Ogre Ogre x-5 Page 6

  "Then I will go alone," Smash said. He brushed the comb aside and marched on down. The way soon became dark, but ogres had good night vision, so he wasn't much bothered.

  "Don't invite catastrophe!" the Siren called after him.

  "I certainly hope not," Smash called back, though in truth he wouldn't have minded a little of that to make things interesting. "I will be pusillanimously careful."

  Deep inside the cave, he found a garden of pleasantly scented, mintlike plants with felinely furry leaves.

  Each had a spike of blue flowers. These must be the catnips.

  Smash took hold of one and pulled it up by the roots, being uncertain which part of the plant he needed, and stuffed it into his bag. The flowers nipped at him, but lacked the power even to be annoying. He grabbed and crammed more plants, until he felt he had enough.

  He turned to depart-and spied a dimly glowing object It was set in the cave wall beside the exit, framed in stone set with yellow cat's-eye gems. It was a furry hump with a tail descending from it: evidently the posterior of some sort of feline. A pussy-willow? No, too large for that. Smash recalled reference to one of the barbarian customs of the Mundanes, in which they killed animals and mounted their heads on walls. That was stupid-perfectly edible heads going to waste! Someone must have done the same for this cat's rear.

  Smash considered, then decided to take the trophy along. It certainly wasn't doing any good here in the dark. Perhaps the girls would like to see it. Smash realized that it was a measure of the degradation foisted on him by the Eye Queue that he even thought of showing something interesting to others, but he was stuck with it.

  He reached out to grab the stone frame. The cats-eyes blinked warningly. The thing was firmly set, so he applied force. The frame ripped out of the wall-and the roof collapsed.

  Puzzled, Smash put one fist up over his head. The rock fell on this and cracked apart, piling up on either side.

  Smash climbed up through the rubble, toting his bag of plants, but was unable to bring the posterior-trophy. In a moment he reached daylight.

  "Oh, you're all right!" Tandy cried. "I was so afraid-"

  "Rockfalls can't hurt ogres," Smash said. "I tried to take a trophy, but the roof fell in." He dusted himself off.

  "A trophy?" Tandy asked blankly.

  "The rear end of some kind of cat, mounted in the wall."

  "That was the catastrophe!" the Siren cried. "I told you not to invite it!"

  Catastrophe-a trophy of the rear of a cat. Now Smash understood. He had not properly applied his new intelligence, and had done considerable damage to the catnip garden as a result. He would try to be more careful in the future. As long as he was cursed with intellect, he might as well use it.

  "I had better clear the rocks out of the garden," Smash said. This, too, was an un-ogrish sentiment, but the Eye Queue and the presence of the girls seemed to have that effect on him.

  "No, don't bother," the Siren said. "You wouldn't know how to set it right. The caterpillar will take care of that after we leave. It likes to push rocks around."

  They crossed the catwalk past the cataract again and proceeded to the catapult. This was a feline creature the size of a small sphinx, crouched in a clearing. Its tail expanded into a kind of netting at the end, large enough for a boulder to rest on. There was a basket nearby, just that size.

  The Siren approached the catapult. "Will you hurl us to Lake Ogre-Chobee, please?" she asked. "We have some catnip for you."

  The cat brightened. It nodded its whiskered head. They laid the catnip plants down before it, then moved the basket to the expanded tail. The three of them climbed in and drew the wicker lid over, enclosing themselves.

  The cat sniffed the catnip. Its tail stiffened ecstatically. Then it nipped the catnip. As the potent stuff took effect, the tail suddenly sprang up, carrying the basket along. Suddenly the party of three was flying.

  They looked out between the slats. Xanth was cruising by beneath them, all green and blue and yellow.

  There were scattered, low-hanging clouds around them, white below, all other colors above, where they couldn't be seen from the ground. Some were rainclouds, shaped like pools, brimming with water. Stray birds were taking baths in them, and flying fish were taking breathers there, too. The basket clipped the

  edge of one of these rainclouds and tore a hole in it; the water poured out in a horrendous leak. There was an angry uproar from below as the unscheduled deluge splashed on the forest. But this was the Region of Madness anyway; no one would be able to prove the difference.

