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 landed! 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, eyeing 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 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 somewhat 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 if 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 fair 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."