Vale of the Vole

by Piers Anthony

  “Souls—can grow back?” He had heard of this, but now it was important to get the matter quite straight.

  “Oh, yes, if there’s something to start with. That’s how babies get souls, I understand; they take some from each parent, and grow the rest, and the parents grow back what they have lost. So while I understand it is not fun losing part of your soul, it’s not torture either. I would not have a soul of my own if my dam had not been able to grow hers back to full strength. Why do you ask?”

  “Bria wants half mine.”

  Chex gazed down at him sidelong. “Oh, so it has come to that? I can’t say I am surprised.”

  “That’s why she’s been playing up to me. For my soul, so she can become real.”

  “Oh, is that how you see it?”

  “What other way is there to see it? She decided to use me to get her out of the gourd. I thought she liked me.”

  “Is there a conflict between the two?”

  “Isn’t there? You don’t use someone you really like.”

  “I’m not sure of that. Liking and sharing—they can go together.”

  “I guess she’d like me to give her half my soul!”

  “But she has a home in the gourd. Why would she want to remain out here?”

  Esk spread his hands. “I guess she just likes it better here. She says she likes exploring, and her mother knew my father.”

  “But why would she like it better, when it’s so strange for her?”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “I wouldn’t want to go to a strange realm and stay there the rest of my existence, unless I had a very good reason.”

  “I really don’t see any reason for her.”

  “If I met someone who lived in that other realm, and I wanted to be with him, and could not unless I stayed there, then I think I might do what I had to arrange to stay.”

  Esk considered. “Are you saying that it’s the other way around? She’s not using me because she wants to stay, but she wants to stay because she likes me?”

  “Well, I do wonder why she hasn’t asked any other man for his soul. Surely she had opportunity while we were absent, but Ivy said Bria just kept mostly to herself and didn’t say much. That she did no exploring, and seemed depressed, until you returned.”

  Esk shook his head. “I wish I knew her true motive.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it makes a difference!” he flared. “If she just decided I was the handiest idiot with a soul to take—!”

  “Why should it make a difference? You don’t have to give her anything you don’t want to give.”

  “What if I gave her my soul and she just went off elsewhere?”

  “Then the resolution of that indecision might be worth it. It would certainly be a way to ascertain her true motive.”

  Confused, Esk didn’t answer. He dropped back, his thoughts in a morass.

  The path reached the intersection that led south to the Good Magician’s castle and north toward the Vale. Volney went north, and they trailed along after him.

  This path soon narrowed and curved eastward, following the contours of the land. Volney proceeded with sureness, but evening fell before they progressed very far along it. They had to camp for the night.

  They foraged for fruits and tubers. Marrow and Bria helped, though neither needed to eat. The sight of her stirred him, like a breeze lifting the curtains of his confusion. If all she wanted was his soul, and she couldn’t have that, why hadn’t she simply gone elsewhere? She hardly needed to help them if she didn’t want to.

  Why should it make a difference to him, Chex had asked. Because Bria had kissed him and been soft in his arms and he wished he could have more of that. Maybe he was a fool, but that was the way he felt.

  Chex had told him exactly how to learn the truth.

  He went to Bria. “I’ll give you half my soul,” he said.

  “What, to get rid of me?” she snapped. “I don’t want it!”

  “Then why did you ask for it before?”

  “I—” Then she turned away. “Oh, never mind.”

  This was not at all what he had expected. “No, I really want to know.”

  “Because I was foolish,” she said. “I thought—” But again she broke off.

  Esk began to see the answer. “Because you thought we could maybe—have a life together?”

  “I should have known better! I’m just a brassie from the gourd! I’m not even alive! Why should anyone want toto—” She dabbed at her face with a corner of her skirt.

  She sounded exactly as uncertain of her value as he had been of his. And as prickly about admitting it. His understanding expanded. “Someone might.”

  “Oh, sure,” she said corrosively. “Who?”

  “Only another fool,” he said. “I think I owe you an apology.”

  She gazed at him, a brass tear on her cheek. “You mean you want to—?”

  “I misunderstood your motive, I think. I thought you wanted my soul, not me. It hurt.”

  “Oh, Esk,” she said, abruptly softening. “I—”

  “Take half my soul. Then do what you want.”

  “Let’s just apologize for now,” she said. “I want you to be sure.”

  They apologized to each other, her way, and Esk was sure already. But she wouldn’t take his soul yet.

  Chex saw them holding hands, a little later, and made no comment. Neither did any of the others. That meant they understood.

  In the morning they resumed the trek, and this time Bria walked with Esk. The path continued eastward without unusual event; it did seem to be enchanted, and now that the little dragons had gone, there were no other threats.

  By evening they reached the Vale of the Voles. It was a sorry sight: a broad valley overrun by scrub, much of which was dying. Through it ran a channel as straight as a metal pole, along which ugly brown water coursed. There was a bothersome humming sound throughout.

  “That’s funny,” Esk said. “I thought only demons could hear the hummers.”

  “They have gotten worve,” Volney replied. “Now there are vo many that everyone can hear them. But they bother the demonv worve than uv.”

