Ogre Ogre

"This one must be punished." the lieutenant said. "If our chief dies, she must die. So it is written in the verbal covenant: an eyeball for an eyeball, a gizzard for a gizzard."

Smash knew how to negotiate with goblins. It was merely a matter of speaking their language. He formed a huge and gleaming metal fist. "She die, me vie."

The lieutenant understood him perfectly, but was in a difficult situation. It looked as if there would have to be a fight.

Then the goblin chief stirred, perhaps because he was uncomfortable being dragged by the ears over the rough ground. He was recovering consciousness.

"He isn't dead," the lieutenant said, relieved. That widened his selection of options. "But still she must be punished. We shall isolate her on an island."

Isolation? That didn't seem too bad. Nevertheless, Smash didn't trust it. "Me scratch," he said, scratching his flealess head stupidly. "Where catch?"

The goblin studied him, evidently assessing Smash's depth of stupidity. "The island sinks," he said.

"You may rescue her if you choose. But there are unpleasant things in the bog."

Smash knew that. He didn't want to see Tandy put on a sinking island in that bog. Yet he did not have his full strength, and hunger was diminishing him further, and that meant he could not afford to indulge in combat with the goblins at this time. In addition, his Eye Queue reminded him snidely, Tandy had attacked the goblin chief, and so made herself liable to the goblins' judgment. The goblins, if not exactly right, were also not exactly wrong.

The goblin lieutenant seemed to understand the struggle going on in the ogre's mind. Goblins and ogres differed from one another in size and intelligence, but were similar in personality. Both sides preferred to avoid the mayhem that would result if they fought. "We will give you a fair chance to rescue her."

"Me dance," Smash said ironically, tapping the ground with one foot, so that the terrain shuddered.

"What chance?"

"A magic wand." The lieutenant signaled, and a goblin brought an elegant black wand.

"Me no fond of magic wand," Smash said dubiously. He continued to use the ogre rhymes, having concluded that stupidity, or the appearance of it, might be a net asset.

"All you have to do is figure out how to use it," the goblin said. "Then you can draw on its magic to help the girl. We don't know its secret, but do know it is magic. We will help you figure it out, if you wish."

That was a considerable risk! He bad to figure out the operative mechanism of a wand that had so baffled the goblins that they were willing to help him use it to defeat their decree of punishment. They would have spent days, months, or years on it; he might have minutes. What chance would a smart man have, let alone a stupid ogre? What person of even ordinary intelligence would agree to such a deal?

Why would the goblins risk such a device in the hands of a stranger, anyway? Suppose he did figure out the operation of the wand by some blind luck? He could be twice as dangerous to them as he already was.

Ah, but there was the answer. An ogre was stupid, almost by definition. He could be far more readily conned out of his advantage than could a smart person. Also, the activated wand might be dangerous, acting against the user. Of course they would help him solve its secret; if it destroyed the user, no loss!

Only an absolutely, idiotically, calamitously stupid or desperate creature would take that risk.

John sidled up to Smash. "Goblins are cunning wretches," she whispered. "We fairies have had some dealings with them, I think they mistreated Goldy deliberately, to get you into this picklement."

"I'm sure of it," Goldy agreed. A bruise was showing on her cheek, but she seemed otherwise all right.

"My own tribe is that way. My father threatened to eat you all, when he doesn't even like ogre or centaur meat, just to force you to take me here."

"It does seem to be an effective ploy," Smash whispered back. "But we would have taken you anyway, had we known you."

If brass girls could blush copper, goblin girls blushed tan. "You mean you folk like me?"

"Certainly we do!" Tandy agreed. "And you helped us cross the lava plates, leading the way. And you told us a tremendous lot about the hypnogourds, so that Smash knows how to save his soul."

"Well, goblins aren't too popular with other creatures," Goldy said, wiping an eye.

"Nor with their own kind, it seems," Tandy said.

"Because the chief hit me? Think nothing of it. Goblin men are just a little bit like ogres in that respect.

It makes them think they run things."

"Ogres aren't too popular with other creatures, either," Smash said. "They beat up their wenches, too."

"This lesson in comparative romance is fascinating," John said. "Still, we're in trouble."

"Pick Tandy up and run out of here," Goldy advised. "That's the only way to deal with our kind."

But Smash knew that the other girls would pay the penalty for that. He had fallen into the goblins' trap; he would have to climb out of it. His one advantage was that he was,. thanks to the curse of the Eye Queue, considerably smarter than the goblins thought. "Me try to spy," he told the lieutenant

"Very well, ogre," the lieutenant said smugly. "Take the wand, experiment with it, while we place her on the island."

Goblins grabbed Tandy and hustled her into a small wooden boat. She struggled, but they moved her along anyway. She sent a betrayed look back at Smash, evidently feeling with part of her mind that he should fight, and he felt like a betrayer indeed. But he had the welfare of the entire party in mind, so he had to act with un-ogrish deliberation. This grated, but had to be. If the wand didn't work, he would charge through the bog and rescue her, regardless of the fins. Even if the fins proved to be too much for him, he should be able to toss her to the safe bank before going under.

They dumped her on an islet that seemed to be mostly reeds. As her weight settled on it, the structure hissed and bubbled from below, and slowly lowered toward the liquid muck surface. A purple fin cruised in and circled the pneumatically descending isle.

Smash concentrated on the wand while goblins and girls watched silently. He waved it in a circle, bobbed it up and down, poked it at imaginary balloons in the air, and shook it. Nothing happened. "Go, schmoe!" he ordered it, but it ignored even that command. He bent it between his hands; it flexed, then sprang back into shape. It was supple and well made, but evinced no magic property. Meanwhile, Tandy's isle continued to sink. The purple fin cruised in tighter circles. Tandy stood in the spongy center, terrified.

But he couldn't watch her. He had to concentrate on the Wand. It was evident that his random motions weren't being successful. What was the key?

Eye Queue, find the clue! he thought emphatically. It was high time he got some use from this curse when it really counted.

The Queue went to work. It considered mental riddles a challenge. It even enjoyed thinking.

Assume the wand was activated by motion, because that was the nature of wands. They were made to wave about. Assume that trial-and-error motion wouldn't do the trick, because the goblins would have tried everything. Assume that the key was nevertheless simple, so that the wand could be readily used in an emergency. What motion was both simple and subtle?

A signature-key, he decided. A particular motion no one would guess, perhaps attuned to a particular person. But how could he guess its nature?

Tandy's isle was almost down to muck level, and the circling fin was almost within her reach, or vice versa. Smash could not afford to ponder much longer!

"Goblin man, help if can," Smash called. After all, the goblins wanted to know the secret, too.

"All we know, ogre, is that it worked for the crone we stole it from," the lieutenant replied. "She would point it at a person or thing, and the object would levitate. That is, rise." The goblin thought Smash would not know the meaning of the more complicated term. "But when we tried it-nothing."

Levitation. That would certainly help Tandy 1 But he needed to get it started in a hurry. "Crone so smart, how she start?" "She looped it in a series of loops," the goblin said. "But when we made the same loops, nothing happened."

Tandy's feet were now disappearing into the muck. Only the submerged mass of the isle balked the fin-for now. "Give poop. What loop?" Smash demanded. "Like this." The goblin described a partial circle with a tuck in it.

"That looks like a G," John remarked. Apparently fairies were literate, too.

G. A letter of the human alphabet? Suddenly Smash's intellect pounced. What was a signature except a series of letters? A written name? John's own case illustrated the importance of a name; her entire mission was simply to locate her correct one. One could not choose just any name, because only the right one had power. This should apply for wands as well as for fairies, here in Xanth. Maybe it was different inside the gourd, where names could be changed at will. "What name of dame?"

"Grungy Grool," the goblin answered. "She was a witch."

A witch with the initials G G. Suppose the wand tuned in to the signature of its holder? Smash described a big, careful S.

Nothing happened. Holding his disappointment in check, he described a matching 0. Smash Ogre-his initials.

Still nothing. The wand remained quiescent in his hamhand. What now?

Tandy screamed. Her isle was giving way, and she was toppling into the muck.

Smash aimed the wand like an arrow, ready to hurl it at the fin.

Tandy's fall stopped midway. She hung suspended at an angle above the bog, right where Smash was pointing.

"The wand is working!" John cried, amazed and gratified.

Slowly Smash tilted the wand up. Tandy floated, remaining in its power. Of course the activated wand had not moved in his hand before; that wasn't the. way it worked. Be had to move it-to make some other object respond.

"I'm flying!" Tandy cried.

"He made it work!" the goblin lieutenant exclaimed.

Smash guided Tandy carefully to land and .set her down. Her feet were muddy and she was panting with reaction, but she was otherwise unharmed. He knew a spunky little girl like her would rebound quickly.

The goblin lieutenant rushed up. "Give me that wand, ogre!"

"Don't do it!" John cried.

But Smash, ever the stupid ogre, blithely handed over the wand. "It is goblin property," he murmured, forgetting to rhyme.

The goblin snatched the wand, pointed it at Smash, and lifted it. Smash did not rise into the air. The wand was not attuned to the goblin. It remained useless to anyone else, exactly as it had been when taken from its witch-owner. Smash had suspected this would be the case.

"But you made it work!" the goblin protested angrily.

"And you tried to turn it against him!" Goldy cried. "Do you call that goblin honor?"

"Well, he's just a stupid ogre," the goblin muttered. "What does he know?"

"I'll tell you what he knows!" Goldy flashed. "He's a lot smarter than-"

"Me smart, at heart," Smash said, interrupting her.

Goldy paused, then exchanged a glance of understanding with him. "Smarter than the average ogre," she concluded.

The goblin lieutenant formed a crafty expression, too subtle for the average ogre to fathom. "Very well, ogre. Teach her how to work the wand, if it's not a fluke." He gave the wand to Goldy.

So the goblins figured to get the secret from her. Smash understood perfectly. But he smiled vacuously.

"Happily, me teach she."

"Me?" Goldy asked, surprised. "Smash, you don't really want to-"

Smash put his huge mitt on her hand. "You have a mind of your own, chiefs daughter," he murmured.

"Use it." Gently he moved her hand, making the wand ascribe the letters G G, her initials. Then he stepped back.

"I don't understand," Goldy said, gesturing with the wand.

Three goblins sailed into the air as the moving wand pointed at them.

"She's got it!" the goblin lieutenant exclaimed. "Good enough! Give it here, girl!" He advanced on her.

Goldy pointed the wand at him and lifted it. He rose up to treetop height. "Give what where, dolt?" she inquired sweetly.

The lieutenant scrambled with hands and feet, but merely made gestures in the air. "Get me down, wretch!" he screamed.

She waved the wand carelessly, causing him to careen in a high circle. "Do what, who?"

"You'll pay for this, you bi-" The goblin broke off as he was pitched, upside down, just clear of the bog.

A blue fin cut across and began circling under his nose.

"Smash," Goldy said sweetly, "why don't you and your friends have a good meal while I try to get the hang of this wand? I might need some advice, to prevent me from accidentally hurting someone." And the goblin lieutenant spun crazily, just missing a tree.

"Feed them! Feed them!" the goblin cried. "This crazy sl-young lady goblin will be the death of me!"

"I might, at that, if I don't learn to manage this thing better," Goldy agreed innocently. The wand quivered in her hand, and the goblin did a bone-rattling shake in the air, almost dropping to within reach of the slavering blue fin.

The goblins hastily brought out food. Smash stuffed himself in excellent ogre fashion on strawberry-flavored cavern mushrooms and curdled sea-cow milk while the goblin girl experimented with the wand, lifting first one goblin, then another.

"Let someone else try it!" a goblin suggested craftily. Goldy glanced at Smash, who nodded. Then she handed the wand to the first taker.

The wand went dead again. Several goblins tried it, without result. It occurred to Smash that if one of them should have the initials G G, as was hardly beyond the reach of coincidence, the wand might work-but that never happened. Probably it was not only the key, but the particular person signing it. Another G G goblin would have to make his own G G signature. That was a pretty sophisticated instrument!

"Give me that," Goldy said, taking it back. It still worked for her. Once the wand was keyed to a particular person, it stayed that way. Since the goblins were illiterate, they never would catch on to the mechanism, most likely.

The meal concluded. Smash rubbed his belly and let out a resounding belch that blew the leaves off the nearest bush.

"Well, I can't say it hasn't been fun," Goldy said, offering the wand back to Smash.

Smash refused it, wordlessly.

"You mean I can keep it?" she asked, amazed.

"Keep it," the Siren said. "I think you will have no trouble getting a suitable husband here now. Probably a chief. Whatever you choose."

Goldy considered, contemplating the wand. "There is that. Power is a language we goblins understand somewhat too well." She faced Smash again. "Ogre, I don't know what to say. No goblin would have done this for you."

"He's no ordinary ogre," Tandy said, giving Smash's arm a squeeze. "Keep the wand. Use it well."

"I will," Goldy agreed, and there seemed to be an ungoblinish tear in her eye. "If any of you folk ever have need of goblin assistance-"

"Just in getting out of here," Chem said. "Any information on the geography to the north would be appreciated."

Goldy gestured toward the lieutenant with the wand. "Information?"

Hastily the goblins acquainted Chem with what they knew of the reaches to the north, which wasn't much.

Well fed, the party set out as dusk fell, following the bog to the river, and the river until it petered out.

They camped near the firewall, snacking on some leftover mushroom tidbits Goldy had arranged to have packed. They would have to cross the Region of Fire again to get where they were going, as the goblins had assured them that it went right up to the land of the griffins, which beasts were hostile to travelers.

"That was a generous thing you did, Smash," the Siren said. "You could so readily have kept the wand, especially after they tried to trick you out of it and use it against you."

"Goldy had better use for it," Smash said. "Why should an ogre crave more power?"

"One thing I don't understand," John said. "You say you were victimized by the Eye Queue vine. That makes you smarter than an ordinary ogre, whose skull is filled with bone."

"Correct," Smash agreed uncomfortably.

"But that does not account for your generosity, does it?

You have let the rest of us impose on you, and you did something really nice for Goldy, and I don't think another ogre would, not even a smart one. Goblins are like ogres, only smaller and smarter, and they don't do anything for anybody."

Smash scratched his head. Still no fleas. "Maybe I got confused."

"Maybe so," the fairy replied thoughtfully. Tandy and Chem and the Siren nodded, smiling with that certain female knowingness that was so annoying.

Chapter 11. Heat Wave

Smash's Eye Queue would not leave well enough alone; that was its most annoying trait. He greeted the next morning with doubts. "How do we know the griffins are unfriendly?" he asked. "Can we trust the information of the goblins? We do know the fire is dangerous, on the other hand."

"We certainly do!" John agreed. "My wings will never grow back if I keep singeing them! But griffins are pretty violent creatures and they do eat people."

"Let's travel near the firewall," the Siren suggested. "That way we can cross over and risk the fire if the griffins turn out to be too ferocious."

They did that. But soon the bog closed in, squeezing them against the firewall. The colored fins paced them eagerly.

Chem halted. "I think we have to make a decision," she

said as she updated her map-image.

"I'll check the other side," Smash said, setting down the Siren. He stepped across the firewall.

He was at the edge of the fumaroles, amidst fresh ashes. Not far north the forest fire continued to rage.

There was no safe passage here!

He saw a shape in the ashes. Curious, he uncovered it. It was the burned-out remnant of a large tree trunk, still smoldering. The fall of ashes had smothered it before it finished its own burning. Smash wondered when a tree of this size ever had a chance to grow here. Maybe it had fallen across the firewall from the other side.

Then he bad a notion. He put his gloved hamhands on the charred log and heaved it back through the firewall. Then he stepped through himself. "A boat," he announced. "A boat!" Tandy exclaimed, delighted. "Of course!" They went to work with a will, scraping out ashes and burned-out fragments and splinters. Then they launched the dugout craft in the muck. Smash ripped out a sapling to use as a pole so he could shove their boat forward. He remembered traveling similarly with Prince Dor. But this was more challenging, because now he had responsibility for the party.

The colored fins crowded in as the craft slid through the bog. At length Smash became annoyed, and used the tip of his pole to poke at the nearest fin. There was a chomp, and the pole abruptly shortened.

Angry, Smash reached out with a gauntleted hand and caught hold of the offending fin. He heaved it out of the water.

The creature turned out to be fishlike, with strong flukes and sharp teeth. "What are you?" Smash demanded, shaking it. The thing was heavy, but Smash had over half his ogre strength back now and was able; to control his captive.

"I'm a loan shark, idiot!" the fish responded, and Smash did not have the wit, until his Eye Queue jogged him snidely later, to marvel that a fish spoke human language. "Want to borrow anything? Prompt service, easy terms."

"Don't do it!" John cried. "You borrow from one of them, it'll take an arm and a leg in return. That's how they live."

"You have already borrowed part of my pole," Smash told the shark. "I figure you owe me. I'll take a fin and a fluke."

"That's not the way it works!" the shark protested. "No one skins sharks!"

"There is always a first time," Smash said. He had a fundamental understanding of this kind of dealing.

He put his other hand on the thing's tail and began to pull.

The shark struggled and grunted, but could not free itself. "What do you want?" it screamed. "I want to get out of this bog," Smash said. "I'll get you out!" The shark was quite accommodating, now that it was in a bad position. "Just let me go!" "Don't trust it any farther than you can throw it," John advised.

Smash was not about to. He used one finger to poke a hole in the shark's green fin and passed Chem's rope through it. Then he heaved the creature forward. It landed with a dull muddy splash before the dugout, the rope pulling taut. "That's as far as I can throw it," Smash said.

The shark tried to swim away, but as it moved, it hauled the boat along behind. It was not trustworthy, but it seemed to be seaworthy. Or bogworthy.

"Now you can swim anywhere you want to, Sharky," Smash called to it. "But I'll loose the rope only when we reach the north edge of this bog."

"Help! Help me, brothers!" the shark called to the other fins that circled near.

"Are you helpless?" one called back. "In that case, I'll be happy to tear you apart."

"Sharks never help each other," John remarked. "That's why they don't rule Xanth."

"Ogres don't help each other, either," Smash said. "The same for most dragons." And he realized that he had suffered another fundamental revelation about the nature of power. Human beings helped each other, and thus had become a power in Xanth far beyond anything that could be accounted for by their size or individual magic.

Meanwhile, the loan shark got the message. It was living on borrowed time, unless it moved. It thrust north, and the bog fairly whizzed by. Soon they were at the north bank.

They climbed out, and Smash unthreaded the rope. The shark vanished instantly. No one sympathized with it; it had for once been treated as it treated others.

But now the griffins came. Probably another shark had snitched, so the griffins had been alert for the party's arrival. Since the creatures probably intended no good, Smash stepped quickly across the firewall for a peek at that situation. He found himself in the middle of the forest fire. No hope there!

The great bird-headed, lion-bodied creatures lined up, inspecting the motley group. The monsters were the color of shoe polish. Then they charged.

Smash reacted automatically. He swung his pole, knocking the first griffin back. Then he dived across the firewall, ripped a burning sapling out of the ground, dived back, and hurled the flaming mass at the remaining griffins. The sapling was of firewood, which burned even when green; in a moment the wing

feathers of the griffins were burning.

The monsters squawked and hurled themselves into the bog to douse the flames. The colored fins of the sharks clustered close. "You're using our muck!" a shark cried. "You owe us a wing and a paw!"

The griffins did not take kindly to this solicitation. A battle erupted. Muck, feathers, and pieces of fin flew outward, and the mud boiled.

Smash and the girls walked northwestward, following the curve of the firewall, leaving the violence behind. The landscape was turning nicer, with occasional fruit and nut trees, so they could feed as they traveled.

The Siren, rested by her tour in the boat and periodic dippings of her tail, found she could walk now.

That lightened Smash's burden.

There were birds here, flitting among the trees, picking at the trunks, scratching into the ground. The farther the party went, the more there were. Now and then, flocks darkened the sky. Not only were they becoming more numerous, they were getting larger.

