He rounded a brush-bush and faced the snorting monster, hamfists at the ready--and paused, dismayed.
It was no dragon. It was a small oink, with a squared-off snout and a curled-up tail. But it snorted like a huge firebreathing monster.
Smash sighed. He picked up the oink by the tail and tossed it into the brush. "All clear," he called.
The others appeared. "It's gone?" Tandy asked. "But we didn't hear any battle."
"It was only a short snort," the ogre said, disgusted. He had so looked forward to a good fight!
"Another person might have represented it as the most tremendous of dragons," the Siren said.
"Why?"
"To make it seem he had done a most valiant deed."
"Why do that?" Smash asked, perplexed.
She smiled. "Obviously you don't suffer from that syndrome."
"I suffer from the Eye Queue curse."
"Cheer up. Smash," Tandy said. "We're bound to encounter a real dragon sometime."
"Yes," the ogre agreed, cheering as directed. After all, the thing to do with disappointments was to rise above them. The Eye Queue told him that.
"Speaking of dragons," John said, "there is a story that circulates among fairies about dragons and their parts, and I've always wondered whether it was true."
"I've met some dragons," Smash said. "What's the story?"
"That if a dragon's ear is taken off, you can listen to it and hear wondrous things."
Smash scratched his head. Several fleas jumped off, startled. Since his skull no longer heated much when he tried to think, the fleas had no natural control. "I never tried that."
"It must be sort of hard to get a dragon's ear," Tandy remarked. "I doubt they part with them willingly."
Fireoak considered. "There are stories the mockingbirds tell, to mock the ignorant. They would nest in my tree sometimes and talk of marvelous things, and I never knew how much to believe. One did once mention such a quality of a dragon's ear. It said the ear would twitch when anything of interest to the holder was spoken anywhere, so one would know to listen. But often the news was not pleasant, for dragons have ears for bad news. And as Tandy says, dragons' ears are very hard for normal people to come by."
"Next dragon I slay, I will save an ear," Smash said, intrigued.
They continued north till dusk, with only minor adventures, avoiding tangle trees, clinging vines, and strangler figs, scaring off tiger lilies and dogwood, and ignoring the trickly illusions spawned by assorted other plants. Swarms of biting bugs converged, but Smash blew them away in his usual fashion with selected roars. By nightfall the party was close to something significant, but Smash couldn't remember what.
They located a forest of black, blue, and white ash trees whose shedding ashes covered the forest floor. Any recent footprints showed; and, because each color of tree spread its ashes at a different hour, it was possible to know how recently any creature had passed. White prints were the most recent, blue prints were older and somehow more intricate, with maplike traceries on them, and black prints dated from the night. Some ashes had been hauled, but no dragons or other dangerous creatures had been here in the past few hours.
Amidst this forest was a handsome cottonwood that provided cotton for beds for them all. "I always thought camping out would be uncomfortable," Tandy remarked. "But this is getting to be fun.
Now if only I knew where I was going!"
"You don't know?" the Siren asked, surprised.
"Good Magician Humfrey answered my Question by telling me to travel with Smash," Tandy said. "So I'm traveling. It's a pretty good trip, and I'm learning a lot and meeting nice new people, but that's not my Answer. Smash is looking for the Ancestral Ogres, but I doubt that's what I'm looking for."
"I understand the Good Magician is getting old," the Siren said.
"He's pretty old," Tandy agreed. "But he knows an awful lot, and your sister the Gorgon is making him young again."
"She would," the Siren said. "I am jealous of her power over men. In my heyday I used to summon men to my isle, but she always took them away, and, of course, they never looked at other women after she was through with them."
Because they had turned to stone.
Smash knew. The fact was
,
the Gorgon had been as lonely as the Siren, despite her devastating power. The Gorgon had been smitten by the first man who could nullify her talent. Magician Humfrey, so she had gone to him with a Question: would he marry her? He had made her serve a year as housemaid and guardian in his castle before giving her his Answer: he would. Evidently that was the sort of man it required to capture the heart of the Gorgon. Smash understood that their wedding, officiated by Prince Dor when he was temporary King, had been the most remarkable occasion of the year, attended by all the best monsters. Smash's father Crunch had been there, and Tandy's mother Jewel. By all accounts, the marriage was a reasonably happy one, considering the special nature of its parties.
