Vale of the Vole Part 11

"By the time you find the one you want to fascinate, you will be able," Millie a.s.sured her.

"And what about me?" Chex asked with a quirk of a smile. "I am one of a kind."

"So is Rapunzel," Millie replied, "but she's married now."

"To Grundy Golem," Ivy said. "Which reminds me, when is Snortimer coming back?"

This jump was too much for Chex. "Who is Snortimer, and what does he have to do with unique creatures finding mates?"

"He's my Monster Under the Bed," Ivy explained. "Grundy borrowed him, and never returned him, and now it's awful quiet under my bed." Then, after the briefest of pauses. "Awfully quiet."

"Oh." Chex was more confused than before.

"There's a zombie monster under Lacuna's bed," Millie said. "I think he's lonely, now that she's grown up."

"Oh, goody! I'll go play with him!" Ivy dashed off.

Millie turned to Chex. "I presume this is not purely a pleasure visit?"

"It's a coincidental visit," Chex confessed. "We were going to Centaur Isle to seek help for the voles, who have a serious problem, but there's such a horrendous smell on the path that-"

"Oops! That must be the sphinx! Jonathan said it looked ill."

"Jonathan?"

"My husband, the Zombie Master. Sphinxes live a very long time, but on occasion they do die."

"That would account for it," Chex said. "Can anything be done?"

"Oh, yes, of course. Jonathan wants to find that sphinx and make a zombie of it before it's too far gone. Now that we know where to look, he'll go with a contingent of zombies and convert it. The process will take a few days, because a sphinx is a very large creature, but I know he will be grateful to you for the information."

"But I have a limited time to reach Centaur Isle and return," Chex said. "I can't wait a few days. Ivy thought you might know a way around."

"There is a way, but it is difficult. You would need a guide."

"I would be happy to have a guide, if one is available."

"A zombie guide."

Chex paused. She had not had prior experience with zombies, and was not enthusiastic. "I would have to carry a zombie?"

"Oh, no, of course not! We can give you a centaur."

"A zombie centaur?" This did not appeal either.

"Ordinary folk do have some difficulty accepting zombies as legitimate creatures in their own right," Millie said.

Chex remembered the difficulty some folk had accepting crossbreeds, too. "A zombie guide will be fine," she said, making an abrupt decision.

"Very well. I'll ask Horace." Then Millie raised her voice. "Ivy! You must be on your way now!"

"Aww!" Ivy called back. "Zomonster's fun!"

Millie winked at Chex. "Unless you would like to stay and have a meal with the zombies, dear."

Suddenly Ivy was running downstairs. "I'm ready to go, now, thanks all the same, Millie."

"But we have such really rotten food!" Millie protested, smiling. "The very best mold, and even a few dead maggots. Are you sure-?"

"Quite sure, thank you," Ivy said with urgent politeness, "Perhaps another time, then," Millie said with seeming regret. She had evidently had prior experience with children. She led the way out.

Horace turned out to be a not-too-far gone centaur. His body was patched where hair had fallen out, and his face was somewhat worm-eaten, but otherwise he was all right.

"Please show Chex the alternate route to Centaur Isle," Millie said to him. "And wait for her return. Do you understand?"

"Yesh, Millie Ghosht," Horace said, speaking as well as he could with a rotten lip and tongue.

Chex helped Ivy mount. "Thank you, Millie; I really appreciate this."

"Anything in a good cause," Millie said. "It was nice to meet you, Chex."

Then Horace was moving off, and Chex had to hurry to catch up with him. "Bye, Millie!" Ivy called, waving frantically. "Bye, zombies!" Millie and several zombies waved back.

"Millie certainly didn't look like a zombie," Chex remarked.

"Oh, no, she's a ghost!" Ivy said.

"A ghost!" Chex exclaimed. But then she remembered what Horace had called her: ghosht.

"Well, she isn't really a ghost anymore," Ivy explained. "But she was one for eight hundred years, so we still call her Millie the Ghost."

"Eight hundred years!"

"Yes, and then she won a prize or something and was made alive again, and she took care of Daddy when he was little, and then she married the Zombie Master and lived happily ever after. She's real nice." Ivy paused.

Then: "Really nice!" in time with Chex's correction. And a laugh.

Horace turned his head. "Watsch niche?"

"Millie the Ghosht," Ivy replied promptly, stifling a giggle.

"Yesh," the zombie agreed.

"They aren't too bright," Ivy confided. "But they really are nice, when you get to know them. They defend Castle Roogna, you know."

Chex had known, because of the zombie graveyard there. Nevertheless, she was picking up a lot of interesting material from this child.

The path they were following was easy to discern. Chex wondered why Millie had considered it to be so difficult as to require a guide. Then Horace drew to a halt.

"Zragon nesht ahead," he announced, losing a discolored tooth.

That would make it difficult! Chex unslung her bow. "A big one?"

"Many bigh onze," he said. "Vwe go around."

"I thought we were already going around."

But he was leading the way into a thick tangle of vegetation. It seemed to consist of truly monstrous vines.

"They're growing in dragon dung," Ivy remarked. "That must be why they're so big! But you know, these look like-"

Abruptly they came up to the biggest gourd Chex had ever imagined. "But that's a-" she started, shocked.

