Chapter 14: Ogre Fun.

In the morning they woke, having suffered no bad dreams. The nightmares were not about to venture near them now, for that might give them the opportunity to change their minds about their souls. Also, what dreams could they be served, worse than what they had already experienced?

Xanth was lovely. The green trees glistened in the fading dew, and flowers opened. White clouds formed lazy patterns around the sun, daring it to burn them off, but it ignored their taunts. The air was fragrant. Mainly, it was a joy to be alive and free. Much more joy than it had been before Smash discovered that such things were by no means guaranteed. He had died in a great dark ocean, under the teeth of lions, under a rock he was too fatigued to move, and of starvation in prison. He had won back his soul, then given it up again. Now he was here with half his soul and he really appreciated what he had.

For some time they compared notes, each person needing reassurance because of the lingering ache of separated souls. But gradually they acclimated, finding that half a soul was indeed much better than none.

Smash tested his strength--and found it at half-level. He had to use both hands instead of one to crush a rock to sand. Until the other half of his soul regenerated, he would be only half an ogre in that respect. But this, too, seemed a reasonable price to pay for his freedom.

"I think it is time for me to go my own way," Chem said at last. "I think I have had about as much of this sort of adventure as I can handle. I have it all mapped; my survey is done. Now I need to organize the data and try to make sense of it."

"Magic doesn't have to make sense," Smash said rhetorically.

"But where will you go?" Tandy asked.

The centaur filly generated her map, with all of northern Xanth clearly laid out, their travel route neatly marked in a dotted line. "It is safe for my kind around the fringes of Xanth," she said. "Centaurs have traded all along the coasts. I'll trot west to the isthmus, then south to Castle Roogna. I'll have no trouble at all." Her projected route dotted its way down the length of northern Xanth confidently. She seemed to have forgotten her protestation of last night about how they would perish without Smash's protection, and Smash did not remind her of it. Obviously it had been his welfare, not her own, she had been concerned with.

"I suppose that's best," Tandy said reluctantly.

"I really liked the company of all you other creatures, but your missions are not my mission. Just remember, you're not as strong as you should be."

"That's one reason I want to get on home," Chem said. "I'd recommend the same for both of you, but I know your destiny differs from mine. You have to go on to the Ogre-fen Ogre Fen, Smash, and take what you find there, though I personally feel that's a mistake."

"Me make mistake?" Smash asked. The things of the Void had faded in the night, since they had left it, and now he found it easier to revert to his normal mode of speech. There was no hypnogourd and no Eye Queue vine, so he was not smart any more.

"Smash, you're half human," Chem said. "If you would only give your human side a chance--"

"Me no man, me ogre clan," he said firmly. That faith had brought him through the horrors of the gourd.

She sighed. "So you must be what you must be, and do what you must do. Tandy--" Chem shook her head. "I can't advise you. I hope you get what you want, somehow."

The two girls embraced tearfully. Then the centaur trotted away to the west, her pretty brown tail flying at halfmast as if reflecting the depressed state of her soul.

"I'm as foolish as you are," Tandy said, drying her eyes, so that the blue emerged again like little patches of sky. "Let's get on to the Fen before night, Smash."

They moved on. Smash, now so near his destination, found himself strangely uneasy. The Good Magician had told him he would find what he needed among the Ancestral Ogres; Humfrey had not said what that would be, or whether Smash would like it.

Suppose he didn't like what he needed? Suppose he hated it? Suppose it meant the denial of all that he had experienced on this journey with the seven girls? The Eye Queue had been a curse, and surely he was well rid of it--yet there had been a certain covert satisfaction in expressing himself as lucidly as any human being could. Facility of expression was power, too, just as was strength of muscle. The gourd had been a horror--yet that, too, had had its fine moments of exhilarating violence and deep revelation. These things were, of course, peripheral, no concern of a true ogre--but he had felt something fundamentally good in them.

He struggled through his annoying stupidity as he tromped on toward the Ogre Fen. Exactly what had made his journey so rewarding, despite its nuisances and problems? Not the violence, for he could have that any time by challenging stray dragons. Not the intelligence, for that was no part of an ogre's heritage. Not the exploration of the central mysteries of Xanth, for ogres were not very curious about geography. What, then?

