And the nightmares--one had helped Tandy travel, but then had put in for a lien on her soul, causing her awful grief. Some help that had been! Maybe these nightmares needed to feel the weight of an ogre's displeasure.
Still he did not know enough to act. What was Tandy's problem that the Magician had answered? She had never quite said. Did it relate to that nightmare lien on her soul? But she had incurred that lien in order to reach the Good Magician. That hardly seemed profitable. Also, she had not been aware of the lien, so she would not have put a Question about it.
How would traveling with an ogre abate her problem? Had it been the Magician's intent that Smash redeem that girl's lost soul with his own? That was possible--but his understanding of the Magician's mode of operations argued against it. Humfrey did not need to fool people about the nature of their payments for their Answers. He should not pretend the service was merely protection duty when, in fact, it was soul substitution. So that, too, remained an enigma.
So far, Tandy had recruited fellow travelers with abandon, and now there were six females in the party. That was probably as unlikely a group as existed at the moment in Xanth. Normally such maidens fled ogres, and for good reason--ogres consumed such morsels. Were it not for Smash's commitment not to indulge his natural appetites because of the service he owed the Good Magician--
He shook his head, flinging loose a few angry fleas. No, he could not be sure of his motive there. His father Crunch was a vegetarian ogre, married to a female of human derivation, so Smash had been raised in an atypical ogre home. His folks had been permitted to associate with the people of Castle Roogna as long as they honored human customs. Smash himself had not operated under the restriction of oath or of human taste--but had always known he would be banished from human company if he ever reverted to the wild state. Anyone who made trouble for King Trent ran the risk of being transformed to a toad or a stinkbug, for Trent was the great transformer. It had been easy to conform. So Smash had not actually crunched many human bones, and had carried away no delicious human maidens. Perhaps he had been missing something vital--but he remained unwilling to gamble that one good meal would be more satisfying than the human friendships he had maintained. So perhaps it was more than the Good Magician's service that protected Tandy and the others.
Ogres weren't supposed to need companionship, but the curse of the Eye Queue showed him that he was, to that extent, atypical of his kind. Like the Siren, he now knew he would be lonely alone.
Smash suddenly realized that the ring of mares was only half the diameter it had been. While he tromped forward, thinking his slew of un-ogrish thoughts, they had been constricting their loop. Soon they would be almost within reach of him.
And if they closed on him all the way--what then? Mere horses could hardly hurt an ogre. Each weighed about as much as he did, but they were only mares, with the foreparts of sea horses and the rear parts of centaurs. They were basically pretty and gentle. True, their ears were flat back against their skulls, and their manes flared like dangerous spikes, their tails flicked like weapons, their teeth showed white in the moonlight, and their eyes stared slantwise at him as if he were prey instead of monster--but he knew he could throw any of them far out across the plain, if he chose, when he had his normal ogre strength. Why should they want to come within his reach?
In a moment he had the answer. These were standard nightmares, used to carry bad dreams to their proper dreamers. They had not been cursed with the Eye Queue; they had no super-equine intelligence. They were giving him the standard treatment, crowding him, trying to scare him--
Smash burst out laughing. Imagine anything scaring an ogre!
The mares broke ranks, startled. This was not S. 0. P. The victim was not supposed to laugh. What was wrong?
Smash was sorry. "I didn't mean to mess up your act, mares," he said apologetically. "Circle me again, and I'll pretend to be frightened. I don't want you to get in trouble with your Stallion. In fact, I'd like to meet him myself. I don't suppose you could take me to him?"
Still the mares milled about. Their formation was in a shambles. They were not here to play a game, but to terrify. Since that had failed, they had other business to attend to. After all, night had been drawing nigh when he entered the gourd. The group began breaking up. Probably they would be all over Xanth within the next hour, bearing their burdensome dreams.
"Wait!" Smash cried. "Which of you gave Tandy a ride?"
One mare hesitated, as if trying to remember. "A year ago," Smash said. "A small human girl, brown hair, throws tantrums."
The black ears perked forward. The mare remembered!
"She sends her thanks," Smash said. "You really helped her."
The mare nickered, seeming interested. Did these creatures really care about the welfare of those on whom they visited the bad dreams? Yet his Eye Queue warned him that it was not safe to judge any creature by his or her job. Some ogres did not crunch bones; some mares might not hate girls.
"Did you mean to destroy her?" he asked. "By taking a lien on her soul?"
The mare's head lifted back, nostrils flaring.
"You didn't know?" Smash asked. "When she wandered into the gourd, the coffin-creep stole her soul, on the pretext she owed it for the ride."
The mare snorted. She hadn't known. That made Smash feel better. Life was a jungle inside the gourd as well as in Xanth, with creatures and things grasping whatever they could get from the unwary. But some were innocent.
"She might visit here again," he continued. "You might see her following my string." He pointed to the line he had laid out behind him. "If you like, you could give her another ride and sort of explain things to her. It would help her catch up to me quickly. But no more liens!"
The mare snorted and pawed the ground. She was not interested in giving rides.