  Now it occurred to Smash to wonder about their descent. They had risen smoothly enough, but the fall might be less comfortable.

  Then some sort of material popped out of the lid of the basket. It spread into a huge canopy that caught the air magically and held back the basket. The descent became slow, and they landed by the shore of Lake Ogre-Chobee.

  They opened the basket and stepped out. "That was fun!" Tandy exclaimed girlishly. "But how will the catapult get its basket back?"

  An orange creature hurried up, vaguely catlike. "I'll take that," it said.

  "Who are you?" Tandy asked.

  "I am the agent of this region. It is my job to see that things get where they belong. The catapult has a contract for the return of its baskets."

  "Oh. Then you had better take it. But I don't know how you'll be able to carry that big basket through that thick jungle, or past the Region of Madness."

  "No problem. I'm half mad already." The orange agent picked up the basket and trotted north. The vegetation wilted and died in the creature's vicinity, making a clear path.

  "Oh-that's its magic talent," Tandy said. "Agent Orange kills plants."

  They turned to Lake Ogre-Chobee. It was a fine blue expanse of water with a whirlpool in the center.

  "Don't go there," the Siren cautioned. "The curse-fiends live there."

  "What is wrong with the curse-fiends?" Smash asked. "My mother was one."

  The Siren turned her gaze on him, startled. "Oh-I understood you were an ogre. The/curse-fiends are of human derivation. I didn't mean to-"

  "My mother is an actress. She had to play the part of an ogress in an adaptation of Prince Charming, a Mundane tale. Naturally she was the ingénue."

  "Naturally," the Siren agreed faintly.

  "But my father Crunch happened onto the set, innocently looking for bones to crunch, and spied her and was instantly smitten by her horribleness and carried her away. Naturally she married him."

  "Yes, of course," the Siren agreed, looking wan. "I am jealous of her fortune. I'm of human derivation myself."

  "The curse-fiends fired off a great curse that killed a huge forest," Smash continued. "But my parents escaped the curse by becoming vegetarians. Most ogres crunch bones, so this confused the curse and caused it to misfire."

  "You were raised in a non-bone-crunching home!" Tandy exclaimed.

  "I'm still an ogre," he said defensively.

  "I'm glad it worked out so well," the Siren said. "But I think it would be wise to avoid the curse-fiends.

  They might not appreciate your position."

  "I suppose so," Smash admitted. "But they are excellent actors. No one ever confused my mother for a human being."

  "I'm sure they didn't," the Siren agreed. "I saw one of the curse-fiends' plays once. It was very well done.

  But it can be awkward associating with someone who throws a curse when aggravated."

  Smash laughed. "It certainly can be! I acted un-ogrish once, letting a wyvem back me off from an emerald I had found-"

  "My mother set that emerald in place!" Tandy exclaimed.

  "And my mother threw a curse at me," he continued. "It scorched the ground at my feet and knocked me on my head. I never let any monster back me off again!"

  "That was cruel," Tandy said. "She shouldn't have cursed you."

  "Cruel? Of course not. It was ogre love, the only kind our kind understands. She cursed my father on
ce, and it was two days before he recovered, and the smile never left his face."

  "Well, I don't know," Tandy said, and she seemed unusually sober. Did she have some connection to the curse-fiends? Smash filed the notion for future reference.

  They walked around a portion of Lake Ogre-Chobee, trying not to attract attention. There were no ogres in evidence, and no traces of their presence-no broken-off trees or fragmented boulders or flat-stomped ground.

  There seemed to be no threats, either; the entire lake was girded, as far as they could see, by a pleasant little beach, and the water was clear and free of monsters. Evidently the curse-fiends had driven away anything dangerous.

  "Look at the noses!" Tandy cried, pointing across the water. Smash looked. There were scores of nostrils swimming in pairs toward the shore, making little waves. As they drew near, he saw that the nostrils were the visible tips of more extensive snouts, which continued on into long reptilian bodies.

