Ogre, Ogre (Xanth 5) (6 page)

That explained a lot. Smash realized he would have to watch her more
closely,
to be sure she did not walk into a lethal trap. The Magician's rationale for having her travel with him was making more sense. She certainly could not safely travel alone.

"I'm sorry I distrusted you. Smash," she continued in her talkative way. "You see, I was raised near demons, and in some ways you resemble a demon.
Big and strong and dusky.
I was prejudiced."

Smash grunted noncommittally. He had not met many demons, but doubted they could powder rock in the manner of ogres.

"I certainly have a lot to learn, don't I?" she continued ruefully. "I thought trees were sweet plants and ogres were bad brutes, and now I know they aren't."

Oops.
"Ogre.
No--grrr!"
Smash exclaimed emphatically.

Tandy was quick to catch on; she had the ready intelligence of her kind. "You mean I shouldn't trust all ogres? That they really do gobble people?"

"Ogres prone to crunch bone," Smash agreed.

"But you didn't--I--mean--" she grew doubtful.

"Smash work hard, girl to guard."

"Oh, you mean because the Good Magician charged you with my protection," she said, relieved.
"Your service for your Answer.
So ogres do gobble people and crunch bones, but they also honor their obligations."

Smash didn't follow all of the vocabulary, but it sounded about right, so he grunted assent.

"Very well.
Smash," she concluded. "I'll trust you, but will be wary of all other ogres.
And all other things of Xanth, too, especially if they seem too nice to be true."

That was indeed best. They lapsed into sleep.

No one bothered them in the night. After all, the nightmares had to be wary of Tandy, after she had ridden one of them, and he wasn't sure whether the mares knew how to climb trees. As for
himself
--it was always the best policy to let a sleeping ogre lie.

They breakfasted on sugar sand and cocoa-nut milk. Tandy had never before drunk cocoa and was intrigued by the novelty. She was also amazed by the way Smash literally shoveled the sugar into his mouth, hardly pausing to chew, and crunched up whole cocoa-nuts, husks and all. "You really are a monster," she said, half admiringly, and Smash grunted agreement, pleased.

Then they resumed their trek south, encountering only routine creatures. A toady was hopping north, looking for some important person to
advise
; when told that Castle Roogna was many days of hopping distant, it contorted its broad and warty mouth into a scowl. "I hope I don't croak before I get there," it said, and moved on. Croaking, it seemed, was bad form for toadies.

Then there was the quack, with a wide bill and webbed feet and a bag of special magic medicines. He was, he explained, looking for a suitable practice, where his marvelous remedies would be properly appreciated. Meanwhile, did they happen to knew where Pete was? Pete was a bog, very good for delving. Since Pete wasn't north, where Tandy and Smash had come from, and probably wasn't south, where the
Magic
Dust
Village
was supposed to be, and wasn't west, where the quack had come from, it had to be east, by elimination. The quack coughed and, his mind jogged by the term, deposited some genuine fresh birdlime on the ground. Flies instantly materialized, having a taste for lime, and Smash and Tandy moved on.

By noon they were in rougher territory. Sweaters swarmed about them, causing them to perspire, until Smash got fed up and issued a bellowing roar that blew them all away. Unfortunately, it also blew the leaves off the nearest trees, and several more tatters from Tandy's dress.

Then they encountered a region of curse-burrs--little balls of irritation that clung tenaciously to any portion of the body they encountered. Smash's face lit up in a horrendous smile. "Me remember here!" he cried. "
Me
whelped near."

"You were born here?
Amidst these awful burrs?"
Tandy smiled ruefully. "I should have known."

Smash laughed. It sounded like a rockslide in a canyon. "
Me
sire Crunch, best of bunch." He looked avidly about, whelphood memories filtering back into his thick skull. Later, his family had moved to the vicinity of Castle Roogna, because his lovely mother, whose hair was like nettles and whose face would make a zombie blush, had felt their cub should have some slight exposure to civilization. Crunch, the slave of love, had acceded to this un-ogrish notion;
who
could resist the blandishments of such a mushface as Smash's mother?

"Oh, this is awful!" Tandy protested. "These burrs are getting in my hair." It seemed human girls were sensitive to that sort of thing.

