Part 31 (2/2)

This time, mutually nervous, they linked hands (fins), and swam forward into the barrier together.

They found themselves floating in the air above a featureless plain. The water was gone, but they remained fish.

”I thought I might revert to my own form,” Chex said, surprised.

As she spoke, she did so, becoming a centaur, floating in the air without flying. ”And be tied to the ground,” she added, startled again. Whereupon she dropped to the ground, her hooves striking with clunks.

”Then why aren't the rest of us reverting?” Esk asked.

The rest of them reverted similarly. Marrow was in his a.s.sembled form, the complete skeleton.

”I think I would have settled for a fleshly state,” he said wistfully. And become a living man, fully fleshed, naked.

”I think we have a special situation here,” Chex said, with a certain centaurish understatement.

”Very special,” Volney agreed, a.s.suming the form of another man.

”This is like the Fire realm,” Chex said. ”There we could shape our forms, and Volney spoke as we do; but here it is more so.”

”I had noted your amelioration of speech,” Volney agreed. ”I always wondered what it would be like to walk upright, as human folk do.”

”Or to be fleshed, as living folk are,” Marrow added, a.s.suming the form of a male centaur.

”Or to be masculine,” Chex said, turning male.

”Um, we may be in danger of getting distracted from our mission,” Esk warned.

The others immediately reverted to their natural forms.

”I will be relieved when we finally reach the containment spell,” Chex said. ”We could be distracted for eternity in a place like this, and the danger of that might be similar to that of the gourd via the peephole, not to mention the risk to the Vale of the Vole.”

”All too true,” Volney agreed. ”There are dangers other than physical.”

They followed the path, which wound generally downward. At first the scenery was blank, but gradually trees and fields and bushes developed.

Chex paused. ”At the risk of distraction, let me pose a question,” she said. ”Is it possible that there is no scenery, and that we are imagining it? If so, things may not be what they seem.”

”Easy to test,” Esk said. ”Let's all concentrate on there being no scenery, and see if it disappears.”

They concentrated, and it disappeared.

”My next question,” Chex said slowly, ”is, are we also imagining the path?”

Esk whistled. ”We'd better find out!”

They concentrated, but the path remained.

”That, at least, is genuine,” Chex said, relieved. ”We can imagine any scenery we want, just so long as we don't lose the path.”

They proceeded, and the scenery formed again, this time more elaborately and less credibly. It seemed to be a joint effort, with voles and winged centaurs flying in the distance, and trees growing in the manner of bones and bearing skulls for fruit, and bra.s.s girls peeking from behind translucent metal curtains that showed their bronzed legs.

Then the path led into a loop. There was no question about this; they circled the loop several times, verifying that it went nowhere.

”I think we have come to the end,” Esk said. ”But where is the containment spell?”

”Abolish the scenery,” Marrow suggested.

They concentrated, and their surroundings became blank again. Now they saw that the path's loop enclosed a deep hole. The terrain simply curved down until lost in a blackness so deep that it seemed to suck them in; they had to yank their gazes away.

”But what is it?” Volney asked.

”I suspect it is the center of the Void,” Marrow said. ”The black hole from which nothing returns.”

”But if the spell is down there, how can we bring it out?” Esk asked.

”You forget again,” Marrow said. ”This is the Void annex, not the Void itself. This is a representation of the center. We might indeed be able to fetch something from it.”

”But the path does not go into it, just around it,” Volney said. ”That suggests that the spell is not in it, but-”

”But is it!” Chex exclaimed.

”The containment spell is the Void?” Esk asked, confused.

”I think I see the logic,” Chex said. ”What contains a wiggle swarm?”

”Nothing,” Esk said. ”You have to catch and kill every one, or there will be another swarm later.”

”Not so,” Volney protested.

”Point taken,” Chex said quickly. ”But we agree that there is no wall that will bar swarming wiggle larvae; they zap through everything until they run out of energy or find their particular type of rock or get killed.”

'True,” Volney agreed.

”So the notion of a containment spell is a strange one,” she continued. ”It claims to contain the uncontainable. However, there is one thing that contains anything inside it, without exceptions, and that is-”

”The Void!” Esk and Volney chorused.

”The Void,” she agreed. ”My dam and Esk's parents escaped the outer region of the Void only through the intercession of the night mares, who alone can range such regions freely. So that outer wall of the Void should contain the wiggles too, not hurting them, just preventing them from escaping it, until they run out of energy and expire. They would die happy, imagining that they are in their favorite rock, but they would not reach beyond it. In due course all of them would be gone, except those who drilled down and actually found their type of rock within the enclosed region. The Void is indeed the containment spell.”

Her logic was compelling. ”But how can we take the-the Void with us to the Vale?” Esk asked.

”Obviously we can't,” she said. ”But perhaps we can take this representation of it, and it will do the job.”

”Imagination won't stop a wiggle swarm!” Esk protested. ”A wiggle larva has very little imagination; it is single-minded.”

”True. But I suspect that this gourd Void operates like the peephole. If we take it to the Vale and set it up, it will lock the wiggles into the real Void, which is a region just like this only more permanent, and the effect will be the same. Then all we shall have to do is return it to the gourd, and-”

<script>