As the day faded and the sun hurried down to the horizon so as not to be caught by night. Smash finally broke through to a conclusion. It wasn't a very original one, for ogres weren't very original creatures, but it would do. He had valued the camaraderie. The seven girls had needed him, and had treated him like a person. His long association with the human beings and centaurs of Castle Roogna had acclimated him to company, but this time he had had the wit to appreciate it more fully, because of the Eye Queue curse. Now he was cursed with the memory of what could not be again. Camaraderie was not the ogre way.

At dusk they reached the dismal fringe of the Ogre-fen Ogre Fen. The swampy marsh stretched out to the east and north as far as the eyeball could peer, riddled with green gators and brown possums and other half-fanciful denizens. Were the Ancestral Ogres also here?

"Look!" Tandy cried, pointing.

Smash looked. There were three ironwood trees braided together. That was a sure signal of the presence of ogres, since no other creature could do such a thing.

"I guess you'll get what you want tomorrow," Tandy said. "You'll meet your tribe." She seemed sad.

"Yes, me agree," he said, somehow not as overjoyed as he thought he should be. His mission was about to terminate; that was what he wanted, wasn't it?

He twisted a coppertree into the semblance of a shelter for her and spread a large leaf from a table tree over it. In the heyday of his strength he could have done better, but this would have to do for tonight. But it didn't matter; Tandy didn't use it. She curled up against his furry shoulder and slept.

What was her destiny? he wondered before he crashed into his own heavy slumber. He now understood that she was looking for a human husband and was destined to find one on this journey--but time was running out for her, too. He hoped whoever she found would be a good man who would appreciate her spunky qualities and not be bothered by her tantrum-talent. Smash himself rather liked her tantrums; they were a little like ogre love taps. Perhaps his first inkling of liking for her had been when she threw a tantrum at him. She wasn't really a bad-tempered girl; she just tended to get overly excited under extreme stress. There had been some of that on this journey!

Too bad, he thought again, that she couldn't have been an ogress. But, of course, ogresses didn't have magic tricks like tantrums, or cute little ways of expressing themselves--like kissing.

He shook his head. He was getting un-ogrishly maudlin. What could an ogre know of the refined raptures of human love? Of the caring that went beyond the hungers of the moment? Of the joy and sacrifice of helping the loved one regardless of the cost to oneself? Certainly not himself!

Yet there was something about this foolish, passionate, determined girl-human creature. She was so small she was hardly a good morsel for a meal, yet she was precious beyond the comprehension of his dim ogre wit. She had shown cunning and courage in catching and riding a nightmare to escape her amorous demon, and other excellent qualities had manifested since. He would miss her when she found her proper situation and left him, as had the other girls.

He thought to kiss her again, but the last time he had tried that, she had awakened instantly and things had gotten complicated. He wanted her to complete her sleep in peace this time, so he desisted. He had no business kissing a human girl anyway--or kissing anything, for that matter.

A drop of rain spattered on her forehead. No, not rain, for the night was calm and the nightmare of Rains was nowhere near. It was a tear, similar to the ones she had dropped on him when she had so angrily demonstrated how human beings expressed affection. A tear from his own eye. And this was strange, because no true ogre cried. Perhaps it was her own tear, recycled through his system, returning to her.

Carefully he wiped away the moisture with a hamfinger. He had no right to soil her pretty little brow with such contamination. She deserved much better. Better than an ogre.

The tromp of enormous, clumsy feet woke them in the morning. The ogres were coming!

Hastily Smash and Tandy got up. Smash felt a smidgen stronger; perhaps his soul had grown back a little while he slept. But he was nowhere near full strength yet. Knowing the nature of his kind, he worried some about that.

The Ogres of the Fen arrived. Small creatures scurried for cover, and trees angled their leaves away. No one wanted trouble with ogres! There were eight of them--three brutish males and five females.

