Ogre, Ogre Read online

  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 curse-fiends 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 in 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 alone 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. "Hiho!" he called to her, waving a hamhand.

  Tandy did not respond. She was kneeling on the turf, looking at something. "Are you all right?" Smash asked, worry building up like a sudden storm. But the girl neither moved nor answered.

  The Siren came out of the water, dripping and changing in the effective way she had, and joined Smash. "Oh--she's fallen prey to a hypnogourd."

  A hypnogourd. Smash remembered encountering that fruit before. Anyone who peeked in the peephole of such a gourd remained mesmerized until some third party broke the connection. Naturally Tandy had not been aware of this. So she had peeked, being girlishly curious--and remained frozen there.

  Gently, the Siren removed the gourd, breaking the connection. Tandy blinked and shook her head. But her eyes did not quite focus. Her features coalesced into an expression of vacant, continuing horror.

  "Hey, come out of it, dear," the Siren said. "The bad vision is over. It ended when you lost contact with the gourd. Everything's all right."

  Yet the girl seemed numb. The Siren shook her, but still Tandy did not respond.

  "Maybe it's like the Eye Queue," Smash said. "It stays in the mind until removed."

  "The gourds aren't usually that way," the Siren said, perplexed. "Of course, I have not had much personal experience with them, since I have lived alone; there's no one to break the trance for me, so I have stayed clear. But I met a man once, a Mundane, back when I was able to lure men with my music. He said the gourds were like computer games--that seems to be something he knew about in Mundania, one of their forms of magic--only more compelling. He said some people got hooked worse than others."

  "Tandy was raised in the caves. She has no experience with most of Xanth. She must be susceptible. Whatever she saw in there maintains its grip on her mind."

  "That must be it. Usually people have no memory of what they see inside, but maybe that varies also. That same Mundane spoke of acidheads, which I think are creatures whose heads--well, I can't quite visualize that. But it seems they suffered flashbacks of their mad dreams a
fter their heads were back in normal shape. Maybe Tandy is--"

  "I'll go into that gourd and destroy whatever is bothering her," Smash said. "Then she'll be free."

  "Smash, you may not have your body in there! I have never looked into a gourd, but I don't think the same rules apply as those we know. You could get caught there, too. It could be catastrophe."

  "I will be more careful to avoid that trophy, this time," Smash said with an ogrish grimace. He applied his eye to the peephole.

  He was in a world of black and white. He stood before a black wooden door set in a white house. There was no sound at all, and the air was chill. Faintly ominous vibrations wafted in from the near distance. There was the diffuse odor of spoiling carrion.

  Smash licked his lips. Carrion always made him hungry. But he did not trust this situation. Tandy was not here, of course, and he saw nothing that could account for her condition. Nothing to frighten or horrify a person. He decided to leave.

  However, he perceived no way out. He had arrived fullformed within this scene; there was no obvious exit. He was locked into this vision--unless he had entered through this door and turned about to face it without realizing, and could depart through it. Doors generally did lead from one place to another.

  He took hold of the black metal doorknob. The thing zapped him with a small bolt of lightning. He tried to let go, but his hand was locked on. He wore no gauntlets; evidently he had left them behind. The electric pain pulsed through his fingers, locking the muscles clenched with its special magic. There was a wash of pain, literally; his black hand was now glowing with red color, in stark contrast with the monochrome of the rest of the scene.

  Smash yanked hard on the knob. The entire door ripped off its hinges. The pain stopped, the red color faded, his fingers relaxed at last, and he hurled the door away behind him.

  Before him was a long, blank hall penetrating the somber house. From the depths of it came a horrendous groan. This did not seem to be the way out; he was sure he had not walked any great distance inside the gourd. But it did seem pleasant enough, and was the only way that offered. Smash stepped inside.

  A chill draft rustled the fur on his legs. The odor of putrefaction intensified. The floor shuddered as it took his weight. There was another groan.

  Smash strode forward, impatient to get out of this interestingly drear but pointless place, worried about Tandy. He needed to consult with the Siren, to work out some strategy by which he might find whatever had scared Tandy and deal with it. Otherwise he would have felt free to enjoy the further entertainments of this house. Had he realized what kind of scene was inside the gourd, he would have entered it years ago.

  Something flickered before him. Smash squinted, and saw it was a ghost. "You trapped, too?" he asked sympathetically, and walked through it.

  The ghost made an angry moan and flickered to his front side again. "Boooooo!" it booooooed.

  Smash paused. Was this creature trying to tell bun something? He had known very few ghosts, as they did not ordinarily associate with ogres. There were several at Castle Roogna, attending to routine hauntings. "Do I know you?" he asked. "Do we have any mutual acquaintances?"

  "Yoowwe!!!" the ghost yowded, its hollow eyes flashing darkness.

  "I'd help you if I could, but I'm lost myself," Smash said apologetically, and brushed on through it again. The ghost, disgusted for some obscure reason, faded away.

  The passage narrowed. This was no illusion; the walls were closing on either side, squeezing together. Smash didn't like to be crowded, so he put one hamhand on each wall and pushed outward, exerting ogre force. Something snapped; then the walls slid apart and lay tilted at slightly odd angles. It would probably be a long time before they tried to push another ogre around!

  At the end of the hall was a rickety staircase leading up. Smash pressed one hairy bare foot on the lowest step and shoved down, testing it. The step bowed and squeaked piteously, but supported his weight. Smash took another step--and suddenly the entire stairway began to move, carrying him upward. Magic stairs! What would this enjoyable place think of next?