Then a flight of really large birds arrived-the fabulous rocs. These birds were so big they could pick up a medium-sized dragon and fly with it. Was their intent friendly or hostile?

A talking parrot dropped down. "Ho, strangers!" it hailed them "What melodies bring you to Birdland?"

Smash looked at the parrot. It was all green and red, with a downcurving beak. "We only seek to pass through," he said. "We are going north."

"You are going west," the bird said.

So they were; the gradually curving firewall had turned them about They reoriented, bearing north.

"Welcome to pass through Birdland," the parrot said.

"There will be a twenty per cent poll tax. One of your number will have to stay here."

"That isn't fair!" Tandy protested. "Each of us has her own business."

"We are not concerned with fairness," the poll replied, while the horrendously huge rocs drifted lower, their enormous talons dangling. "We are concerned with need. We need people to cultivate our property so there will be more seeds for us to eat. So we hold a reasonable share of those who pass."

"A share-for slavery?" Tandy demanded, her spunky spirit showing again.

"Call it what you will. One of you will stay-or all will stay. The tax will be paid." And the rocs dropped lower yet. "Poll your number to determine the one."

Smash knew it would be useless to fight. He might break the claws of one roc, but another would carry away the girls. The big birds had too much power. "We'll see," he said.

Tandy turned on him. "We'll seel You mean you'll go along with this abomination?"

"We don't have much choice," Smash said, his Eye Queue once again dominating his better ogre nature.

"We'll just have to cross this land, then decide who will remain."

"You traitor!" Tandy flared. "You coward!"

The Siren tried to pacify her, but Tandy moved away, her face red and body stiff, and hurled an invisible tantrum at Smash. It struck him on the chest, and its impact was devastating. Smash staggered back, the wind knocked out of him. No wonder the goblin chief had fallen; those tantrums were potent!

His head gradually cleared. Smash found himself sitting down, little clouds of confusion dissipating.

Tandy was beside him, hugging him as well as she could with her small arms. "Oh, I'm so sorry. Smash.

I shouldn't have done that! I know you're only trying to be reasonable."

"Ogres aren't reasonable," he muttered.

"It's just that-one of us-how can we ever callously throw one to the wolves? To the birds, I mean. It just isn't right!"

"I don't know," he said. "We'll have to work it out."

"I wish we had the wand," she said.

The Siren came to them. "We do have the Ear," she reminded them.

"There is that," Tandy agreed. "Let me hear it." She took the Gap Dragon's Ear and listened carefully.

"Silent," she reported.

Smash took it from her and listened. For him, too, it was silent. Chem had no better result. "I fear it has gone dead-or we have no future," she said. "Nowhere to go."

John was the last to listen. Her face brightened. "I hear something!" she exclaimed. "Singing-fairies singing. There must be fairies nearby!"

"Well, that's what you're looking for," the Siren said. "Let's see if they're within Birdland. Maybe we can get some advice on how to proceed."

There seemed to be nothing better to do. Smash lurched to his feet, amazed at the potency of Tandy's tantrum; he still felt weak. An ogress could hardly have hit him harder! Yet more than that, he marveled at her quick reversal of mood. She had been almost savagely impetuous-then humanly sorry. Too bad, he mused, she hadn't been born an ogress. That tantrum-it also reminded him a bit of one of his mother's curses. He shook his head. Foolish fantasy was pointless. He had to clear his reeling noggin, and get moving, and find Tandy a good human-type husband so the demon wouldn't bother her any more. Good Magician Humfrey must have known that there would be a suitable man for her somewhere in this wilderness, a man she would never encounter unless she traveled here. Since Smash was passing this way anyway, it had been easy enough to take her along. The truth was, she was nice enough company, tiny and temperamental as she was. He had not had much company like that before and was becoming acclimated to it. He knew this was un-ogrish; maybe such ridiculous feelings would pass when he got rid of the Eye Queue curse.

They proceeded on, following John, who used the Ear to orient on the fairies. The rocs paced them; they would not be able to depart Birdland without paying their poll toll. One body...

Actually, Smash might have a way around that. If he went back into the gourd and fought the Night Stallion and lost, his soul would be forfeit pretty soon, and there would be no point in proceeding north.

So in that event, he might as well stay here himself. The only problem was, how Would the others survive without him? He had no confidence that they were beyond the worst of the dangers of central Xanth.

As they continued, they saw more and more birds. Some were brightly plumed, some drab; some large, some small;

some ferocious of aspect with huge and knifelike beaks, some meek with soft little feathers. There were bright bluebirds, dull blackbirds, and brightly dull spotted birds. There were fat round robins and thin pour-beakers.

They went on. There were ruffled grouse, angrily complaining about things, godwits making profane jokes, sandpipers playing little fifes on the beach, black rails lying in parallel rows on the ground, oven birds doing the morning baking, mourning doves sobbing uncontrollably, goshawks staring with amazement, a crane hauling up loads of stones, and several big old red barn owls filled with hay. Nearby were grazing cowbirds and cattle egrets, and a catbird was stalking a titmouse, tail swishing.

"Birds are funny folk," the Siren murmured. "I never realized there was so much variety."

In due course they came to the palace of the Kingbird. "Better bow good and low," the parrot advised.

"His Highness the Bird of a Feather, the ruler of Xanth, First on the Pecking Order, doesn't appreciate disrespect from inferiors."

"Ruler of Xanth!" Chem cried. "What about the centaurs?"

"What about King Trent?" Tandy asked.

"Who?" the parrot asked.

"The human ruler of Xanth, in Castle Roogna."

"Never heard of him. The Kingbird governs."

Smash realized that to the birds, the bird species dominated Xanth. To the goblins, the goblins governed.

The same was probably true for the dragons, griffins, flies, and other species. And who could say they were wrong? Each species honored its own leaders. Smash, an ogre, was quite ready to be objective about the matter. When in Birdland, do as the birdbrains did.

He bowed to the Kingbird, as he would have done to the human King of Xanth. To each his own mark of honor.

The Kingbird was reading a tome titled Avion Artifacts by Omith O'Logy, and had no interest in the visitors. Soon Smash's party was on its way again.

They came to a large field filled with pretty flowers. "These are our birdseed plants," the parrot explained. "We have wormfarms and fishfarms and funnybonefarms, and make periodic excursions to Flyland for game, but the bulk of our food comes from fields like this. We are not apt at cultivation-birdshot doesn't seem to do well for us-so we draw on the abilities of lesser creatures like yourselves."

Indeed, Smash saw assorted creatures toiling in the field. There were a few goblins, an elf, a brownie, a gremlin, a nixie, and a sprite. They were obviously slaves, yet they seemed cheerful and healthy enough, acclimated to their lot.

Then Smash had a notion. "John, listen to the Ear again."

The fairy did so. "The waterfall noise almost drowns it out, but I think I hear the fairies close by." She oriented on the sound, going in the direction it got louder, the others following. They rounded a gentle hill, descended into a waterfall-fed gully, and came across the fairies.

They were mending feathers. It seemed some of the birds were too impatient to wait for new feathers to grow, so they had the damaged ones repaired. Only fairies could do such delicate work. Each had a little table with tiny tools, so that the intricate work could be done. And most of them had damaged wings.

"The birds-" Tandy said, appalled. "They crippled the fairies so they can't fly away!"

"Not so," the parrot said. "We do not mutilate our workers, because then they get depressed and do a poor job. Rather, we offer sanctuary for those who are dissatisfied elsewhere. Most of these fairies were cast out of Fairyland."

Tandy was suspicious. She approached the nearest working fairy. "Is this true?" she asked. "Do you like it here?"

The fairy was a male, finely featured in the manner of his kind. He paused, looking up from his feather.

"Oh, it's a living," he said. "Since I lost my wings, I couldn't make it in Fairyland. So I have to settle for what I can get. No monsters attack me here, no one teases me for my wing handicap, there's plenty of food, and the work is not arduous. I'd rather be flying, of course-but let's be realistic. Ill never fly again."

Smash saw one fairy down the line with undamaged wings. "What about him?" he asked. "Why doesn't he fly away?"

The fairy frowned. "He has a private complaint. Don't bother him."

But Smash was in pursuit of his notion. "Would it relate to his name?"

"Look," the fairy said, "we aren't trying to aggravate your condition, so why do you bother us? Leave him alone."

John had caught on. "Oh, Smash-I'm afraid to ask!"

"I'm an insensitive ogre," Smash said. "I'll ask." He tromped over to the fairy in question. "Me claim he name," he said in his stupid fashion.

The fairy naturally assumed the ogre was as dull as he was supposed to be. It was all right to tell secrets to stupid folk, because they didn't know enough to laugh. "I am called Joan," he said. "Now go away, monster." Smash dropped his pretense. "That must be as embarrassing for you as intelligence is for an ogre," he said.

Joan's eyes widened and his wings trembled, causing the cloud pattern on them to roil. "Yes," he agreed.

Smash signaled to John. Diffidently, she approached. "Here is the one who got your name, or one letter of it," Smash said. "Trade him your H for his A, and both of you will be restored."

The two fairies looked at each other. "Joan?" John asked. "John?" Joan asked.

"I suspect the two of you are the same age, and took delivery of your names by the same carrier," Smash said. "Probably the Paste Orifice; it always gums things up. You should compare notes."

Joan reached out and took John's hand. Smash was no proper judge of fairy appearance, but it seemed to him that Joan was quite a handsome young male of his kind, and John was certainly pretty, except for her lost wings. Here in Birdland that particular injury did not count for much.

The two of them seemed almost to glow as their hands touched.

Chem and Tandy and the Siren had joined Smash. "What is that?" Tandy asked. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Chem said. "I've read of this effect, but never hoped to see it It's the glow of love at first touch."

"Then-" Smash said, in a burst of realization that he had suppressed until this moment. "They were destined for each other. That's why their names were confused. To bring them eventually together."

"Yes!" the centaur agreed. "I think John-I suppose it's Joan now-will be staying here in Birdland."

So the fairy's solution was the group's solution! One of their number would remain-happily. How neatly it had worked out. But of course that was the way of destiny, which was never the coincidence it seemed.

They made their acknowledgments of parting and left their fairy friend to her happy fate. The birds, satisfied, let them go.

Their best route north, the parrot assured them, was through the Water Wing. There were very few monsters there, and the distance to the northern border of Xanth was not great.

They agreed to that route. They had already encountered more than enough monsters, and since the birds assured them there were no fires or earthquakes in the Water Wing, the trek should be easy enough.

Besides, the Ear had the sound of rainfall, which suggested their immediate future.

John/Joan hurried up as they were about to cross the border. "Here is a heat wave," she said. "My fiance had it for when he left Birdland, but now he won't be needing it. Just unwrap it when the time comes."

"Thank you," Smash said. He took the heat wave. It seemed to be a wire curved in the shape of a wave, and was sealed in a transparent envelope.

The girls hugged their friend good-bye, and Smash extended his littlest hamfinger so the fairy could shake hands with him Then they stepped across the border, braced for anything.

Anything was what they got. They were in a drenchpour. Not for nothing was this called the Water Wing by the birds! There was ground underfoot, but it was hard to see because of the ceaseless blast of rain.

Chem brought out her rope, and they tied themselves together again-centaur, Tandy, Siren, and ogre, sloshing north in a sloppy line. Smash had to breathe in through his clenched teeth to strain, the water out. Fortunately, the water was not cold; this was a little like swimming.

After an hour, they slogged uphill. The rain thinned as they climbed, but the air also cooled, so they did not gain much comfort. In due course the water turned to sleet, and then to snow.

The poor girls were turning blue with cold. It was time for the heat wave. Smash unwrapped the wire.

Immediately heat radiated out, suffusing the immediate region, bringing comfort to each of them. The fairy's present had been well considered, for all that it had been an accident of circumstance.

Slowly the snow stopped falling, but the climb continued. This was a mountain they were on, blanketed with snow. By nightfall they still had not crested it, and had to camp on the slope.

They were all hungry, and Smash was ravenous, so he gave the Siren the heat wave and headed out into the snow to forage. He found some flavored icicles in a crevice-cave and chased a snow rabbit, but couldn't catch it. So he headed back with the icicles; they were only a token, but somewhat better than nothing. They would have to do.

It was colder out here then he had figured. His breath fogged out before him, and the fog iced over and coated him, making rum a creature of ice. His feet turned numb, and his fingers, too. He hardly knew where his nose stopped and the ice began; when he snorted, icicles flew out like arrows.

Now he slowed, feeling lethargic. Wind came up, cutting into his flesh, buffeting him about so that he stumbled. He dropped cumbersomely to the ground, his fall cushioned by the snow. He intended to get up, as it was now far downhill to their camp, but it was more comfortable just to lie there for a little longer. His Eye Queue cried warning, but after a while that, too, faded out, and Smash slept.

He dreamed he saw Tandy's father, the soldier Crombie, whirling around in his fashion and pointing his finger. The finger stopped, pointing north. But what was it pointing to? Smash remembered Crombie had said Tandy would lose three things; that must be where it would happen.

Then Smash was being hauled awake. That was much less comfortable than drifting to sleep bad been.

His extremities hurt, burning like fire and freezing like ice simultaneously; his head felt like thawed carrion, and his belly Was roasting as if he were mounted on a spit over a fire. He groaned horrendously, because that was what ogres did when roasted on a spit over a fire. "He's alive!" a voice cried joyfully.

As Smash recovered more fully, he learned what had happened. He had frozen on the slope. Alarmed at his failure to return, the girls bad organized a search party and located him. He was as stiff as ice, because that was what he had become. They had feared him dead, but had put the heat wave on his belly and thawed him. Ogres, it seemed, were freeze-storable.

Now that he was awake, it was time to sleep. They settled down around the heat wave, Tandy choosing to rest her head against Smash's furry forearm. Ah, well, that was harmless, probably. "I'm glad we got you thawed, monster," she murmured. "I'm not letting you out alone again!"

"Ogres do get into trouble," he agreed. It was strange to imagine anyone watching out for him, and stranger yet to imagine that he might need this attention, but it seemed he did, on occasion.

In the night there was a horrendous roar. Smash, dreaming again-he tended to do that when asleep-thought it was an ogress and smiled a huge grimace. But the three girls bolted up, terrified.

"Wake up, Smash!" Tandy whispered urgently. "A monster's coming!"

But Smash, in a dream-daze, hardly stirred. He had no fear of the most horrendous ogress.

The monster stamped near, eyes glowing, teeth gleaming, breath fogging out in dank, cold clouds. It was pure white, and every hair seemed to be an icicle.

"Smash!" Tandy hissed. "It's an abom-abom-an awful Snowman! Help!"

The Snowman looked over them, as pale as a snowstorm. It reached out to grab the nearest edible thing.

The girls cowered behind Smash, who was mostly covered by a nice snow blanket, so that little of him showed. This snow was not nearly as cold as that of the rest of the mountain, because this was near the heat wave; he was comfortable enough. But it deceived the Snowman, who -caught hold of Smash's nose and yanked.

Ouch! Suddenly Smash woke up all the way. A truly ogrish rage shook him. He reached up one huge, hairy arm and grabbed the snow monster by the throat.

The Snowman was amazed. He had never encountered a worse monster than himself before. He had not known anything like that existed. He did not know how to deal with this situation.

Fortunately, Smash knew how to deal with it. He stood up, not letting go, and shook the hapless monster. "Growl!" he growled, and dropped the creature on top of the heat wave.

There was a bubbling and hissing as the Snowman's posterior converted from ice to steam in one foop.

The monster sailed into the ah- and shot out of there like a gust from a gale. Smash didn't bother to pursue; he knew better than to stray from the vicinity of the heat wave again. He was no Snowman!

"It will be a long time before that creature bothers travelers again," Chem remarked with private satisfaction.

"Yes, we have adverse monster on our side," Tandy said, patting Smash's knee. She seemed to like the notion.

Smash was just glad he had enough of his strength back to handle such things as snow monsters. But soon he would have to meet the Night Stallion and put it all on the line. He had better get the girls beyond these dangerous wilderness regions of Xanth first, just in case.

Once more they settled down to sleep, grouping closely around the heat wave. By morning it had melted them deep into the snow, so that they were in a cylindrical well. There seemed to be no bottom to this layer of snow; was the whole mountain made of it? That could be, since this was the Water Wing, and snow was solidified water.

Smash bashed out a ramp to the surface, and the party resumed the trek. They were all hungry now, but had to be satisfied with mouthfuls of snow.

As they entered the icy ridge of the mountain, the sun melted the remaining clouds and bore down hard on the snow. The snow began to melt. Smash put the heat wave back in its envelope, but soon they were sloshing through slush anyway.

Then the slush turned to water, and the slope became a river flowing over ice. They tried to keep to their feet, but the entire mountain seemed to be dissolving. The treacherous surface gave way beneath them and washed them all helplessly along in the torrent.

Chem seemed to be able to handle herself satisfactorily in the water; and, of course, the Siren assumed her mermaid form and swam like a fish. But Tandy was in trouble because of the sheer rush of water.

She could swim well enough in level water, but this was a cataract.

Smash tried to swim to her, but got bogged down himself. He was not really a strong swimmer; he normally waded or whomped through water. But right now he was not at full strength and had been frozen and thawed. This water was becoming too deep and violent for him.

Too much indeed! Smash gulped for air-and got water instead. He coughed and gasped and sucked in a replacement lungful-only to fill up the rest of the way with water.

This was awful! He clawed at his throat, trying foolishly to clear the water while his body struggled for air. But it was no good. The torrent was all about him, finding excellent purchase against his brute body, and he could not breathe.

The agony of suffocation became unbearable. Then something snapped, like the lid of his head, and half his consciousness departed. Smash gave himself up for lost. But it seemed to him that it had been more comfortable to be frozen than to be drowned.

Then he was calm, accepting the inevitable. It was, after all, halfway pleasant doing without air. Maybe this wasn't really worse than freezing. He drifted with the slowing current, relieved, feeling like loose seaweed. How nice just to float forever free.

Then something was tugging fretfully at him. It was the mermaid. She wrapped her arms about one of his and threshed violently with her tail, drawing him forward. But his mass was too much for her.

Progress slowed; she needed air herself, with all this exertion. She let him go, and Smash sank blissfully to the depths while she shot up toward the surface.

Slowly he became aware of more tugging, this time on both arms. He tried to shake himself free, but his arms did not respond. He watched himself being drawn upward from the gloom to the light. There seemed to be two figures drawing him, one on each arm, each with a fish-tail-but maybe he was seeing double.

Smash was not sure how long or far he was dragged; time was compressed or dilated for him. But he became aware that he was on a sandy beach, with a nightmare tromping her hooves on his back. He was mistaken. It was a filly centaur; Chem was treading the water out of his body. The experience was almost as bad as vomiting out all the Stallion manure, after that sequence in the gourd. Almost.

In due course Smash recovered enough to sit up. He coughed another bucket or two of water out of his lungs. "You rescued me," he accused the Siren.

"I tried," she said. "But you were too heavy-until Morris helped."

"Morris?"

"Hi, monster!" someone called from the water.

It was a triton. Now Smash understood why there had seemed to be two merfolk hauling him along. The Siren and Morris the Merman.

"We lost the Ear and the heat wave, but we saved you," the Siren said. "And Chem rescued Tandy."

Now Smash saw Tandy, who was lying face-down on the sand. The centaur was now kneading her back, using hands instead of hooves. "You breathed water, too?" Smash asked.

Tandy raised her head. "Ungh," she agreed squishily. "Did you-float?"

"When I sank," he answered. "If that's what dying is like, it's not bad."

"Let's not talk about death," Chem said. "This is too nice a place for that. I'm already upset about losing the Ear."

"Not more upset about that than I am with me for losing the heat wave," the Siren said.