Smash gazed at the ogresses in dim wonder. Two were grizzled old crones, one was a stout cub, and two were mature creatures of his own generation. Huge and shaggy with muddy fur, reeking of sweat, and with faces whose smiles would stun zombies and whose frowns would burn wood, they were the most repulsive brutes imaginable. Smash was entranced.

"Who he?" the biggest of the males demanded. His voice was mainly a growl, unintelligible to ordinary folk; Smash could understand him because he was another ogre. Smash himself was unusual in that he could speak comprehensibly; most ogres could communicate verbally only with other ogres.

Suddenly Smash was fed up with the rhyming convention. What good was it, when no one who counted could understand it anyway? "I am Smash, son of Crunch. I come to seek my satisfaction among the Ancestral Ogres, as it is destined."

"Half-breed!" the other ogre exclaimed. "No need!" For Smash's ability to talk unrhymed betrayed his mixed parentage.

Smash had never liked being called a half-breed, but he could not honestly refute it. "My mother is a curse-fiend," he admitted. "But my father is an ogre, and so am I."

One of the crones spoke up, wise beyond her years. "Curse-fien’, human bein'," she croaked. "Half man!" the big male ogre grunted. "We ban!"

"Might fight," the child ogress said, eyes lighting. It was true. An ogre could establish his place in a tribe by fighting for it. The male grunted eagerly. "He, me!" He naturally wanted to be the first to chastise the presumptuous half-breed.

"What are they saying?" Tandy asked, alarmed by the increasingly aggressive stances of the Fen Ogres.

It occurred to Smash that she would not approve of a physical fight. "They merely seek some ogre fun," he explained, not telling her that this was apt to be roughly similar to the fun the lions of the den had had with him. "Fun in the Fen."

She was not fooled. "What ogres call fun, I call mayhem! Smash, you can't afford any trouble; you're only at half-strength."

There was that. Fighting was fun, but getting beaten to a pulp was not as much fun as winning. If anything happened to him here, Tandy would be in trouble, for these ogres were not halfway civilized, as Smash himself was. It was galling, but he would have to pass up this opportunity. "No comment," he said.

The ogres goggled incredulously. "Not hot?" the male ogre demanded, his hamfists shuddering with eagerness to pulverize.

Smash turned away. "I think what I want is elsewhere after all," he told Tandy. "Let's get away from here." He tried to keep the urgency suppressed; this could get difficult in a moment. At least he was not caged in, the way he had been with the lions.

The male made a huge jump, landing directly before Smash. He poked a hamfinger at Smash's soiled orange centaur jacket. "What got?" he demanded. This was not curiosity but insult; any creature in clothing was considered effete, too weak to survive in the jungle.

Smash raged inwardly at the implication, but had to avoid trouble. He stepped around the ogre and went on north, toward the Fen.

But again the male leaped in front of him. He pointed at Smash's steel gauntlets, making a crudely elaborate gesture of pulling dainty feminine gloves on his own hairy meat hooks. The humor of ogres was necessarily crude, but it was effective on its level. Smash paused.

"Me swat he snot!" the ogre chortled, aiming a wood sundering blow at Smash's head. Smash lifted a gleaming fist of his own, defensively.

"No!" Tandy screamed.

Again Smash had to avoid conflict. He ducked under the blow in a gesture that completely surprised the ogre and continued north, inwardly seething. It simply wasn't an ogre's way to accept such taunts and duck away from a fight.

Now one of the mature females barred his way. Her hair was like the tentacular mass of a quarrelsome tangle tree that had just lost a battle with a giant spider web. Her face made the bubbling mud of the Fen seem like a clear mirror. Her limbs were so gnarled she might readily pass for a dead shagtree riddled by the droppings of a flock of harpies with indigestion. Smash had never before encountered such a luscious mass of flesh.

"He cute, cheroot," she said.

That was a considerable come-on for an ogress. Since there were more females than males in this tribe, there was obviously a place for Smash here, if he wanted it. Good Magician Humfrey had evidently known this, and known that Smash needed to settle down with a good female of his own kind. What the aging Magician had overlooked was the fact that Smash would arrive at half-strength, and that Tandy would not yet have found her own situation. Thus Smash could not afford to accept the offer, however grossly tempting it might be, because he could not fight well and could not afford to leave Tandy to the ogres' mercies. For a female went only to the winner of a fight between males. So once again he avoided interaction and continued on north.