  "Oh-the chobees," the Siren said, relaxing. "They're mostly harmless. Chobees aren't related to other kinds of bees; they don't sting. Once in a while one strays up to my lake."

  "But what big teeth they have!" Tandy said.

  "They're imitation, teeth, soft as pillows."

  A chobee scrambled out onto the beach. It had short, fat, green legs and a green corrugated skin. The Siren petted it on the head, and the chobee grinned. She touched one of its teeth, and the tooth bent like rubber, snapping back into place when released.

  But Smash had a nagging doubt. "I remember something my father said about the chobees. Most of them are innocent, but some-"

  "Oh, yes, that's right," the Siren agreed. "A few, a very few, have real teeth. Those kind are dangerous."

  "Let's stay away from the bad ones, then," Tandy said. "What do they look like?"

  "I don't know," the Siren admitted.

  "They look just like the nice ones," Smash said slowly, dredging his memory.

  "But then any of these could be a bad one," Tandy said, alarmed.

  "True," Smash agreed. "Unless the curse-fiends got rid of them."

  "How could the curse-fiends tell the difference, if we can't?" Tandy asked.

  "If a chobee eats a curse-fiend, it's probably a bad one," the Siren said, smiling obscurely.

  "Do we need to tell the chobees apart the same way?" Tandy asked worriedly.

  The Siren laughed musically. Her voice was only a shadow of what it must have been when she had her luring magic, but it remained evocative. "Of course not, dear. Let's avoid them all." That seemed easy enough to do, as the three of them could walk faster than the reptiles could. Soon the chobees gave up the chase and nosed back into the water, where they buzzed away toward the deeper portions of the lake.

  Tandy watched the wakes their nostrils left with relief.

  At one point the lake become irregular, branching out into a satellite lake that was especially pretty. A partial causeway crossed the narrow connection between the large and small lakes. "I'll wade across!"

  Smash said, delighting in the chance to indulge in some splashing.

  "I don't know," Tandy said. "The nice paths can be dangerous." She had learned from her experience with the tangler and the ant-lions; now she distrusted all the easy ways.

  "I 'will explore the water," the Siren said. "I will be able to tell very quickly whether there are dangerous water creatures near. Besides, I'm hungry; I need to catch some fish." She slid into the small lake, her legs converting to the sleekly scaled tail, her dress fading out.

  "If you find a monster, send it my way," Smash called. "I'm hungry, too!"

  She smiled and dived below-the surface, a bare-breasted nymph swimming with marvelous facility. In a moment her head popped up, tresses glistening. "No monsters here!" she called. "Not even any chobees. I believe that causeway is safe; I find no pitfalls there."

  That was all Smash needed. "Too bad," he muttered. He waded in, sending a huge splay of water to either side.

  But Tandy remained hesitant. "I think I'll just walk around it," she said.

  "Good enough!" Smash agreed, and forged on into deeper water. The causeway dropped lower, 'but never deeper than chest height on him. He conjectured that it might have been constructed by the cursefiends to prevent large sea monsters from passing; they preferred deep water and avoided shallows.

  Maybe the smaller lake had been developed as a resort region. This suggested that there could be monsters in Lake Ogre-Chobee; they just happened to be elsewhere at the moment. Maybe they represented an additional protection for the fiends, converting the whole of the large lake into a kind of moat. It really didn't matter, since he had no business with the curse-fiends. After all, they had not let his mother go willingly to marry his father. She had had no further contact with her people after she had taken up with Crunch the Ogre, and it occurred to Smash that this could not have made her feel good. So his attitude toward the fiends was guarded; he would not try to avoid them, but neither would he try to seek them out. Neutrality was the watchword. He had never thought this out before-but he had not suffered the curse of the Eye Queue before, either. He still hoped to find some way to be rid of it, as these frequent efforts of thought were not conducive to proper ogrish behavior.