"Maybe I can make a deal with you," Smash said. "I don't want Tandy getting in trouble in here." Not at the risk of her soul, certainly! "Is there anything I can do for you, outside?"
The mare considered. Then she brightened. She licked her lips.
"Something to eat?" Smash asked, and the mare nodded. "Something nice?" She agreed again. "Rock candy?" She neighed nay.
Smash played the guessing game, but could not quite come up with the correct item. All the other mares had departed, and this one was fidgeting; he could not hold her longer. "Well, if I find it, maybe I'll know it," Smash said. "Maybe Tandy will know, and bring it with her, if she comes. You keep in touch, okay?"
The nightmare nodded, then turned and trotted off. No doubt she was going to pick up her load of unpleasant dreams for delivery to her clientele of sleepers. Maybe some of them were his friends at the fireoak tree. "Good luck!" Smash called after her, and she flicked her tail in acknowledgment.
Alone again, he wondered whether he had been foolish. What business did he have with nightmares? What would a nightmare want from a person, that the mare could not pick up for herself on her rounds? He was an ogre who loved violence and horror, and he was here on a personal mission. Yet somehow he felt it was best to get along with any creature he could; perhaps something would come of it.
This confounded Eye Queue! Not only did it set him to trying un-ogrish things, it rendered him confused about the meaning of these things and full of uncomfortable selfdoubt. What a curse it was!
He faced resolutely forward and resumed his tromping. He saw something new on the horizon and proceeded toward it. Soon it manifested as a building--no, as a castle--no, larger yet, an entire city, enclosed by a forbidding wall.
As he drew close, he discovered the city was solid gold. Every part of it scintillated in the moonlight, shades of deep yellow. But when he drew closer yet, he found that it was not gold but brass--just as shiny, but not nearly as precious. Still it was a marvel.
The outer wall was unbroken, riveted metal, gleaming at every angle. The front gate was the same, so large it dwarfed even Smash's monstrous proportions. This was the sort of city giants would
inhabit!
Smash considered that. The little knobs of the haunted house had shocked him; how much worse would this one be? He was not at all sure he could rip this door from its moorings; it was big and strong, and he was now relatively weak. This was not a situation he liked to admit, but he was no longer properly stupid about such things.
He pondered, drawing on the full curse of the Eye Queue. What he needed was insulation--something to protect him from shock. But there was nothing near; the city wall rose out of sand. He might use his orange jacket--but he was not wearing it, here in the gourd. All he had was the string, and that wasn't suitable.
No help for it. He would have to touch the metal. Actually, there might be a metal floor inside that he would have to walk on; if he were going to get shocked, it would happen with every step. Might as well find out now. He extended a hamfinger and touched the knob.
There was no shock. He grasped and turned the knob. It clicked, and the door swung inward. It wasn't locked!
There was a bright metal hall leading from the gate into the city. Smash walked down it, half expecting the door to slam shut behind him. It did not. He continued through the hall, his bare, furry soles thumping on the cool metal.
He emerged into an open court with a paving of brass, the moonlight bearing down preternaturally. All was silent. No creatures roamed the city.
"Ho!" Smash bellowed, loud enough to disturb the dead, as seemed appropriate in this realm.
No dead were disturbed. If they heard, they were ignoring him. The city seemed to be empty. There was an eerie quality to this that Smash liked. But he wondered who had made this city and where those people had gone. It seemed like far too interesting a place to desert. If ogres built cities, this was the sort of city they would build. But of course no ogre was smart enough to build a single building, let alone a city, certainly not a lovely city of brass.
He tromped through it, his big, flat feet generating a muted booming on the metal street. Brass buildings rose on either side, their walls making blank brass faces at precise right angles to the street. He looked up and saw that the tops were squared off, too. There were no windows or doors. Of course that didn't matter to the average ogre; he could always bash out any windows when and where he wanted. All was mirror-shiny; he could see his appalling reflection in every surface that faced him. Brass ogres paced him to either side, and another walked upside down under the street.
Smash remembered the story his father Crunch had told of entering a sleeping city and discovering the lovely mushfaced ogress who had become Smash's mother. This city of brass was pleasantly reminiscent of that. Was there an ogress here for him? That was an exciting prospect, though he hoped she wasn't made of brass.
He traversed the city, but found no entrance to any building. If an ogress was sleeping here, she was locked away where he couldn't reach her. Smash banged on a wall, making it reverberate; but though the sound boomed pleasantly throughout the city, no one stirred. He punched harder, trying to break a hole in the wall. It was no good; he was too weak, the brass was too strong, and he lacked his protective gauntlets. His fist smarted, so he stuck it in his mouth.
Smash was beginning to be bothered. Before there had been halfway interesting things like walking skeletons, electrified doors, and nightmares. Now there was just brass. What could he accomplish here?
He invoked the curse of the Eye Queue yet again and did some solid thinking. So far, each little adventure within the gourd had been a kind of riddle; he had to overcome some barrier or beat some sort of threat before he could continue to the next event. So it was probably not enough just to enter this empty city and depart; that might not count. He had to solve the riddle, thus narrowing the options, reducing the remaining places for the Night Stallion to hide. Straight physical action did not seem to be the requirement here. What, then, was?