Then the male ogre had an inspiration of genius for his kind. "Me eat complete," he said, and grabbed for Tandy.

Smash's gauntleted fist shot forward and up, catching the ogre smack in the snoot. The gauntlet made Smash's fist harder than otherwise and increased the effect of its impact. The creature rocked back, spitting out a yellow tooth. "Delight!" he cried. "He fight!"

"No!" Tandy yelled again, despairingly. She knew as well as Smash did that it was too late. Smash had struck the ogre, and that committed him.

Quickly the other ogres circled him. Tandy scooted to a beerbarrel tree, getting out of the way.

Smash had never before fought another ogre and wasn't quite sure how to proceed. Were there conventions? Did they take turns striking each other? Was anything barred?

The ogre gave him no chance to consider. He charged, his right fist swinging in a windmill motion, back and up and forward and down, aimed for Smash's head. Smash wished he had the Eye Queue so that he could analyze the meaning of this approach. But dull as he was now, he simply had to assume that it meant anything went.

Smash dodged, ducked down, caught the ogre's feet, and jerked them up to head height. Naturally the ogre flipped back, his head smacking into the ground with a hollow boom like thunder, denting a hole and shaking the bushes in the neighborhood. The watching ogres nodded; it was a good enough counter, starting things off. But Smash knew that he had substituted guile for force, to a certain extent, finding a maneuver that did not require his full strength; he could not proceed indefinitely this way.

The ogre bounced off his head, somersaulted backward, and twisted to his big, flat feet He roared a roar that spooked a flock of buzzards from a buzzard bush and sent low clouds scudding hastily away. He charged forward again, grabbing for Smash with both heavy arms. But Smash knew better than to wait for an ogre hug. His orange jacket would protect him from most of its crushing force, but he would not be able to initiate much himself. He jumped high, stomping gently on the ogre's ugly head in passing.

The stomp drove the ogre a small distance into the ground. It was the first motion of the figure called the Nail. The ogre had to extricate his feet one by one, leaving deep prints. Now he was really angry. He turned, fists swinging.

Smash parried with one arm, using a technique he had picked up at Castle Roogna, then sent his gauntleted fist smashing into the ogre's gross mid-gut. It was like hitting well-seasoned ironwood, in both places; his parrying arm was bruised, and his striking fist felt as if it had been clubbed. This ogre was stupid, so that his ploys were obvious and easily avoided, but he was also tough. Smash had held his own so far only because he was less stupid and had the protection of his centaur clothing. If jacket and gauntlets failed him--

The ogre caught Smash's parrying arm in a grip of iron or steel and hauled him forward. Smash parried again by placing his free fist against the ogre's snoot and shoving. But he quickly became aware of his liability of half strength; the other ogre could readily outmuscle him.

Worse, the ogre also became aware of this. "Freak weak," he grunted, and lifted Smash into the air. Smash twisted trying to free himself, but could not. Now he was in for it!

The ogre jammed him down on his feet, so hard it was Smash's turn to sink into the ground. He shot a terrible punch at Smash's chest--but now the jacket did protect Smash from most of the effect. Centaur clothing was designed to be impervious to all stones, arrows, pikes, teeth, claws, and other weapons; an ogre's fist was, of course, more than it was designed to withstand, but the jacket was much better than nothing. Meanwhile, Smash countered with another strike to the ogre's face, beautifying it by knocking out another tooth. He had good defense and good offense, thanks to the centaurs--but otherwise he remained treacherously weak.

The ogre windmilled his fist again, this time holding Smash in place so that he could not escape the blow. The fist sledgehammered down on the top of his head, driving Smash another notch lower. He tried to parry but could not; the ogre countered his counter. Another hammer blow landed on his noggin, driving him down yet more. This was the Nail again--and this time Smash was the Nail.

"Don't hurt him!" Tandy screamed, coming down from her tree. "Eat me if you must, but let Smash be!"

"No!" Smash cried, knee-deep in the ground. "Run, Tandy! Ogres don't honor deals about food!"