"Maybe you should have thrown Smash and me back and saved the magic items," Tandy said, forcing a watery smile.

"It was fated that we lose them," Smash said, remembering his dream. "Soldier Crombie said Tandy would lose three things, and our loss is her loss."

"That's true!" Tandy agreed. "But what's the third thing?"

Smash shrugged. "We don't have any third thing to lose. Maybe two covers it."

"No, my father always points things out right. We've lost something else, I'm sure. We just don't know what it is."

"Maybe one of you should stay and look for the lost items," the merman said. He was a sturdy male of middle age, roughly handsome. It was evident that he could not make legs and walk on land the way the Siren could- he Was a full triton.

"Maybe one of us should," the Siren said thoughtfully. After that, it fell naturally into place. This was a pleasant region on the fringe of the Water Wing, where the drainage from the snow mountain became a lake that spread into the mainstream wilderness of Xanth. There was a colony of merfolk here, mostly older, scant of maids. It looked very promising for the Siren.

Chapter 12. Visible Void

The three of them-Smash, Tandy, and Chem-proceeded north to the border of the Void, the last of the special regions of central Xanth. "There is great significance to these five elemental regions," Chem said. "Historically, the five elements-Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and the Void-have always been mainstays of magic. So it is fitting that they be represented in central Xanth, and I'm extremely gratified to get them on my map."

"These have been good adventures," Smash agreed. "But just what is the Void? The other elements make sense, but I can't place that one."

"I don't know," the centaur admitted. "But I'm eager to find out. I don't think this region has ever been mapped before by anyone."

"Now is certainly the time," Tandy said. "I hope it's not as extreme as the others were."

Chem brought out her rope. "Let's not gamble on that! I should have tied us when the snow mountain turned to slush, but it happened so fast-"

They linked themselves together as they approached the line. It was abrupt. On the near side the pleasant terrain of the merfolk's lake spread southward. On the far side was nothing they could perceive.

"I'm the lightest," Tandy said. "I'll go first. Pull me back if I fall into a hole." She smoothed back her slightly scorched and tangled brown hair and stepped across the formidable line.

Smash and Chem waited. The rope kept playing out, slowly; obviously Tandy was walking, not falling, and not in any trouble. "Is it all right, Tandy?" the centaur called rhetorically.

There was no answer. The rope continued to move. "Can you hear me? Please answer," Chem called, her brow wrinkling.

Now the slack went taut. Chem stood her ground, refusing to be drawn across the line. Smash tried to peer into the Void, but could see nothing except a vague swirl of fog, from this side.

"I think I'd better pull her back," Chem said, swishing her brown tail nervously. It, too, was somewhat bedraggled as a result of then" recent adventures. "I'm not sure anything is wrong; maybe she just doesn't hear me."

Chem hauled. There was resistance. She hesitated, not wanting to apply unreasonable force. "What do you think, Smash?"

Smash put his Eye Queue to work, but it seemed sluggish this time. His logic was fuzzy, his perception confused. "I don't-seem to have much of an opinion," he confessed.

She glanced back at him, surprised. "No opinion? You, with your un-ogrish intelligence? Surely you jest!"

"It best me jest," Smash agreed amicably.

She peered closely at him. "Smash-what happened to your Eye Queue? I don't see the stigma on your head."

Smash touched the fur of his scalp. It was smooth; there was no trace of roughness. "No on; it gone," he said.

"Oh, no! It must have been washed out when you nearly drowned! That's the third thing we've lost-your intelligence. That certainly affects Tandy's prospects here. You're back to being stupid!"

Smash was appalled. Just when he needed intelligence, he had lost it! What would he do now in a crisis?

The centaur was similarly concerned, but she had an answer. "We'll have to use my intelligence for us both, Smash. Are you willing to follow my lead, at least until we get through the Void?"

That seemed to make sense to Smash. "She lead, me accede."

"I'll try to haul her back." Chem drew harder on the rope, and, of course, she had the mass to do it.

Suddenly it went slack, and the loose end of it slid back across the line.

"Oh, awful!" the centaur exclaimed, dismayed. She switched her tail violently in vexation. "We've lost her!"

"Oh, awful," Smash echoed, since his originality had dissipated with his intellect. What had happened to Tandy?

"I think I'd better step partway across so I can look without committing myself," she decided. "You stay on this side-and don't let me cross all the way. After a minute, if I don't back out, you haul me out, slowly. Agreed?"

"Me agree, assuredly," he said. He was furious at the Eye Queue for deserting him in his hour of need.

Of course he had intended to get rid of the curse-but not just yet. Not at the brink of the Void. Now he was liable to do something ogrishly idiotic, and cost his friends their lives. Even his rhyming seemed ludicrous now; what was the point in it? Not until the curse of the Eye Queue had descended on him had he appreciated how stupid a typical ogre seemed-just a hulking brute, too dull to do more than smash things. Indeed, his very name.

The centaur poked her forepart cautiously through the border. It disappeared into the swirl. Smash felt very much alone, though her hindquarters remained with him. He marveled that a human girl as smart and pretty as Tandy could have any interest in him, even as an animal friend. It must have been the Eye Queue that appealed to her, the intelligence manifesting in the oddest of hosts, the sheer anomaly of the bone-headed genius. Her interest would dissipate the moment she discovered what had happened. That, of course, was best; it would free her full attention for her ideal human-type man, whoever and wherever he might be. Yet Smash remained disquieted.

The fact was, he. realized now, the curse had had its positive aspect. Like the curse of the moon that human females labored under-one of the things that distinguished them from nymphs-it was awkward and inconvenient, but carried the potential for an entirely new horizon. Females could regenerate their kind; the Eye Queue enabled a person to grasp far broader aspects of reality. Now, having experienced such aspects, he would be returned to his former ignorance.

A minute had passed and gone some distance beyond, and Chem had not backed out. In fact, she was trying to proceed the rest of the way across the line. Smash knew he had to stop that; even if he was now too stupid to perceive the danger in committing oneself to a potential course-of-no-return, he remembered the centaur's orders. "Me take up slack, haul she back," he said, inwardly condemning his ogrish crudity of expression. He might be stupid; did he have to advertise it so blatantly?

That started another chain of thought. Part of the vaunted dullness of ogres was not because of the fact, but because they insisted on the distinguishing characteristic of expression. He could have said, "Because my friend the filly centaur, a decent and intelligent person with a useful magic graphological talent, may be in difficulty, I am required to exert myself according to her expressed wish and draw her gently but firmly back across the demarcation between territories. Then we shall consider how best to proceed." Instead, he had spouted the idiotic ditty in the ludicrous manner of his kind. Surely the Eye Queue vine had been as much of a curse in its untimely departure as in its arrival!

There was resistance. Either Chem didn't want to come back, or something was hauling her forward.

Smash drew harder on the rope, but the centaur braced forward, fighting it. Something was definitely amiss. Even an idiot could tell that Smash was tempted to give one monstrous tug on the rope and haul her back head over tail, as an ordinary ogre would, but several things restrained him. First, her mass was similar to his own; he might lose his footing and yank himself across the line, in the wrong direction.

Second, the rope was bound about her humanoid waist, which was delicately narrow; too harsh a force could hurt her. Third, he was not at full strength, so he might not be able to move her effectively even if properly anchored.

Then the rope went slack. Chem, too, was proceeding unfettered into the Void.

Smash dived for her disappearing rump, his ogrish action preceding his inadequate thought. He was too late. She crossed the line. Only her tail flicked back momentarily, as if flicking free a fly.

Smash caught the tail and worked his way along it, hand over hand. Her forward impetus hauled him right up to the line; then he got his balance, dug -his toes in, and brought the centaur and himself to a halt.

Now he exerted what remained of his power and drew her back. It sufficed; slowly her rump reappeared.

When he got her hind legs across, he shifted his grip carefully, picked up her two feet, and

wheelbarrowed her backward. She could not effectively resist, with her feet off the ground.

At last he got her all the way across. She was intact. That relieved one concern. "Tell why she untie," he grunted, not letting her go.

Chem seemed dazed, but soon reorganized herself. "It's not what you think, Smash. It's beautiful in the Void! All mist and fog and soft meadows, and herds of centaurs grazing-"

Smash might be stupid, but not that stupid. "She still in daze. Centaurs no graze."

Her eyes rounded, startled. "Why, that's right! Sea cows graze. Water-horses graze. Black sheep graze.

Centaurs eat in human fashion. What am I thinking of?"

Perhaps she had seen a herd of grazing animals and jumped to a conclusion. But that was of little moment at the moment. "That is dandy. Where is Tandy?"

"Oh, Tandy! I didn't see her." Chem was chagrined. "I crossed the line to seek her and was so distracted by the beauty of the region that I forgot my mission. I'm not usually that flighty!"

True enough. Chem was a filly with all four hooves on the ground. She was less aggressive than her father Chester and less imperious than her mother Cherie, but still had qualities of determination and stability that were to be commended. It was entirely unlike her to act in an impetuous or thoughtless manner.

Now something else occurred to Smash. There were various kinds of magic springs in Xanth that trapped the unwary. Some caused a person to fall in love with the first creature of the opposite sex he or she saw; that was how the species of centaur had originated. Some caused a person to turn into a fish.

Some healed a person's wounds instantly and cleanly, as if they had never been. Had the group encountered one of those before, John the Fairy would have been able to restore her lost wings. And some springs caused a person to forget.

"She get wet, she forget?" he asked, wishing he could voice his concern more eloquently. Damn his bonehead!

"Wet?" Chem was perplexed. "Oh-you mean as in a lethe-spring? No, I didn't forget in that fashion, as you can see, and I'm sure Tandy didn't. For one thing, there was no spring nearby, certainly not within range of the rope. It's something else. It's just such lovely land, so pleasant and peaceful, I simply had to explore it. Nothing else seemed important, somehow. I knew that farther in there would be even more wonder, and-" She paused. "And I just couldn't step back. I realize that was very foolish of me. But I'm sure that place is safe. No monsters or natural hazards, I mean."

Smash remained doubtful. Tandy was gone, and Chem had almost been gone. It had been no simple distraction of mind that kept her there; she had untied her safety rope and resisted his pullback with all her might. Yet she seemed to be in full possession of her faculties now.

Tandy must have been similarly seduced. She now was wary of the easy paths leading to tanglers and ant-lion lairs, but would not have experienced this particular inducement. Instead of being an easy access path to a pleasant retreat, this was an entire landscape that lured one in. Was that why it was called the Void-because no one ever returned from it, so that nothing was known about it?

If that were so, how could they leave Tandy to its merciless mercy? She needed to be rescued immediately!

"As I see it," Chem said, "we shall have to go in and look for Tandy and try to bring her out. We risk getting trapped ourselves-not, I think, by some monster, but by the sheer delight of the region. We won't want to leave." She flicked her tail, perturbed. "I realize this is a lot to ask of you now. Smash, but do you have any opinion?"

How ironic! If the curse had stayed with him just a little longer, he could have marshaled its formidable power and expressed an eloquently cogent and relevant thought that might completely clarify their troubled course. Something like: "Chem, I suggest you employ your three-dimensional holographic map-projection to chart the Void as we explore it, so that not only will we be able to orient more specifically on Tandy's most likely course, we shall also have no difficulty finding our way out again."

But the curse had left him, so that he had become too stupid to think of that, let alone express it. All that actually came out was, "Make map, leave trap."

"Map? Trap?" she asked, her brow furrowing. "I do want to chart the Void, as I do everything, but I don't see how-"

Sure enough, he had not gotten through. He tried again. "Find way, no stay."

"Use my magic map to find our way out?" She brightened. "Of course! We can't get lost if I keep it current. I'll mark a dotted line; then we can follow it back if there is any problem. That's a very good idea, Smash." She said it comfortingly, as one would to a dull child. And, of course, intellectually, that was what he was. What he had been when infected by the weed of smartness was of no present relevance; he had to accept the reality, depressing as it now seemed. He was not, and never would be, inherently intelligent. He was, after all, an ogre.

That would definitely solve one problem, he thought. Tandy might have taken a certain girlish fancy to him-but it had been the enhancement of his intellect provided by the Eye Queue that appealed to her.

Now that he was back to normal, she would properly regard him as the animal he was. That was

certainly best-though, somehow, he was too stupid to appreciate the nicety of it fully. He had, in fact, been somewhat puffed up by her attention, undeserved as it was, and had rather enjoyed her company, the flattery of her uncritical nearness. He did not relish the prospect of going his way alone again. But of course he had no choice. An ogre went the ogre's way.

"Let's try it," Chem said, coiling her rope. "Let's keep each other in sight, and call out any special things we see. Our object is to locate Tandy and then to bring us all out on the north side of the Void. Do you agree?"

"Good stratagem, centaur femme," he agreed inanely.

She smiled briefly, and he saw how nervous she was. She was afraid of what they were about to encounter in the Void, pleasant though it seemed. She knew their perspectives would change the moment they crossed the line, and that they might never return. "Wish us luck, monster."

"Luck, Chem, pro tern," he said.

They stepped across the line together.

Chem had been correct. The landscape was even, slightly sloping down ahead, with low-hanging clouds cruising by. The ground was covered with lush turf that seemed innocent and bad a fragrant odor, with pretty little flowers speckled through it. Certainly there was no obvious danger. And that, he feared, was the most obvious danger of all.

Now Chem generated her magic map. The image appeared in the air by her head. But this time it expanded enormously, rapidly overlapping the terrain they stood on, so that the features of the Land of Xanth in image passed by them both. Mountains, lakes, and the Gap Chasm-apparently her map was not affected by the forget-spell on the Gap, an item of possible significance-rushed by them. Then trees and streams became large enough to be seen individually, and even occasional animals, frozen as recorded yet seeming to move because of the expansion of the map. "Hey, it's not supposed to do that!" she protested. "It's turning life-size!"

Obviously the map was careering out of control. Smash wondered why that should happen here. If only he had his Eye Queue back, he would be able to realize that this was surely no coincidence, and that it related in some fundamental way to the ultimate nature of the Void. He might even conjecture that the things of the mind, whether animated in the form of a map or remaining inchoate, had considerable impact on the landscape of the Void. Perhaps the interaction between the two created a region of animated imagination that could be a lot of fun, but might also pose considerable threats to sanity if it got out of control. Perhaps no purely physical menace lurked within the Void, but rather, the state of mental chaos that might prevail when no aspects of physical reality intruded upon or limited the generation of fanciful imagery. But naturally a mere stupid ogre could in no way appreciate the tiniest portion of such a complex conjecture, so Smash was oblivious. He hoped this foolish oblivion would not have serious consequences. Ignorance was not necessarily bliss, as any smart creature would know.

Chem, confused by her map's misbehavior, turned it off. Then she tried it again, concentrating intently.

This time it expanded from its point source, then contracted to pinpoint size, gyrating wildly, until it steadied down around the size she wanted it. She was learning new control, and this was just as well, for lack of discipline might be extraordinarily troublesome here.

"See, there are the grazing centaurs," Chem said, pointing ahead.

Smash looked. He saw a tribe of grazing ogres. Again, if only he had retained the curse of intelligence, he might have comprehended that another highly significant aspect of this region was manifesting.

Chem perceived one nonsensical thing, and he perceived another. That suggested that the

preconceptions of the viewer defined in large part what that viewer saw; there was not necessarily any objective standard here. Reality, literally, was something else. In this case, perhaps, a herd of irrelevant creatures was grazing, neither centaurs nor ogres.

If this were so, he might have continued his thought, how could they be certain that anything they saw here was not a kind of illusion? Tandy could be lost in a world of altered realities and not realize it.

Since Chem and Smash also were in altered states of perception, the problem of locating Tandy might be immensely more complicated than anticipated. But he, a dull ogre, would merely blunder on, heedless of such potential complications.

"Something funny here," Chem said. "We know centaurs don't graze."

"It seem a dream," Smash said, trying vainly to formulate the concept he knew he could not master without the curse of intellect.

"Illusion!" Chem exclaimed. "Of course! We're seeing other creatures that only look like centaurs." She was smart, as all centaurs were; she caught on quickly.

But she didn't have it all yet. "Me no see centaur she," he said clumsily.

"You see something else? Not centaurs?" Again her brow furrowed. "What do you see, Smash?"

Smash tapped his own chest.

"Oh, you see ogres. Yes, I suppose that makes sense. I see my kind, you see yours. But how can we see what is really there?"

This was far too much for him to figure out. If only he had his Eye Queue back, he might be able to formulate a reversal of perspective that would cancel out the mind-generated changes and leave only the undisturbed truth. Perhaps a kind of cross-reference grid, contrasting Chem's perceptions with his own, eliminating the differences. She saw centaurs, he saw ogres-obviously each saw his own kind, so that was suspect. Both saw a number of individuals, so there the perceptions aligned and were probably accurate. Both saw the creatures grazing, which suggested they were, in fact, grazing animals, equine, caprine, bovine, or other. Further comparison on an organized basis, perhaps mapping the distinctions on a variant of Chem's magic map, would in due course yield a close approximation of the truth, whatever it might be.

Of course, it might be that there was nothing. That even their points of agreement were merely common fancies, so that the composite image would be that illusion that was mutually compatible. It just might be, were the fundamental truth penetrated, that what remained in the Void was-nothing. The absence of all physical reality. Creatures thought, therefore they existed-yet perhaps even their thinking was largely illusion. So maybe the thinkers themselves did not exist-and the moment they realized this, they ceased to exist. The Void was-void.

But without his mental curse he wouldn't see any of that, and perhaps this was just as well. If he were going to imagine anything, he should start with the Eye Queue vine! But he would have to use it cautiously, lest the full power of his enhanced intellect succeed only in abolishing himself. He needed to preserve the illusion of existence long enough to rescue Tandy and get them out of the Void, so that their seeming reality became actual. "Me need clue to find Eye Queue," he said regretfully.

Chem took him literally, which was natural enough, since she knew he now lacked the wit to speak figuratively. "You think there are Eye Queue vines growing around here? Maybe I can locate them on my map."

She concentrated, and the suspended map brightened.

Parts of it became greener than others. "I can't usually place items I haven't actually seen," she murmured. "But sometimes I can interpolate, extrapolate from experience and intuition. I think there could be such vines-here." She pointed to one spot on her map, and a marker-glow appeared there.

"Though they may be imaginary, just ordinary plants that we happen to see as Eye Queues."

Smash was too stupid to appreciate the distinction. He set off in the direction indicated by the map. The centaur followed, keeping the map near him so he could refer to it at need. In short order he was there-and there they were, the dangling, braided eyeball vines, each waiting to curse some blundering creature with its intelligence and perception.

He grabbed one and set it on his head. It writhed and sank in immediately. How far had he sunk, to inflict so eagerly this curse upon himself!

His intelligence expanded, much as the centaur's map had. Now he grasped many of the same notions he had wished to grasp before. He saw one critical flaw in the technique of using a cross-reference grid to establish reality: turned on his own present curse of intelligence, it would probably reveal his smartness to be illusion. Since Smash needed that intelligence to rescue Tandy, he elected not to pursue that course. It would be better to use the devices of perspective to locate Tandy first, then explore their unreal mechanisms when the loss of such mechanisms no longer mattered. It would also be wise not to ponder the intricacies of his own personal existence.

What would be the best way to find her? If her foot-prints glowed, it would be easy to track her. But he was now far too smart to believe that anything so coincidentally convenient could exist.

The centaur, however, might be deceivable. "I suspect there could be some visible evidence of the passage of outsiders," he remarked. "We carry foreign germs, alien substances from other magic regions.

There could be interactions, perhaps a small display of illumination-"

"Smash!" she exclaimed. "It worked! You're smart again!"

"Yes, I thought it might."

"But it's illusion. The Eye Queue is only imaginary! How can it have a real effect?"

