Ogre, Ogre

by Piers Anthony

  Smash took the Ear and listened. "I hear the brass spaceship," he said.

  Biythe took it. "I hear my own folk! They're playing the brass band! I must be ready to go home!"

  "Are you sure?" the Siren asked.

  "Yes, I think I am now," the brass girl said. "I have experienced enough of your world to know I like mine better. You are all nice enough people, but you just aren't brass."

  "All too true," the Siren agreed. "We must find another gourd so Smash can take you back. We might all prefer your world at this moment."

  "Maybe that's the silence you heard," Tandy said. "A gourd."

  "No, there's lots of noise in the gourd," Smash said. "It's an ogrishly fun place."

  "Let's find that gourd!" Biythe exclaimed. She was hardly bothered by the sand; she was merely homesick.

  "Not until this storm dies down," the Siren said firmly. "Gourds don't grow in this weather."

  "But this is the Region of Air; the wind will never die," Biythe protested.

  Chem nodded agreement. "I have, as you know, been mapping the inner wilds of Xanth; that's why I'm here. My preliminary research, augmented by certain references along the way, suggests that there are five major elemental regions in Unknown Xanth: those of Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and the Void. This certainly seems to be Air--and probably the storm never stops here. Well just have to plow on out of it."

  "I can plow!" Biythe said eagerly. She milled her brass hands and began tunneling through the mounded sand. In moments she had started a tunnel.

  "Good idea!" Tandy exclaimed. "I'll help!" She shook sand out of her hair and fell in behind the brass girl, scooping the sand farther back. Soon the others were helping, too, for as the tunnel progressed, the sand had longer to go before it cleared.

  Finally they were all doing it, in a line, with Smash at the tail end packing the sand into a lengthening passage behind. Progress was slow but relatively comfortable. Periodically Biythe would tunnel to the surface to verify that the storm was still there. When they came to a sheltering cliff, they emerged and made better time on the surface.

  The landscape was bleak: all sand and more sand. There were dunes and valleys, but no vegetation and no water.

  The wind was indefatigable. It howled and roared and whistled. It formed clouds and swirls and funnels, doing its peculiar sculpture in the sky. Every so often a funnel would swoop in near the cliff, trying to suck them into its circular maw, but it could not maintain itself so close to the stone. Smash was aware that this must be a great frustration to the funnels, which were rather like ogres in their way--all violence and brainlessness.

  Then they came to another demarcation. As they stepped across it, the winds abruptly ceased. The air cleared miraculously. But this was no improvement, for the violence of the air was replaced by the violence of the land. The ground shuddered, and not by any ogre's tread. It was an earthquake!

  "Oh, I don't like this!" Chem said. "I've always been accustomed to the firmness of ground beneath my hooves."

  Smash glanced at her. The centaur girl was standing with her forelegs braced awkwardly in different directions, her brown coat dulled by the recent sand-scouring, her tail all atremble, and her human breasts dancing rather appealingly. "Maybe the ground is firmer farther north," he suggested.

  They turned north--and encountered an active volcano. Red-hot lava boiled out of it and flowed down the slope toward them. "Oh, this is worse yet!" Chem complained, slapping at a spark that landed in her pretty tail. She was really shaken; this was just not her type of terrain.

  The Siren listened to the Gap Dragon's Ear again. "Say!" she said. "The sounds differ, depending on which way I face!" She rotated, listening intently. "To the north, it's a horrendous crashing; that's the volcano we see. I can hear the sound as I see it belch. To the south, it's the roaring of winds. We've already been there. To the west, a sustained rumble--the main part of the earthquake. To the east--" She smiled beautifically. "A lovely, quiet, still silence."

  "Graves are silent," Tandy said with a shudder.

  "Better a graveyard than this," Chem said. "We can walk on through a cemetery."

  "Sometimes," Tandy agreed.

  They turned east. The ground shifted constantly beneath them as if trying to prevent progress, but they were determined to get free of this region.

  As the sun set tiredly beyond the volcano, fortunately not landing inside it, they reached another demarcation of zones. Just beyond it was a patch of hypnogourds. The silence was not of the grave, but of a garden area.

  "I never thought I'd be glad to see a patch of those," Tandy said grimly.

  "This is where we spend the night," the Siren said. "While we're at it, let's find out whether those gourds are edible."

  "Save one! Save one!" Biythe cried.

  "Of course, dear. Try this one." The Siren handed the brass girl a nice big gourd.

  Biythe hesitated, then looked into the peephole. She looked back up. "There's nothing there," she said.

  "Nothing there?" It had not occurred to Smash that any of the gourds could be inoperative. He took the gourd from Biythe and looked in.

  And found himself in the spaceship, spinning toward the ground. Hastily he grabbed the controls and tilted it back to equilibrium. Without the brass girl entangling him, he could manage just fine.

  In moments he brought the ship back to the City of Brass and to the launching building. He managed to turn it around and land fairly neatly. Then he got out and made his way through the moving buildings to the one where Biythe lived. Number Four, following his string back. He wondered idly whether he had left a trail of string strewn all over the sky, near the moon. He had lost that string in Xanth, but retained it here. Good enough.

  The brassies clustered around him. "Where is Biyght?" they demanded. "We're rehearsing with our brass band, and we need her."

  "Biythe. She changed her name. She'll be back as soon as I can fetch her. She heard you practicing, and said she would come back very soon. I had to find my way back here, because spaceships scare her."

  "Of course; we are afraid of heights. We dent when we fall too far. Biyght already had a dent in her--"

  "Don't speak of that to a stranger!" a brass girl told the male brassie.

  "So give me some time," Smash said, "and I'll return her. Now I know how to do it."

  They were not quite satisfied with this, but let him be. Smash settled down in a niche that moved with the wall, and snoozed.

  Chapter 9

  Gourmet

  He woke in Xanth, where Tandy had taken away the gourd. "I never know how long to give you," she said. "I'm very nervous about leaving you in there." She lifted the Gap Dragon's Ear. "I kept listening in this, and when it got pretty quiet, I thought maybe it was time to bring you out. I wasn't sure it was you I was listening to, but since your health is relevant to mine--"

  Smash took the Ear. He heard a guttural voice, saying, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, pass this fist or take a fall," followed by a tinkling crash.

  "It's not quiet now," Smash reported. "Sounds like me talking."

  She smiled. "Talk all you want. Smash. You're my mainstay in this strange surface world. I do worry when you're gone."

  Smash put his huge, hairy paw over her tiny human hand. "I appreciate that, Tandy. I know it would be bad for you if you got stranded alone in wilderness Xanth. But I am learning to handle things in the gourd, and I am getting stronger."

  "I hope so," she said. "We all do need you, and not just for protection from monsters. Chem says there seems to be a mountain range to the north that we can't scale; the dragons are to the east, and the air storm to the south. So we'll have to veer west, back through the Region of Earth--and that volcano is still spewing hot lava."

  "We shall just have to wait till the lava stops," Smash said.

  "Yes. But we don't know how long that will be--and it will have to cool so we can walk over it. I guess we're here in the melon patch for a while yet."

  "So
be it," Smash said. He released her hand, lest the inordinate weight of his own damage it. "Did you say these gourds are edible?"

  "Oh, yes, certainly. You can eat all you want. We're all full; they're very good, just so long as you don't look in the peephole. Funny thing is, there's no sign of any world in there, no graveyard or anything." She handed him a gourd, peephole averted.

  Smash took a huge bite. It was indeed good, very sweet and seedy and juicy. It did seem strange that something that could affect his consciousness could also be such good eating--but, of course, that was the nature of things other than gourds. A dragon could be a terrible enemy--but was also pretty good eating, once conquered.

  "That gourd I just looked into--" Smash said between gulps. "Why didn't it return Biythe when she looked?"

  "We discussed that while you were out," Tandy said. She was the only one of the girls who remained awake; the others were sleeping, including the brass girl. Smash wondered briefly why a person made of metal needed to sleep, then realized this was no more remarkable than a person of metal becoming animate at the punch of a button. "We concluded that she is merely a representation, like you when you're in the gourd. So she can't cross through by herself; she has to be taken by one of us. Then her pretend body will vanish here, just as yours vanishes there."

  "Makes sense," Smash agreed, consuming another gourd in a few bites. "Did she disappear when I took her aboard the Luna shuttle ship?"

  "Yes. You remained, holding nothing. Then she reappeared when we took the gourd away, hugging you--"

  "There was no room in that cockpit," Smash explained.

  "I understand," she said, somewhat distantly.

  "I'm out of the ship now, and back in her building. There won't be any trouble this time."

  "That's nice. But please rest before you go back in there," Tandy said. "There is time, while we wait for the lava to stop. And--"

  Smash glanced at her. She was mostly a silhouette in the wan moonlight, rather pretty in her pensiveness. "Yes?"

  She shrugged. "Take care of yourself, Smash."

  "Ogres do," he said, cracking a smile. It seemed to him that she had meant to say something more. But, of course, girls changed their minds readily, especially small girls, whose minds were small. Or whatever.

  When he was comfortably stuffed, Smash stretched out among the gourds and slept. Tandy settled against his furry forearm and slept, too. He was aware of her despite his unconsciousness, and found he rather liked her cute little company. He was becoming distressingly un-ogrish at times; he would have to correct that.

  As dawn brightened, the lava dulled. The volcano was quiescent. The Siren listened to the Ear and reported silence, which she took to mean that they should wait for further cooling. Periodically she tossed damp fragments of gourd on the nearest hardening lava flow; as long as it sizzled and steamed, the time was not yet right.

  "Are you ready to go home, Biythe?" Smash asked the brass girl, knowing the answer. "I'm back in the building."

  "Good and ready, ogre," she agreed with alacrity. She turned to the others. "No offense to you folk; I like you. But I don't understand this wide-open land. It's so much more secure in a brass building."

  "I'm sure it is, dear," the Siren said, embracing her. "Maybe in due course the rest of us will find our own brass buildings."

  "And the way you have to sleep here, instead of getting turned off by a button--that's strange."

  "All creatures are strange in their own fashion," Chem said. "And we want to thank you for what you did with the dragons. You may have saved our hides."

  "I took no risk," Biythe said. But she flushed copper, pleased.

  Then Smash picked Biythe up by her brassiere. "And keep your hand off her knee!" Tandy warned.

  Everyone laughed, and he looked into a delicious seeming gourd.

  This time it worked. They were both in the brass building. The brassies spied them and clustered around. There was a flurry of welcomings. Biythe was certainly glad to be home.

  "Now if you folk can tell me some other way out of here, I will depart," Smash said. "I don't want the spaceship; there must be some land route."

  "Oh, there is!" Biythe said eagerly. "I'll show you."

  "Haven't you had enough of me?" Smash asked.

  "I feel I owe it to you to help you on your way," she said defensively. "I'll show you the way to the paper world."

  "As you wish," Smash agreed. "But you helped us considerably, what with the tunneling and such."

  Her face clouded, turning leaden. "The dragons wouldn't eat me!"

  Smash did not argue the point. Evidently the brass girl had more than one motive for her scene with the dragons.

  Biythe led him out a concealed door, into a smaller chamber. Smash had to hunch over to fit in this one. Then the room jerked and moved, causing him to bump into a wall. "This is an elevator," Biythe explained. "It leads to the paper works, but it takes a little while."

  "I'll wait," Smash said, squatting down and leaning into a corner so he would not be bumped around too much."

  Biythe sat on one of his knees. "Smash--"

  He suffered deja vu. His Eye Queue insisted on running down the relevance immediately, instead of allowing it to be the pleasant mystery nature intended. Tandy had addressed him in much the same way last night. "Yes?"

  "I wanted to talk to you a moment, alone," she confessed. "That's why I volunteered to show you the way. There's something you should know."

  "Where your dent is?"

  "I can't show you that; your knee's in the way. It's something else."

  "You know something about the Night Stallion?" he asked, interested.

  "No, not that," she said. "It's about Xanth."

  "Oh."

  "Smash, I'm not part of your world. But maybe I see something you don't. Those girls like you."

  "And I like them," he admitted, voicing the un-ogrish sentiment with a certain embarrassment. How was be ever going to find his Answer in life if he kept losing his identity? "They're nice people. So are you."

  Again she coppered. "I like them, too. I never knew flesh people before. But that's not what I mean. They--they're not just friends to you. It's hard for me to say, because my own heart's made of brass. They're female; you're male. So--"

  "So I protect them," Smash agreed. "Because females aren't very good at surviving by themselves. I'll help as long as they are with me and need protection."

  "That, too. But it's more than that. Tandy, especially--"

  "Yes, she needs a lot of protection. She hardly knows more of Xanth than you do, and she's not made of metal."

  The brass girl seemed frustrated, but she kept smiling. Her little teeth were brass, too. "We talked, some, while you were in the gourd--that's funny, to think of my whole world as a gourd!--and Tandy told us why she left home. I may be violating a confidence, but I really think you ought to know."

  "Know what?" Smash asked. His Eye Queue informed him he was missing something significant; that was an annoying part of the curse. A true ogre wouldn't have worried!"

  "Why she left home. You see, there was this demon, named Fiant, who was looking for a wife. Well, not a wife, exactly--you know."

  "A playmate?"

  "You could call it that. But Tandy didn't want to play. I gather a demon is like an ifrit, not nice at all. She refused to oblige him. But he pursued her and tried to rape her--"

  "What is that?" Smash asked.

  "Rape? You actually don't know?"

  "I'm not made of brass," he reminded her. "There's lots I don't know. There is a kind of plant in Xanth by that name that girls shy, away from--"

  She sighed. "The Siren's right. You are hopelessly naive. Maybe all males worth knowing are. But, of course, that's why females exist; someone has to know what's what. Look, Smash--do you know the way of a man with a woman?" Her brass face was more coppery than ever, and he realized this was an awkward subject for her.

  "Of course not," he reassured her. "I'm an ogre
."

  "Well, the way of an ogre with an ogress?"

  "Certainly." What was she getting at? She paused. "I'm not sure we're communicating. Maybe you'd better tell me what is the way of an ogre with an ogress."

  "He chases her down, screaming, catches her by a rope of hair, hauls her up by one leg, bashes her head against a tree a few times, throws her down, sets a boulder on her face so she can't get away, then--"

  "That's rape!" Biythe cried, appalled.

  "That's fun," he countered. "Ogresses expect it, and give back little ogres. It's the ogre mode of love."

  "Well, it isn't the human mode of love."

  "I know. Human beings are so gentle, it's a wonder they even know what they're doing. Prince Dor and Princess Irene have taken four years trying to get around to it. Now, if they had a little more ogre heritage, four seconds might be enough to--"

  "Ah...yes," she agreed. "Well, this demon tried to--to make ogre love to Tandy--"

  "Oh, now I understand! Tandy wouldn't like that!"

  "True. She's no ogress. So she left her home and sought help. And the Good Magician told her to travel with you.

  That way the demon can't get her."

  "Sure. If she wants that demon smashed, I'll do it. That's my name."

  "That's not exactly what she wants. You see, she does want to marry--someone other than the demon. And she has a lot to offer the right male. So she hopes to find a suitable husband on this journey. But--"

  "That's wonderful!" Smash said in the best un-ogrish tradition. "Maybe we'll find a nice human man, just right for her."

  "You didn't wait for my but. Smash."

  "Your butt?" he asked, looking at her brass posterior.

  "Where your dent is?"

  "But, B U T," she clarified. "As in however."

  "However has a dent?"

  She paused briefly. "Forget the dent. However she likes you."

  "Certainly, and I like her. So I will help her find herself a man."

  "I don't think you understand, Smash. She may not want to go with her ideal human man, if she finds him, if she likes you too well first."

  He chortled. "Nobody likes an ogre too well!"