"You mean he'll destroy you anyway, after--?"

"Yes! Flee while you can, while they're watching me!"

"I can't do that!" she protested. Then she screamed, for the child ogress, larger than Tandy, had pounced on her.

Tandy threw a tantrum. Once more her eyes swelled up, her face turned purple, and her hair stood out from her head. The tantrum struck the little ogre, who fell, senseless, to the ground. Tandy retreated to her tree, for it took her some time to recharge a tantrum. She was now as helpless as Smash.

The ogre had paused, watching this by-play. The typical ogre was too stupid to pay attention to two things at once; he could not watch Tandy while pounding Smash. Smash, similarly, had been too dull to try to extricate himself while watching Tandy, so had not taken advantage of his opportunity. Now the ogre resumed his effort, completing the figure of the Nail. Smash had somehow left his arms by his sides, and now they, too, were caught in the ground, pinned. He knew he would never have allowed himself to get into this situation if he had retained his Eye Queue! Almost any fool would have known better.

Knocks on the head were not ordinarily harmful to ogres, because there was very little of importance in an ogre skull except bone. But the repeated impacts did serve to jog loose a few stray thoughts, flighty fancies not normally discovered in such territory. Why had Tandy tried so foolishly to help him? It would have made far more sense for her to flee, and she was smart enough to have seen that. Of course her loyalty was commendable--but was largely wasted on an ogre. As it was, both would perish. How did that jibe with the Good Magician's Answers? Two people dead...

One answer was that the Magician had grown too old to practice magic any more, had lost his accuracy of prophecy, and had unwittingly sent them both to their doom. It was also possible that the Magician was aware of his inadequacy and had sent them to the wilds of interior Xanth in order to avoid giving real Answers. He could have suspected, in his cunning senility, that they would never return to charge him with malpractice.

No, Smash remained unwilling to believe that of Humfrey. The man might be old, but the Gorgon had invigorated him somewhat, and he still might know what he was doing. Smash hoped so.

Soon the ogre had him waist-deep in the ground, and Smash could not retaliate. He lacked the strength. Yet if he had not yielded up half his soul, someone would have had to remain in the Void, and that might not have been much of an improvement over the present situation.

Still the blows descended, until he was chest-deep, and finally neck-deep. Then the ogre began to tire. Instead of using his fist, he gave his big horny feet a turn. He stomped on Smash's head until it, too, was buried in the packed dirt.

The figure of the Nail was complete. Smash had been driven, like a stake, full-length into the ground. He was helpless.

Satisfied with his victory, the ogre stomped toward the beerbarrel tree where Tandy hid. Smash heard her scream in terror; then he heard a fist crash into the trunk of the tree. He heard beer swish out from the punctured barrel and smelled its fumes as it coursed across the ground toward him. He was in a dent in the ground formed by the ogre's pounding; he would soon be drowned in beer, if he didn't manage to drink it all, and Tandy would be dipped in beer and eaten by the victor.

Then he heard the patter of Tandy's feet coming toward him. She was still being foolish; she would be much easier to catch here. The earth about his face became moist as the beer sank in, and he heard it splashing when her feet struck it. He hoped her pretty red slippers didn't get soiled. Meanwhile, the ground shuddered as the other ogre tromped after her, enjoying the chase.

Then she was over Smash, scraping out the ground about his head with her feeble little human hands, uncovering his buried eyes. Foaming beer from the tree swirled down, blearing his vision but softening the dirt somewhat so she could better excavate. But this was useless; she could never hope to extricate him herself, and already the ogre was looming over her, amused at the futility of her effort.

"Smash!" she cried. "Take my half soul!"

In Smash's dim, beer-sotted mind, something added up. One half plus one half equaled something very much like one. Two half souls together--

He saw her half soul dropping toward him, a hemisphere like a half-eaten apple, bisected with fair precision. Then it struck his head, bounced, and sank in, as the Eye Queue had done. He became internally conscious of it as it spread through him. It was a small, sweet, pretty, innocent but spunky fillet of soul, exactly the kind that belonged to a girl like her. Yet as it descended and joined with his big, brutish, homely, leathery ogre half soul, it merged to make a satisfying whole.