"What can affect the senses can also affect the mind," Smash explained. She had seemed so smart a moment ago. Now, from the lofty vantage of his restored intelligence, she seemed a bit slow. Certainly it

was stupid of her to attempt to explain away his mental power, for that would put them right back in the morass of incompetence. He had to persuade her-before she persuaded him. "In Xanth, things are mostly what they seem to be. For example, Queen Iris's illusions of light enable her to see in the dark; her illusion of distant vision enables her to see people who are otherwise too far away. Here in the Void, in contrast, things are what they seem not to be. It is possible to finesse these appearances to our advantage, and to generate realities that serve our interests. Do you perceive the footprints?"

She looked, dismayed by his confusing logic. "I-do," she said, surprised. "Mine are disks, yours are paw-prints. Mine glow light brown, like my hide; yours glow black, like yours." She looked up. "Am I making any sense at all? How can a print glow black?"

"What other color befits an ogre?" he asked. He did not see the prints, but did not remark on that "Now we must cast about for Tandy's prints." He cracked the briefest smile. "And hope they do not wail."

"Yes, of course," she agreed. "They must originate where we crossed the line: that's the place to intercept them." She started back-and paused. "That's funny."

"What's funny?" Smash was aware that the Void was tricky and potentially dangerous. If Chem began to catch on to its ultimate nature, he would have to divert her in a hurry. Their very existence could depend on it.

"I seem to be up against a wall. It's intangible, but it balks me."

A wall. That was all right; that was a physical obstacle, not an intellectual one, therefore much less dangerous. Much better to wrestle that sort of thing. Smash moved to join her-and came up against the wall himself. It was invisible, as she had suggested, but as he groped at it he began to discern its rough stones. It seemed to be fashioned of ogre-resistant stuff, or maybe his weakened condition prevented him from demolishing it properly. Odd.

His Eye Queue had another thought, however. If things in the Void were not what they seemed to be, perhaps this was true of the wall. It might not exist at all; if he could succeed in disbelieving in it, he could walk through it. Yet if he succeeded in abolishing a wall this tangible by mental effort, what then of the other things of the Void, such as the Eye Queue? He might do best not to disbelieve.

"What do you perceive?" Chem asked.

"A firm stone wall," he said, deciding. "I fear we shall find it difficult to depart the Void." He had thought that intellectual dissolution, or the vacating of reality, might cause the demise of intruders into the Void; perhaps it was, after all, a more physical barrier. He would have to keep his mind open so as not to be trapped by illusions about these illusions.

"There must be a way," she said with a certain false confidence. She suspected, as he did, that they could be in worse trouble right now than they had been when the Gap Dragon charged them or the volcano's lava flows began breaking up under them. Mental and emotional equilibrium was as important now as physical agility had been then. "Our first job is to catch up with Tandy; then we can tackle the problem of departure."

At least she had her priorities in order. "Certainly, We can intercept her footprints by proceeding sidewise. We now have a notion why she did not return. This wall must be pervious from the edge of the Void, impervious from the interior. A little like a one-way path through the forest."

"Yes. I always liked those "one-way paths. I don't like this wall quite as well." Chem proceeded sidewise, following the wall. She did not see it or really feel it, yet it balked her effectively. Meanwhile, Smash did not see the glowing footprints, but knew they would lead the two of them to Tandy. There seemed to be more substance to these illusions than was true elsewhere. The illusions of Queen Iris seemed very real, but one could walk right through them. The illusions of the Void seemed unreal, yet prevented penetration. Would they really all dissipate at such time as he allowed himself to fathom the real nature of the Void?

If nothing truly existed here, how could there be a wall to block escape? He kept skirting the dangerous thoughts!

Soon Chem spied Tandy's footprints-bright red, she announced. The prints were headed north, deeper into the Void.

They followed this new trail. Smash checked every so often and discovered that the invisible wall paced them. Any time he tried to step south, he could not. He could only go north, or slide east or west. This disturbed him more than it might have when he was ogrishly stupid. He did not like traveling a one-way channel; this was too much like the route into the lair of a hungry dragon. The moment he caught up to Tandy, he would find a way to go back out of .the Void. Maybe he could break a hole in the wall with a few hard ogre blows of his fist.

Yet again his Eye Queue, slanted across with an alternate thought. Suppose the Void were like a big funnel, allowing people to slide pleasantly toward its center and barring them from climbing out? Then the wall would not necessarily be a wall at all, merely the outer rim of that funnel. To smash it apart could be to break up the very ground that supported them, and send them plunging in a rockslide down into the deeper depth. No percentage there!

How could he arrange to escape the trap and take his friends with him? If no one had escaped before to give warning, that was a bad auspice for their own chances! Well, he intended to be the first to emerge to tell the tale.

Could he locate a big bird, a roc, and get carried out by air? Smash doubted it. He distrusted air travel, having had a number of uncomfortable experiences with it, and he certainly distrusted birds as big as rocs. What did rocs eat, anyway?

What else was there? Then he came up with a notion he thought would work in the Void. This would use the properties of the Void against the Void itself, rather than fighting those properties. He would try it-when the time came.

"There's something ahead," Chem said. "I don't know what it is yet."

In a moment they caught up to it. It was an ogress-the beefiest, fiercest, hairiest, ugliest monster he had ever seen, with a face so mushy it was almost sickening. Lovely! "What's another centaur doing here?"

Chem asked.

Instantly the Eye Queue analyzed the significance of her observation. "That is another anonymous creature. We had better proceed cautiously."

"Oh, I see what you mean! Do you think it could be a monster?" The centaur, delicately, did not voice the obvious fear-that the monster could have consumed Tandy. After all, it stood astride her tracks.

"Perhaps we should approach it from opposite sides, each ready to help the other in case it should attack." He wasn't fully satisfied with this decision, but the thought of harm to Tandy made the matter urgent.

"Yes," Chem agreed nervously. "As I become acclimated to this region, I like it less. Maybe one of us can draw near her and the other can hide, ready to act. We can't assume a. sleek centaur filly like that is hostile."

Nor could they afford to assume the ugly ogress was not hostile! They had to be ready for anything.

"You hide; I will approach in friendly fashion."

The centaur proceeded quietly to the west, and in a moment disappeared. Smash gave her time to get properly settled, then stomped gently toward the stranger. "Hoi" he called.

The hideous, wonderful ogress snapped about, spying him. "Who you?" she grunted dulcetly, her voice like the scratching of harpies' talons on dirty slate.

Smash, aware that she was not what she seemed, was cautious. Names had a certain power in Xanth, and he was already below strength; it was best to remain anonymous, at least until he was sure of the nature of this creature. "I am an inquiring stranger," he replied.

She tromped right up to him and stood snout to snout, in the delightful way of an ogress. "Me gon' stir he monster," she husked in the fascinatingly unsubtle mode of her apparent kind, and she clinked him in the puss with one hairy paw.

The blow lacked physical force, but Smash did a polite backflip as if knocked heels over head. What a romantic come-on! He remembered how his mother knocked his father about and stepped on his face, showing her intimidating love. How similar this ogre-she was!

Yet his Eye Queue cautioned caution, as was its wont. This was not a real ogress; she might just be roughing him

up for a meal. She might not be nearly as friendly as she seemed. So he did not reciprocate by smashing her violently into a tree. Besides, there was no suitable tree handy.

He used un-ogrish eloquence instead. "This is a remarkably friendly greeting for a stranger."

"No much danger," she said. "He nice stranger." And she gave him a friendly kick.

Smash was becoming much intrigued. He was sure this was no ogress, but she was one interesting person! Maybe he should hit her back. He raised his hamfist.

Then a third party appeared. This was another ogress. "Don't hit her. Smash!" she cried. "I just realized-"

"Smash?" the first ogress repeated questioningly. She seemed amazed.

"We must all describe exactly what we see," the second ogress said. She, too, was no true ogress, for her speech did not conform-unless she bad blundered into some Eye Queue vines-but that hardly seemed likely. "You first, Smash."

Confused by this development, he obliged. "I see two attractively brutal ogresses, each with a face mushier than the other, each hunched so that her handpaws reach almost down to her hindpaws. One is brown, the other red."

"And I see two centaurs," the second ogress said. "A black stallion and a red mare."

Oho! That would be Chem, seeing her own kind. Once she had separated from him, her own perceptions had taken over, so that she saw him falsely.

"I see a handsome black human man and a pretty brown human girl," the first ogress said.

"Then you are Tandy!" Chem exclaimed.

"Tandy!" Smash repeated, amazed.

"Of course I'm Tandy!" Tandy agreed. "I always was. But why are you two dressed up like human people?"

"We each perceive our own kind," Chem explained. "Each person instinctively generates his or her own reality from the Void. Come-take hands and perhaps we can break through to reality."

They took hands-and slowly the alternate images dissipated, and Smash saw Chem in her ruffled brown coat and Tandy in her tattered red dress.

"You were awful handsome as a man," Tandy said sadly. "All garbed in black, like a dusky king, with silver gloves." Smash realized that his orange jacket had become so dirty it was now almost indistinguishable from his natural fur. "But why did you fall down when I tried to shake your hand?"

The Eye Queue provided the insight to cause him embarrassment. "I misunderstood your intent," he confessed. "I thought you were being friendly."

"I was being friendly!" she exclaimed indignantly. "You were the first human being I was able to get close to in this funny place. I thought you might know some way out. I can't seem to go back myself; I bang into an invisible hedge or something. So I wanted to be very positive, and not scare you away.

After all you might have been lost too."

"Yes, of course," Smash agreed weakly.

"But you acted as if I'd hit you, or something!" she continued indignantly.

"This is the way ogres show affection," Chem explained.

Tandy laughed. "Affection! That's how human beings fight!"

Smash was silent, horribly embarrassed.

But Tandy would not let it go. "You big oaf! I'll show you how human beings express affection!" And she grabbed Smash's arm, pulling him toward her with small human violence. Bemused, he yielded, until his head was down near hers.

Tandy threw her arms around his furry neck and planted a firm, long, hot-blooded kiss on his mouth, moving her lips against his.

Smash was so surprised he sat down. Tandy followed him, still pressing close, locking his head to hers.

He fell all the way back on the ground, but she stayed with him, her brown hair flopping forward to cover his wildly staring eyes as she drove home the rest of the kiss.

At last she released him, as she needed a breath. "What do you think of that, ogre?"

Smash lay where she had thrown him, unable to make sense of the experience.

"He's overwhelmed," Chem said. "You gave him an awfully stiff dose for his first such contact."

"Well, I've wanted to do it for a long time," Tandy said.

"He's been too stupid to catch on."

"Tandy, he's an ogre! They don't understand human romance. You know that."

"He's an ogre with Eye Queue. He can darned well learn."

"I'm afraid you're being unrealistic," the centaur said, talking as if Smash were not present. Perhaps that was the case, mentally. "You're a spunky, pretty human girl. He's a hulking jungle brute. You can't afford to get emotionally involved with a creature like that. He just isn't your type."

"And just what is my type?" Tandy flared defiantly. "A damned demon intent on rape? Smash is the nicest male creature I've met in Xanth!"

"How many male creatures have you met in Xanth?" the centaur inquired.

Tandy was silent. Of course her experience had been quite limited.

Smash at last essayed a remark. "You could visit a human village-"

"Shut up, ogre," Tandy snapped, "or I'll kiss you again!"

Smash shut up. She was not bluffing; she could do it. She still had her arms looped around his neck, since she lay half astride him, holding him down, as it were.

"You have to be realistic," Chem said. "The Good Magician sent you out with Smash so the ogre could protect you while you searched for a husband. What good will it do you to find the destined man, as John and the Siren and maybe Goldy did, if you foolishly waste your love on an inappropriate object?

You would be undermining the very thing you seek."

"Oh, phooey!" Tandy exclaimed. "You're right, centaur, I know you're right, centaurs are always right-but oh, it hurts!" A couple of hot raindrops fell on Smash's nose, burning him with an acid other than physical. She was crying, and he found that even more confusing than the kiss. "Ever since he rescued me from the gourd and got me back my soul-"

"I'm not denying he's a good creature," Chem said. "I'm just saying, realistically-"

Tandy turned ferociously on Smash. "You monster! Why couldn't you have been a man?"

"Because I'm an ogre," he said.

She wrenched one arm clear of him and made as if to strike his face. But her hand did not touch him.

The Void spun about him, dimming. Smash realized she had hit him with another tantrum. That,

ironically, was more like ogre love. Why couldn't she have been an ogress?

An ogress. Now, his mind shaken by the double whammy of kiss and tantrum. Smash floated, half

conscious, and realized what he had been missing. An ogress! He, like every member of his party, could not exist alone. He needed a mate. That was what had brought bun to Good Magician Humfrey's castle.

That had been his unasked Question. How could he find his ideal mate? Humfrey had known.

And of course there would be ogresses at the Ogre-fen-Ogre Fen. That was why the Good Magician had sent him to seek the Ancestral Ogres. He would be able to select one who was right for him, knock her about in ogre fashion, and live in brutal happiness ever after, exactly as his parents had. It all did make sense.

He drifted slowly to earth as the horrendous impact of the tantrum eased. "Now I understand-" he began.

"I warned you, oaf," Tandy said. She leaned over and plastered another big kiss on him.

Smash was so dazed that he almost grasped the nature of the kiss, this time. Perhaps it was the effect of the Void, making things seem other than they were. It was as if she were punching him in the snoot-and with that perception she became much more alluring.

Then she broke, and the odd perspective ended. She became a girl again, all soft and pretty and nice and wholly inappropriate for romance. It was too bad.

"Oh, what's the use," Tandy said. "I'm a fool and I know it. Come on, people; we have to get out of this place."

"That may not be readily accomplished," Chem said. "We can travel in deeper, or edge sideways, but we can't back out. I'm sure it's like a whirlpool, drawing us ever inward. What we shall find in the center, I hesitate to conjecture."

"Oblivion," Tandy said tightly. She, too, had caught on.

"A maw," Smash said, climbing unsteadily to his feet.

"This land is carnivorous. It gives us respite only because it doesn't need to consume us instantly. It has herds of grazing creatures to eat first. When it gets hungry, it will take us."

"I fear that is so," the centaur agreed. "Yet there must be some way for smart or creative people to escape it. There is so much illusion here, maybe we could fool it."

"So far, ifs been fooling us, not we it," Tandy said. "Unless we can wish away that wall-"

But Smash's Eye Queue had been cogitating on this problem, and now it regurgitated a notion-the one he had flirted with before. "If we could escape into another world, one with different rules-"

"Such as what?" Chem asked, interested. "Have you got something on your hairy mind?"

"The hypnogourd."

"I don't like the gourd!" Tandy said instantly.

"And the fact is, even if we all entered the gourd, our bodies would remain right here," the centaur pointed out. "The gourd is a trap itself-but if we did get out of it, we'd still be in the Void. A trap within a trap."

"But the nightmares can go anywhere," Smash said. "Even to Mundania-and back."

"That's true," Tandy agreed. "They can go right through walls, and I think some can run on water. So I suppose they could run through the Void, and out again. They're not ordinary mares. But they're very hard to catch and hard to ride, and the cost-" She smiled ruefully. "I happen to know."

"They would help us if the Night Stallion told them to," Smash said.

"Oh, I forgot!" Tandy exclaimed. "You still have to fight the Night Stallion! You sacrificed your soul for me-" She clouded up. "Oh, Smash, I owe you so much!"

The centaur nodded thoughtfully. "Smash placed his soul in jeopardy for you, Tandy. I can appreciate how that would affect you. But I'm not sure you interpret your debt correctly."

"I was locked into that horror, deprived of my soul!" Tandy said. "I had no hope at all. The lights had gone out on my horizon. Then he came and fought the bones and smashed things about and brought out my soul, and I lived again. I owe my everything to him. I should give back my soul-"

"No!" Smash cried, knowing that she could endure no worse horror than the loss of her soul again. "I promised to protect you, and I should have protected you from the gourd, instead of splashing in the lake. I'll fight this through myself."

Chem shook her head. "I do see the problem-for each of you. I wish I perceived the answers as clearly."

"I have to meet the Stallion anyway," Smash said. "So when I have conquered him, I'll ask him for some mares."

"That's so crazy it just might work!" Chem said. "But there's one detail you may have overlooked. We have no hypnogourds here."

"We'll use your map again," he said.

The centaur considered. "I must admit it worked for your Eye Queue replacement vine, and our situation is desperate enough so that anything's worth trying. But-"

"Replacement?" Tandy demanded.

"Chem will explain it to you while I'm in the gourd," Smash said. "Right now, let's use the map to locate a gourd patch."

The centaur projected her map and settled on a likely place for gourds while Tandy watched skeptically.

Then the party went there, though the way took them deeper into the Void.

And there they were-several nice fat hypnogourds with ripe peepholes. Smash settled himself by the largest. "You girls get some rest," he advised. "This may take a while. Remember, I have to locate the Stallion first, then fight him, then round up the mares."

Tandy grabbed his hamhand in her two delicate little hands. "Oh, Smash-I wish I could help you, but I'm terrified to go into a gourd-"

"Don't go in a gourd!" Smash exclaimed. "Just stay close so you don't get walled off from me and can't bring me out in an emergency," he said gruffly.

"I will! I will!" Tandy's eyes were tear-bright. "Oh, Smash, are you strong enough? I shouldn't have hit you with that tantrum-"

"I like your tantrums. You just rest, and wait for the nightmares, by whatever route they come."

"I know I'll see nightmares," she said wanly.

Smash glanced at Chem. "Keep an eye on her," he said, disengaging his hand from Tandy's.

"I will," the centaur agreed.

Then Smash put his eye to the peephole.

Chapter 13. Souls Alive

He found himself emerging from the cakewalk onto a vast empty stage. He landed gently. There was no vomit. There was a new scene.

The floor was metal-hard and highly polished; his feet left smudge marks where they touched. The air was half lit by a glow that seemed inherent. There was nothing else.

Smash peered about. It occurred to him that if the Night Stallion were here, he could spend a long time looking, as this place seemed infinitely extensive. He had to narrow its compass, somehow.

Well, he knew how to do that. He started tromping, unreeling his string behind him. He would crisscross this region for as long and as far as it took him.

Smash advanced. The string became a long line, disappearing in the distance behind. It divided the plain into two sections.

This could take even more time than he had judged, he realized. Since the girls were waiting outside the gourd in the Void and would not be able to go in search of food or water, he wanted to get on with it quickly. So he needed some way to speed things up.

He cudgeled his Eye Queue again. How could he most efficiently locate a creature that didn't want to be located?

Answer: what about following its trail?

He applied his eye to the floor. Now that he concentrated, he saw the hoofprints. They crossed his projected line, coming from the right rear and proceeding to the left front. There would be- no problem following that!

But his curse, in its annoying fashion, caused him to question the simplicity of this procedure. The hoofprints were suspiciously convenient, crossing his line just at the point he thought to look, almost as if they were intended to be seen. He knew that tracking a creature was not necessarily simple, even when the prints were clear. The trail could meander aimlessly, looping about, getting lost in bad terrain. It could become dangerous if the quarry knew it was being tracked-and the Dark Horse surely did know.

There could be tricks and ambushes.

No, there was no sense playing the game of the Night Stallion. The trail was not to be trusted. It was something set up to delude an ordinary ogre. Better to force the Stallion to play Smash's game-and if the Horse did not know of Smash's hidden asset of intelligence, that could be a counter ambush. A smart ogre was quite different from a stupid one.

Smash stomped on, following his straight line, halving the territory. This should also restrict the range of the Stallion, since it could not go any place Smash had already looked-as he understood the rules of this quest-and therefore could not cross the line.

Yet the territory still seemed to be infinitely large. He might tromp forever and never come to the far side. For that matter, he hadn't started at the near side, either; he had simply appeared within the range and begun there. He also realized that halving the total territory did not necessarily cut the area remaining to be searched. Half of infinity remained infinity. Also, unless he knew which half the Stallion was in, he had gained nothing; he could spend all his time searching in the wrong half, his failure guaranteed.