  The demons were there too, cruising around recklessly. The voles were evidently keeping low, so as not to attract the notice of the irate demons.

  “What a wasteland,” Chex remarked.

  A demon in the form of a small black cloud made a right-angle turn and zeroed in on her. “What did you call me, horseface?” it demanded.

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” Chex replied. “I didn’t even know you were there.”

  “That’s a lie! You called me a wasteband!” the demon screeched. “I’ll pulverize you!” A muscular arm sprouted from the cloud and formed a fist that cocked itself, aiming for her face.

  “No,” Esk said.

  “Aw, you aren’t worth the effort, mare-hair,” the demon said, and drifted away.

  “I may be mistaken,” Latia said, “but I believe I see why the voles would like to be rid of the demons.”

  “They were not bothervome until the hummerv got bad,” Volney said. “Now the Kill-Mee River makev everyone, vole and demon, bad tempered.”

  “The winged monsters and ogres may arrive any time,” Esk said. “We’d better get a good night’s rest before it gets hectic.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Chex said. “We shall need to get organized too. Do we have any campaign plan?”

  “Campaign plan?” Esk asked blankly.

  “Who is going to direct the monsters? Exactly what are they going to do when they arrive?”

  “Why, just wade into the demons and drive them off,” Esk said.

  “More likely the ogres will wade into the winged monsters, unless there is some organization.”

  “Uh, yes,” Esk agreed, disgruntled. “But how do you organize ogres?”

  “You establish an overall plan, then designate a liaison to their leader. The same for the winged monsters. Organization and discipline—th
at’s the key to prevailing in any conflict. But first we need a leader.”

  “I guess, since you know how to do it—” Esk said, uncomfortably.

  “A filly? Don’t be ridiculous. It has to be a man.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s the nature of armies. They have male leaders.”

  “That’s silly!” Esk protested. “The most competent one should be the leader.”

  “No. The most acceptable one must be the leader.” She smiled. “And I think that is you, Esk. You are the only male human creature in this party, thus related to all others by blood or sex.”

  “Blood or sex?” Esk repeated, alarmed.

  “Ogres, curse fiends, brassies, centaurs, and manlike skeletons all derive in some devious manner from human stock. That’s blood, figuratively. Volney is male, as are you. So you have an affinity with each of the rest of us, and with those we are working with. You have some small basis for understanding each of our viewpoints, and we all know that, so we can accept you as our leader more readily than we could accept another creature. Does anyone disagree?” She glanced around.

  The others shrugged.

  “But I don’t know anything about leadership!” Esk protested.

  “A good leader asks advice, of course, and chooses as he thinks best. I suggest that you establish a campaign plan, and appoint liaisons to the several groups.”

  “Uh, yes,” Esk agreed, still feeling out of sorts. “The plan is to wade into the demons and drive them out of the Vale. Any objections?”

  “Yev,” Volney said. “The demonv can dematerialive, and will do vo when threatened. How can we drive them out?”

  “You’re right,” Esk said, chagrined. “How could I have forgotten! Uh, does anyone have a suggestion?”

  “Yes,” Latia said. “I happen to know a bit about demons. It is true that they can dematerialize at will, but it is also true that they cannot maintain that state indefinitely or they lose cohesion. I think they have to spend about ninety percent of their time in solid form. If they don’t, they start to dissipate into vapor, and cannot recover.”

  “But I thought demons were eternal!” Esk said.

  “They are, but their material forms aren’t. If they vaporize, and can’t recover, they must remain vaporous, as clouds or similar, unable to have much tangible effect on physical things. They don’t like that. I know of one case with a perpetually bad nature. He calls himself Cumulo Fracto Nimbus, the King of Clouds. He’s really just a vaporized demon. He serves as a bad example for other demons; they don’t want to be relegated to that state.”

  “But the demons can dematerialize for short periods,” Esk said. “So they can just do it when a monster attacks, then re-form. How can we get around that?”

  “I was coming to that. If the monsters simply keep attacking, forcing the demons to constantly dematerialize, before long their vapor limit will be used up, and they will have to go. A concerted, continuous campaign should do it in a day or so. We just need to see that the demons get no rest in solid form.”

  “Say, yes!” Esk exclaimed. “And we’ll have the monsters to do it! Thank you, Latia! That’s a big help!”

  “That’s what I came for,” she said, almost forgetting her dour nature so far as to smile. But not quite.

  “Any more objections or suggestions?” Esk asked, feeling better.

  “Suppose the demons attack us?” Chex asked. “I mean, not the monsters, who can take care of themselves, but those of this party who are vulnerable? They could disrupt our organization, not to mention our lives.”

  Esk’s feeling plummeted. “I never thought of that, either! We’ll have to plan to protect ourselves. I can say no to those who attack me or anyone with me, and the others—I don’t know.”

  “I can throw a curse,” Latia said. “I have two bad ones stored up.” She glanced at Bria. “That is presuming that the one I threw at you was, after all, a blessing.”

  “I think it was,” Esk agreed, and Bria smiled at him.

  “I can hide among my kind,” Volney said. “The demonv cannot divtinguivh well between volev; we all look alike to them. I vhould be av vafe av any.”