There must be a nonphysical way to deal with this impassive place, perhaps to bring it to life so it could be conquered. Maybe a magical spell. But Smash did not know any spells, and somehow this city seemed too alien to be magical. What else, then?
He paced the streets, still unreeling his string, careful never to cross his own path. And, in a little private square directly under the moon, he discovered a pedestal. Significant things were usually mounted on pedestals directly under the moon, he remembered. So he marched up to it and looked.
He was disappointed. There was only a brass button there. Nothing to do except to press it: There might be serious consequences, but no self-respecting ogre worried about that sort of thing. He turned his big hamthumb down and mashed the button. With luck, all hell would break loose.
As it happened, luck was with him. Most of hell broke loose.
There was a pleasantly deafening klaxon alarm noise that filled all this limited universe with vibrations. Then the metal buildings began shifting about, moving along the floor of the city, squeezing the streets and the court. In a moment there would be no place remaining for him to stand.
This was more like it! At first Smash planned to brace himself and halt the encroaching buildings by brute ogre strength. But he lacked his full power now, and anyway, it was better to use his brain. Perhaps the Eye Queue was gradually subverting him, causing him to endorse its nature; already it seemed like less of a curse, and he knew--because, ironically, of the intelligence it provided him--that this was a significant signal of corruption. Mental power tended to corrupt, and absolute intelligence tended to corrupt absolutely, until the victim eschewed violence entirely in favor of smart solutions to stupid problems. Smash hoped he could fight off the curse before it ever ruined him to that extent! If he stopped being stupid, brutal, and violent, he would no longer be a true ogre.
Nevertheless, the expedience of the moment forced him to utilize his mind. He knew that a block that moved one way had to leave a space behind it, unless it happened to be expanding rapidly. He zipped between buildings, emerging from the narrowing aisle just before the two clanged together. Sure enough, there was a new space where a building had stood. It was perfectly smooth brass except for a cubic hole where the center of the building had been. Probably that was the anchoring place, like part of a lock mechanism; a heavy bolt would drop down from the building to wedge in that hole and keep the building from sliding about when it wasn't supposed to. When he had pressed the brass button, the lock bolts had lifted, freeing the buildings. Buildings, like clouds, bashed about all over the place when given the freedom to do so. The klaxon had sounded to warn all crushable parties that motion was commencing, so they could either get out of the way or pick their favorite spot. It all made a sort of violent sense, his Eye Queue informed him. He liked this city better than ever.
Now the building blocks were bouncing back, converging on him. Smash moved again, avoiding what could be a crushing experience. He found himself in a new open space, with another anchorage slot.
But the blocks were moving more quickly now, as if getting warmed up. Because they were big, he needed a certain amount of time to run between them. If they speeded up much more, he would not have time to clear before they clanged. That could be awkward.
"Well, brain, what do you say to this?" he asked challengingly. "Can you outsmart two buildings that plan to catch me and squish me flat?"
His vine-corrupted brain, thus challenged, rose to the occasion. "Get in the pit," it told him.
Smash thought this was crazy. But already the brass was moving, sounding off with its tune of compression, and he had to act. He leaped into the pit as the blank metal face of the building charged him.
Too late, it occurred to him, or to his Eye Queue--it became difficult at times to distinguish ogre-mind from vine-mind--that he could be crushed when the bolt dropped down to anchor the building. But that should happen only when the building was finished traveling and wanted to settle down for a rest. He would try to be out by then. If he failed--well, squishing was an ogrish kind of demise.
It was dark there as the metal underbody of the bui
lding slid across. He felt slightly claustrophobic--another weakness of intelligence, since a true ogre never worried about danger or consequence. What would happen if the building did not move off?
Then light flashed down from above. Smash blinked and discovered that the center of the building was hollow, glowing from the inner walls. He had found his way inside!
He scrambled up and stood on the floor, still holding his ball of string. The building was still moving, but there was no way it could crush him now. The building floor covered everything except the square where the anchorage hole would be when it lay at anchor, so he could simply ride along with it.
He looked about--and spied an army of brass men and women, each individual fully formed, complete with brass facial features, hair, and clothing--the men fully clothed, the women less so. But they were statues, erected on platforms that, like the floor, moved with the building. Nothing here was of interest to an ogre. He knew brass wasn't good to eat.
Then he spied another brass button.
Well, why not? Maybe this one would make the building stop moving. Of course, if this one stopped and the other buildings did not, there would be a horrendous crash. Smash jammed his thumb down on the button.
Instantly the brass statues animated. The metal people spied the ogre and converged on him. And Smash--
Found himself leaning against the fireoak tree. Tandy stood before him, holding the gourd. She had broken his line of vision to the peephole. "Are you all right, Smash?" she asked with her cute concern.
"Certainly!" he grumped. "Why did you interrupt me? It was just getting interesting."
"The lunatic fringe is tearing," she said worriedly. "The human villagers are in the area and will soon discover the tree."
"Well, bring me back when they do," Smash said. "I have metal men to fight inside."