"Could be worse," Smash said helpfully. "She make curse."

"Curse?" she asked blankly.

Smash demonstrated. "Burr--grrr!" he growled. A burr dropped lifelessly off his gross nose.

"I don't think I can make such rhymes," Tandy said. Then a burr stuck her finger. "Get away, you awful thing!" she exploded.

The burr dropped off. Tandy looked at it, comprehending. She was certainly intelligent! "Oh, I see. You just have to curse them away!"

Even so, it was not easy, for Tandy had been raised as a nice girl and did not know many curses. They hurried out of the burr region.

Now they came to a dead forest. The trees stood gaunt, petrified in place. "I'd like to know how that happened," Tandy remarked. Smash knew, but it was a long story involving the romantic meeting of his parents, and it was hard for him to formulate it properly, so he let it go
..

In the afternoon they came to a region of brambles. These were aggressive plants with glistening spikes. Smash could wade through them
imperviously,
for his skin was so tough he hardly felt the few thorns they dared to stick him with. It was quite another matter for Tandy, who had delicate and sweet-smelling skin, the kind that was made to be tormented by thorns.

There were neatly cleared paths through the brambles that Tandy was inclined to use, but Smash cautioned her against this. "Lion, ant, between
plant
."

Her small brow wrinkled. "I don't see anything."

Then an ant-lion appeared. It had the head of a lion and the body of an ant, and massed about as much as the girl did; it was, of course, ten times as ferocious as anything a nice girl could imagine. It roared when it spied her, striding forward aggressively.

Smash roared back. The ant-lion hastily reversed course; it had been so distracted by the luscious prey that it had not before seen the unluscious guardian. But
Smash
knew that soon many more would arrive and would swarm over the intruders. This was no safe place, even for the likes of himself.

"Now I understand," Tandy said, turning pale. "Smash, let's get out of here!"

But already there were rustlings behind them. The ant-lions had surrounded them. There would be no easy escape.

"Me know path, avoid ant wrath," Smash said, looking upward. How fortunate that he had been raised in this vicinity, so that useful details of geography were coming back to his slow memory!

"Oh, I couldn't swing from branch to branch through the trees the way I'm sure you can," Tandy said, "I'm agile, but not that agile. I'd be sure to fall."

But the ant-lions were closing in, a full pride of them. Smash had to pick Tandy up to get her out of their reach. Thus burdened, he was unable to fight effectively. Realizing this, the ants grew bolder, closing in, growling and snapping. The situation was getting awkward.

Then
Smash
spied what he was looking for--the aerial path. "Take care. Go there," he said, boosting the girl up by her pert bottom.

"But it's sidewise!" she protested, peering at the path with dismay. "I'd fall off!"

"Stand tall. No fall," he insisted.

Tandy obviously didn't believe him. But an ant-lion leaped for her, jaws gaping, large front pincers snapping, so she reached up to grab for the high path.

Suddenly she landed on it--sidewise. "I'm level!" she cried, amazed. "The world has turned!" She stood up, or rather sidewise, her body parallel to the ground.

Smash didn't worry about it. He knew the properties of the path, having played on it as a cub. It was always level--to the person on it. He was now far too massive to use it himself, since the aerial path was getting old and brittle, but he didn't need to. He was now unencumbered, free to deal with the lions his own way.

The lions, angered at the escape of the lesser prey, pounced on the greater prey. That was foolish of them. Smash emitted a battle bellow that tore their whiskers back and clogged their pincers with debris, then began stomping and pounding. Lions yowled as the gauntleted fists connected, and screeched as the hairy feet found flesh. Then
Smash
picked up two ants by their narrow waists and hurled them into the nettles. He took a moment to rip a small hemlock tree out of the ground, shaking the locks from its hem, and bit off its top, forming a fair club from the remaining trunk. Soon the path was clear; the ant-lions, like the tangle tree, had learned new respect for ogres.

"You're really quite something. Smash!" Tandy called, clapping her hands. "You're a real terror when you get worked up. I'll bet there's nothing more formidable than an angry ogre!" She had an excellent view of the proceedings from the elevated path, dodging when an ant flew past. Ant-lions did not normally fly; this was a consequence of being hurled out of the way. Ants were now stuck in a number of the jungle trees.