Smash pondered. His Eye Queue was really straining now, and probably the eyeballs of it were getting hot in their effort to see the way through infinity. One thing he had to say for the curse: it certainly tried to help him. It never really opposed its will to his own; it sought instead to call his attention to new aspects of any situation encountered, and to provide more effective ways of dealing with problems. He had discovered how useful that was when he had tried to function without its aid. Now he needed it again. How could he figure out a sure, fast way to proceed?

The vine came up with a notion.

Smash put the ball of string into his mouth and bit it in half. He now had two balls, each smaller than the first but magically complete. He took the first and rolled it violently forward.

The ball zoomed straight on, unrolling, leaving its straight line of string. Since it had an infinite length, it would proceed to the infinite end of the plain. Infinity could be compassed by infinity; even an ordinary ogre might grasp that! This process would complete the halving of the Stalliorfs range.

Now Smash set his ear to the floor and listened. Yes-his keen ogre hearing heard a faint hoofbeat in the distance, to the forward right. The Stallion was up there somewhere, moving clear of the rolling string.

Now Smash had the creature partially located. He had done something unexpected, forced bis opponent to react, and gained a small advantage.

Smash bit the remaining ball in half and shaped the halves into new balls. He hurled one to the east, establishing a pie-section configuration that trapped the Stallion inside. Then he listened again, determining in what quadrant the creature lurked, and pitched another half-ball in a curve. This wound grandly around behind the Stallion's estimated location, cutting off its retreat. For, though Smash had not tromped personally wherever the string went, the string remained his agent and surely counted. He was using a sort of leverage, and the Horse could not cross his demarcation, lest the animal break its own rule of being only in the last place Smash looked.

He put his ear to the floor again. The beat of hooves had ceased. The Stallion had either gotten away or stopped running. Since the former meant a loss for Smash, he did the expedient thing and decided on the latter. He had at last confined his target!

Smash stomped into the string-defined quadrant. If the Stallion were here, as he had to be, he would soon be found.

In due course Smash spied a blotch on the horizon. He stomped closer, alert for some ruse. The blotch grew as he approached it, in the manner that distant objects did, since they did not like to appear small from up close. It took the form of an animal, perhaps a lion. A lion? Smash didn't want that! He refused to have a mundane monster foisted off on him in lieu of his object. "If it's a lion, it's a Stallion!" he muttered-and of course as he said it, it was true. A single, timely word could make a big difference.

It was a huge, standing, wingless horse, midnight black of hide, with eyes that glinted black, too. This was surely the Night Stallion-the creature he had come to settle with, the ruler of the nightmare world.

Smash stomped to a halt before the creature. He stood taller than it, but the animal was more massive. "I am Smash the Ogre," he said. "Who are you?" For it was best to be quite certain, in a case like this.

The creature merely stood there. Now Smash saw that there was a plaque set up at its forefeet, and the plaque said: TROJAN.

"Well, Trojan Horse," Smash said, "I have come to redeem the lien on my soul."

He had expected the animal to charge and attack, but it did not move or respond. It might as well have been a statue.

"How do I do this?" Smash demanded.

Still no response. Evidently the creature was sulking, angry because he had caught it.

Smash peered more closely at the Stallion. It certainly seemed frozen! He tromped forward and put out a hamhand to touch it.

The body was metal-cold and hard. It was indeed a statue.

Had he, after all, located the wrong thing? That would mean he had been deceived by a decoy and would have to do his search all over again. Smash didn't like this notion, so he rejected it.

He looked at the floor. Behind the statue were hoofprints. The thing might be frozen now, but it had not always been. Probably its present stasis was merely another device to interfere with Smash's quest. This was one devious beast!

Well, there was one way to take care of that. He stood before the Stallion and hoisted a hamfist. "Deal with me, animal, or I will break you into junk."

The midnight orbs seemed to glitter ominously. Trojan did not like being threatened!

Smash found himself alone, on a lofty, windy, rainswept pinnacle.

He looked around. The top ledge was just about big enough for him to stretch out on, but almost featureless. The flat, slick rock terminated abruptly at the edge, plunging straight down to a smashing ocean far below. There were no plants, no food, no structures of any kind-just the tug of the wind and the roar of the ocean beneath.

The Night Stallion had done this, of course. It had spelled him to this desolate confinement, getting rid of him. So much for fair combat.

The storm swirled closer. Storms really liked to get a person stranded in a situation like this! A bolt of lightning crackled down, striking the pinnacle. A section of rock peeled off in a shower of sparks and collapsed, falling with seeming slowness to the distant water.

Smash stood at the steaming brink and watched the tiny splash. The rock had been a fair chunk, massive, yet from this vantage it looked like a pebble.

This was a really nice vacation spot for an ogre. But he didn't want a vacation; he wanted to fight Trojan. How could he get back into the action?

Now his perch was too small to stretch out on. About a quarter of it had fallen. The wind intensified, taking hold of his fur, trying to move him off. He wanted to travel, but not precisely this way! What kind of a splash would he make?

Rain splatted in passing sheets, making the surface doubly slick. The water coursed around his feet, digging under his calloused toes, trying to pry him from the rock so that he would be carried with it as it flowed over the brink in a troubled waterfall. Such a drop did not hurt water, but his own flesh might be less fortunate.

A huge wave surged forward, below, taking dead aim at the base of the rock column. The wave smashed in-and the entire column trembled. More layers of stone peeled and fell. For a moment Smash thought the whole thing was coming down, but about half of it withstood the violence and held its form.

However, it was obvious that this perch would not endure much longer.

Smash considered. If he stood here, the column would soon collapse, dropping him into the ravenous ocean. He was an ogre, true, but he lacked his full strength; he would probably be crushed between the tumbling rocks in the water. If he tried to climb down, much of the same thing would happen; the column would collapse before he got below. Ogres were tough, but the forces of nature operating here were overwhelming; he had no realistic chance.

He saw that the ocean waves developed only as they got close to the tower. His Eye Queue concluded that this meant the water was much deeper away from this structure, because deep water didn't like to rouse itself from its stillness. That meant that region was safe to plunge into.

Good enough. He hated to leave this pleasant spire, but discretion urged the move. He leaped off the brink, sailing out in a clumsy swan dive toward the deep water.

Then he remembered he couldn't swim very well. In a calm lake he was all right; in a raging torrent he tended to drown.

He eyed the looming ocean, surging deep and dark. It was no mere torrent; it was an elemental monster.

He had no chance at all. Too bad.

He faced the horse-statue. There was no tower, no ocean. It had all been a magic vision. A test, perhaps, or a warning. Obviously he had wiped out. He felt weak; he must have lost a chunk of his soul.

But now he knew how it worked. The Night Stallion did not fight physically; the creature simply threw turbulent visions at him, the way Tandy threw tantrums and cursefiends threw curses. The ocean tower had been sort of fun. So were those tantrums, he realized; when Tandy hit him with one of them... But that was nothing to speculate on right now.

"Try it again, horseface!" he grunted. "I still want my soul back."

The Stallion's dark eyes flashed malignantly.

And Smash stood in the center of a den of Mundane lions-real lions this time, not stallion or ant-lions.

He felt abruptly weaker; this must be a Mundane scene, beyond the region of magic, so that his magic strength was gone.

The lions snarled like mammalian dragons, lashed their tufted yellow tails, and stalked him. There were six of them: a male, four females, and a cub. The females seemed to be the most aggressive. They began sniffing him, trying to determine how dangerous he might be and how edible.

Ordinarily, Smash would have liked nothing better than to mix with a new crowd of monsters in sublime mayhem. Ogres lived for the joy of bloody battle. But two things militated against his natural inclination-his Eye Queue and his weakness. According to the pusillanimous counsel of the first, it was best to avoid combat when the outcome was uncertain; and according to the second, the outcome was highly uncertain. He would do better, his cowardly intelligence informed him, to flee immediately.

But two things were wrong with that course. There was no place to flee to, because he was in a walled arena with wire mesh over the top, so he could not escape, and the lions had him surrounded anyway.

He would have to fight, unless he could bluff them.

He tried the bluff. He raised his hamfists, though they were unprotected by his centaur gauntlets, and bellowed defiance. This was a stance that would frighten almost any creature of Xanth.

But the lions were not creatures of Xanth. They were from Missouri, Mundania. They had to be shown.

They pounced.

Ordinarily, Smash would have been able to mince the mere six monsters with so many blows of fists, feet, and head. But with his strength reduced to Mundane normal, all he could handle was one. While he was pulping that one, the other five were chomping him.

In a moment they had bitten through the hamstring tendons of his arms and legs, making his hamhands and hamfeet useless. They chomped through the nerve channel of his neck, making his head slightly less functional than before. He was now mostly helpless. He could feel, but could not move.

Then they gnawed at him, taking their time, one female on each extremity, the male clawing out his belly for the tasty guts. The pulped cub roused itself enough to commence work on Smash's nose, biting off small bites so as not to choke on its meal. It hurt horribly as the monsters chewed off his hands and feet and delved for his kidneys, and it wasn't much fun when the cub scooped out an eyeball, but Smash didn't scream. Noise seemed pointless at this point. Anyway, it was hard to scream properly when his tongue was gone and his lungs were being chewed out. He knew that when the beasts got to his vital organs, sensation would end, so he waited.

But the lions were sated before then, for Smash was a lot of creature. They left him, delimbed and eviscerated, and piled themselves up for a family snooze. Now the flies appeared, settling in swarms, and every bite was a new agony. The sun shone down through the mesh, cooking him, blazing into his other eye, which paralysis prevented him from closing. Soon he was agonizingly blind. But he still felt the flies crawling up his nose, looking for new places to bite and lay their maggots. It was going, he knew, to be an exceedingly long haul.

How had he gotten himself into this fix? By challenging the Night Stallion to recover his soul and to obtain help to rescue Tandy and Chem from the Void. Was it worth it? No, because he had not

succeeded. Would he try it again? Yes, because he still wanted to help his friends, no matter how much pain came.

He was back before Trojan, whole of limb and gut and eye. It had been another test case, and obviously he had lost that one, too. He should have found some way to destroy the lions, instead of letting them destroy him. But it seemed he still had most of his soul, and perhaps the third trial would enable him to win the rest of it back.

"I'm still game, master of nightmares," he informed the somber statue.

Again the eyes flashed cruelly. This creature of night had no sympathy and no mercy!

Smash was standing at the base of a mountain of rocks. "Help!" someone cried. It sounded like Tandy.

How had she gotten here? Had she disobeyed his instruction and entered the gourd, following his string to locate him? Foolish girl! Smash looked about, but found no one.

"Help!" she cried again. "I'm under the mountain!"

Smash was horrified. He had to get her out! There was no passage, so he started lifting and hurling away the boulders. He had most of his strength now, despite his prior losses, so this was easy enough.

But there were many boulders, and somehow Tandy's voice always came from under the highest

remaining pile. Smash was making progress leveling the mountain, but still had far to go. He was thing.

Gradually the pile of rocks behind him loomed higher than the pile before, but the cries continued to come from beneath. How had she gotten herself in so deep? He no longer had the strength to hurl the boulders away, but had to carry them with great effort. Then he could no longer lift them, and had to roll them.

At last the mountain had been moved, and the ground was level. But now the voice came from deep below. This was, in fact, a pit the size of an inverted mountain, filled with more boulders-and Tandy was at the bottom.

His body was numb with fatigue. It was a labor just to move himself now. In this respect his agony was worse than it had been in the lions' den, for there all he had to do was lie still and wait. Now he had to cudgel his reluctant muscles to perform, inflicting the torture of exertion on himself. But he kept going, for the job remained to be done. He shoved and heaved and slowly rolled the boulders out.

The deeper he got, the worse the chore became, for now he had to shove the boulders up out of the deepening pit. Still her voice cried despairingly from below. Smash staggered. A boulder slipped from his falling grasp and rolled down to the lowest point. He lumbered after it, hearing her faint sobs. She seemed to be fading as fast as he was!

But his strength had been exhausted. He could no longer move the boulder far enough, strain as he might. Still trying, he collapsed, and the big stone rolled over him.

Again he faced the Night Stallion, his strength miraculously restored. He realized that Tandy had never been there in the vision, only her voice, used to goad him into an impossible effort.

"I'm still going to save my soul and my friends," Smash said, though he dreaded whatever the Dark Horse would throw at him next. Tandy might not have been literally below that mountain of rocks, but his success in these endeavors had a direct bearing on her fate, so it was the same thing. "Trojan, do your worst."

The evil eyes flashed horrendously, darkening the entire area.

Smash was in a compound with assorted other creatures. It was a miserable place, stinking of poverty, doom, and despair. Jets of bright fire shot from cracks in the ground, preventing escape. Harpies and other carrion birds wheeled above, watching for food.

"Slop time!" a guard called, and dumped a pail of garbage into the compound. A gnome, an elf, and a wyvem pounced on the foul refuse. But before they got more than a few stinking scraps, the harpies swooped down in a squadron and snatched it all away, leaving only a pile of defecation in its place. The prisoners squabbled among themselves in angry frustration. Smash saw that all were emaciated; they had not been getting enough food. Small wonder, with those harpies hovering!

What was to be his torture this time? For Smash realized now that these scenes were supposed to be extremely unpleasant, even for an ogre; each was awful in a different way. As he considered, the sun moved rapidly across the pale sky, as if time were accelerating, for normally nothing could prevail on the sun to hurry its pace one bit. Smash's hunger accelerated, too; it took a lot of food to maintain a healthy ogre.

"Slops!" the guard called, and dumped the pail. There was another scramble, but the wyvem wasn't in it.

That noble little dragon was now too far gone to scramble. In any event, the harpies got most of the slop again. Smash felt a pang; even garbage looked good now, and he had gotten none. Of course he wouldn't touch anything a harpy had been near, anyway; they spoiled ten times as much as they ate, coating their discards with poisonous refuse. Harpies were the world's dirtiest birds; in fact, real birds refused to associate with these witch-headed monsters.

The wyvern belched out a feeble wisp of fire and collapsed. Smash crossed over to it, moved by un-ogrish compassion. "Anything I can do for you?" he asked. After all, it took one monster to understand another. But the wyvem merely expired.

Immediately the other prisoners converged, working up what slaver they could; dragon meat was a lot better than starvation. Affronted by the notion of such a fine fighting animal being consumed so indelicately. Smash hefted a fist, ready to defend the body. But the vultures descended in a swarm, gouging the corpse to pieces from every side so swiftly that Smash could do nothing; in moments, nothing but bones was left. His efforts, perhaps pointless from the beginning, had been wasted. Smash returned to his place.

The sun plopped behind a distant mountain, throwing up a small shower of debris that colored the clouds briefly in that vicinity. It really ought, he thought, to be more careful where it landedl The stars blinked on, some more alertly than others. The nocturnal heavens spun by, making short work of the night.

By morning Smash was ravenous. So were his surviving companions. They eyed one another covertly, judging when one or the other might be unable to defend himself from consumption. When the guard came with the slops, the gnome stumbled forward. "Food! Food!" he croaked.

The guard paused, eying the gnome cynically. "Are you ready to pay?"

"I'll pay! I'll pay!" the gnome agreed with uncomfortably guilty eagerness.

The guard reached through the bars of fire and into the gnome's body. He hauled out the gnome's struggling soul, an emaciated and bedraggled thing that slowly coalesced into a pallid sphere. The guard inspected it briefly to make certain it was all there, then crammed it indifferently into a dirty bag. Then he set the pail of slop down and waved the hovering harpies away. They screamed epithets of protest, but obeyed. One, however, so far lost control of herself as to loop down close to the tantalizing garbage.

The guard's eyes glinted darkly, and the harpy screeched in i sudden terror and pumped back into the dingy sky, dropping several greasy feathers in her haste. Smash wondered what it was that had so cowed her, for harpies had little respect for anything and the guard was an ordinary human being, or reasonable facsimile thereof.

The gnome plunged his head into the bucket and greedily slurped the glop. He guzzled spoiled milk, gulped apple and onion peels, and crunched on eggshells and coffee grounds in a paroxysm of satiation.

He had his food now; he had paid for it.

The guard turned to gaze at Smash. There was a malignant glitter in the man's eye. Smash realized that he was, in fact, an aspect of the Night Stallion, on his rounds collecting more souls.

Now Smash understood the nature of this trial. He resolved not to purchase his sustenance at that price.

If he lost his soul here, he lost it everywhere, and would not be able to help Chem and Tandy escape.

But he knew that this would be the most difficult contest yet; each time the Stallion came. Smash would be hungrier, and the pail of slops would lure him more strongly. How could he be sure he would hold out when starvation melted his muscles and deprived him of willpower? This was not a single effort to be made and settled one way or the other; this was a dragging-out siege against his hunger-and the hunger of an ogre was more terrible than his strength.

The sun shoved rapidly across the welkin, looking some-what undernourished and irritated itself. It kicked innocent clouds out of the way, burning one, so that the cloud lost continence and watered on the ground below. It was an evil day, and Smash's hunger intensified. He had to escape before he succumbed.

He got up, dusted off his bedraggled and filthy hide, and approached the burning barrier. These jets were unlike those of the firewall in Xanth or the jets of the Region of Fire, for they were thicker and hotter than the first and steadier than the second. But perhaps he could cross them. Certainly he had to try.

He held his breath, closed his eyes and charged across the barrier of flames. After all, he had done this in the real world; he could survive a little additional scorching.

He felt the sudden, searing heat. His fur curled and frizzled. This was worse than he had anticipated; his hunger-weakened body was more sensitive to pain, not less. Then the fire passed. He screeched to a halt on singed toes and opened his clenched eyelids.

He was in the prison chamber, the bars of flame behind him. He had blackened stripes along his fur, and his skin smarted-but it seemed he had gotten turned about. What a mistake!

He turned, gulped more air, screwed his orbs shut again, and leaped through the burning bars. Again the pain flared awfully. This time he knew he hadn't turned; he had been in midair as he crossed the flame.

But as he unscrewed his vision, blinking away the smoke from his own eyelashes, he found himself still in the cell. Apparently it was not all that easy to escape. He had to go by the rules of the scene.

Nevertheless, he readied himself for a third try, because an ogre never knew when to quit. But as he oriented on the bars, he saw the guard standing just beyond them, with a glittering gaze. Suddenly he did know when to quit; he turned about and went back to his original spot in the compound and squatted there like a good prisoner. He didn't want to go near the Dark Horse until this struggle was over.

The sun plunged. Another poor creature yielded his vital soul to the Stallion in payment for food. Two more perished of starvation. Smash's firewounds festered,- and his fur fell out in stripes. His belly swelled as. his limbs shriveled. He became too weak to stand; he sat cross-legged, head hanging forward, contemplating the tendons that showed in high relief on his thighs where the hair had fallen out. He did not ask for food, though he was now being consumed by his own hunger. He knew the price.

Slowly, while the days and nights raced across the sky, he starved. He realized, as he sank into the final stupor, that when he died, the Stallion would have his soul anyway. Somehow he had misplayed this one, too.

Once more he stood before-the Stallion statue. Still he had some of his soul, and would not yield.

Apparently there was a limit to how much of a soul could be taken 'as penalty for each loss, and ogres were ornery creatures. "I'll fight for my soul as long as any of it remains to fight for," Smash declared.

"Bring on your next horror, equine."

The eyes glinted. Then the Night Stallion moved, coming alive. "You have fought well, ogre," it said, speaking without difficulty through its horse's mouth. "You have won every challenge."

This was completely unexpected. "But I died each time!"

"Without ever deviating from your purpose. You were subjected to the challenge of fear, but you evinced no fear-"

"Well, ogres don't know what that is," Smash said.

"And to the challenge of pain, but you did not capitulate-"

"Ogres don't know how," Smash admitted. "And to the challenge of fatigue-"

"How could I stop when I thought my friend was caught?"

