"Metal men?"
"And women. Solid brass."
"Oh," she said, uncomprehending. "Remember, you're in there to fight for your soul. I worry about you. Smash."
He guffawed. "You worry about me! You're human; I'm an ogre!"
"Yes," she agreed, but her face remained drawn. "I know what it's like in there. You put your soul in peril for me. I can't forget that. Smash."
"You don't like it in there," he pointed out. "I do. And I agreed to protect you. This is merely another aspect." He took the gourd back and applied his eye to the peephole.
The brass people were converging, exactly where they had been when he left. They seemed not even to be aware of his brief absence. The building was moving, too--but it had not moved in the interim. His Eye Queue-cursed brain found all this interesting, but Smash had no time for that nonsense at the moment. The brassies were almost on him.
The first one struck at him. The man was only half Smash's height, but the metal made him solid. Smash hauled him up by the brassard and threw him aside. Smash still lacked the strength to do real damage, but at least he could fight weakly. In his strength he would have hurled the brass man right through the brass wall of the building.
A female grabbed at him. Smash hooked a forefinger into her brassiere and hauled her up to his eye level. "Why are you attacking me?" he asked, curious rather than angry.
"We're only following our program," she said, kicking at him with a pretty brass foot.
"But if you fight me, I shall have to fight you," he pointed out. "And I happen to be a monster."
"Don't try to reason with me, you big hunk of flesh; I'm too brassy for that." She swung at him with a metal fist. But he was holding her at his arm's length, so she could not reach him.
Something was knocking at his knee. Smash looked down. A man was striking at him with his brass knuckles. Smash dropped the brass girl on the brass man's brass hat, and the two crashed to the floor in a shower of brass tacks. They cried out with the sound of brass winds.
Now a half-dozen brassies were grabbing at Smash's legs, and he lacked the strength to throw them all off at once. So he reached down to pluck them off one at a time--
He was under the tree again. He saw the problem immediately. Half a dozen brassies--no, these were men and women of the human village--were converging on the tree, bearing wicked-looking axes. The hamadryad was screaming.
Smash had no patience with this. He stood up, towering over the villagers, ogre-fashion. He roared a fine ogre roar.
The villagers turned and fled. They didn't know Smash was short of strength at the moment. Otherwise they could have attacked him and perhaps put him in difficulty, in the same way the brassies were doing in the gourd. He had replaced the illusion of the lunatic fringe with the illusion of his own formidability.
The hamadryad dropped from her tree, her hair glowing like fire, catching him about the neck. She was now a vibrant, healthy creature. "You great big wonderful brute of a creature!" she exclaimed, kissing his furry ear. Smash was oddly moved; as the centaur had noted, ogres were seldom embraced or kissed by nymphs.
He handed the hamadryad back into her tree, then settled down for another session in the gourd. None of them had anywhere to go until the King got the news and acted to protect the tree permanently, and he wanted to wrap up this gourd business.
"Wake me at need," he said, noting that the shimmer of the lunatic fringe was now almost gone. If trees had ogres to protect them instead of cute but helpless hamadryads, very few trees would be destroyed. Of course, ogres themselves were prime destroyers of trees, using them to make toothpicks and such, so he was in no position to criticize. He applied his left eye to the peephole this time, giving his right orb a rest.
He stood in an alley between buildings. What was this? The sequence was supposed to pick up exactly where it had left off. What had gone wrong?
The two buildings slid toward him, forcing him to scoot out of the way. Smash emerged into a new space--and saw his line of string. He was about to cross his own path! But he couldn't retreat; the buildings were clanging behind him.
Still, his cursed Eye Queue wouldn't let him leave well enough alone. It wanted to know why the gourd scene had slipped a notch. Was the gourd getting old, beginning to rot, breaking down its system? He didn't want to be trapped in a rotting gourd.
The buildings separated, starting to converge on a new spot. The alley reopened, the string he had just set out running down its length--and stopping.