"Me know who," Smash grunted, pleased.
"Ogres two."

She laughed. "That figures. The only thing tougher than one ogre is two ogres." She was now standing inverted, her brown tresses hanging naturally about her shoulders as if she were upright. She looked about, from her vantage. "The ants aren't gone, just backed off. Smash," she reported. "Can you come up here?"

Smash shook his head no. But he wasn't worried. He could use the ant paths. If the ants wanted a little more ogre-type fun, he would gladly accommodate them.

They proceeded south, Tandy tilting with the orientation of the aerial path, sometimes upright, sometimes not, enjoying the experience. "There is nothing much in the caverns like this!" she commented.

Smash tromped along the ant highways, tearing through nettles when he needed to change paths. Soon the nettles and ants were left behind, but the high path continued, so Tandy stayed on it. Smash knew it terminated at the
Magic
Dust
Village
, and since they had to pass there anyway, this was convenient. According to Castle Roogna information, the Magic Dusters had once had a population problem, not being able to hold on to their males, so they had constructed the skyway to encourage immigration. Now there were plenty of people at the village, so the path didn't matter, but no one had bothered to take it down. Smash and Tandy made excellent progress.

Now they passed a region of hanging vines. They were twined, almost braided, like queues, and seemed to have eyes looking out from their recesses. Smash distrusted unfamiliar things in general and dangling vines in particular, so he avoided the Eye Queues. They could be harmless, or they could be bloodsuckers. This was beyond the region of his cubhood familiarity, and anyway, things could have changed in the interim. One could never take magic for granted.

He also kept an eye on Tandy, above, to make sure she did not brush against any vines. As a result, he didn't pay close enough attention to his big feet--and stumbled over a minor boulder that was damming a streamlet, much to the streamlet's annoyance.

The boulder dam shattered, of course; it was only stone. The streamlet gladly flowed through, with a burble of thanks to its deliverer. But Smash suffered a momentary loss of balance, his feet sinking into the sodden riverbed, and he lurched headlong into a hanging vine.

The thing wrapped disgustingly around his head. He snatched at it, but already it was sinking into his fur and his flesh and hurting terribly when he tried to scrape it loose. Since an ogre's course was generally that of most resistance. Smash put both hands to his scalp and scraped--and the burgeoning agony made him reel.

"Stop, Smash, stop!"
Tandy screamed from above. "You'll rip off your head!"

Smash stopped. "I concur. There is no sense in that."

Tandy stared down at him. "What did you say?"

"I said there is no sense in mortifying my flesh, since the queue does not appear to have seriously incapacitated me."

"Smash--
you're not rhyming
!"

"Why--so I am not!" he agreed, startled. "That must be the curse of the Eye Queue; it has disrupted my natural mechanism of communication."

"It's done more than that!" Tandy exclaimed. "Smash, you sound smart!"

"That must be a fallacious impression. No ogre is unduly intelligent."

"Well, you sure sound smart!" she insisted. "That Eye Queue, as you call it, must have added some brains to your head."

"That seems reasonable," he agreed, after cogitating momentarily without effort. "The effect manifested concurrently with my contact with that object. Probability suggests a causal connection. This, of course, is much worse than any purely physical attack would have been; it has temporarily un-ogred me. I must expunge it from my system!"

"Oh, no, don't do that," she protested. "It's sort of interesting, really. I don't mind you being smart. Smash. It's much easier to talk with you."

"In any event, I seem unable for the moment to deactivate it," Smash said. "It seems I must tolerate this curse for the time being. But I assure you I shall be alert for an antidote."

"Okay," she said. "If that's the way you feel."

"Indubitably."

They went on--and now
Smash
noted things that hadn't interested him before. He saw how erosion had caused rifts in the land, and how the forest stratified itself, with light indifferent vegetation and fungi at the nether levels and bright, broad leaves above to catch the descending light of the sun. The entire jungle was a cohesive unit, functioning compatibly with its environment. All over Xanth, things were integrating--in his new awareness. How blind he had been to the wonders of magic, all his life!