"And to the challenge of hunger."

"That was a bad one," Smash acknowledged. "But the price was too high." His Eye Queue curse had made him aware of the significance of the price; otherwise he almost certainly would have succumbed.

"And so you blundered through, allowing nothing to sway you, and thus vacated the lien on four-fifths of your soul. Only one more test remains-but on this one depends all that you have gained so far. You will win your whole soul here-or lose it."

"Send me to that test," Smash said resolutely. The Stallion's eyes flickered intensely, but the scene did not change. "Why did you accept the lien on your soul?" the creature asked.

Smash's Eye Queue warned him that the eye-flicker meant he had been projected to another vision and was being tested. Since the scene had not changed, this must be a different sort of test from the others. Beware!

"To save the soul of my friend, whom I had promised to protect," Smash said carefully. "I thought you knew that. It was your minion of the coffin who cheated her out of it."

"What kind of fool would place the welfare of another before his own?" the Horse demanded, ignoring Smash's remark.

Smash shrugged, embarrassed. "I never claimed to be other than a fool. Ogres are very strong and very stupid."

The Stallion snorted. "If you expect me to believe your implication, you think I'm a fool! I know most ogres are stupid, but you are not. Why is that?"

Unfortunately, ogres were not much given to lying; it was part of their stupidity. Smash had been directly asked; he would have to answer. "I am cursed with the Eye Queue. The vine makes me much smarter than I should be and imbues me with aspects of conscience, aesthetic awareness, and human sensitivity. I would, rid myself of it it I could, but I need the intelligence in order to help my friends."

"Fool!" the Stallion roared. "The Eye Queue curse is an illusion!"

"Everything in the gourd and in the Void is illusion of one sort or another," Smash countered. "Much of Xanth is illusion, and perhaps Mundania, too; It might be that if we could only see the ultimate reality, Xanth itself would not exist. But while I exist in it, or think I do, I will honor the rules of illusion as I do those of reality, and draw on the powers my illusory Eye Queue provides as I do on those my real ogre strength provides."

The Stallion paused. "That was not precisely what I meant, but perhaps it is a sufficient answer.

Obviously your own intelligence is no illusion. But were you not aware that the effect of the Eye Queue vine is temporary? That it wears off in a few hours at most,' and in many cases provides, not true intelligence, but a vain illusion of it that causes the recipient to make a genuine 'fool of himself, the laughingstock of all who perceive his self-delusion?"

Smash realized that the creature was indeed testing him another way-and an intellectual test was most treacherous for an ogre. "I was not aware of that," he admitted. "Perhaps my companions were too kind to think of me in that way. But I believe my intelligence is real, for it has helped me solve many problems no ordinary ogre could handle, and has broadened my horizons immeasurably. If this be illusion, it is tolerable. Certainly it lasted me many days without fading. Perhaps it works better on ogres, who can _ hardly be rendered more foolish than they naturally are."

"You are quite correct. You are no ordinary ogre and you are smart enough to give me a considerable challenge. Most creatures who place their souls in peril do so for far less charitable reasons. But, of course, you are only half-ogre."

Naturally the Lord of Nightmares knew all about him! Smash refused to lose his temper, for that surely was what the Stallion wanted. Lose temper, lose soul! "I am what I am. An ogre."

The Stallion nodded as if discovering a weakness in Smash's armor. He was up to something; Smash could tell by the way he swished his tail in the absence of flies. "An ogre with the wit and conscience of a man. One who makes the Eye Queue vine work beyond its capacities, and makes it work again even when the vine itself is illusory. One who maintains a loyalty to his responsibilities and associates that others would fain define as entirely human."

"I also made the gourd work in the Void, when it was illusory," Smash pointed out. "If you seek to undermine my enhanced intelligence by pointing out that it has no basis, you must also concede that your testing of me has no basis."

"That was not precisely my thrust. Similar situations may have differing interpretations." He snorted, clearing his long throat. "You have mastered the four challenges without fault and are now entitled to assume the role of Master of Challenges. I shall retire from the office; you shall be the Night Ogre."

"The Night Ogre?" Smash, despite the Eye Queue, was having trouble grasping this.

"You will send the bad images out with your night ogresses and collect the souls of those who yield them. You will be Master of the Gourd. The powers of the night will be yours."

"I don't want the powers of the night!" Smash protested. "I just want to rescue my friends."

"With the powers of the night, you can save them," the Stallion pointed out. "You will be able to direct your night creatures to bear them sleeping from the Void to the safety of the ordinary Xanth jungle."

But Smash's Eye Queue, illusory though it might be, interfered with this promising solution. "Would I get to return to the world of the day myself?"

"The Master of Night has no need to visit the day!" "So you are prisoner of the night yourself," Smash said.

"You may capture the souls of others, but your own is hostage."

"I can go to the day!" the Stallion protested.

Again the Eye Queue looked' the. horse's gift in the mouth. It was full of dragon's teeth. "Only if you collect enough souls to pay your way. How many does it take for an hour of day? A dozen? A hundred?"

"There is another way," the Stallion said uncomfortably.

"Surely so. If you arrange a replacement for yourself," Smash said. "Someone steadfast enough to do the job according to the rules, no matter how unpleasant or painful or tedious it becomes. Someone whom power does not corrupt."

The Dark Horse was silent.

"Why is it necessary to send bad dreams to people?" Smash asked. "Is this only a means to jog them from their souls?"

"It has a loftier rationale than that," the Stallion replied somewhat stiffly. "If no one ever suffered the pangs of conscience or regret, evil would prosper without hindrance and eventually take over the world.

Evil can be the sweet sugar of the soul, temptingly pleasant in small doses, but inevitably corrupting.

The bad dreams are the realizations of the consequence of evil, a timely warning that all thinking creatures require. The nightmares guard constantly against spiritual degradation-that same corruption you have withstood. Take the position, ogre; you have earned it."

"I wish I could help you," Smash said. "But my life is outside the gourd, in the jungles of Xanth. I am a simple forest creature. I must help my friends survive the wilderness in my own fashion, and not aspire to be more than any ogre was ever destined to be."

The Stallion's eyes dimmed. "You have navigated the final challenge. You have avoided the ultimate temptation of power. You are free to return to Xanth with your soul intact. The lien is voided."

Suddenly Smash felt completely strong again, his soul restored. "But I need help," he said. "I must borrow three of your nightmares to carry my party out of the Void."

"Nightmares are not beasts of burden!" the Stallion protested, scraping the ground with a forehoof. It seemed this creature, if not actually piqued by Smash's refusal to take over the proffered office, was still less cooperative than he might have been. When one scorned an offer of any nature, one had to bear the penalty.

"The nightmares alone can travel anywhere, even out of the Void," Smash said, knowing he had to find some way to gain the assistance he needed. "Only they can help us."

"They could if they chose to," the Horse agreed. "But their fee is half a soul for each person carried."

"Half my soul!" Smash exclaimed. "I don't have enough for three!"

"Half a soul, not necessarily your own. But it is true you do not have enough. Nightmare rides come steep."

Smash realized that he was right back in the dilemma he thought he had escaped. He had placed his soul in jeopardy to rescue Tandy from the gourd; now he would have to do it again to rescue Tandy and Chem from the Void. But if he rescued both, he himself would be lost, for the Eye Queue informed him that two halves of a soul amounted to the whole soul.

Of course, he could rescue only Tandy, the one he had agreed to protect. But he could not see his way clear to leave Chem in the Void. She was a nice creature with a worthy mission. She did not deserve to be deserted. And he had more or less agreed to protect her, too, when her brother Chet had delivered her to him at the brink of the Gap Chasm. "I will pay the price," he said, thinking of the gnome begging for slops.

"Do you realize that you could rescue them and retain your soul by becoming the Master of Night?" the Stallion asked.

"I fear I must go to hell in my own fashion," Smash said regretfully. The Horse obviously thought him a smart fool, and his Eye Queue heartily endorsed the sentiment, but somehow his fundamental ogre nature shied away from the responsibility for damning others. Better to be one of the damned.

"Even in sacrifice, you are ogrishly stupid," the Stallion remarked with disgust. "You are obviously unfit for duty here."

"Agreed," Smash agreed. "Go negotiate directly with the mares," the Horse snorted. "I'll have no part of this." His eyes flared with their black light.

Then Smash found himself on the plain of the mares. The dark herd charged toward him, circling him in moments, as was their wont. Then they recognized him and hesitated.

"I need two of you to carry my friends to safety," he said. "I know the price."

"Naaaay!" one cried. Smash recognized her as the one he had tried to befriend, the one who had carried Tandy to the Good Magician's castle. That had been involuntary, without a fee-until the coffin had claimed a double fee retroactively. Obviously none of that payment had gone to the mare; it had been a gyp deal all around. But she certainly knew how to carry a person. He was sorry he had not been able to figure out what she wanted from Xanth.

"I must rescue Tandy and Chem," Smash said. "I will pay the fee. Who will make the deal?"

Two other mares volunteered. Smash wasn't sure what use they would have for the halves of his soul, but that was not much of his business. Maybe half souls were bartering currency within the gourd, accounting for status in the nightmare hierarchy. "S.O.D.," he said, cautioned by his Eye Queue. "Soul on Delivery."

They nodded, agreeing. "Can you find them?" he asked. When they nodded naaay, he realized he would have to go with them, at least to where the girls were. "Well, we'd better introduce ourselves," he said. "I am Smash the Ogre. How shall I know the two of you?"

One of the two struck the ground with a forehoof. She left a circular impression in the dirt, with little ridges, dark spots, and pockmarks. Smash peered at it closely, struck by a nagging familiarity. Where had he seen a configuration like that before? Then he grasped it; this was like a map of the moon, with the pocks like the cheese holes. One of the dark areas was highlighted, and he saw that there was lettering on it: MARE CRISIUM.

"So you're the mare Crisium," he said, making the' connection. "Mind if I call you Crisis?"

She shrugged acquiescently. Smash turned to the other. "And who are you?"

The other stomped a forehoof. Her moon-map was highlighted in another place: MARE VAPORUM.

"And you're the mare Vaporum," he said. "I'll call you Vapor."

The befriended mare now came forward, nickering, offering to carry him. "But I have no soul left over to pay you," he protested. "Besides, you're far too small to handle a monster like me."

She walked under him-and suddenly he found that he had shrunk or she had grown, for now he was riding her comfortably. It seemed nightmares had no firmly fixed size.

"Then tell me your name, too," he said. "You are doing me an unpaid favor, and I want to know you, in case I should ever be able to repay it. I never did discover what you wanted from Xanth, you know."

She stamped her hoof. He leaned down over her shoulder, hanging on to her slick black mane that flowed like a waterfall, until he was able to read her map. It was high-lighted at a large patch labeled: MARE IMBRIUM.

"You I will call Imbri," he decided. "Because I don't know what your name means."

The three mares galloped across the plain, leaving the herd behind. Little maps of the moon formed the trail wherever their feet touched. It made him hungry to think about it. Too bad the maps weren't real, with genuine cheese!

Soon they passed through a greenish wall and out into the Void. It was the rind of the gourd, Smash realized. They were large and the gourd was small-but somehow it all related. He kept trying to forget that size and mass hardly mattered when magic was involved.

They looped once around-and there was the brute ogre, staring into the gourd's peephole. Until this moment, Smash had not quite realized that his body had not accompanied him inside. He had known it, of course, but never truly realized it. Even his Eye Queue had never come to grips with the seeming paradox of being in two places at the same time.

Then he spied Tandy and Chem. They were asleep; it was night, of course, the only time the nightmares could go abroad.

"We'll have to wake them," Smash said, then paused.

"No-a person has to be asleep to ride a nightmare; I remember now. Or disembodied, like me. I'm really asleep, too. I'll put them on you asleep." He dismounted and went to pick Tandy up.

But his hands passed right through her. He had no physical substance.

He pondered. "I'll have to wake myself up," he decided. "Since my soul is forfeit anyway, I should be able to stay near the nightmares. They aren't going to depart before they get their payment." It was a rather painful kind of security, however.

He went to his body. What a hulking, brutish thing it was! The black fur was shaggy in some places, unkempt in others, and singed from his experiences with the firewall in yet others. The hamhands and hamfeet were huge and clumsy-looking. The face was simultaneously gravelly and mushy. No self-respecting creature would be attracted to the physical appearance of an ogre-and, of course, the monster's intellect was even worse. He was doing Tandy a favor by removing himself from her picture.

"Come on, ogre, you have work to do," he grunted, putting out a paw to shake his shoulder. But his hand passed through himself, too, and the body ignored him, exactly like the stupid thing it was.

"Enough of this nonsense, idiot!" he rasped. He put a hamfinger over the peephole. He might be insubstantial in this form, but he was visible. The finger cut off the view. The effect was similar to the removal of the gourd.

Suddenly Smash was back in his body, awake. The phantom self had vanished. It existed only when he peered into the gourd, when his mental self was apart from his physical self.

The three mares stood watching him warily. Ordinarily, they would have fled the presence of a waking person, but they realized that this was a special situation. He was about to become one of them.

"All right," he said quietly, so as not to wake the girls. "I'll set one girl on each of you volunteers. You carry them north, beyond the Void, and set them down safely. Then you split my soul between you. Fair enough?"

The two mares nodded. Smash went to lift Chem, gently.

She weighed as much as he, but he had his full strength now and could readily handle her mass. He set her on Crisis. Chem was bigger than the mare, but again the fit was right, and the sleeping centaur straddled Crisis comfortably.

He lifted Tandy next. She was so small he could have raised her with one finger, as he had Biythe Brassie, but he used both hands. With infinite care he set her on Vapor.

Then he mounted his own mare, Imbri, who had come without the promise of payment. Again the fit was right; anybody could ride any nightmare, if the mare permitted it. "I wish I knew what you want from Xanth," he murmured. Then he remembered that this was irrelevant; he would not be returning to Xanth anyway, so could not fetch her anything.

They moved on through the Void, traveling north. This was the easy part, descending into the depths of the funnel, and Smash saw that the center of the Void was a black hole from which nothing returned, not even light. This the mares skirted; there were, after all, limits.

They galloped as swiftly as thought itself, the mares as dark as the awful dreams they fostered. Smash now had a fair understanding of the origin and rationale of those dreams; he did not envy the Dark Horse his job. If it was bad to experience the dreams, how much worse was it to manufacture them! The Stallion had the burden of the vision of evil for the whole world on his mind; no wonder he wanted to retire! What use was infinite power when it could be used only negatively?

They climbed the far slope of the funnel, leaving the brink of the dread black hole behind, unobstructed by the invisible wall, in whatever manner it existed. In another moment they were out of the Void and into the night of normal Xanth.

Smash felt a horrible weight departing his shoulders. He had saved them; he had gotten them out of the Void at last! How wonderful this normal Xanthian jungle seemed! He looked eagerly at it, knowing he could not stay, that his soul was now forfeit. The mares had delivered, and it was now his turn. Perhaps he would be allowed to visit this region on occasion, in bodiless form, just to renew the awareness of what he had lost, and to see how his friends were doing.

They halted safely beyond the line. Smash dismounted and lifted Chem to the ground, where she

continued sleeping, feet curled under her, head lolling. She was a pretty creature of her kind, not as well developed as she would be at full maturity, but with a nice coat and delicate human features. He was glad he had saved her from the Void. Someday she would browbeat some male centaur into happiness, exactly as her mother had done. Centaurs were strong-willed creatures, but well worth knowing.

"Farewell, friend," he murmured. "I have seen you safely through the worst of Xanth. I hope you are satisfied with your map."

Then he lifted Tandy. She was so small and delicate-seeming in her sleep! Her brown hair fell about her face in disarray, partly framing and partly concealing her features. He deeply regretted his inability to see her through her adventure. But he had made a commitment to the Good Magician Humfrey, and he was honoring that commitment in the only fashion he knew. He had seen Tandy through danger, and trusted she could do all right now on her own. She had fitted a lot of practical experience into this journey!

In a moment, he knew, he would not care about her at all, for caring was impossible without a soul. But in this instant he did care. He remembered how she had kissed him, and he liked the memory. Human ways were not ogre ways, of course, but perhaps they had a certain merit. Through her he had gleaned some faint inkling of an alternate way of life, where violence was secondary to feeling. It was no life for an ogre, of course-but somehow he could not resist returning the favor of that kiss now. He brought her to his face and touched her precious little lips with his own big crude ones.

Tandy woke instantly. The two mares jumped away, afraid of being seen by a waking person not of their domain. But they did not flee entirely, held by the incipient promise of his soul.

"Oh, Smash!" Tandy cried. "You're back! I was so worried, you stayed in the gourd so long, and Chem said she thought you weren't ready to be roused yet-"

Now he was in trouble. Yet he was obscurely glad. It was better to explain things to her so that she would not think he had deserted her. "You are free of the Void, Tandy. But I must leave you."

"Oh, no. Smash!" she protested. "Don't ever leave me!" This was becoming rapidly more difficult.

Separating from her was somewhat like departing the Void-subtly awkward. "The mares who carried you out of the Void, in your sleep-they have to be paid."

Her brow furrowed, in the cute way it had. "Paid how?" He was afraid she wouldn't like this. But ogres weren't much for prevarication, even in a good cause. "My soul." She screamed.

Chem bolted awake, snatching up the rope, and the mares retreated farther, switching their tails nervously. "What's the matter?"

"Smash sold his soul to free us!" Tandy cried, pointing an accusing finger at the ogre.

"He can't do that!" the centaur protested. "He went to the gourd to win back his soul!"

"It was the only way," Smash said. He gestured to the two mares. "I think it is time." He looked behind him, locating Imbri. "And if you will kindly carry my body back into the Void afterward, so it won't get in anyone's way out here-"

The three mares came forward. Tandy screamed again and threw her arms about Smash's neck. "No!

No! Take my soul instead!"

The mares paused, uncertain of the proprieties. They meant no harm; they were only doing their job.

Tandy disengaged herself and dropped to the ground. Her dander was up. "My soul's almost as good as his, isn't it?" she said to the mares. "Take it and let him go." She advanced on Crisis. "I can't let him be taken. I love him!"

She surely did, for this was the most extreme sacrifice she could make. She was deathly afraid of the interior of the gourd. Smash understood this perfectly; that was why he couldn't let her go there. But if she refused to let him go in peace, what was he to do?

Chem interceded. "Just exactly what was the deal you made, Smash?"

"Half my soul for each person carried from the Void." "But three were carried, weren't they?" the centaur asked, her fine human mind percolating as the fog of sleep dissipated. "That would mean one and a half souls."

"I am returning with the mares," Smash said. "I don't count. Imbri carried me as a favor; she's the one who carried Tandy to the Good Magician's castle a year ago. She's a good creature."

"I know she is!" Tandy agreed. "But-"

"Imbri?" Chem asked. "Is that an equine name?"

"Mare Imbrium," he clarified. "The nightmares come out only at night, so they never see the sun. They identify with places on the moon."

"Mare Imbrium," she repeated. "The Sea of Rains. Surely the raining of our tears."

So that was what the name meant; the education of the centaur had clarified it. Certainly it was appropriate! Imbri was reigning over, or reining in, the rain of tears. But it could be said in her favor that she had not done anything to cause those tears. She had charged no soul.

"Not my tears!" Tandy protested tearfully. "Smash, I won't let you go!"

"I have to go," Smash said gently. "Ogres aren't very pretty and they aren't very smart, but they do do what they agree to do. I agreed to see the two of you safely through the hazards of Xanth, and I agreed to parcel my soul between the two mares who delivered you from the Void."

"You have no right to sacrifice yourself again for us!" Chem cried. "Anyway, it won't work; we'll perish alone in the wilderness of northern Xanth."

"Well, it seemed better to get you to Xanth instead of the Void," Smash said awkwardly. Somehow the right he thought he was doing seemed less right, now. "Near the edge of Xanth the magic begins to fade, so it's less dangerous."

