Part 29 (2/2)

”I mean that if you entered my world the same way I entered yours, just in mind rather than in substance, your body should-”

”I doubt it. We magical creatures lack your grip on reality; we are entirely where we appear to be. So neither I nor Bria Bra.s.sie will be on this path; you found us, so we are no longer lost.”

Chex nodded silently; she had evidently figured this out for herself.

”That makes sense,” Esk said. But he remained nervous; suppose the skeleton did appear in the path?

But when they came to that spot, only the dent left by Marrow's hipbone remained in the ground. Marrow's explanation had been correct. His whole existence was where it seemed to be. There were indeed differences between the living and the magical creatures.

Before, he had had to hold Marrow's bone hand to get him unlost; now Marrow was walking independently, because he had been found. Evidently the pathfinder's path superseded the qualities of the Lost Path, and none of them was lost.

Something red bounded away. Chex was startled, but Esk rea.s.sured her. ”That's only a roe. Roes are red.”

She gave him a peculiar look, but did not comment.

Then they reached the potted plant. ”That's a violent,” Esk said nonchalantly. ”Violents are blue.”

She looked at him again, and again stifled her comment.

”It was supposed to be planted on a median strip, but they rejected it,” Esk continued.

She finally bit. ”Why?”

”Because they didn't want any more violents on the media,” he explained innocently.

”That does it!” she exclaimed. ”I am going to throw you into the thorn bushes!”

”Please don't; that would nettle me.”

She took a step toward him, but was interrupted by Volney's squeal of laughter. Embarra.s.sed, she faced away instead.

”I suspect she is the one who got nettled,” Marrow remarked. They went on in silence. Soon they pa.s.sed the eye queue vine, and the lost vitamin F, and the other items, until they pa.s.sed the place where Bria had been. Esk remembered her kisses of apology, and felt himself flus.h.i.+ng.

”Here is where the bra.s.sie picked up that accommodation spell,” Marrow remarked.

”The what?” Esk asked, startled.

”The lost accommodation spell. Elves and other creatures use them when they want to breed with folk the wrong size or type.”

”How can it be lost, if the elves use it?” Chex asked.

”It's not listed in the Lexicon, just as the eye queue is not, so it is lost,” Marrow explained patiently.

”Just how does an accommodation spell accommodate?” Esk asked, now quite interested. He remembered how friendly Bria had become about that time, and wished he had realized the spell's nature before.

”If an elf wishes to breed with a human being, or an ogre or whatever, the accommodation spell, when invoked, makes them appear to be of similar size. Thus they can accomplish their desire with reasonable dispatch.”

”Suppose they are different in type, rather than in size?” Esk asked. ”If, for example, one were flesh and the other metal?”

”The spell would make them compatible,” Marrow said. ”Those elven spells are quite potent. They could breed.”

”I suspect that someone has designs on someone,” Chex remarked. She glanced at Esk's flush. ”And that someone doesn't mind very much.”

”Is it, uh, one of those one-time spells?” Esk asked. ”Like the pathfinder, where one person can only-?”

”No, it's continually invokable,” Marrow said. ”I was haunting an elf once, in a dream, and he was living with a mermaid on a regular basis. He was afraid of death, not of loss of the mermaid, and he had been with her for years.” He made a fleshless grin. ”I a.s.sumed the semblance of an elven skeleton and chased him right to the edge of the water, but then the mermaid put her arms around him and s.h.i.+elded him from the fear I represented, and I had to retire. She had a bosom like that of Chex, except that it was glistening wet.”

”My pectorals get glistening wet when I exercise in hot weather,” Chex remarked.

”But what-what about an unreal person?” Esk asked with tormented excitement. ”How could she-?”

”We have already seen some progress, with Marrow himself,” Chex murmured. ”Sometimes the unreal becomes real, in a.s.sociation with real folk.”

They continued walking the path, but Esk was hardly aware of the other details along the way. Had Bria's apologies really been because of the nature of her culture, or to impress him? She had impressed him, all right! But what had been her motive? Was her true interest in him, or in getting unlost, or in trying to become real?

The more he considered it, the more it seemed to him that she had wanted some avenue out of her predicament, and he was what had been available. So she had left the gourd with him, and now had independence of a sort. She could use that accommodation spell with any other male; why should she bother with him? He wished that thought did not bother him so much.

”Well, look at that!” Chex exclaimed, startling him out of his reverie. ”Our path diverges from the Lost Path!”

”But the containment vpell-ivn't it lovt?” Volney asked.

”Perhaps not in quite the way we a.s.sumed,” Chex said. ”Or perhaps there is a section of this lost path that is neither easy nor safe, so we must detour past it.”

They followed the pathfinder's path. It led into a region completely different from their recent experience. Splashes of color formed in the air above it, spreading and changing and dissolving. Strange sounds sounded, groans and whines and unpleasant laughter. Smells wafted by, some like perfume, some like rotting brains.

”It is good to return to conventional horrors,” Marrow said enthusiastically.

”That's right,” Chex said. ”This is the origin of bad dreams; I had almost forgotten.”

”Yes. These are the sensations experienced by those alone and nervous. Aren't they lovely?”

”Lovely,” she agreed with resignation.

Then a huge face formed above them, its eyes glowing. ”Whoo invades theese mmy premisesss?” it demanded windily.

”Oh, go retire to the Lost Path!” Chex snapped at it. ”We've been through enough already.”

”Oooh, sooo?” the face asked, scowling. The mouth opened wide, impossibly wide, until it was larger than the face itself. From it came another entire face, uglier than the first, with a hugh warty nose and dag-gerlike teeth.

”Tressspa.s.ssers!” this new face hissed.

”Look, would you mind?” Chex asked impatiently. ”We are trying to get somewhere, and we're getting tired of routine spooks. Just let us alone.”

”Aarrgh!” the face growled. It opened its mouth, and the dagger teeth flashed. From this orifice came a third face, even worse, with little dancing flames in lieu of eyes, and a beak instead of a nose, and a hole like a deep cave for a mouth.

<script>