"I wonder what it is like to be with a
man?
" Fireoak said, in a half-wistful question. Her injuries of the day had fatigued her greatly, perhaps making her depressed. Evidently their conversation of the preceding night had remained on her mind.
"My friends always told me men were difficult to get along with," John said. "A girl can't live with them, and she can't live without them."
"Well, I've tried living without," the Siren said. "I'm ready to try with. Good and ready! At least it shouldn't be dull. First pool I find with an available merman, watch out!"
"Poor merman!" the fairy said.
"Oh, I'm sure he'll deserve whatever I give him. I don't think he'll have cause to complain, any more than Magician Humfrey has with my sister. We draw on similar lore."
"All girls do. But it seems terribly original to each innocent man." There was general laughing agreement.
"You speak as if no man is here," Tandy said, sounding faintly aggrieved.
"There's a man here, listening to our secrets?" Fireoak cried, alarmed.
"Smash."
There was another general titter. "Don't be silly," John said. "He's an ogre."
"Can't an ogre also be a man?"
The tittering subsided. "Yes, of course, dear," the Siren said reassuringly.
"And a good one, too.
We take Smash too much for granted. None of us could travel freely here without his formidable protection. We ought to thank him, instead of imposing on him."
Smash lay still. He had not intended to feign sleep, but thought it best not to join in this conversation. It was interesting enough without his participation. He had not known about this conspiracy of the females of Xanth, but now he could remember how he had seen it in action when Princess Irene snared Prince Dor, and even when his mother pacified his father. It did seem that the distaff knew things that the males did not and used them cleverly to achieve their desires.
"What's a lady ogre like?" Tandy asked.
"One passed my tree once," Fireoak said. "She was huge and hairy and had a face like a bowl of overcooked mush someone had sat on. I never saw anything so ugly in all my life."
"Well, she was an ogress," the Siren said. "They have different standards of beauty. You can bet they know what bull-ogres like, though! I suppose an ogre wants a wife who can knock down her own trees for firewood--no offense, Fireoak--and kill her own griffins for stew so he doesn't have to interrupt his dragon hunting for trifles."
They laughed again, and their chatter meandered across other femalish subjects, recipes, prettifying spells, jungle gossip, and such, until they all drifted off to sleep. But the images they had conjured enchanted Smash's imagination. An ogress who could knock down her own trees and slay her own griffins--what an ideal mate! And a face like squashed mush--what sheerest beauty! How wonderful it would be to encounter such a creature!
But the only ogress he had met was his mother--who wasn't really an ogress, but a curse-fiend acting the part. She acted very well, but when she forgot her makeup, her face no longer looked like mush. Smash had always pretended not to notice how distressingly fair her face and form became in those unguarded moments, so as not to embarrass her. The truth was
,
had his mother the actress chosen to pass among females like these Smash now traveled with, she could have done so without causing alarm. And, of course, as soon as she prepared herself, she was the complete ogress again, as brutish and mean as any ogre could ask for. Certainly his father Crunch loved her and would move mountains for her, despite her secret shame of
an
un-ogrish origin. One of those mountains had been moved to rest near their home so that she could climb it and look out across Xanth when the mood took her.
At last
Smash
slept. He still wasn't used to doing so much thinking, and it tired him despite the amplification the Eye Queue provided. He had never had to work things out so rationally before, or to see the interrelationships among diverse things. Well, one day he would win free of the curse and be a true brute of an ogre again. He slept.
Next morning they came up against the barrier Smash had been unable to remember. It was a huge crevice in the earth, a valley so deep and steep that they shrank back from it. It extended east and west; there seemed to be no end to it, no way around.
"How can we go north?" Tandy asked plaintively. "This awful cleft is impossible!"
