Vale of the Vole (19 page)

But this did not sound like a snake. It seemed to consist of many tiny scrapings, as of insect legs . . .

Suddenly he realized what it was. Nickelpedes!

This was disaster. He could not use his talons effectively against those little predators; nickelpedes were too small and numerous. They would

scramble under his defense and start gouging nickel-sized disks from his tender anatomy. It was not possible to reason with them; all they knew was hunger. His tunnel down must have passed close to one of their nests, so that they heard him, and scouted about until they found his hole. Now they were on his trail, following the tunnel to its end, which was where he was.

He could not hope to escape them by dashing back up his tunnel; they would swarm over his body as he passed. He could not hide from them in the darkness, for they needed no light; indeed, bright light killed them. They were guided by touch and smell, as he was, and they could go anywhere he could dig.

He would have to go forward. If he intersected another tunnel, he could go along it and outrun them, for they were too small to travel rapidly. But what other tunnel would there be, here? He was below the normal vole level, into the diggle level, and the diggles had left this rock solid. He could tell by the sound of it when he tapped. He would have to dig his own tunnel, and that would slow him down to nickelpede velocity. Eventually he would tire, even if he took another strength pill, and they would catch him and feed on him. His situation was abruptly desperate.

The noise grew louder. One nickelpede had outdistanced the pack, and was homing in on him. Volney donned his enhanced talons, oriented, and struck savagely down. His sonar-location was accurate; the claw speared the nickelpede, killing it. The things were hard to kill; the strike had to be just right, and with sufficient power, or it merely bounced off their hard shells.

One down—thousands to go! He had to move.

He took another pill. Immediately the strength spread through him. He resumed digging, knowing that this would only prolong the chase; he was too far from the surface to reach it before tiring and slowing and getting caught, and indeed, the 'pedes might well be faster than he, traveling up. But he couldn't just wait to get eaten alive!

If only a diggle would come! Then he could hitch a ride, and be phased through the rock as if it were air, and the miniature monsters would just have to clack their pincers emptily and remain hungry. But there was a characteristic sound the diggles made when traveling, and that sound was not here; he could not depend on finding a diggle.

The rock fairly flew out behind him. Normally he let the debris accumulate behind, blocking the tunnel loosely. But the nickelpedes would have no trouble navigating this; they would simply scramble through the crevices between the fragmented rocks. A serpent he could have balked

somewhat by packing the plug more tightly, and then striking at its emerging nose. Small size was an advantage to the little gougers. If only he could pack it so tightly as to make it completely solid again—but that was beyond his power. It was a maxim among his kind: only magic could restore bored rock.

He paused for a moment, listening. The sound was there, pursuing. All he had done was maintain his lead, or perhaps improve on it a little. He had to have some better way! But what better way was there? His thinking was going in circles.

Circles . . .

Then he had a notion. He wasn't sure it would work, but it might. Certainly he had to try it.

He resumed his digging, forging through the rock, not even trying to make a plug behind. He wanted velocity, even though the nickelpedes might gain. He dug in a curve, bearing left. He stayed on the same level; that was important.

In due course he could tell by his sense of location and the manner the rock ahead vibrated that he was about to intersect his own tunnel. He dug until only the thinnest wall separated the two. Then he reached up and excavated a hole in the top, forming a vertical tunnel. He made this go straight up for a short distance, then curved it to the level, above the original tunnel. He worked as quickly as he could, though he was tiring; he had little time to spare.

Then, just as the first of the nickelpedes caught up to the end of the lower tunnel, he scooted back down. He speared the nickelpede with a claw and threw its body back. Then he resumed digging, quickly breaking through the thin wall and making a complete intersection of tunnels at the bottom level.

There were nickelpedes massed in the other tunnel, of course. They turned, smelling him, and poured back into his new opening. But Volney scrambled up and away the moment the breakthrough was complete, into his vertical hole. He made the turn to the horizontal level, then stuffed refuse into it, plugging it behind him, so that what remained was a hole up that dead ended.

Now he settled down and waited, resting. If this worked, he had saved himself. If not . . .

It worked. The nickelpedes were not the smartest of creatures. They were tracking him mostly by following the tunnel. As long as it smelled of him, they would pursue it to its end. It was a system that was normally effective. But now the tunnel was a loop, and so it never ended. They were going around and around forever. If any tried the hole in the ceil-

ing, they stopped when they discovered that it went nowhere; obviously he wasn't there. Some few might work their way through the plug and reach his hideout, but those few he could spear with the talon. The great majority were stuck in the trap he had devised: circularity.

Volney rested, recovering his strength. It was important that he not attract attention to himself; if he moved too much, the nickelpedes might feel the vibration and start searching for it. A few did come through to him, and these he did quietly spear. When he was sure he was sensitized to their entry, he slept; any coming through would wake him long enough for spearing.

Then, finally, he heard a diggle. His wait was over! It no longer mattered if the nickelpedes became aware of him.

He started digging, going in a direction that would put him directly hi the path of the diggle. When he got there, he waited.

The diggle was traveling slowly. Its wormlike nose projected into the chamber Volney had formed. "Ho, Dig!" he cried in the language common to all the members of the great family of voles. The magic of Xanth made communication intelligible to all the members of a particular group, such as the voles, or the humanoids, or the dragons. Unfortunately it did not do the same between groups, which was why Volney was unusual; he had learned the humanoid mode. It had been a terrible struggle to master the peculiar conventions of the alien system, but he had persevered, and succeeded better than the other voles hi the class. They had known that the Good Magician was humanoid, so this study had been a necessity. If only they had also known that the Good Magician would be absent!

