Vale of the Vole Read Online Free PDF Page A

eyes. She wore a petite knapsack, across which a sturdy bow was hung. The points of several arrows projected beside the knapsack. Evidently the dragon had come upon her so suddenly that she had not had a chance to set up with her bow. Her head was somewhat higher than his; this was because the human aspect of a centaur began above the equine aspect. Her shoulders were actually narrower than his.
    Now he did a double take. Wings?
    "Don't stare at me as if I'm a freak!" she exclaimed.
    "I, uh, just never saw—that is—"
    "My father is a hippogryph," she said. "I inherit my wings from him."
    "Uh, yes, of course," he said. "But why didn't you just fly away?"
    She put her face in her hands and burst into tears.
    Completely discomfited, Esk stood on one foot and then the other, uncertain what to do.
    In a moment her mood shifted somewhat. "I can't fly!" she said despairingly. "These wings just don't have enough lift!"
    "Uh, sorry," he said awkwardly.
    "Anyway, thank you for rescuing me from the dragon. I didn't expect anything like that here; the path is supposed to be safe."
    "That's what I thought," Esk said. "But that's the third little smoker I've seen on it."
    She brushed back her mane, which was just like the tresses of a human woman, and took a deep breath, which accentuated a bosom that also resembled that of a human woman, only more so. Centaurs, of course, did not wear clothing; they considered it to be a human affectation. "Hello," she said brightly. "I'm Chex."
    "I'm Esk."
    "Did you notice that we match?"
    "Hair and eyes," he agreed. And wings, he added mentally; they matched his suit in color and, to a moderate but reasonable extent, in texture.
    "My father is Xap Hippogryph. My mother is Chem Centaur."
    She was making the introduction easy enough! "My father is Smash Ogre. My mother is Tandy Nymph."
    "So you're a crossbreed too!" she exclaimed happily.
    "Quarter ogre, half human, quarter nymph," he agreed. "The human portion is half curse fiend, technically. I'm going to see the Good Magician."
    "Why so am I! What a coincidence!"
    "Well, we are on the same path."
    "Only one of us must be going the wrong way."
    "Well, I live east of his castle, so I'm going west," Esk said.
    "And I live west of it, so I'm going east."
    They stood there, considering. "Maybe there's a turnoff one of us missed?" Esk said after a pause.
    "That must be so," Chex agreed. "I was traveling pretty fast; I could have trotted past one."
    "I was traveling slowly; I don't think I did."
    "Then let's go west," she said brightly. "And look to the sides."
    "You are easy to get along with," he remarked. They walked west, with him parallel to her front section. This was a little crowded on the path, but there didn't seem to be any better way to do it.
    "I'm just mostly tired of traveling alone," she confessed. "That dragon —how did you get rid of it so easily? I couldn't make it quit."
    "I just told it no. That's my talent—to protest things. The effect doesn't last long, but dragons aren't very smart, so it works well enough."
    "I wish I had a talent," she said. "It used to be that centaurs weren't supposed to have magic, but now it's acceptable for the younger ones. My female parent is a mapmaker; she can project a map of anything. She told me how to reach the Good Magician's castle; it's hard to imagine that she could have been mistaken."
    "Geography changes," he said. "Tangle trees make new paths all the time when the old ones get too familiar, and streams change their courses when their old beds get too rocky. The path must have changed since your mother surveyed it."
    "That must be it," she agreed.
    "And you probably have a talent; it just hasn't manifested yet."
    "You're pretty easy to get along with yourself," she remarked with a smile that became her marvelously.
    "I suppose I'm tired of traveling alone too." They laughed together. Esk realized with a tinge of guilt that he was finding it much easier to relate to this filly than to a real