way, straight up and down, and bobbing when they were ripe. He bit into it, and it was juicy and good. So this was a plumb tree!

But farther along the branch were two matching fruits of a different type. They were greenish-yellow, and thickest through their bases. He plucked them both, for it was impossible to pluck a single one; that was the nature of pairs. These, too, were very good.

Farther along was a big pineapple. He let that one pass; that kind of fruit was apt to be explosive.

"This is a versatile fruit tree," Latia remarked.

At last the path passed from the tree. It stair-stepped down to the ground, and then coursed along to a small river.

Esk paused. "I don't see the continuation across the river."

Latia and Bria looked. The path intersected the river at a slant, and did not resume beyond it.

"Only one explanation," Latia said. She stepped into the river.

Her foot did not splash into the water. It landed on it as if encountering solidity. She took another step, and stood on the water. "Just as I suspected," she said. "The path goes on the river."

Esk, at this point, knew better than to question it. He stepped out on the water, and found it as solid as ice but not cold. This was the path, all right. He should have realized before, for the path from the Good Magician's castle had crossed water too.

Bria followed. "I think I like the ways of the outer world," she said, fluffing out her skirt.

Esk, looking at her, discovered that the water she stood on was reflective. He could see right up her legs. He turned again, quickly. Even though he had seen all of her legs in the gourd, before she put on the dress, he felt guilty about seeing them now. Guilty about wanting to see them.

"Did I embarrass you?" Bria inquired.

And there was the other aspect of that trap! He wanted to tell her the truth, that she had inadvertently embarrassed him, through no fault of her own, but he knew that would only complicate things. "I, uh, embarrassed myself," he said.

She laughed. "You're going to have trouble settling that!"

Trouble, indeed! He knew she was only teasing him; possibly she understood about the reflection. Why couldn't his emotion follow his intellect, and accept the brassie girl as a temporary acquaintance?

The river broadened, until they were walking well away from either