Meanwhile, the diggle had been considering. Diggles were not especially rapid of wit. Now it responded. "Ho, Vole!" it replied.

"Take me to your leader."

It considered again. "Where is your song?"

Oh, yes—diggles liked songs. Unfortunately, that was not Volney's strength. What should he do?

A nickelpede scrambled up behind him. His activity had attracted their attention, and now the little monsters were working up another horde.

"Song!" Volney cried in the humanoid mode. "Song, song, sooongg!"

And the diggle was satisfied. It was too slow to realize that this was not a very good song.

Volney climbed onto the diggle's cylindrical back and dug in his talons. This was necessary to hold his position; the diggle's skin was so

thick and tough that it suffered no discomfort. "Song-song-soonngg-song!" Volney continued, getting into the swing of it.

The diggle resumed its motion, phasing through the rock and the crowding nickelpedes as if both were fog. It made a turn, orienting on the diggle leader.

Soon they were there. The leader, being old, no longer phased readily through rock, so preferred to remain in a network of physical diggings. Volney was well satisfied with this; it put him on the same footing.

"I come to ask diggle assistance for the voles," he said in voletalk.

"But the voles talk only to themselves!" the leader protested. Indeed, it was said among the digging species that the squiggles talked only to the diggles, and the diggles talked only to the voles, and the voles ignored them.

'That situation has changed slightly," Volney explained. He went on to tell of the problem in the Vale of the Vole.

"So you wish us to go and bore out new curves, to make the river friendly again."

"Exactly. The demons cannot stop you, because you are insubstantial when you bore."

The diggle leader pondered, after the fashion of his type. After an hour he replied: "We diggles have no quarrel with the demons, and would not wish to antagonize them. Therefore we shall not interfere in this business."

Disappointment smote Volney, He knew that this decision was final. "I thank you for your consideration," he said heavily.

"But perhaps the squiggles will have another attitude," the diggle said. "They are smaller than we, and move more rapidly, so their minds are more flexible. I will give you a guide so that you may seek their leader."

"I thank you for that notion," Volney replied. He had planned to ask the squiggles next anyway, but this would make it easier.

The diggle gave him a pebble. "The taste will guide you."

Volney took the pebble and put it in his mouth. He made a circle. When he faced one way, the taste became increasingly good; when he faced another, it became bad. No problem understanding this guide!

He bid parting to the diggle leader, and set off toward the good taste.

The route, to his surprise, was level rather than upward. The squiggles normally lived very close to the surface—so close that they often deposited their refuse dirt on the surface, instead of having it plug the tunnel. Deep rock wasn't their specialty, as they liked to bore with blinding speed. The light dirt and unplugged tunnels contributed to their velocity; dense hard rock inhibited them. Well, maybe there was a deep valley or

an offshoot from the Gap Chasm that brought the surface down to this level; the squiggle leadership might indeed prefer to reside in such a secluded region.

It was growing warmer; Volney found himself panting. Surface creatures such as humanoids and centaurs had a crass way to dissipate heat: they exuded moisture from their skin, and this liquid evaporated and cooled them. This led to residues on their bodies and in their fur or clothing that built up a typical and not necessarily delightful odor. Voles, like most other creatures, did it more delicately: by sticking out their tongues and letting the breeze take the heat. However, it had to be conceded that there were times when the humanoid's allover bath of sweat might do the job better.

He paused so as to abate his body's generation of excess heat. But the heat remained; it was radiating at him from the stone. That was surprising; this was supposed to be a cool level. Where was it coming from? Surely the squiggles didn't like it this hot!

He turned away—but immediately the pebble in his mouth turned foul. That was not the direction! So he faced forward again and resumed boring.

The heat increased, and now there were rumblings in the rock whose nature he didn't trust. He had heard of volcanoes, which were great local upheavals from the heated depths; could one of those be in the vicinity? Yet why would the squiggles choose to live in such a dangerous region?

As he finally felt the pattern of an opening in the rock, the heat was almost unbearable. Just in time! He broke through and popped into a large subterranean cavern.

He paused again. There was no sign of the squiggles. The arches and chambers were entirely natural, as were the irregular grooves in the floor, which seemed to have been n.ade by the dripping of hot liquid from the ceiling. The floor was actually cooler than the ceiling; the drippings had solidified into layers of colored stone that in light would surely be rather pretty. The source of the heat was above.

Yet that was where the pebble indicated the squiggles were. When he lifted his head it turned sweet; when he sniffed the floor, it turned sour. This was strange indeed!

Well, either he accepted the validity of his guidestone, or he didn't. Volney lifted himself on his hind feet and reached up to dig into the ceiling. The stone here was relatively soft, and his talons quickly gouged out a fair-sized hole. In fact, the digging became easier as he progressed, and soon he was able to lift himself into the new hole, wedge his hind feet against the stone sides, and pull out big globs from above.

But it was also getting hotter. Volney's tongue was lolling against his fur, inadequate; he could not remain in this environment much longer. He gave one final swoop with his talons, then slid back down; he had to cool!

The rock above sagged, then melted. A gob of it dropped. Volney barely dodged it; this stuff was molten!

He landed on the relatively cool floor, panting. More hot rock dropped from the hole, splatting against the floor. It was getting worse! Surely there could be nothing up there fit for a living creature to exist in!

Something gave way. Then lava poured out of the hole, so hot it glowed, illuminating the cavern. The layered stone was indeed pretty, the moment before it was buried under congealing lava. Volney scooted back —and the pebble hi his mouth gave him a nasty taste.