"Ha!" Tandy exclaimed. "I've heard the Mundane monsters are worse than the Xanth ones!"

"It may be less dangerous only if you accompany us," Chem said. She considered briefly. "But a deal's a deal; the mares must be paid."

"I'll pay them!" Tandy offered.

"No!" Smash cried. "The gourd is not for the like of you! It is better for the like of me."

"I don't think so," Chem said. "We have all had enough of the gourd, regardless of whether we've been inside it. But there are three of us. We can pay the mares and retain half a soul each. Three fares, so Smash can be free, too." "But neither of you has to give any part of her soul for me!" Smash objected.

"You were doing it for us," the centaur said. "We can get along on half souls if we're careful. I understand they regenerate in time."

"Yes," Tandy said, grasping this notion as if being saved from drowning. "Each person can pay her own way." She turned to the nearest mare, who happened to be Crisis. "Take half my soul," she said.

Chem faced the second, Imbri. "Take half of mine."

The mare of Rains hesitated, for she had not expected to be rewarded, and she had not carried Chem.

"Take it!" the centaur insisted.

The mares, glad to have the matter resolved, galloped past their respective donors. Smash saw two souls attenuate between girls and mares; then each one tore in half, and the mares were gone.

Smash was left standing by the third mare. Vapor. He realized that he could not do less-and of course Vapor was supposed to have a half soul. In fact, she had been promised half of his. Now she would get it, though she had not carried him. "Take half of mine," he said.

Vapor charged him. There was a wrenching and tearing; then he stood reeling. Something awfully precious had been taken from him-but not all of it.

Then he saw the two girls standing similarly bemused, and he knew that something even more precious had been salvaged.

Chapter 14. Ogre Fun

In the morning they woke, having suffered no bad dreams. The nightmares were not about to venture near them now, for that might give them the opportunity to change their minds about their souls. Also, what dreams could they be served, worse than what they had already experienced?

Xanth was lovely. The green trees glistened in the fading dew, and flowers opened. White clouds formed lazy patterns around the sun, daring it to bum them off, but it ignored their taunts. The air was fragrant. Mainly, it was a joy to be alive and free. Much more joy than it had been before Smash discovered that such things were by no means guaranteed. He had died in a great dark ocean, under the teeth of lions, under a rock he was too fatigued to move, and of starvation in prison. He had won back his soul, then given it up again. Now he was here with half his soul and he really appreciated what he had.

For some time they compared notes, each person needing reassurance because of the lingering ache of separated souls. But gradually they acclimated, finding that half a soul was indeed much better than none.

Smash tested his strength-and found it at half-level. He had to use both hands instead of one to crush a rock to sand. Until the other half of his soul regenerated, he would be only half an ogre in that respect.

But this, too, seemed a reasonable price to pay for his freedom.

"I think it is time for me to go my own way," Chem said at last. "I think I have had about as much of this sort of adventure as I can handle. I have it all mapped; my survey is done. Now I need to organize the data and try to make sense of it."

"Magic doesn't have to make sense," Smash said rhetorically.

"But where will you go?" Tandy asked.

The centaur filly generated her map, with all of northern Xanth clearly laid out, their travel route neatly marked in a dotted line. "It is safe for my kind around the fringes of Xanth," she said. "Centaurs have traded all along the coasts. I'll trot west to the isthmus, then south to Castle Roogna. I'll have no trouble at all." Her projected route dotted its way down the length of northern Xanth confidently. She seemed to have forgotten her protestation of last night about how they would perish without Smash's protection, and Smash did not remind her of it. Obviously it had been his welfare, not her own, she had been concerned with.

"I suppose that's best," Tandy said reluctantly. "I really liked the company of all you other creatures, but your missions are not my mission. Just remember, you're not as strong as you should be."

"That's one reason I want to get on home," Chem said. "I'd recommend the same for both of you, but I know your destiny differs from mine. You have to go on to the Ogre-fen-Ogre Fen, Smash, and take what you find there, though I personally feel that's a mistake."

"Me make mistake?" Smash asked. The things of the Void had faded in the night, since they had left it, and now he found it easier to revert to his normal mode of speech. There was no hypnogourd and no Eye Queue vine, so he was not smart any more.

"Smash, you're half human," Chem said. "If you would only give your human side a chance-"

"Me no man, me ogre clan," he said firmly. That faith had brought him through the horrors of the gourd.

She sighed. "So you must be what you must be, and do what you must do. Tandy-" Chem shook her head. "I can't advise you. I hope you get what you want, somehow."

The two girls embraced tearfully. Then the centaur trotted away to the west, her pretty brown tail flying at half-mast as if reflecting the depressed state of her soul.

"I'm as foolish as you are," Tandy said, drying her eyes, so that the blue emerged again like little patches of sky. "Let's get on to the Fen before night, Smash."

They moved on. Smash, now so near his destination, found himself strangely uneasy. The Good

Magician had told him he would find what he needed among the Ancestral Ogres; Humfrey had not said what that would be, or whether Smash would like it.

Suppose he didn't like what he needed? Suppose he hated it? Suppose it meant the denial of all that he had experienced on this journey with the seven girls? The Eye Queue had been a curse, and surely he was well rid of it-yet there had been a certain covert satisfaction in expressing himself as lucidly as any human being could. Facility of expression was power, too, just as was strength of muscle. The gourd had been a horror-yet that, too, had had its fine moments of exhilarating violence and deep revelation. These things were, of course, peripheral, no concern of a true ogre-but he had felt something fundamentally good in them.

He struggled through his annoying stupidity as he tromped on toward the Ogre Fen. Exactly what had made his journey so rewarding, despite its nuisances and problems? Not the violence, for he could have that any time by challenging stray dragons. Not the intelligence, for that was no part of an ogre's heritage. Not the exploration of the central mysteries of Xanth, for ogres were not very curious about geography. What, then?

As the day faded and the sun hurried down to the horizon so as not to be caught by night. Smash finally broke through to a conclusion. It wasn't a very original one, for ogres weren't very original creatures, but it would do. He had valued the camaraderie. The seven girls had needed him, and had treated him like a person. His long association with the human beings and centaurs of Castle Roogna had acclimated him to company, but this time he had had the wit to appreciate it more fully, because of the Eye Queue curse.

Now he was cursed with the memory of what could not be again. Camaraderie was not the ogre way.

At dusk they reached the dismal fringe of the Ogre-fen-Ogre Fen. The swampy marsh stretched out to the east and north as far as the eyeball could peer, riddled with green gators and brown possums and other half-fanciful denizens. Were the Ancestral Ogres also here?

"Look!" Tandy cried, pointing.

Smash looked. There were three ironwood trees braided together. That was a sure signal of the presence of ogres, since no other creature could do such a thing.

"I guess you'll get what you want tomorrow," Tandy said. "You'll meet your tribe." She seemed sad.

"Yes, me agree," he said, somehow not as overjoyed as he thought he should be. His mission was about to terminate; that was what he wanted, wasn't it?

He twisted a coppertree into the semblance of a shelter for her and spread a large leaf from a table tree over it. In the heyday of his strength he could have done better, but this would have to do for tonight.

But it didn't matter; Tandy didn't use it. She curled up against his furry shoulder and slept.

What was her destiny? he wondered before he crashed into his own heavy slumber. He now understood that she was looking for a human husband and was destined to find one on this journey-but time was running out for her, too. He hoped whoever she found would be a good man who would appreciate her spunky qualities and not be bothered by her tantrum-talent. Smash himself rather liked her tantrums; they were a little like ogre love taps. Perhaps his first inkling of liking for her had been when she threw a tantrum at him. She wasn't really a bad-tempered girl; she just tended to get overly excited under extreme stress. There had been some of that on this journey!

Too bad, he thought again, that she couldn't have been an ogress. But, of course, ogresses didn't have magic tricks like tantrums, or cute little ways of expressing themselves-like kissing.

He shook his head. He was getting un-ogrishly maudlin. What could an ogre know of the refined raptures of human love? Of the caring that went beyond the hungers of the moment? Of the joy and sacrifice of helping the loved one regardless of the cost to oneself? Certainly not himself!

Yet there was something about this foolish, passionate, determined girl-human creature. She was so small she was hardly a good morsel for a meal, yet she was precious beyond the comprehension of his dim ogre wit. She had shown cunning and courage in catching and riding a nightmare to escape her amorous demon, and other excellent qualities had manifested since. He would miss her when she found her proper situation and left him, as had the other girls.

He thought to kiss her again, but the last time he had tried that, she had awakened instantly and things had gotten complicated. He wanted her to complete her sleep in peace this time, so he desisted. He had no business kissing a human girl anyway-or kissing anything, for that matter.

A drop of rain spattered on her forehead. No, not rain, for the night was calm and the nightmare of Rains was nowhere near. It was a tear, similar to the ones she had dropped on him when she had so angrily demonstrated how human beings expressed affection. A tear from his own eye. And this was strange, because no true ogre cried. Perhaps it was her own tear, recycled through his system, returning to her.

Carefully he wiped away the moisture with a hamfinger. He had no right to soil her pretty little brow with such contamination. She deserved much better. Better than an ogre.

The tromp of enormous, clumsy feet woke them in the morning. The ogres were coming!

Hastily Smash and Tandy got up. Smash felt a smidgen stronger; perhaps his soul had grown back a little while he slept. But he was nowhere near full strength yet. Knowing the nature of his kind, he worried some about that.

The Ogres of the Fen arrived. Small creatures scurried for cover, and trees angled their leaves away. No one wanted trouble with ogres! There were eight of them-three brutish males and five females.

Smash gazed at the ogresses in 'dim wonder. Two were grizzled old crones, one was a stout cub, and two were mature creatures of his own generation. Huge and shaggy. with muddy fur, reeking of sweat, and with faces whose smiles would stun zombies and whose frowns would bum wood, they were the most repulsive brutes imaginable. Smash was entranced.

"Who he?" the biggest of the males demanded. His voice was mainly a growl, unintelligible to ordinary folk; Smash could understand him because he was another ogre. Smash himself was unusual in that he could speak comprehensibly; most ogres could communicate verbally only with other ogres,

Suddenly Smash was fed up with the rhyming convention. What good was it, when no one who counted could understand it anyway? "I am Smash, son of Crunch. I come to seek my satisfaction among the Ancestral Ogres, as it is destined."

"Half-breed!" the other ogre exclaimed. "No need!" For Smash's ability to talk unrhymed betrayed his mixed parentage.

Smash had never liked being called a half-breed, but he could not honestly refute it. "My mother is a curse-fiend," he admitted. "But my father is an ogre, and so am I."

One of the crones spoke up, wise beyond her years. "Curse-fiend, human bein'," she croaked.

"Half man!" the big male ogre grunted. "We ban!"

"Might fight," the child ogress said, eyes lighting. It was true. An ogre could establish his place in a tribe by fighting for it. The male grunted eagerly. "He, me!" He naturally wanted to be the first to chastise the presumptuous half-breed.

"What are they saying?" Tandy asked, alarmed by the increasingly aggressive stances of the Fen Ogres.

It occurred to Smash that she would not approve of a physical fight. "They merely seek some ogre fun,"

he explained, not telling her that this was apt to be roughly similar to the fun the lions of the den had had with him. "Fun in the Fen."

She was not fooled. "What ogres call fun, I call mayhem! Smash, you can't afford any trouble; you're only at half-strength."

There was that. Fighting was fun, but getting beaten to a pulp was not as much fun as winning. If anything happened to him here, Tandy would be in trouble, for these ogres were not halfway civilized, as Smash himself was. It was galling, but he would have to pass up this opportunity. "No comment," he said.

The ogres goggled incredulously. "Not hot?" the male ogre demanded, his hamfists shuddering with eagerness to pulverize.

Smash turned away. "I think what I want is elsewhere after all," he told Tandy. "Let's get away from here." He tried to keep the urgency suppressed; this could get difficult in a moment. At least he was not caged in, the way he had been with the lions.

The male made a huge jump, landing directly before Smash. He poked a hamfinger at Smash's soiled orange centaur jacket. "What got?" he demanded. This was not curiosity but insult; any creature in clothing was considered effete, too weak to survive in the jungle.

Smash raged inwardly at the implication, but had to avoid trouble. He stepped around the ogre and went on north, toward the Fen.

But again the male leaped in front of him. He pointed at Smash's steel gauntlets, making a crudely elaborate gesture of pulling dainty feminine gloves on his own hairy meat hooks. The humor of ogres was necessarily crude, but it was effective on its level. Smash paused.

"Me swat he snot!" the ogre chortled, aiming a wood-sundering blow at Smash's head. Smash lifted a gleaming fist of his own, defensively.

"No!" Tandy screamed.

Again Smash had to avoid conflict. He ducked under the blow in a gesture that completely surprised the ogre and continued north, inwardly seething. It simply wasn't an ogre's way to accept such taunts and duck away from a fight.

Now one of the mature females barred his way. Her hair was like the tentacular mass of a quarrelsome tangle tree that had just lost a battle with a giant spider web. Her face made the bubbling mud of the Fen seem like a clear mirror. Her limbs were so gnarled she might readily pass for a dead shagtree riddled by the droppings of a flock of harpies with indigestion. Smash had never before encountered such a luscious mass of flesh.

"He cute, cheroot," she said.

That was a considerable come-on for an ogress. Since there were more females than males in this tribe, there was obviously a place for Smash here, if he wanted it. Good Magician Humfrey had evidently known this, and known that Smash needed to settle down with a good female of his own kind. What the aging Magician had overlooked was the fact that Smash would arrive at half-strength, and that Tandy would not yet have found her own situation. Thus Smash could not afford to accept the offer, however grossly tempting it might be, because he could not fight well and could not afford to leave Tandy to the ogres' mercies. For a female went only to the winner of a fight between males. So once again he avoided interaction and continued on. north.

Then the male ogre bad an inspiration of genius for his kind. "Me eat complete," he said, and grabbed for Tandy.

Smash's gauntleted fist shot forward and up, catching the ogre smack in the snoot. The gauntlet made Smash's fist harder than otherwise and increased the effect of its impact. The creature rocked back, spitting out a yellow tooth. "Delight!" he cried. "He fight!"

"No!" Tandy yelled again, despairingly. She knew as well as Smash did that it was too late. Smash had struck the ogre, and that committed him.

Quickly the other ogres circled him. Tandy scooted to a beerbarrel tree, getting out of the way.

Smash had never before fought another ogre and wasn't quite sure how to proceed. Were there conventions? Did they take turns striking each other? Was anything barred?

The ogre gave him no chance to consider. He charged, his right fist swinging in a windmill motion, back and up and forward and down, aimed for Smash's head. Smash wished he had the Eye Queue so that he could analyze the meaning of this approach. But dull as he was now, he simply had to assume that it meant anything went.

Smash dodged, ducked down, caught the ogre's feet, and jerked them up to head height. Naturally the ogre flipped back, his head smacking into the ground with a hollow boom like thunder, denting a hole and shaking the bushes in the neighborhood. The watching ogres nodded; it was a good enough counter, starting things off. But Smash knew that he had substituted guile for force, to a certain extent, finding a maneuver that did not require his full strength; he could not proceed indefinitely this way.

The ogre bounced off his head, somersaulted backward, and twisted to his big, flat feet He roared a roar that spooked a flock of buzzards from a buzzard bush and sent low clouds scudding hastily away. He charged forward again, grabbing for Smash with both heavy arms. But Smash knew better than to wait for an ogre hug. His orange jacket would protect him from most of its crushing force, but he would not be able to initiate much himself. He jumped high, stomping gently on the ogre's ugly head in passing.

The stomp drove the ogre a small distance into the ground. It was the first motion of the figure called the Nail. The ogre had to extricate his feet one by one, leaving deep prints. Now he was really angry. He turned, fists swinging.

Smash parried with one arm, using a technique he had picked up at Castle Roogna, then sent his gauntleted fist smashing into the ogre's gross mid-gut. It was like hitting well-seasoned ironwood, in both places; his parrying arm was bruised, and his striking fist felt as if it had been clubbed. This ogre was stupid, so that his ploys were obvious and easily avoided, but he was also tough. Smash had held his own so far only because he was less stupid and had the protection of his centaur clothing. If jacket and gauntlets failed him-The ogre caught Smash's parrying arm in a grip of iron or steel and hauled him forward. Smash parried again by placing his free fist against the ogre's snoot and shoving. But he quickly became aware of his liability of half-strength; the other ogre could readily outmuscle him. Worse, the ogre also became aware of this. "Freak weak," he grunted, and lifted Smash into the air. Smash twisted trying to free himself, but could not. Now he was in for it!

The ogre jammed him down on his feet, so hard it was Smash's turn to sink into the ground. He shot a terrible punch at Smash's chest-but now the jacket did protect Smash from most of the effect. Centaur clothing was designed to be impervious to all stones, arrows, pikes, teeth, claws, and other weapons; an ogre's fist was, of course, more than it was designed to withstand, but the jacket was much better than nothing. Meanwhile, Smash countered with another strike to the ogre's face, beautifying it by knocking out another tooth. He had good defense and good offense, thanks to "the centaurs-but otherwise he remained treacherously weak.

The ogre windmilled his fist again, this time holding Smash in place so that he could not escape the blow. The fist sledgehammered down on the top of his head, driving Smash another notch lower. He tried to parry but could not; the ogre countered his counter. Another hammer blow landed on his noggin, driving him down yet more. This was the Nail again-and this time Smash was the Nail.

"Don't hurt him!" Tandy screamed, coming down from her tree. "Eat me if you must, but let Smash be!"

"No! " Smash cried, knee-deep in the ground. "Run, Tandy! Ogres don't honor deals about food!"

"You mean he'll destroy you anyway, after-?"

"Yes! Flee while you can, while they're watching me!"

"I can't do that!" she protested. Then she screamed, for the child ogress, larger than Tandy, had pounced on her.

Tandy threw a tantrum. Once more her eyes swelled up, her face turned purple, and her hair stood out from her head. The tantrum struck the little ogre, who fell, senseless, to the ground. Tandy retreated to her tree, for it took her some time to recharge a tantrum. She was now as helpless as Smash.

The ogre had paused, watching this byplay. The typical ogre was too stupid to pay attention to two things at once; he could not watch Tandy while pounding Smash. Smash, similarly, had been too dull to try to extricate himself while watching Tandy, so had not taken advantage of his opportunity. Now the ogre resumed his effort, completing the figure of the Nail. Smash had somehow left his arms by his sides, and now they, too, were caught in the ground, pinned. He knew he would never have allowed himself to get into this situation if he had retained his Eye Queue! Almost any fool would have known better.

Knocks on the head were not ordinarily harmful to ogres, because there was very little of importance in an ogre skull except bone. But the repeated impacts did serve to jog loose a few stray thoughts, flighty fancies not normally discovered in such territory. Why had Tandy tried so foolishly to help him? It would have made far more sense for her to flee, and she was smart enough to have seen that. Of course her loyalty was commendable-but was largely wasted on an ogre. As it was, both would perish. How did that jibe with the Good Magician's Answers? Two people dead...

One answer was that the Magician had grown too old to practice magic any more, had lost his accuracy of prophecy, and had unwittingly sent them both to their doom. It was also possible that the Magician was aware of his inadequacy and had sent them to the wilds of interior Xanth in order to avoid giving real Answers. He could have suspected, in his cunning senility, that they would never return to charge rum with malpractice.

No, Smash remained unwilling to believe that of Humfrey. The man might be old, but the Gorgon had invigorated him somewhat, and he still might know what he was doing. Smash hoped so.

Soon the ogre had him waist-deep in the ground, and Smash could not retaliate. He lacked the strength.

Yet if he had not yielded up half his soul, someone would have had to remain in the Void, and that might not have been much of an improvement over the present situation.

Still the blows descended, until he was chest-deep, and finally neck-deep. Then the ogre began to tire.