  The stairs accelerated. Faster and faster they went, making the dank air breeze past Smash's face. At the top of the flight they ended abruptly, and he went sailing out into blank space.

  Ogres liked lots of violent things, but were not phenomenally partial to falling. However, they weren't unduly concerned about it, either. Smash stiffened his legs. In a moment he landed on hard concrete. Naturally it fractured under the impact of his feet. He stepped out of the nibble and looked about.

  He seemed to be in some sort of deep well, or oubliette. The circular wall narrowed above, making climbing out difficult. Then a shape appeared in silhouette, holding a big stone over its head. The figure had horns and looked like a demon. Smash was not especially partial to demons, but he greeted this one courteously enough. "Up yours, devil!" he called.

  The demon dropped the stone down the well. Smash saw the dark shape looming, but had no room to step out of the way.

  Then light flared. Smash blinked. It was broad daylight in the forest of Xanth. "Are you all right?" the Siren asked. "I didn't dare let you stay out too long."

  "I am all right," Smash said. "How is Tandy?"

  "Unchanged, I'm afraid. Smash, I don't think you can destroy what is bothering her, because the horror is now in her mind. We could smash the gourd and it still wouldn't help her."

  Smash considered. His skull no longer heated up when he did that. "I believe you are correct. I saw nothing really alarming in there. Perhaps I should go into the gourd with her and show her that it's not so bad."

  The Siren frowned. "I suspect ogres have different definitions of bad. Just what happened in there?"

  "Only a haunted house. Shocking doorknob. Ghost. Squeezing walls--I suppose those could have been awkward for a human person. Moving stairs. A demon dropping a rock down a well."

  "Why would a demon do that?"

  "I don't know. I happened to be below at the time. Maybe it didn't like my greeting."

  Tandy stirred. Her eyes swung loosely about. Her lips pursed flaccidly. She looked disturbingly like a ghost. "No, no house, no demon. A graveyard..." She lapsed into staring, her mouth beginning to drool.

  "Evidently you had separate visions," the Siren said, using a puff from a puffball growing nearby to clean up the girl's face. "That complicates it."

  "Maybe if we go in together, we'll share a vision," Smash conjectured.

  "But there is only one peephole."

  Smash poked his littlest hamfinger into the rind of the gourd. "Two, now."

  "You ogres are so practical!"

  They set the gourd before Tandy, who immediately peered into the first peephole. Then Smash squatted so that he could peer into the second.

  He was back in the well. The rock was plunging at his head. Hastily he raised a fist, since he didn't want a headache. The rock shattered on the fist, falling around him in the form of fragments, pebbles, and gravel. So much for that. If the demon would just drop a few more stones down. Smash would soon have this well filled up with rubble and could step out.

  But the demon did not reappear. Too bad. Smash looked around the gloom. Tandy was not with him. He was in the same vision he had left, picking it up in the same moment he had left it He was using a different peephole, but that didn't seem to matter. Probably Tandy was back in her original vision, at the same point it had been interrupted, getting scared by whatever had scared her before. It seemed the gourd programmed each vision separately.

  However, it was all the same gourd. Tandy had to be somewhere in here, and he intended to find her, rescue her from her horror, and smash that horror into a quivering pulp so it wouldn't bother her again. All he had to do was make a sufficient search.

  He took hold of a stone in the wall of the well and yanked it out. Three more stones fell out with it. Smash took another; this time five more fell. This old well was not well constructed! He stood on these and drew out more
stones. The well filled in beneath him steadily, and before long he was back at the surface. There was no sign whatsoever of the demon who had dropped the first rock on him. That was just as well, for Smash might have treated that demon a trifle unkindly, perhaps snapping its tail like a rubber band and launching the creature on a flight to the moon. The least that demon could have done was to stay around long enough to drop a few more useful boulders down the well.

  Now he stood in a chamber surrounded by doors. He heard a faint, despairing scream. Tandy!

  He went to the nearest door and grasped the knob. It shocked him, so he ripped the door out of its socket and threw it away. The room inside was a bare chamber: a false lead. He tried the next door, got shocked again, and ripped it out, too. Another bare chamber. He went to the third door--and it didn't shock him. The doors were learning! He opened this one gently. But it led only to another decoy chamber.

  Finally he opened one that showed an outdoor walk. He hurried down this, hurdling a square that he recognized as a covered pitfall--ogres naturally knew about such things, having had centuries of ancestral experience avoiding such traps set for them by foolish men--and emerged into a windy graveyard.

  Battered gravestones were all around, marking sunken graves. Some stones tilted forward precariously, as if trying to peer into the cavities they demarked. It occurred to Smash that the buried bodies might have climbed out and gone elsewhere, accounting for the sunkenness of the graves and the suspicions of the headstones, but this was not his concern.

  The odor of carrion was stronger out here. Maybe some of the corpses had not been buried deep enough. A wind came up, cutting around the stone edges with dismal howling. Smash breathed deeply, appreciating it, then concentrated on the business at hand. Tandy!" he called. "Where are you?" For she had said she was in a graveyard, and this must be the place.

  He heard a faint sobbing. Carefully he traced down the source. It was slow work, because the sound was carried by the wind, and the wind curved around the gravestones in cold blue streams, searching out the best edges for making moaning tunes. But at last he found the huddled figure, cowering behind a white stone crypt.