Smash ran to the end of it. The string had been severed cleanly; it ended at the point he had re-entered the vision.
But as the buildings separated. Smash saw another cut end of string. That must be where he had been before, just a little distance away. He had jumped no farther than he could have bounded by foot. But he hadn't jumped physically; he had left the scene, then returned to it slightly displaced. Why?
The buildings reversed course and closed on him again. They certainly wasted no time pondering questions! Smash ran back, his mind working. And suddenly it came to him--he had switched eyes! His left eye was a little apart from his right eye--and though that distance was small in the real world of Xanth, it was larger in the tiny world of the gourd. So there had been a shift, and a break in his string.
Well, that had freed him of the brass folk. But Smash couldn't accept that. He didn't want to escape, he wanted to win, to conquer this setting and go on to the next, knowing he had narrowed the Night Stallion's options. He wanted to do his job right, leaving no possible loophole for the loss of his soul. So he had to go back to the place he had left off, and resume there.
He followed his prior line, dragging his new line behind him. He found the square pit as the building moved off it, and he got down into it. The building swung back, and the interior light came on. Smash climbed out and ran to the end of his string.
The brass folk saw him and came charging in. Smash tied the two ends of string together, making his line complete, then stood as half a dozen people grabbed him. This was where he had left off; now it was all right.
He resumed plucking individual brass folk off. One of them was the girl in the brassiere. "You again?" he inquired, holding her up by one finger, as he had done before. It was really the best place, since she was flailing all her limbs wildly. "Do I have to drop you again?"
"Don't you dare drop me again!" she flashed, her brass surface glinting with ire. She took an angry breath--which almost dislodged her, for she had a full brassiere and his purchase on it was slight. "I have a dent and three scratches from the last time, you monster!" She pointed at her arms. "There's a scratch. There's another. But I won't show you the dent."
"Well, you did kick at me," Smash said reasonably, wondering where the dent was.
"I told you! We have to--"
Then he was back in Xanth again. Smash saw the problem immediately; a cockatrice was approaching the tree. The baby basilisk had evidently been recently hatched and was wandering aimlessly--but remained deadly dangerous.
"Put me down, you lunk!"
Startled, Smash looked at the source of the voice. He was still holding the brass girl, dangling by her brassiere hooked on his finger. She had been brought out of the gourd with him!
Hastily Smash set her down, carefully so she would not dent. He had a more immediate matter to attend to. How could he get rid of the cockatrice?
"Oh, look," the brass girl said. "What a cute chick!" She stepped over to the terrible infant, reaching down.
"Don't touch it!" the Siren cried. "Don't even look at it!"
Too late. The brass girl picked up the baby monster. "Oh, aren't you a sweet one," she cooed, turning it in her hand so she could look it in the snoot.
"No!" several voices cried.
Again they were too late. The brass girl stared deeply into the monster's baleful eyes. "Oh, I wish I could keep you for my very own pet, along with my other pets," she said, touching her pert nose to its hideous schnozzle. "I don't hav
e anything like you in my collection."
The chick hissed and bit--but its tiny teeth were ineffective against the brass. "Oh, how nice," the girl said. "You like me, don't you!"
Apparently the little monster's powers were harmless against the metal girl. She was already harder than stone.
"Uh, miss--" the Siren said.
"I'm called Biyght," the brass girl said. "Of Building Four, in the City of Brass. Who are you?"
"I'm called the Siren," the Siren said. "Biythe, we would appreciate it if--"
"Biyght," the girl corrected her brassily.
"Sorry. I misheard. Biyght. If you would--"
"But I think I like Biythe better. This place is so much softer than I'm used to. So you can use that, Sirn."
"Siren. Two syllables."
"That's all right. I prefer one syllable, Sirn."
"You can change names at will?" John asked incredulously.
"Of course. All brassies can. Can't you?"
"No," the fairy said enviously.