Instead of using his fist, he gave his big homely feet a turn. He stomped on Smash's head until it, too, was buried in the packed dirt.

The figure of the Nail was complete. Smash had been driven, like a stake, full-length into the ground. He was helpless.

Satisfied with his victory, the ogre stomped toward the beerbarrel tree where Tandy hid. Smash heard her scream in terror; then he heard a fist crash into the trunk of the tree. He heard beer swish out from the punctured barrel and smelled its fumes as it coursed across the ground toward him. He was in a dent in the ground formed by the ogre's pounding; he would soon be drowned in beer, if he didn't manage to drink it all, and Tandy would be dipped in beer and eaten by the victor.

Then he heard the patter of Tandy's feet coming toward him. She was still being foolish; she would be much easier to catch here. The earth about his face became moist as the beer sank in, and he heard it splashing when her feet struck it. He hoped her pretty red slippers didn't get soiled. Meanwhile, the ground shuddered as the other ogre tromped after her, enjoying the chase.

Then she was over Smash, scraping out the ground about his head with her feeble little human hands, uncovering his buried eyes. Foaming beer from the tree swirled down, blearing his vision but softening the dirt somewhat so she could better excavate. But this was useless; she could never hope to extricate him herself, and already the ogre was looming over her, amused at the futility of her effort.

"Smash!" she cried. "Take my half soul!"

In Smash's dim, beer-sotted mind, something added up. One half plus one half equaled something very much like one. Two half souls together-He saw her half soul dropping toward him, a hemisphere like a half-eaten apple, bisected with fair precision. Then it struck his head, bounced, and sank in, as the Eye Queue had done. He became internally conscious of it as it spread through him. It was a small, sweet, pretty, innocent but spunky fillet of soul, exactly the kind that belonged to a girl like her. Yet as it descended and joined with his big, brutish, homely, leathery ogre half soul, it merged to make a satisfying whole.

At this point, in the Night Stallion horror visions, this would have been the end. But here in real life, with a full soul pieced together, it just might be the beginning. Smash felt his strength returning.

The ogre lifted Tandy into the air by her brown tresses. He slavered. Smash's sunken orbs perceived it all from their beer-sodden pit in the ground.

The girl tried to throw a tantrum, but she was mostly out of the makings. She was terrified rather than angry, her tantrum-energy had recently been expended, and she bad no soul. Her effort only made the ogre blink. He opened his ponderous and mottled jaw and swung her toward his broken teeth.

Smash flexed. He had a full soul, of sorts, now; his Strength was back. The ground buckled about him.

One hamhand rose up like the extremity of a zombie emerging from a long-undisturbed grave, dripping beer-sodden dirt. It caught the hairy ankle of the ogre.

Smash lifted. He was well anchored in the ground, so all he needed was power. He had it. The ogre rose into the air, surprised. But he did not let Tandy go. He continued to bring her to his salivating maw. First things first, after all.

Smash brought the foot belonging to the ankle he held to his own mouth. He opened his own dirt-marbled jaws. They closed on the ogre's horny toes. They crunched, hard.

Folklore had it that ogres were invulnerable to pain because they were too tough and stupid to feel it.

Folklore was in error. The ogre bellowed out a blast of pain that shook the welkin, making the sun vibrate in place and three clouds dump their water incontinently. He dropped Tandy. Smash caught her with his other hand, after ripping it free of the ground with a spray of dirt that was like a small explosion. He set her gently down. "Find shelter," he murmured. "It could become uncomfortable in this vicinity."

She nodded mutely, then scooted away.

Smash spit out three toes, watching them bounce across the dirt. He waved the ogre in the air. "Shall we begin, toadsnoot?" he inquired politely.

The ogre was no coward. No ogre was, since an ogre's brain was too obtuse to allow room for the circuitry of fear. He was ready to begin.

The battle of ogre vs. ogre was the most savage encounter known in Xanth. The very land about them seemed to tense expectantly, aware that when this was over, nothing would be the same. Perhaps nothing would be, period. The landscape of Xanth was dotted with the imposing remnants of ancient ogre fights-water-filled calderas, stands of petrified trees, mountains of rubble, and similar artifacts.

The ogre began without imagination, naturally enough. He drove a hamfist down on Smash's head. This time Smash met it with his open jaws. The fist disappeared into his mouth, and his teeth crunched on the scarred wrist.

Again the ogre bellowed, and the sun shook in its orbit and the clouds soaked indecorously. One downpour spilled onto the sun itself, causing an awful sizzle.

The ogre wrenched his arm up-and popped Smash right out of the ground in the process, for naturally Smash had not let go. Beer-mud flew outward and rained down on the watching ogres, who snapped at the blobs automatically.

The ogre slammed his two fists together hard. Since one fist was inside Smash's mouth, this meant Smash's head was getting doubly boxed. Vapor shot out of his ears. He spit out the fist, since he was unable to chew it properly, and freed his head.

Now the two combatants faced each other, two hulking monsters, the one covered with dirt and reeking of beer, the other minus two teeth and three toes. Both were angry-and the anger of ogres was similar to that of volcanoes, tornadoes, avalanches, or other natural calamities-apt to destroy the neighborhood indiscriminately.

"You called me half-breed," Smash said, driving a gauntleted fist into the other's shoulder. This time the blow had ogre force; the ogre was hurled sidewise into the trunk of a small rock-maple tree. The tree snapped off, its top section crashing down on the ogre's ugly head.

He shrugged it off, not even noticing the distraction. "He go me toe," he said, naming his own grievance, though unable to count beyond one. He fired his own fist at Smash's shoulder. The blow hurled Smash sidewise into a rock-candy boulder. The boulder shattered, and sugar cubes flew out and descended like hailstones around them.

"You tried to eat my friend," Smash said, kicking the ogre in the rear. The kick sent the monster sailing up in a high arc, his posterior smoking. Then, to make sure the ogre understood. Smash repeated it in ogrish: "He ea' me she."

The ogre landed bottom-first in the Fen, and the water bubbled and steamed about him. He picked himself up by hauling with one hamhand on the shaggy nape of his neck, then stomped the bog so that the mud flew outward like debris from a meteoric impact and ripped a medium-sized hickory tree from its mooring on an islet. The tree came loose with an anguished "Hick!" and kicked again as the ogre smashed, it down across Smash's head, breaking it asunder. Smash felt sorry for the ruined tree, probably because of the influence of the sweet girl's half soul he had borrowed.

The two ogres faced each other again, having now warmed up. There was a scurrying and fluttering in the surrounding jungle as the creatures of the wild who had remained before now fled the scene of impending violence. There were also ripples in the swamp and the beat of dragons' wings, all departing hastily. None of them wanted any part of this!

Now that Smash had his full strength and had interacted with the other ogre, it was his judgment that he was the stronger of the two and the smarter. He believed he could beat this monster-and it was necessary that he do it to protect Tandy. But a lot of battle remained before the issue would be resolved.

Smash leaned forward, threw his arms around the ogre, picked him up, and charged toward the dense, hard walls of a big walnut tree. The ogre's head rammed right through the wood and was buried inside the wall-trunk, his body dangling outside.

Then there was a chomping sound. The ogre was chewing his way out, despite his missing teeth. Soon his snout broke through the far side of the wall, then chomped to the left and right-He spit out wall-nuts as he went, and they formed little walls around the tree where they fell. Then the tree crashed to the ground, its trunk severed. The ogre returned to the fray.

He ripped a medium rosewood tree from the ground and hurled it at Smash. Smash threw up a fist to block it, but the trunk splintered and showered him with splinter-roses.

Smash, in turn, swung a fist through a sandalwood trunk, severing it. He grabbed the loose part and hurled it at the ogre, who blocked it. This time there was a shower of sandals and other footwear.

The ogre took hold of a fat yew tree, twisting it around and around though it bleated like a female sheep, until the trunk separated from the stump. "Me screw with yew," he grunted, ramming the twisted trunk at Smash's face.

"That is un-ogrammatical," Smash said. "Ogres always say he or she, not you." But he ripped off a trunk of sycamore and used it to counter the thrust. "Syc 'em!" he cried, bashing at the yew. "Syc 'em more!"

he cried, bashing again. And because this was the nature of that tree, it sycked 'em more.

Both trunks shattered. Trunks were really better for containing things than for fighting. Some trunks were used for trumpeting. Still, these were the most convenient things to use for this battle.

The ogre tromped into the deeper forest to the south, where larger trees grew. He chopped with both fists at a big redwood trunk. Smash stomped to a bigger bluewood and began knocking chips out of it with his own fists. Soon both trees came crashing down, and each ogre picked one up.

The other ogre was the first to swing. Smash ducked, and the redwood whistled over his head and cracked into a sturdy beech tree. The encounter was horrendous. The red was knocked right out of the redwood, and the sand flew from the beech. A cloud of red-dyed sand formed, making a brief but baleful sandstorm that swirled away in a series of diminishing funnels, coating the other trees.

Now Smash swung his bluewood. The ogre ducked behind a butternut tree. The trunk clobbered the tree.

Blue dye flew out, and butter squished out. Blue butter descended in a gooky mass, coating everything the red sand had missed, including a small pasture of milkweed plants. Blue buttermilk formed. All the spectator ogres turned from dry red to dripping blue. It did improve their appearance. Anything was better than the natural hue of an ogre.

The ogre bent to rip out a boxwood tree. This time Smash was faster. He sliced off a section of trunk from a cork tree and rammed that at the exposed posterior. The cork shoved the ogre right into the box, where he was stuck. bottom-up, corked.

Now the ogre was really angry. He bellowed so hard the box exploded and the cork shot up toward the sun with a loud Bronx cheer. When it hit the sun it detonated, and a. foul cloud eclipsed the orb, turning a clear day to the smoggiest night ever to clog the noses of the jungle. Creatures began coughing and choking all around, and a number of plants wilted as the stench spread out like goo.

In the cloying darkness, the ogre retreated. He had had enough of Smash's full strength. But Smash was not through with him. He pursued, following the ogre into the deepest jungle by the sound of his tromping.

Something struck Smash's arm, temporarily numbing it. It was an ironwood bar. In the dark the ogre had harvested another tree and had hurled it from ambush. Some might consider this to be a cowardly act, but ogres did not know the meaning of cowardice, so it must have been some other

kind of act. Ogres did comprehend cunning, so perhaps that was it.

Smash picked up the bar, started to twist it into a harmless knot, reconsidered and started to hurl it violently back, reconsidered again, and hung on to it. It would make a decent spear.

He listened, trying to locate the ogre. He heard the sproing as another ironwood sapling was harvested.

He charged that spot-and tripped over a fallen log. Naturally the log splintered into a storm of toothpicks that shot out like shrapnel, making pincushions of the surrounding vegetation. Smash lost his balance.

He windmilled an arm and a leg...

Now the ogre knew Smash's location more accurately. The other spear eame whistling at him as if it had not a care in the world and caught his outflung foot. That smarted! Smash rolled back, got his feet properly under him, limped, and struck back where his keen ogre hearing indicated the other ogre was.

Unfortunately, he had not realized that dirt remained in his ears, from the time he was spiked into the ground. His blow was countered, being off target, and the other bar clonked him on the side of the head.

This turned out to be a serendipitous blessing, for the clonk knocked out most of the dirt. Now he could hear properly! He reoriented and swung hard and accurately at the other-and missed, for the other was retreating.

The smog was beginning to clear. Smash pressed forward, striking repeatedly at the dim shape before him. The counterings grew fewer and weaker as the enemy retreated. Smash accelerated-and the figure ducked aside, put out a foot-and Smash tripped over it and stumbled headlong into a drop-off.

In midair he realized he had been tricked. The ogre, familiar with the terrain while Smash was not, had led him to the cliff. Smash should have been more suspicious of the sudden, seeming weakness of his opponent. But of course, without his Eye Queue, he was no smarter than any other ogre.

He landed on a bed of sharp gravel. Something yiped. Great yellow eyes opened. A jet of flame illuminated the area. Smash got a clear view of his situation.

Oops! He had fallen directly into a dragon's nest! This was the lair of a big surface dragon, open to the day because such a monster feared nothing, not even ogres. The dragon wasn't here at the moment, but its five cubs were.

In a moment all of them were up and alert. They were large cubs, almost ready to depart the nest and start consuming people for themselves. They were all as massive as Smash, with coppery snouts, green metal neck scales, and manes of silvery steel. Their teeth glinted like stars, and their tongues slurped about hungrily. As the light returned, all recognized him as an enemy and as prey. What a trap this was!

The ogre looked over the brink of the pit. "Ho ho ho ho!" he roared thunderously, causing the nearby trees to shake. "Me screw he blue!" For Smash stood on blue diamonds that made up the nest, which he had taken for gravel. All dragons liked diamonds; they were pretty and hard and highly resistant to heat.

Because dragons hoarded diamonds, the stones assumed unreasonable value, being very rare elsewhere.

Smash understood this extended even to Mundania, though he wasn't sure how the dragons managed to collect the stones from there.

Dragons were not much for ceremony. All five pounced, blasting out little jets of flame that incinerated the vegetation around the nest and heated the diamonds at Smash's feet, forcing him to jump.

Smash, angry at himself for his stupidity in falling into this mess-imagine being outwitted by a dull ogre!- reacted with inordinate, i.e., ogrish, fury. He just wasn't in the mood to mess with little dragons!

He put out his two gauntleted hands and snatched the first dragon out of the air. He whipped it about and used it to strike the second in mid-pounce. Both dragons were knocked instantly senseless. Weight for weight, no dragon was a match for an ogre; only the advantage of size put the big dragons ahead, and these lacked that.

Smash hurled both dragons at the other ogre, who stood gloating, and grabbed for two more. In a moment both of

these were dragging, and the dragging dragons were hurled up to drape about the ogre.

The fifth dragon, meanwhile, had fastened its jaws on Smash's legs. They were pretty good jaws, with diamond-hard teeth; they were beginning to hurt. Smash plunged his fist down with such force that the skull caved in. He ripped the body away and hurled it, too, at the other ogre.

The smog had largely cleared, perhaps abetted by the breeze from Smash's own activity. Now an

immense shadow fell across them. Smash looked up. It was the mother dragon, so huge her landbound bulk blocked off the light of the sun" Not all big dragons were confined to Dragonland! It would take a whole tribe of ogres to fend her off-and the tribe of the Ogre-Fen Ogres would certainly not do that.

Smash had been tricked into this nest because the other ogre knew it would be the end of him.

But Smash, having cursed the darkness of his witlessness, now suffered a flashback of dull genius.

"Heee!" he cried, pointing a hamfinger at the other ogre.

The dragoness looked. There stood the ogre, in midgloat, with the five limp, little dragon cubs draped around his body like so much apparel. He had been so pleased with his success in framing Smash that he had not thought to clear the debris from himself. The liability of the true ogre had betrayed him-his inability to concentrate on more than one thing at a time. Naturally the dragoness assumed that he was the guilty creature.

With a roar so horrendous that it petrified the local trees and caused a layer of rock on the cliff to shiver into dust, several diamonds to craze and crack; and a blast of fire that would have vaporized trees and cliff face, had the one not just been converted from wood to stone and the other not just powdered out, she went for the guilty ogre.

The ogre was dim, but not that dim, especially as a refracted wash of fire frizzled his fur. While the dragoness inhaled and oriented for a more accurate second shot, he flung off the little dragons and dived into the nest-pit, landing snoot-first in the diamonds. The contrast was considerable-the sheer beauty of the stones versus the sheer ugliness of the ogre. It looked as if he were trying to eat them.

Smash hardly paused for thought. At the moment, the dragoness was a greater threat to his health than the ogre. He wrestled a boulder out of the pit wall and heaved it up at the dragoness, while the other ogre struggled to his feet, shedding white, red, green, blue, and polka-dot diamonds. The dragoness turned, snapped at the boulder, found it inedible, and spit it out Smash realized that the other ogre had disappeared. He checked, and saw a foot in a hole. The boulder he had thrown had blocked a passage, and the ogre was crawling down it, leaving Smash to face the fire alone. Smash didn't appreciate that, so he grabbed the foot and hauled the ogre back and out. Several more diamonds dropped from crevices on the creature's hide-black,, yellow, purple, plaid, and candy-striped. In a moment Smash had the ogre in the air, swinging him around by the feet in a circle.

The dragoness was pumping up for a real burnout blast. Such an exhalation could incinerate both ogres in a single foop. She opened her maw, letting the first wisps of superheated steam emerge, and her belly rumbled with the gathering holocaust.

Smash let go of the ogre, hurling him directly into the gaping maw, headfirst.

The dragon choked on her own blocked fire, for the ogre's body was just the right size to plug her gullet.

The ogre's feet, protruding slightly from the mouth, kicked madly. Then the ogre's broken teeth started working as he chewed his way out. The dragoness looked startled, uncertain how to deal with this complication.

Smash wasn't sure how this contest would turn out. The dragoness' fire was bottled, and her own teeth could not quite get purchase on the ogre in her throat, but she did have a lot of power and might be able to clear the ogre by either coughing him out or swallowing him the rest of the way. On the other hand, the ogre could chew quite a distance in a short time. Smash decided to depart the premises with judicious dispatch.

But where could he go? If he scrambled out of the nest, the dragoness might chase after him, and he would be more like a sitting duck than a running ogre, in the open. If he remained-

"Hssst!" someone called. "Here!"

Smash looked. A little humanoid nymph stood within the hole left by the boulder.

"I was raised in the underworld," she said. "I know tunnels. Come!"

Smash looked back at the dragoness, who was swelling with stifled pressure, and at the kicking ogre in her throat. The former was about to fire the latter out like a missile. He had sympathy for neither and was fed up with the whole business. What did he want with ogres anyway? They were dull creatures who crunched the bones of human folk.

Human folk. "Tandy!" he cried. "I must save her from the ogres!"

The nymph was disgusted. "Idiot!" she cried. "I am Tandy!"

Smash peered closely at her. The nymph had brown hair, blue eyes, and a spunky, upturned little nose.

She was indeed Tandy. Odd that he hadn't recognized her! Yet who would have expected a nymph to turn out to be a person!

"Now get in here, you oaf!" she commanded. "Before that monster pops her cork!"

He followed Tandy into the tunnel. She led him along a curving route, deep down into the ground. The air here turned cool, the wall clammy. "The dragon mines here for diamonds that my mother leaves," she explained. "There would be terrible disruption in Xanth if it weren't for her work. The dragons would go on a rampage if their diamonds ran out, and so would the other creatures if they couldn't get their own particular stones. It certainly is nice to know my mother has been here! Of course, that could have been a long time ago. There might even be an aperture to my home netherworld here, though probably she rode the Diggle and left no passage behind."

Smash just followed, more concerned about escaping the dragon than about the girl's idle commentary.

There was a sound behind them, like a giant spike being fired violently into bedrock. The dragoness had no doubt disgorged the ogre from her craw and now was ready to pursue the two of them here. Though the diameter of the tunnel was not great, dragons were long, sinuous creatures, particularly the wingless landbound ones, who could move efficiently through small apertures. Or she could simply send a blast of flame along, frying them. Worse yet, she might do both, pursuing until she got close, then doing some fiery target practice.

"Oh, I'm sure there's a way down, somewhere near," Tandy fussed. "The wall here is shallow; I can tell by the way it resonates. I've had a lot of experience with this type of formation. See-there's a fossil." She indicated a glowing thing that resembled the skeleton of a fish, but it squiggled out of sight before Smash could examine it closely.

Fossils were like that, he knew; they preferred to hide from discovery. They were like zombies, except that they didn't generally travel about much; they just rested for eons. He had no idea what their purpose in life or death might be. "But I can't find a hole!" Tandy finished, frustrated.

Smash knew they had to get out of this particular passage in a hurry. He aimed his fist and smashed a hole in the wall. A new chamber opened up. He dropped through, carefully lifting Tandy down.