  He glanced across the water of the little lake. Tandy was picking her way along the beach, looking very small. He felt un-ogrishly protective toward her-but, of course, this was his service to the Good Magician. Ogres were gross and violent, but they kept their word. Also, the Eye Queue curse lent him an additional perception of the virtue of an ethical standard. It was a bit like physical strength; the ideal was to be strong in all respects, ethical as well as physical. And Tandy certainly needed protection. Besides which, she was a nice girl. He wondered what she was looking for in life and how it related to his journey to seek the Ancestral Ogres. Had old Magician Humfrey finally lost his magic, and had to foist Tandy off on an ogre m lieu of a genuine Answer? Smash hoped not, but he had to entertain the possibility. Suppose there was in fact no Answer for Tandy-or for himself?

  Smash had no ready answer for that, even with his unwanted new intelligence, so had to let the thought lapse. But it was disquieting. High intelligence, it seemed, posed as many questions as it answered; being smart was not necessarily any solution to life's problems. It was much easier to be strong and stupid, bashing things out of the way without concern for the consequences. Disquiet was no proper feeling for an ogre.

  Now he got down in the water and splashed with all limbs. This was proper ogre fun! The spray went up in a great cloud, surrounding the sun and causing its light to fragment into a magic halo. The whole effect was so lovely that he continued splashing violently until pleasantly winded. When he stopped, he discovered that the water level of the small lake had dropped substantially, and the sun was hastening across the sky to get out of the way, severely dimmed by all the water that had splashed on it.

  But his thorough washing did not clear the Eye Queue from the fur of his head. Somehow the Queue had sunk into his brain, and the braided Eyes were providing him new visions of many kinds. It would be hard indeed to get those Eyes out again.

  At last he waded out at the far side. The Siren swam up, converted her tail to legs, and joined him on the warm beach. "You made quite a splash. Smash," she said. "Had I not known better, I would have supposed a thunderstorm was forming."

  "That good!" he agreed, well satisfied. Of course it wasn't all good; he was now unconscionably clean.

  But a few good rolls in the dirt would take care of that.

  "That bad," the Siren said with a smile.

  He studied her as she gleamed wetly, her scale-suit creeping up to cover the fullness of her front. She seemed to be turning younger, though this might be inconsequential illusion. "I think the swim was good for you, too, Siren. You look splendid." Privately, he was amazed at his words; she did look splendid, and her affinity to the voluptuous Gorgon was increasingly evident, but no ordinary ogre would have noticed, let al
one complimented her in the fashion of a human being. The curse of the Queue was still spreading!

  "I do feel better," she agreed. "But it's not just the swim. It's the companionship. I have lived alone for too long; now that I have company, however temporarily, my youth and health are returning."

  So that explained it! People of human stock had need for the association of other people. This was one of the ways in which ogres differed from human beings. Ogres needed nobody, not even other ogres.

  Except to marry.

  He looked again at the Siren. Her nymphlike beauty would have dazzled a man and led him to thoughts of moonlight and gallivanting. Smash, however, was an ogre; full breasts and smoothly fleshed limbs appealed to him only aesthetically--and even that was a mere product of the Eye Queue. An uncursed ogre would simply have become hungry at the sight of such flesh.

  Which reminded him-he needed something to eat. He checked around for edibles and spied some ripe banana peppers. He stuffed handfuls of them into his mouth.

  Something nagged him as he chewed. Flesh-female-hunger-ah, now he had it. A girl in danger of being eaten. "Where's Tandy?" he asked.

  "I haven't seen her, Smash," the Siren said, her fair brow furrowing. "She should be here by now, shouldn't she? We had better go look for her, in case-well, let's just see. I'll swim; you check the beach."

  "Agreed." Smash crammed another double fistful of peppers into his face and started around the beach, concerned. He blamed himself now for his selfish carelessness. He knew that Tandy was unfamiliar with the surface of Xanth, liable to fall into the simplest trap. If something had happened to her-

  "I find nothing here," the Siren called from the water. "Maybe she went off the beach for a matter of hygiene."

  Good notion. Smash checked the tangled vines beyond the beach-and there, in due course, he found Tandy. "Hi-ho!" he called to her, waving a hamhand.