"Biythe, that animal--" the Siren broke in. "It's deadly to us. So if you would--"
Smash had been looking around to see if there were any other dangers. At this point his eye fell on the gourd--and even from a distance his consciousness was drawn into the peephole, and he was back among the brassies. This time he stood within the building, but apart from the crowd, and his string had been interrupted again. He was using his right eye.
The brass folk spied him and charged. This was getting pointless. "Wait!" he bellowed.
They paused, taken aback. "Why?" one inquired. "Because I accidentally took one of your number out of the gourd, and if anything happens to me, she'll be forever stranded there."
They were appalled, almost galvanized. "That would be a fate worse than death!" one cried. "That would be--" He paused, balking at the awful concept.
"That would be--life," another brass man whispered. There was a sudden hush of dread.
"Yes," Smash agreed cruelly. "So I have to fetch her back. And I will. But you'll have to help me."
"Anything," the man said, his brass face tarnishing. "Tell me how to get out of here, on my own."
"That's easy. Take the ship."
"The ship? But there's no water here!" Several brassies smiled metallically. "It's not that kind of ship. It's the Luna-fringe-shuttle. You catch it at the Luna triptych building."
"Show me to it," Smash said.
They showed him to a brass door that opened to the outside. "You can't miss it," they assured him. "It's the biggest block in the city."
Smash thanked them and stepped out. The buildings were still moving, but now he had the experience and confidence to travel by their retreating sides, avoiding collisions. He glanced back at the building he had left and saw the number 4 inscribed on the side, but there was no sign of the door he had exited by. Apparently it was a one-way door that didn't exist from this side.
Soon he spied a building twice the size of the others. That had to be the one. He ducked into an anchor hole as the building approached, and in a moment was inside.
There was the fringe-shuttle, like a monstrous arrowhead standing on its tail. It had a porthole in the side big enough to admit him, so he climbed in.
He found himself in a tight cockpit that the cock seemed to have vacated. There was only one place to sit comfortably, a kind of padded chair before a panel full of dinguses. So he sat there, knowing he could bash the dinguses out of the way if they bothered him. There was another brass button on the panel, and he punched it with his thumb.
The porthole clanged closed. A wheel spun itself about. Air hissed. Straps rose up from the chair and wrapped themselves around his body. A magic mirror lit up before his face. An alarm klaxon sounded. The ship shuddered, then launched upward like a shot from a catapult, punching through the roof.
In moments the mirror showed clouds falling away ahead. Then the moon came into view, growing larger and brighter each moment. It was now a half-circle. Of course--that was why the lunatic fringe no longer shrouded the fireoak tree--not enough moon left to sustain it. But the half that remained seemed solid enough, except for the round holes in it. Of course, cheese did have holes; that was its nature.
Now it occurred to him that the brassies might have misconstrued his request. They had shown him the way out of the City of Brass--but not out of the gourd. Well, nothing to do now but carry this through. Maybe the ship could get him back to the fireoak tree.
He didn't really want to go to the moon, though the view of all that fresh cheese made him hungry. After all, it had been at least an hour since he had eaten that bushel of fruit. So he checked the panel before him and found a couple of projecting brass sticks. He grabbed them, wiggling them about.
The moon veered out of the mirror-picture, and Smash was flung about in his chair as if tossed by a storm. Fortunately, the straps held him pretty much in place. He let go of the sticks--and after a moment the moon swung back into view. Evidently he had messed up the ship's program. His Eye Queue curse caused him to ponder this, and he concluded that the sticks controlled the ship. When they were not in use, the ship sailed where it wanted, which was evidently a hole in the cheese of the moon. Maybe this Luna shuttle was the mechanism by which the moon's cheese was brought to Xanth, though he wasn't sure what use metal people would have for cheese.
Smash took hold of the sticks again and wiggled more cautiously. Ogres were clumsy only when it suited them to be so; they could perform delicate tasks when no one was watching. The moon danced about but did not leave the screen. He experimented some more, and soon was able to steer the ship where he wanted and to make it go at any speed he wanted.