"Now I remember it," Smash said. "It crosses all of Xanth. Down near Castle Roogna there are magic bridges."
"Castle Roogna?"
Fireoak asked. She looked wan, as if she had not been eating well, though she had been provided with all she wanted. Smash suspected her absence from her beloved tree was like an ordinary person's need for water. She would have to return to it soon, or die. She was suffering from deprivation of soul, and would soon become as Tandy had been within the gourd, if not helped. Her rat wounds only aggravated the condition, hastening the process.
"That's right," Tandy said brightly. "If this crack passes near Castle Roogna, you can follow it there! Your problem is solved."
"Yes, solved," the hamadryad agreed wanly.
Now the Siren noticed her condition. "Dear, are you well?"
"As well as I can be," the dryad replied gamely. "The rest of you must go on across the chasm; I will find my own way to Castle Roogna."
"I think you have been away from your tree too long," the Siren said. "You had better return to it, to restore your strength, before attempting the long trip to Castle Roogna."
"But there is not time!" Fireoak protested. "The moon is waning, night by night; soon the lunatic fringe will sunder, and my tree will be exposed."
"Yet if you perish on the way to see the King, you can do your tree no good," the Siren pointed out.
"It is indeed a dire strait," the dryad agreed, sinking to the ground.
The Siren looked at Smash. "Where is your tree, dear?" she asked Fireoak.
"North of the chasm.
I had forgotten about--"
"But how did you cross?"
"A firebird helped me.
Because I am associated with a fireoak.
But the bird is long gone now."
"I think we must nevertheless cross over soon and return you to your tree," the Siren said. Again she looked meaningfully at Smash.
"We will go with you, to guard your tree," Smash said, catching on.
Tandy clapped her hands.
"Oh, how wonderful to think of that.
Smash! We can help her!"
Smash said nothing. The Siren had really thought of it, but he was amenable. They couldn't let Fireoak perish from neglect--and she surely would, otherwise. They could certainly guard her tree from harm; no one would come near an ogre.
But first they had to get to the tree--and that meant crossing the chasm--in a hurry. How were they going to do that?
"You chipped steps in the prints-of-wails mountain," Tandy suggested.
"But that was slow," the Siren said. "It could take several days. We must cross today."
They stared into the chasm, baffled. There seemed to be no way to cross it rapidly--yet they had to, somehow. For now all could see how the hamadryad was failing. Fireoak's surface had turned from lightly corrugated skin to deeply serrated bark, from young nymph to old tree trunk. Her green hair was wilting, and the tinge of red was turning black. Her fire would soon be out.
"There must be a path," John said. "If we just spread out and look, surely we'll find it."
That was a positive idea. They commenced their search for the path.
There was the sound of galloping hooves from the west. The group ran back together, and Smash faced the sound, ready for whatever might come.
Two centaurs appeared, moving rapidly. One was male, the other female. Centaurs could be good news or bad, depending. Smash was conscious of his orange jacket and steel gauntlets, gifts of the centaurs of Centaur Isle, but knew that there could be rogue centaurs in this wilderness. What were these two doing here?
Then Smash recognized them.
"Chet!
Chem!" he exclaimed.
The two drew up, panting, a light sheen of sweat on their human and equine portions. Smash embraced each in turn,
then
turned to make introductions. "These are friends of mine from the Castle Roogna region." He faced the other way. "And these are friends of mine from all over Xanth."
"Smash!" the filly centaur exclaimed. "What happened to your rhymes?"
"I'm cursed with intelligence, among other things."
"Yes, I can see the other things," Chet said, contemplating the assorted females. "I never knew you were interested."
"We sort of imposed on him," Tandy said.
"Yes, Smash is imposeable," Chem agreed. She was young, so lacked the imposing proportions of her mother; the last time
Smash
had seen her, she had been playing children's galloping games. In another year or so she would be looking for a mate. He wondered why she was not still in centaur-schooling, as her mother was very strict about education. "We came here to do the same."