What would be the best way to find her? If her footprints 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. "Ho!" 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.