  “Then I appoint you to be our liaison to the voles,” Esk said. “And Chex to be liaison to the winged monsters, who should be able to protect her. I think Bria and Marrow can’t be hurt. So maybe we aren’t as vulnerable that way as we thought.”

  “Who will be liaison to the ogres—and to the demons?” Chex asked.

  “The demons!” he exclaimed. “We’re fighting them!”

  “We need liaison to the enemy, too, so we can let the demons know what we want: their withdrawal from the Vale.”

  Esk considered. “Maybe Latia can be liaison to the ogres; they were really impressed by her—uh, by the way she curdled water.”

  “By my ugliness,” Latia said. “It’s high time that paid off for me! Certainly I’ll serve in that capacity.”

  “And for the demons, that leaves Marrow or Bria. Does one of you want to—?”

  “I’ll do it,” Bria said. “I’ll make myself extremely hard for them.”

  “Then I suppose Marrow is—is our reserve,” Esk said.

  “You will need a messenger, when you have information to impart or new directives to give to the scattered folk,” Marrow said. “I can serve in that capacity.”

  “Yes, that’s good,” Esk agreed. “So I think we’re pretty well organized, now. Let’s sleep.”

  They did, but it took him a long time to relax. He was aware, now, of the formidable challenge ahead. He had somehow thought that once they got help and reached the Vale, everything would fall neatly into place. That wasn’t so. People could get hurt!

  Finally Bria came. “Put your head in my lap,” she said. “I don’t need to sleep.”

  He did so, and found her lap surprisingly soft. She stroked his hair, and it was very nice, and soon he slept.

  It was stormy in the morning, which seemed appropriate. Ogres loved foul weather, and perhaps winged monsters did too. There was the sound of trees crashing down as something big and violent approached the Vale, and a big, winged shape sailed out of the swirling sky.

  “Liaisons, get out there and intercept your folk!” Esk cried. “Before they encounter each other!”

  Chex galloped off to the region where the winged monster was coming down, while Latia put on her ugliest face and clumped toward the forest crashing. “I will notify the volev,” Volney said. “Can you find me if you need me?”

  “Give me a hair of your pelt,” Marrow said. “I can use it to orient on you.”

  Volney touched his flank with a talon, and several hairs came loose. The skeleton took one and put it to his nose. “Yes, I will know this scent.”

  “You can do that?” Esk asked, surprised. “Find one vole among hundreds, by smell?”

  “Not exactly by smell,” Marrow said. “I sense the essence of things magically, whether by light or by sound or by substance. I speak the same way. No offense intended, but it seems to me that your fleshly mechanisms are relatively clumsy.”

  “I suppose they are,” Esk said. “We fleshly creatures do most things in the mundane manner, saving our magic for special things. That may be why we have talents. It has been said that in Xanth, some creatures have magic, while others are magic; I’m one of the former, and you are one of the latter.”

  “Yes, all my magic is needed just to handle my perceptions, communication, motion, and to keep my bones together. There is none left over for a separate talent. Perhaps that is why I would like to achieve the living state.”

  The skeleton’s aspiration seemed to have evolved; usually before, Marrow had remarked on the inconvenience and messiness of the living functions.

  “I think the same goes for me,” Bria said. “Only I don’t long for a magic talent, just for …”

  “A soul,” Esk said. “I told you, you could have half of mine.”

  “And I told you to wait until you’re sur
e. I don’t think it’s the soul I want; that’s just the means to the end.”

  “An end?” Esk asked. “What end?”

  “Love. I don’t think I can truly experience it without a soul. All I can experience is my futile longing for it.”

  “A soul,” Marrow said. “Yes, of course that is necessary. I wonder whether anyone would share one with me?”

  “Maybe if you got to know someone well enough,” Esk said. “You certainly seem worthy of it.”

  Now Chex and Latia were returning, trailed by what turned out to be a stallion with a bird’s head, and an ogre who—

  “Grandpa!” Esk exclaimed. “Crunch Ogre!” For it was indeed he, the vegetarian ogre who had married a curse fiend actress, now grizzled with age but still the epitome of ogreishness: big, ugly and stupid.

  “Me learn of plan, do what me can,” Crunch said.

  “And this is my own sire, Xap Hippogryph,” Chex said happily. “He took this pretext to check up on me.”

  “These two can speak for their groups,” Latia said. She grimaced. “Your grandfather says I remind him of his mate, who is beautifully ugly.”

  “That’s great!” Esk said. “Now I know we’ll have good contact with the ogres and winged monsters. Did you explain that they must not fight each other?”

  The hippogryph squawked with distaste, and the ogre made a horrendous scowl. That was sufficient answer; they understood.

  “But you will get to bash all the demons you want,” Esk continued.

  This time the squawk was joyous, and the ogre smiled, which was of course worse than his scowl.

  Esk explained about the need to harass the demons steadily, until they departed the Vale just to find some place where they could put in some solid time in peace. Monster and ogre nodded; they were going to love this!

  Now the forest behind shook with the horrible tread of many ogres, and the troubled sky darkened further with the arrival of many winged monsters. Crunch and Xap hastened to meet with their groups and explain things.