"Hypnogourd," Ivy finished, as Horace leaped into the giant peephole.

"We can't-" Chex protested, appalled. "No one escapes on his own from a gourd! There isn't even supposed to be any physical entry-it's all in the spirit! But he just-"

"I guess that's why we need a guide," Ivy said.

Chex nodded. Maybe it did make sense. If she wanted to keep the guide in range, she had to act promptly.

She nerved herself and leaped into the peephole.

She landed in thick vegetation much like that she had just left. But this had one important difference: it was zombie vegetation. The leaves of the plants were rotting, and the stems were mottled. Nevertheless, vines were extending toward the depressions of what appeared to be sunken grave sites. The vines were trying to tunnel into the ground here, rather than springing from it in the normal fas.h.i.+on.

But she couldn't pause to figure out this anomaly; Horace was disappearing on the winding trail ahead. She galloped after him.

"Funny-they're growing the wrong way," Ivy said. "But you know, that's not scary, the way it was when I was in here before."

"You were in the gourd before?" Chex asked, amazed.

"Yes. There was a whole big lake of castor oil! Triple ugh! And a bug room! I hated it. But here it's only plants growing into zombie graves."

"It's a zombie horror!" Chex exclaimed, catching on. "Things that frighten zombies-like plants boring into their graves and sapping their vitality, or whatever it is they have."

"That must be it!" Ivy agreed happily. "Zombie haunts!"

There was a sharp hiss ahead. It was a venomous snake, striking at Horace's leg. But the centaur leaped clear, and the fangs closed instead on a sickly rose plant.

Immediately the plant changed color, becoming healthy and vigorous. Beautiful red roses formed.

"But what's so bad about that?" Ivy asked. "If it had bitten Horace, he would've been healthy again, wouldn't he?"

"Which might be the ultimate horror, for a zombie," Chex said. "Just as getting bitten and turning zombie would be a horror for us." But it certainly was strange!

Horace drew up at a new threat: a region of slas.h.i.+ng knives. There seemed to be no creature wielding them; the knives merely cut of their own volition. This was as awkward for living creatures as for zombies; how were they to pa.s.s?

Horace drew a rusty knife from his backpack. He hurled it into the melee.

Immediately the other knives attacked it. Sparks flew as metal rasped against metal. Soon the magic knives, their blood frenzy aroused, were slas.h.i.+ng each other. Not long thereafter, all the knives were broken, having destroyed each other. It seemed safe to proceed through this region now.

Whereupon Horace turned and proceeded back the way they had come. Startled, Chex followed. What kind of a maze was this?

The path behind had changed. Now the zombie vegetation was zombie mineral; decaying stones, rusting metal, and dissolving plastic. Horace threaded his way through it, touching nothing except the ground-until, abruptly, he brought a front hoof down on a sodden green rock.

The rock fragmented. The chips fell to the ground and burned their way into it, sinking from sight. The ground itself caught fire, burning with a sickly greenish flame. Zombie fire.

Gradually a wooden underpinning was revealed, as the earth above it burned away. The wood, oddly, was untouched by the flame, which flickered out.

Horace set his front hoof against the near end of the wood, and it descended. The far side lifted; the panel was hinged hi the center. Beneath was revealed a flight of wooden steps, leading to a lighted cellar.

"Gee," Ivy whispered, intrigued.

Horace turned and walked back the way he had come, ignoring the steps. Chex, bemused, followed.

Again the setting had changed. Now it consisted of zombie animals: ratlike things that scurried haphazardly around, shedding fragments of themselves.

Horace stepped among them, taking care that his hooves crushed none. Chex followed, taking equal care. She could guess what would happen next: the centaur would select one creature to crush, and then a new way would open, and he would ignore it. This was a strange place even in its predictability!

Horace kicked a rat. The creature squealed. Immediately the others rose up and squealed too. Then they changed into numbers and rose into the air. The ground became a grid on whose squares the shadows of the numbers danced.

Horace lay down, his body covering a number of the squares. The numbers above those squares keened angrily and attacked. They spun so that their ends formed cutting surfaces and plunged at his body.

Chex, doubtful and not a little worried, lay down too. "I hope that zombie knows what he is doing," she murmured.

"I hope so too," Ivy whispered. "I don't like those numbers!"

Indeed, the numbers were attacking the two of them now, as well. They buzzed down like aroused bees-and pa.s.sed right through their flesh without impact.

Chex laughed. "They must be imaginary numbers!"

"What?" Ivy asked.

"Numbers used in mathematics that aren't real," Chex explained. "But sometimes it is necessary to use them anyway."

"That doesn't make much sense to me," Ivy grumbled.

"I'm sure it doesn't! But this must be the home of those numbers. They are probably the bad dreams of mathematicians."

Horace leaned his humanoid torso back and went to sleep.

Chex hesitated. Did the zombie really know what he was doing or had he given up? If so, could she afford to follow his example? There were certainly dangers here, and this was the gourd; they could be in real trouble, if- "I guess we don't have much choice," Ivy said, for once not enthusiastic.

"So it seems, dear," Chex agreed. They both settled back and closed their eyes. To their surprise, they slept immediately.

Chex opened her eyes. It was day, and she lay on a beach. Across the open water she saw the distant outline of a large island.

She blinked. "Could that be Centaur Isle?" she asked aloud.