At this point, in the Night Stallion horror visions, this would have been the end. But here in real life, with a full soul pieced together, it just might be the beginning. Smash felt his strength returning.

The ogre lifted Tandy into the air by her brown tresses. He slavered. Smash's sunken orbs perceived it all from their beer-sodden pit in the ground.

The girl tried to throw a tantrum, but she was mostly out of the makings. She was terrified rather than angry, her tantrum-energy had recently been expended, and she bad no soul. Her effort only made the ogre blink. He opened his ponderous and mottled jaw and swung her toward his broken teeth.

Smash flexed. He had a full soul, of sorts, now; his Strength was back. The ground buckled about him. One hamhand rose up like the extremity of a zombie emerging from a long-undisturbed grave, dripping beer-sodden dirt. It caught the hairy ankle of the ogre.

Smash lifted. He was well anchored in the ground, so all he needed was power. He had it. The ogre rose into the air, surprised. But he did not let Tandy go. He continued to bring her to his salivating maw. First things first, after all.

Smash brought the foot belonging to the ankle he held to his own mouth. He opened his own dirt-marbled jaws. They closed on the ogre's horny toes. They crunched, hard.

Folklore had it that ogres were invulnerable to pain because they were too tough and stupid to feel it. Folklore was in error. The ogre bellowed out a blast of pain that shook the welkin, making the sun vibrate in place and three clouds dump their water incontinently. He dropped Tandy. Smash caught her with his other hand, after ripping it free of the ground with a spray of dirt that was like a small explosion. He set her gently down. "Find shelter," he murmured. "It could become uncomfortable in this vicinity."

She nodded mutely, then scooted away.

Smash spit out three toes, watching them bounce across the dirt. He waved the ogre in the air. "Shall we begin, toadsnoot?" he inquired politely.

The ogre was no coward. No ogre was, since an ogre's brain was too obtuse to allow room for the circuitry of fear. He was ready to begin.

The battle of ogre vs ogre was the most savage encounter known in Xanth. The very land about them seemed to tense expectantly, aware that when this was over, nothing would be the same. Perhaps nothing would be, period. The landscape of Xanth was dotted with the imposing remnants of ancient ogre fights--water-filled calderas, stands of petrified trees, mountains of rubble, and similar artifacts.

The ogre began without imagination, naturally enough. He drove a hamfist down on Smash's head. This time Smash met it with his open jaws. The fist disappeared into his mouth, and his teeth crunched on the scarred wrist.

Again the ogre bellowed, and the sun shook in its orbit and the clouds soaked indecorously. One downpour spilled onto the sun itself, causing an awful sizzle.

The ogre wrenched his arm up--and popped Smash right out of the ground in the process, for naturally Smash had not let go. Beer-mud flew outward and rained down on the watching ogres, who snapped at the blobs automatically.

The ogre slammed his two fists together hard. Since one fist was inside Smash's mouth, this meant Smash's head was getting doubly boxed. Vapor shot out of his ears. He spit out the fist, since he was unable to chew it properly, and freed his head.

Now the two combatants faced each other, two hulking monsters, the one covered with dirt and reeking of beer, the other minus two teeth and three toes. Both were angry--and the anger of ogres was similar to that of volcanoes, tornadoes, avalanches, or other natural calamities--apt to destroy the neighborhood indiscriminately.

"You called me half-breed," Smash said, driving a gauntleted fist into the other's shoulder. This time the blow had ogre force; the ogre was hurled sidewise into the trunk of a small rock-maple tree. The tree snapped off, its top section crashing down on the ogre's ugly head.

He shrugged it off, not even noticing the distraction. "He go me toe," he said, naming his own grievance, though unable to count beyond one. He fired his own fist at Smash's shoulder. The blow hurled Smash sidewise into a rock-candy boulder. The boulder shattered, and sugar cubes flew out and descended like hailstones around them.

"You tried to eat my friend," Smash said, kicking the ogre in the rear. The kick sent the monster sailing up in a high arc, his posterior smoking. