Chapter 12: Visible Void.

The three of them--Smash, Tandy, and Chem--proceeded north to the border of the Void, the last of the special regions of central Xanth. "There is great significance to these five elemental regions," Chem said. "Historically, the five elements--Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and the Void--have always been mainstays of magic. So it is fitting that they be represented in central Xanth, and I'm extremely gratified to get them on my map."

"These have been good adventures," Smash agreed. "But just what is the Void? The other elements make sense, but I can't place that one."

"I don't know," the centaur admitted. "But I'm eager to find out. I don't think this region has ever been mapped before by anyone."

"Now is certainly the time," Tandy said. "I hope it's not as extreme as the others were."

Chem brought out her rope. "Let's not gamble on that! I should have tied us when the snow mountain turned to slush, but it happened so fast--"

They linked themselves together as they approached the line. It was abrupt. On the near side the pleasant terrain of the merfolk's lake spread southward. On the far side was nothing they could perceive.

"I'm the lightest," Tandy said. "I'll go first. Pull me back if I fall into a hole." She smoothed back her slightly scorched and tangled brown hair and stepped across the formidable line.

Smash and Chem waited. The rope kept playing out, slowly; obviously Tandy was walking, not falling, and not in any trouble. "Is it all right, Tandy?" the centaur called rhetorically.

There was no answer. The rope continued to move. "Can you hear me? Please answer," Chem called, her brow wrinkling.

Now the slack went taut. Chem stood her ground, refusing to be drawn across the line. Smash tried to peer into the Void, but could see nothing except a vague swirl of fog, from this side.

"I think I'd better pull her back," Chem said, swishing her brown tail nervously. It, too, was somewhat bedraggled as a result of their recent adventures. "I'm not sure anything is wrong; maybe she just doesn't hear me."

Chem hauled. There was resistance. She hesitated, not wanting to apply unreasonable force. "What do you think, Smash?"

Smash put his Eye Queue to work, but it seemed sluggish this time. His logic was fuzzy, his perception confused. "I don't--seem to have much of an opinion," he confessed.

She glanced back at him, surprised. "No opinion? You, with your un-ogrish intelligence? Surely you jest!"

"It best me jest," Smash agreed amicably.

She peered closely at him. "Smash--what happened to your Eye Queue? I don't see the stigma on your head."

Smash touched the fur of his scalp. It was smooth; there was no trace of roughness. "No on; it gone," he said.

"Oh, no! It must have been washed out when you nearly drowned! That's the third thing we've lost--your intelligence. That certainly affects Tandy's prospects here. You're back to being stupid!"

Smash was appalled. Just when he needed intelligence, he had lost it! What would he do now in a crisis?

The centaur was similarly concerned, but she had an answer. "We'll have to use my intelligence for us both, Smash. Are you willing to follow my lead, at least until we get through the Void?"

That seemed to make sense to Smash. "She lead, me accede."

"I'll try to haul her back." Chem drew harder on the rope, and, of course, she had the mass to do it. Suddenly it went slack, and the loose end of it slid back across the line.

"Oh, awful!" the centaur exclaimed, dismayed. She switched her tail violently in vexation. "We've lost her!"

"Oh, awful," Smash echoed, since his originality had dissipated with his intellect. What had happened to Tandy?

"I think I'd better step partway across so I can look without committing myself," she decided. "You stay on this side--and don't let me cross all the way. After a minute, if I don't back out, you haul me out, slowly. Agreed?"

"Me agree, assuredly," he said. He was furious at the Eye Queue for deserting him in his hour of need. Of course he had intended to get rid of the curse--but not just yet. Not at the brink of the Void. Now he was liable to do something ogrishly idiotic, and cost his friends their lives. Even his rhyming seemed ludicrous now; what was the point in it? Not until the curse of the Eye Queue had descended on him had he appreciated how stupid a typical ogre seemed--just a hulking brute, too dull to do more than smash things. Indeed, his very name.

The centaur poked her forepart cautiously through the border. It disappeared into the swirl. Smash felt very much alone, though her hindquarters remained with him. He marveled that a human girl as smart and pretty as Tandy could have any interest in him, even as an animal friend. It must have been the Eye Queue that appealed to her, the intelligence manifesting in the oddest of hosts, the sheer anomaly of the bone-headed genius. Her interest would dissipate the moment she discovered what had happened. That, of course, was best; it would free her full attention for her ideal human-type man, whoever and wherever he might be. Yet Smash remained disquieted.

The fact was, he realized now, the curse had had its positive aspect. Like the curse of the moon that human females labored under--one of the things that distinguished them from nymphs--it was awkward and inconvenient, but carried the potential for an entirely new horizon. Females could regenerate their kind; the Eye Queue enabled a person to grasp far broader aspects of reality. Now, having experienced such aspects, he would be returned to his former ignorance.

A minute had passed and gone some distance beyond, and Chem had not backed out. In fact, she was trying to proceed the rest of the way across the line. Smash knew he had to stop that; even if he was now too stupid to perceive the danger in committing oneself to a potential course-of-no-return, he remembered the centaur's orders. "Me take up slack, haul she back," he said, inwardly condemning his ogrish crudity of expression. He might be stupid; did he have to advertise it so blatantly?

That started another chain of thought. Part of the vaunted dullness of ogres was not because of the fact, but because they insisted on the distinguishing characteristic of expression. He could have said, "Because my friend the filly centaur, a decent and intelligent person with a useful magic graphological talent, may be in difficulty, I am required to exert myself according to her expressed wish and draw her gently but firmly back across the demarcation between territories. Then we shall consider how best to proceed." Instead, he had spouted the idiotic ditty in the ludicrous manner of his kind. Surely the Eye Queue vine had been as much of a curse in its untimely departure as in its arrival!

There was resistance. Either Chem didn't want to come back, or something was hauling her forward. Smash drew harder on the rope, but the centaur braced forward, fighting it. Something was definitely amiss. Even an idiot could tell that Smash was tempted to give one monstrous tug on the rope and haul her back head over tail, as an ordinary ogre would, but several things restrained him. First, her mass was similar to his own; he might lose his footing and yank himself across the line, in the wrong direction. Second, the rope was bound about her humanoid waist, which was delicately narrow; too harsh a force could hurt her. Third, he was not at full strength, so he might not be able to move her effectively even if properly anchored.

Then the rope went slack. Chem, too, was proceeding unfettered into the Void.

Smash dived for her disappearing rump, his ogrish action preceding his inadequate thought. He was too late. She crossed the line. Only her tail flicked back momentarily, as if flicking free a fly.

Smash caught the tail and worked his way along it, hand over hand. Her forward impetus hauled him right up to the line; then he got his balance, dug his toes in, and brought the centaur and himself to a halt.

Now he exerted what remained of his power and drew her back. It sufficed; slowly her rump reappeared. When he got her hind legs across, he shifted his grip carefully, picked up her two feet, and wheelbarrowed her backward. She could not effectively resist, with her feet off the ground.

At last he got her all the way across. She was intact. That relieved one concern. "Tell why she untie," he grunted, not letting her go.

Chem seemed dazed, but soon reorganized herself. "It's not what you think, Smash. It's beautiful in the Void! All mist and fog and soft meadows, and herds of centaurs grazing--"

Smash might be stupid, but not that stupid. "She still in daze. Centaurs no graze."

Her eyes rounded, startled. "Why, that's right! Sea cows graze. Water-horses graze. Black sheep graze. Centaurs eat in human fashion. What am I thinking of?"

Perhaps she had seen a herd of grazing animals and jumped to a conclusion. But that was of little moment at the moment. "That is dandy. Where is Tandy?"

"Oh, Tandy! I didn't see her." Chem was chagrined. "I crossed the line to seek her and was so distracted by the beauty of the region that I forgot my mission. I'm not usually that flighty!"

True enough. Chem was a filly with all four hooves on the ground. She was less aggressive than her father Chester and less imperious than her mother Cherie, but still had qualities of determination and stability that were to be commended. It was entirely unlike her to act in an impetuous or thoughtless manner.

Now something else occurred to Smash. There were various kinds of magic springs in Xanth that trapped the unwary. Some caused a person to fall in love with the first creature of the opposite sex he or she saw; that was how the species of centaur had originated. Some caused a person to turn into a fish. Some healed a person's wounds instantly and cleanly, as if they had never been. Had the group encountered one of those before, John the Fairy would have been able to restore her lost wings. And some springs caused a person to forget.

"She get wet, she forget?" he asked, wishing he could voice his concern more eloquently. Damn his bonehead!

"Wet?" Chem was perplexed. "Oh--you mean as in a lethe-spring? No, I didn't forget in that fashion, as you can see, and I'm sure Tandy didn't. For one thing, there was no spring nearby, certainly not within range of the rope. It's something else. It's just such lovely land, so pleasant and peaceful, I simply had to explore it. Nothing else seemed important, somehow. I knew that farther in there would be even more wonder, and--" She paused. "And I just couldn't step back. I realize that was very foolish of me. But I'm sure that place is safe. No monsters or natural hazards, I mean."

Smash remained doubtful. Tandy was gone, and Chem had almost been gone. It had been no simple distraction of mind that kept her there; she had untied her safety rope and resisted his pullback with all her might. Yet she seemed to be in full possession of her faculties now.

Tandy must have been similarly seduced. She now was wary of the easy paths leading to tanglers and ant-lion lairs, but would not have experienced this particular inducement. Instead of being an easy access path to a pleasant retreat, this was an entire landscape that lured one in. Was that why it was called the Void--because no one ever returned from it, so that nothing was known about it?

If that were so, how could they leave Tandy to its merciless mercy? She needed to be rescued immediately!

"As I see it," Chem said, "we shall have to go in and look for Tandy and try to bring her out. We risk getting trapped ourselves--not, I think, by some monster, but by the sheer delight of the region. We won't want to leave." She flicked her tail, perturbed. "I realize this is a lot to ask of you now. Smash, but do you have any opinion?"

How ironic! If the curse had stayed with him just a little longer, he could have marshaled its formidable power and expressed an eloquently cogent and relevant thought that might completely clarify their troubled course. Something like: "Chem, I suggest you employ your three-dimensional holographic map-projection to chart the Void as we explore it, so that not only will we be able to orient more specifically on Tandy's most likely course, we shall also have no difficulty finding our way out again." But the curse had left him, so that he had become too stupid to think of that, let alone express it. All that actually came out was, "Make map, leave trap."

"Map? Trap?" she asked, her brow furrowing. "I do want to chart the Void, as I do everything, but I don't see how--"

Sure enough, he had not gotten through. He tried again. "Find way, no stay."

"Use my magic map to find our way out?" She brightened. "Of course! We can't get lost if I keep it current. I'll mark a dotted line; then we can follow it back if there is any problem. That's a very good idea, Smash." She said it comfortingly, as one would to a dull child. And, of course, intellectually, that was what he was. What he had been when infected by the weed of smartness was of no present relevance; he had to accept the reality, depressing as it now seemed. He was not, and never would be, inherently intelligent. He was, after all, an ogre.

That would definitely solve one problem, he thought. Tandy might have taken a certain girlish fancy to him--but it had been the enhancement of his intellect provided by the Eye Queue that appealed to her. Now that he was back to normal, she would properly regard him as the animal he was. That was certainly best--though, somehow, he was too stupid to appreciate the nicety of it fully. He had, in fact, been somewhat puffed up by her attention, undeserved as it was, and had rather enjoyed her company, the flattery of her uncritical nearness. He did not relish the prospect of going his way alone again. But of course he had no choice. An ogre went the ogre's way.

"Let's try it," Chem said, coiling her rope. "Let's keep each other in sight, and call out any special things we see. Our object is to locate Tandy and then to bring us all out on the north side of the Void. Do you agree?"

"Good stratagem, centaur femme," he agreed inanely.

She smiled briefly, and he saw how nervous she was. She was afraid of what they were about to encounter in the Void, pleasant though it seemed. She knew their perspectives would change the moment they crossed the line, and that they might never return. "Wish us luck, monster."

"Luck, Chem, pro-tem," he said.

They stepped across the line together.

Chem had been correct. The landscape was even, slightly sloping down ahead, with low-hanging clouds cruising by. The ground was covered with lush turf that seemed innocent and had a fragrant odor, with pretty little flowers speckled through it. Certainly there was no obvious danger. And that, he feared, was the most obvious danger of all.

Now Chem generated her magic map. The image appeared in the air by her head. But this time it expanded enormously, rapidly overlapping the terrain they stood on, so that the features of the Land of Xanth in image passed by them both. Mountains, lakes, and the Gap Chasm--apparently her map was not affected by the forget-spell on the Gap, an item of possible significance--rushed by them. Then trees and streams became large enough to be seen individually, and even occasional animals, frozen as recorded yet seeming to move because of the expansion of the map. "Hey, it's not supposed to do that!" she protested. "It's turning life-size!"

Obviously the map was careering out of control. Smash wondered why that should happen here. If only he had his Eye Queue back, he would be able to realize that this was surely no coincidence, and that it related in some fundamental way to the ultimate nature of the Void. He might even conjecture that the things of the mind, whether animated in the form of a map or remaining inchoate, had considerable impact on the landscape of the Void. Perhaps the interaction between the two created a region of animated imagination that could be a lot of fun, but might also pose considerable threats to sanity if it got out of control. Perhaps no purely physical menace lurked within the Void, but rather, the state of mental chaos that might prevail when no aspects of physical reality intruded upon or limited the generation of fanciful imagery. But naturally a mere stupid ogre could in no way appreciate the tiniest portion of such a complex conjecture, so Smash was oblivious. He hoped this foolish oblivion would not have serious consequences. Ignorance was not necessarily bliss, as any smart creature would know.

Chem, confused by her map's misbehavior, turned it off. Then she tried it again, concentrating intently. This time it expanded from its point source, then contracted to pinpoint size, gyrating wildly, until it steadied down around the size she wanted it. She was learning new control, and this was just as well, for lack of discipline might be extraordinarily troublesome here.

"See, there are the grazing centaurs," Chem said, pointing ahead.

Smash looked. He saw a tribe of grazing ogres. Again, if only he had retained the curse of intelligence, he might have comprehended that another highly significant aspect of this region was manifesting. Chem perceived one nonsensical thing, and he perceived another. That suggested that the preconceptions of the viewer defined in large part what that viewer saw; there was not necessarily any objective standard here. Reality, literally, was something else. In this case, perhaps, a herd of irrelevant creatures was grazing, neither centaurs nor ogres.

If this were so, he might have continued his thought, how could they be certain that anything they saw here was not a kind of illusion? Tandy could be lost in a world of altered realities and not realize it. Since Chem and Smash also were in altered states of perception, the problem of locating Tandy might be immensely more complicated than anticipated. But he, a dull ogre, would merely blunder on, heedless of such potential complications.

"Something funny here," Chem said. "We know centaurs don't graze."

"It seem a dream," Smash said, trying vainly to formulate the concept he knew he could not master without the curse of intellect.

"Illusion!" Chem exclaimed. "Of course! We're seeing other creatures that only look like centaurs." She was smart, as all centaurs were; she caught on quickly. But she didn't have it all yet. "Me no see centaur she," he said clumsily.

"You see something else? Not centaurs?" Again her brow furrowed. "What do you see, Smash?"

Smash tapped his own chest.

"Oh, you see ogres. Yes, I suppose that makes sense. I see my kind, you see yours. But how can we see what is really there?"

This was far too much for him to figure out. If only he had his Eye Queue back, he might be able to formulate a reversal of perspective that would cancel out the mind-generated changes and leave only the undisturbed truth. Perhaps a kind of cross-reference grid, contrasting Chem's perceptions with his own, eliminating the differences. She saw centaurs, he saw ogres--obviously each saw his own kind, so that was suspect. Both saw a number of individuals, so there the perceptions aligned and were probably accurate. Both saw the creatures grazing, which suggested they were, in fact, grazing animals, equine, caprine, bovine, or other. Further comparison on an organized basis, perhaps mapping the distinctions on a variant of Chem's magic map, would in due course yield a close approximation of the truth, whatever it might be.

Of course, it might be that there was nothing. That even their points of agreement were merely common fancies, so that the composite image would be that illusion that was mutually compatible. It just might be, were the fundamental truth penetrated, that what remained in the Void was--nothing. The absence of all physical reality. Creatures thought, therefore they existed--yet perhaps even their thinking was largely illusion. So maybe the thinkers themselves did not exist--and the moment they realized this, they ceased to exist. The Void was--void.

But without his mental curse he wouldn't see any of that, and perhaps this was just as well. If he were going to imagine anything, he should start with the Eye Queue vine! But he would have to use it cautiously, lest the full power of his enhanced intellect succeed only in abolishing himself. He needed to preserve the illusion of existence long enough to rescue Tandy and get them out of the Void, so that their seeming reality became actual. "Me need clue to find Eye Queue," he said regretfully.

Chem took him literally, which was natural enough, since she knew he now lacked the wit to speak figuratively. "You think there are Eye Queue vines growing around here? Maybe I can locate them on my map."

She concentrated, and the suspended map brightened.

Parts of it became greener than others. "I can't usually place items I haven't actually seen," she murmured. "But sometimes I can interpolate, extrapolate from experience and intuition. I think there could be such vines--here." She pointed to one spot on her map, and a marker-glow appeared there. "Though they may be imaginary, just ordinary plants that we happen to see as Eye Queues."

Smash was too stupid to appreciate the distinction. He set off in the direction indicated by the map. The centaur followed, keeping the map near him so he could refer to it at need. In short order he was there--and there they were, the dangling, braided eyeball vines, each waiting to curse some blundering creature with its intelligence and perception.

He grabbed one and set it on his head. It writhed and sank in immediately. How far had he sunk, to inflict so eagerly this curse upon himself!

His intelligence expanded, much as the centaur's map had. Now he grasped many of the same notions he had wished to grasp before. He saw one critical flaw in the technique of using a cross-reference grid to establish reality: turned on his own present curse of intelligence, it would probably reveal his smartness to be illusion. Since Smash needed that intelligence to rescue Tandy, he elected not to pursue that course. It would be better to use the devices of perspective to locate Tandy first, then explore their unreal mechanisms when the loss of such mechanisms no longer mattered. It would also be wise not to ponder the intricacies of his own personal existence.

What would be the best way to find her? If her footprints glowed, it would be easy to track her. But he was now far too smart to believe that anything so coincidentally convenient could exist.

The centaur, however, might be deceivable. "I suspect there could be some visible evidence of the passage of outsiders," he remarked. "We carry foreign germs, alien substances from other magic regions. There could be interactions, perhaps a small display of illumination--"

"Smash!" she exclaimed. "It worked! You're smart again!"

"Yes, I thought it might."

"But it's illusion. The Eye Queue is only imaginary! How can it have a real effect?"

"What can affect the senses can also affect the mind," Smash explained. She had seemed so smart a moment ago. Now, from the lofty vantage of his restored intelligence, she seemed a bit slow. Certainly it was stupid of her to attempt to explain away his mental power, for that would put them right back in the morass of incompetence. He had to persuade her--before she persuaded him. "In Xanth, things are mostly what they seem to be. For example, Queen Iris's illusions of light enable her to see in the dark; her illusion of distant vision enables her to see people who are otherwise too far away. Here in the Void, in contrast, things are what they seem not to be. It is possible to finesse these appearances to our advantage, and to generate realities that serve our interests. Do you perceive the footprints?"

She looked, dismayed by his confusing logic. "I--do," she said, surprised. "Mine are disks, yours are paw-prints. Mine glow light brown, like my hide; yours glow black, like yours." She looked up. "Am I making any sense at all? How can a print glow black?"

"What other color befits an ogre?" he asked. He did not see the prints, but did not remark on that "Now we must cast about for Tandy's prints." He cracked the briefest smile. "And hope they do not wail."

"Yes, of course," she agreed. "They must originate where we crossed the line: that's the place to intercept them." She started back--and paused. "That's funny."

"What's funny?" Smash was aware that the Void was tricky and potentially dangerous. If Chem began to catch on to its ultimate nature, he would have to divert her in a hurry. Their very existence could depend on it.

"I seem to be up against a wall. It's intangible, but it balks me."

A wall. That was all right; that was a physical obstacle, not an intellectual one, therefore much less dangerous. Much better to wrestle that sort of thing. Smash moved to join her--and came up against the wall himself. It was invisible, as she had suggested, but as he groped at it he began to discern its rough stones. It seemed to be fashioned of ogre-resistant stuff, or maybe his weakened condition prevented him from demolishing it properly. Odd.

His Eye Queue had another thought, however. If things in the Void were not what they seemed to be, perhaps this was true of the wall. It might not exist at all; if he could succeed in disbelieving in it, he could walk through it. Yet if he succeeded in abolishing a wall this tangible by mental effort, what then of the other things of the Void, such as the Eye Queue? He might do best not to disbelieve.

"What do you perceive?" Chem asked.

"A firm stone wall," he said, deciding. "I fear we shall find it difficult to depart the Void." He had thought that intellectual dissolution, or the vacating of reality, might cause the demise of intruders into the Void; perhaps it was, after all, a more physical barrier. He would have to keep his mind open so as not to be trapped by illusions about these illusions.

"There must be a way," she said with a certain false confidence. She suspected, as he did, that they could be in worse trouble right now than they had been when the Gap Dragon charged them or the volcano's lava flows began breaking up under them. Mental and emotional equilibrium was as important now as physical agility had been then. "Our first job is to catch up with Tandy; then we can tackle the problem of departure."

At least she had her priorities in order. "Certainly, We can intercept her footprints by proceeding sidewise. We now have a notion why she did not return. This wall must be pervious from the edge of the Void, impervious from the interior. A little like a one-way path through the forest."

"Yes. I always liked those one-way paths. I don't like this wall quite as well." Chem proceeded sidewise, following the wall. She did not see it or really feel it, yet it balked her effectively. Meanwhile, Smash did not see the glowing footprints, but knew they would lead the two of them to Tandy. There seemed to be more substance to these illusions than was true elsewhere. The illusions of Queen Iris seemed very real, but one could walk right through them. The illusions of the Void seemed unreal, yet prevented penetration. Would they really all dissipate at such time as he allowed himself to fathom the real nature of the Void?

If nothing truly existed here, how could there be a wall to block escape? He kept skirting the dangerous thoughts!

Soon Chem spied Tandy's footprints--bright red, she announced. The prints were headed north, deeper into the Void.

They followed this new trail. Smash checked every so often and discovered that the invisible wall paced them. Any time he tried to step south, he could not. He could only go north, or slide east or west. This disturbed him more than it might have when he was ogrishly stupid. He did not like traveling a one-way channel; this was too much like the route into the lair of a hungry dragon. The moment he caught up to Tandy, he would find a way to go back out of the Void. Maybe he could break a hole in the wall with a few hard ogre blows of his fist.

Yet again his Eye Queue, slanted across with an alternate thought. Suppose the Void were like a big funnel, allowing people to slide pleasantly toward its center and barring them from climbing out? Then the wall would not necessarily be a wall at all, merely the outer rim of that funnel. To smash it apart could be to break up the very ground that supported them, and send them plunging in a rockslide down into the deeper depth. No percentage there!

How could he arrange to escape the trap and take his friends with him? If no one had escaped before to give warning, that was a bad auspice for their own chances! Well, he intended to be the first to emerge to tell the tale.

Could he locate a big bird, a roc, and get carried out by air? Smash doubted it. He distrusted air travel, having had a number of uncomfortable experiences with it, and he certainly distrusted birds as big as rocs. What did rocs eat, anyway?

What else was there? Then he came up with a notion he thought would work in the Void. This would use the properties of the Void against the Void itself, rather than fighting those properties. He would try it--when the time came.

"There's something ahead," Chem said. "I don't know what it is yet."

In a moment they caught up to it. It was an ogress--the beefiest, fiercest, hairiest, ugliest monster he had ever seen, with a face so mushy it was almost sickening. Lovely! "What's another centaur doing here?" Chem asked.

Instantly the Eye Queue analyzed the significance of her observation. "That is another anonymous creature. We had better proceed cautiously."

"Oh, I see what you mean! Do you think it could be a monster?" The centaur, delicately, did not voice the obvious fear--that the monster could have consumed Tandy. After all, it stood astride her tracks.

"Perhaps we should approach it from opposite sides, each ready to help the other in case it should attack." He wasn't fully satisfied with this decision, but the thought of harm to Tandy made the matter urgent.

"Yes," Chem agreed nervously. "As I become acclimated to this region, I like it less. Maybe one of us can draw near her and the other can hide, ready to act. We can't assume a sleek centaur filly like that is hostile."

Nor could they afford to assume the ugly ogress was not hostile! They had to be ready for anything. "You hide; I will approach in friendly fashion."

The centaur proceeded quietly to the west, and in a moment disappeared. Smash gave her time to get properly settled, then stomped gently toward the stranger. "Ho!" he called.

The hideous, wonderful ogress snapped about, spying him. "Who you?" she grunted dulcetly, her voice like the scratching of harpies' talons on dirty slate.

Smash, aware that she was not what she seemed, was cautious. Names had a certain power in Xanth, and he was already below strength; it was best to remain anonymous, at least until he was sure of the nature of this creature. "I am an inquiring stranger," he replied.

She tromped right up to him and stood snout to snout, in the delightful way of an ogress. "Me gon' stir he monster," she husked in the fascinatingly unsubtle mode of her apparent kind, and she clinked him in the puss with one hairy paw.

The blow lacked physical force, but Smash did a polite backflip as if knocked heels over head. What a romantic come-on! He remembered how his mother knocked his father about and stepped on his face, showing her intimidating love. How similar this ogre she was!

Yet his Eye Queue cautioned caution, as was its wont. This was not a real ogress; she might just be roughing him up for a meal. She might not be nearly as friendly as she seemed. So he did not reciprocate by smashing her violently into a tree. Besides, there was no suitable tree handy.

He used un-ogrish eloquence instead. "This is a remarkably friendly greeting for a stranger."

"No much danger," she said. "He nice stranger." And she gave him a friendly kick.

Smash was becoming much intrigued. He was sure this was no ogress, but she was one interesting person! Maybe he should hit her back. He raised his hamfist.

Then a third party appeared. This was another ogress. "Don't hit her. Smash!" she cried. "I just realized--"

"Smash?" the first ogress repeated questioningly. She seemed amazed.

"We must all describe exactly what we see," the second ogress said. She, too, was no true ogress, for her speech did not conform--unless she bad blundered into some Eye Queue vines--but that hardly seemed likely. "You first, Smash."

Confused by this development, he obliged. "I see two attractively brutal ogresses, each with a face mushier than the other, each hunched so that her handpaws reach almost down to her hindpaws. One is brown, the other red."

"And I see two centaurs," the second ogress said. "A black stallion and a red mare."

Oho! That would be Chem, seeing her own kind. Once she had separated from him, her own perceptions had taken over, so that she saw him falsely.

"I see a handsome black human man and a pretty brown human girl," the first ogress said.

"Then you are Tandy!" Chem exclaimed.

"Tandy!" Smash repeated, amazed.

"Of course I'm Tandy!" Tandy agreed. "I always was. But why are you two dressed up like human people?"

"We each perceive our own kind," Chem explained. "Each person instinctively generates his or her own reality from the Void. Come--take hands and perhaps we can break through to reality."

They took hands--and slowly the alternate images dissipated, and Smash saw Chem in her ruffled brown coat and Tandy in her tattered red dress.

"You were awful handsome as a man," Tandy said sadly. "All garbed in black, like a dusky king, with silver gloves." Smash realized that his orange jacket had become so dirty it was now almost indistinguishable from his natural fur. "But why did you fall down when I tried to shake your hand?"

The Eye Queue provided the insight to cause him embarrassment. "I misunderstood your intent," he confessed. "I thought you were being friendly."

"I was being friendly!" she exclaimed indignantly. "You were the first human being I was able to get close to in this funny place. I thought you might know some way out. I can't seem to go back myself; I bang into an invisible hedge or something. So I wanted to be very positive, and not scare you away. After all you might have been lost too."

"Yes, of course," Smash agreed weakly.

"But you acted as if I'd hit you, or something!" she continued indignantly.

"This is the way ogres show affection," Chem explained.

Tandy laughed. "Affection! That's how human beings fight!"

Smash was silent, horribly embarrassed.

But Tandy would not let it go. "You big oaf! I'll show you how human beings express affection!" And she grabbed Smash's arm, pulling him toward her with small human violence. Bemused, he yielded, until his head was down near hers.

Tandy threw her arms around his furry neck and planted a firm, long, hot-blooded kiss on his mouth, moving her lips against his.

Smash was so surprised he sat down. Tandy followed him, still pressing close, locking his head to hers. He fell all the way back on the ground, but she stayed with him, her brown hair flopping forward to cover his wildly staring eyes as she drove home the rest of the kiss.

At last she released him, as she needed a breath. "What do you think of that, ogre?"

Smash lay where she had thrown him, unable to make sense of the experience.

"He's overwhelmed," Chem said. "You gave him an awfully stiff dose for his first such contact."

"Well, I've wanted to do it for a long time," Tandy said. "He's been too stupid to catch on."

"Tandy, he's an ogre! They don't understand human romance. You know that."

"He's an ogre with Eye Queue. He can darned well learn."

"I'm afraid you're being unrealistic," the centaur said, talking as if Smash were not present. Perhaps that was the case, mentally. "You're a spunky, pretty human girl. He's a hulking jungle brute. You can't afford to get emotionally involved with a creature like that. He just isn't your type."

"And just what is my type?" Tandy flared defiantly. "A damned demon intent on rape? Smash is the nicest male creature I've met in Xanth!"

"How many male creatures have you met in Xanth?" the centaur inquired.

Tandy was silent. Of course her experience had been quite limited.

Smash at last essayed a remark. "You could visit a human village--"

"Shut up, ogre," Tandy snapped, "or I'll kiss you again!"

Smash shut up. She was not bluffing; she could do it. She still had her arms looped around his neck, since she lay half astride him, holding him down, as it were.

"You have to be realistic," Chem said. "The Good Magician sent you out with Smash so the ogre could protect you while you searched for a husband. What good will it do you to find the destined man, as John and the Siren and maybe Goldy did, if you foolishly waste your love on an inappropriate object? You would be undermining the very thing you seek."

"Oh, phooey!" Tandy exclaimed. "You're right, centaur, I know you're right, centaurs are always right--but oh, it hurts!" A couple of hot raindrops fell on Smash's nose, burning him with an acid other than physical. She was crying, and he found that even more confusing than the kiss. "Ever since he rescued me from the gourd and got me back my soul--"

"I'm not denying he's a good creature," Chem said. "I'm just saying, realistically--"

Tandy turned ferociously on Smash. "You monster! Why couldn't you have been a man?"

"Because I'm an ogre," he said.

She wrenched one arm clear of him and made as if to strike his face. But her hand did not touch him.

The Void spun about him, dimming. Smash realized she had hit him with another tantrum. That, ironically, was more like ogre love. Why couldn't she have been an ogress?

An ogress. Now, his mind shaken by the double whammy of kiss and tantrum. Smash floated, half conscious, and realized what he had been missing. An ogress! He, like every member of his party, could not exist alone. He needed a mate. That was what had brought him to Good Magician Humfrey's castle. That had been his unasked Question. How could he find his ideal mate? Humfrey had known.

And of course there would be ogresses at the Ogre-fen. That was why the Good Magician had sent him to seek the Ancestral Ogres. He would be able to select one who was right for him, knock her about in ogre fashion, and live in brutal happiness ever after, exactly as his parents had. It all did make sense.

He drifted slowly to earth as the horrendous impact of the tantrum eased. "Now I understand--" he began.

"I warned you, oaf," Tandy said. She leaned over and plastered another big kiss on him.

Smash was so dazed that he almost grasped the nature of the kiss, this time. Perhaps it was the effect of the Void, making things seem other than they were. It was as if she were punching him in the snoot--and with that perception she became much more alluring.

Then she broke, and the odd perspective ended. She became a girl again, all soft and pretty and nice and wholly inappropriate for romance. It was too bad.

"Oh, what's the use," Tandy said. "I'm a fool and I know it. Come on, people; we have to get out of this place."

"That may not be readily accomplished," Chem said. "We can travel in deeper, or edge sideways, but we can't back out. I'm sure it's like a whirlpool, drawing us ever inward. What we shall find in the center, I hesitate to conjecture."

"Oblivion," Tandy said tightly. She, too, had caught on.

"A maw," Smash said, climbing unsteadily to his feet.

"This land is carnivorous. It gives us respite only because it doesn't need to consume us instantly. It has herds of grazing creatures to eat first. When it gets hungry, it will take us."

"I fear that is so," the centaur agreed. "Yet there must be some way for smart or creative people to escape it. There is so much illusion here, maybe we could fool it."

"So far, ifs been fooling us, not we it," Tandy said. "Unless we can wish away that wall--"

But Smash's Eye Queue had been cogitating on this problem, and now it regurgitated a notion--the one he had flirted with before. "If we could escape into another world, one with different rules--"

"Such as what?" Chem asked, interested. "Have you got something on your hairy mind?"

"The hypnogourd."

"I don't like the gourd!" Tandy said instantly.

"And the fact is, even if we all entered the gourd, our bodies would remain right here," the centaur pointed out. "The gourd is a trap itself--but if we did get out of it, we'd still be in the Void. A trap within a trap."

"But the nightmares can go anywhere," Smash said. "Even to Mundania--and back."

"That's true," Tandy agreed. "They can go right through walls, and I think some can run on water. So I suppose they could run through the Void, and out again. They're not ordinary mares. But they're very hard to catch and hard to ride, and the cost--" She smiled ruefully. "I happen to know."

"They would help us if the Night Stallion told them to," Smash said.

"Oh, I forgot!" Tandy exclaimed. "You still have to fight the Night Stallion! You sacrificed your soul for me--" She clouded up. "Oh, Smash, I owe you so much!"

The centaur nodded thoughtfully. "Smash placed his soul in jeopardy for you, Tandy. I can appreciate how that would affect you. But I'm not sure you interpret your debt correctly."

"I was locked into that horror, deprived of my soul!" Tandy said. "I had no hope at all. The lights had gone out on my horizon. Then he came and fought the bones and smashed things about and brought out my soul, and I lived again. I owe my everything to him. I should give back my soul--"

"No!" Smash cried, knowing that she could endure no worse horror than the loss of her soul again. "I promised to protect you, and I should have protected you from the gourd, instead of splashing in the lake. I'll fight this through myself."

Chem shook her head. "I do see the problem--for each of you. I wish I perceived the answers as clearly."

"I have to meet the Stallion anyway," Smash said. "So when I have conquered him, I'll ask him for some mares."

"That's so crazy it just might work!" Chem said. "But there's one detail you may have overlooked. We have no hypnogourds here."

"We'll use your map again," he said.

The centaur considered. "I must admit it worked for your Eye Queue replacement vine, and our situation is desperate enough so that anything's worth trying. But--"

"Replacement?" Tandy demanded.

"Chem will explain it to you while I'm in the gourd," Smash said. "Right now, let's use the map to locate a gourd patch."

The centaur projected her map and settled on a likely place for gourds while Tandy watched skeptically. Then the party went there, though the way took them deeper into the Void.

And there they were--several nice fat hypnogourds with ripe peepholes. Smash settled himself by the largest. "You girls get some rest," he advised. "This may take a while. Remember, I have to locate the Stallion first, then fight him, then round up the mares."

Tandy grabbed his hamhand in her two delicate little hands. "Oh, Smash--I wish I could help you, but I'm terrified to go into a gourd--"

"Don't go in a gourd!" Smash exclaimed. "Just stay close so you don't get walled off from me and can't bring me out in an emergency," he said gruffly.

"I will! I will!" Tandy's eyes were tear-bright. "Oh, Smash, are you strong enough? I shouldn't have hit you with that tantrum--"

"I like your tantrums. You just rest, and wait for the nightmares, by whatever route they come."

"I know I'll see nightmares," she said wanly.

Smash glanced at Chem. "Keep an eye on her," he said, disengaging his hand from Tandy's.

"I will," the centaur agreed.

Then Smash put his eye to the peephole.