Fine--now he would take it back to Xanth and land beside the fireoak tree. Then he could turn it over to Biythe Brassie so she could fly back to her city and building.
Then blips appeared on the screen. They were shaped like little curse-burrs and were hurtling toward him. What did they want?
Then flashes of light came near him. The ship shook. The screen flared red for a moment, as if it had been knocked half silly. Smash understood this sort of thing. It was like getting knocked in the snoot by a fist and having stars and planets fly out from one's head. The entire night sky was filled with the stars flung out from people's heads in the course of prior fights, but Smash didn't care to have his own lights punched out. The thing to do was to hit back and destroy the enemy.
He checked the panel again, enjoying the prospect of a new type of violence. There was a big button he hadn't noticed before. Naturally he thumbed it.
A flash of light shot toward the blips, evidently from his own ship. It was throwing its sort of rocks when he told it to. Very well, in this strange gourd world, he could accept the notion of a fist made of light. But it wasn't aimed well, and missed the blips. It lanced on to blast a chunk of cheese out of the moon. Grated cheese puffed out into space in a diffuse cloud, where some of the blips went after it; no doubt they were hungry, too.
Smash pressed the button again, sending out another fist of light. This one missed both blips and moon. But he was getting the feel of it; he had to have his target in the very center of the mirror, where there was a faint intersection of lines like the center of a spider web. Funny place for a spider to work; maybe it had been trying to catch stray stars or blips or bits of blasted cheese.
To center the target, he had to work the two sticks in a coordinated fashion. He did so, after glancing nervously about to make quite sure no one was near to see him being so well coordinated. Of course, it took more than strength to balance his whole body on a single hamfinger or to smash a rock into a particular grade of gravel with one blow, but that was an ogre secret. It was fashionable to appear clumsy.
When he had a blip centered, he pushed the button with his big left toe so he wouldn't have to stop maneuvering. This time his aim was good; the beam speared out and struck the blip, which exploded with lovely violence and pretty colors.
This was fun!
Not as much fun as physical bashing would be, but excellent vicarious mayhem. Ogres could appreciate beauty, too--the splendor of bursting bodies or of blips flying apart, forming intricate and changing patterns in the sky. He oriented on another blip, but it took evasive action.
Meanwhile, all the other blips were nearer, and their light-fists were striking closer. He had to dodge them, and that interfered with his own strikes.
Well, he was not an ogre for nothing! He licked his chops, worked his sticks, looped about, oriented, fired, dodged, and oriented again. Two more blips exploded beautifully.
Then the fight intensified. But Smash loved combat of any kind and was good at it; he didn't have to use physical fists. He almost liked this form of fighting better, because it was less familiar and therefore more of a challenge. He knocked out blip after blip, and after a while the remaining blips turned tail and fled past the moon. He had won the battle of the Luna fringe!
He was tempted to pursue the blips, so as to continue the pleasure of the fight a little longer, but realized that if he wiped them all out at this time, they would not have a chance to regenerate and return for future battles. Better to let them go, for the sake of more fun on future days. Also, he had other business.
He turned the ship about and headed for Xanth, which resembled a small disk from this vantage, like a greenish pie. That made him hungry again. Well, he would be careful not to miss it. He accelerated, zooming happily onward.
Chapter 8
Dragon's Ear
He was back in Xanth. "Smash, something else is coming!" Tandy cried.
"That's all right," he said. "I've won another battle. I feel stronger." And he did; he knew he was winning the gourd campaign, getting closer to the Night Stallion, and recovering physical strength in the process. It had been in large part his former hopelessness that had weakened him. He had believed his soul was doomed, until learning that he could fight for it in another gourd.
Biythe Brassie was still here. Now he wondered--how had she been carried out with him, when he had not been physically in the gourd?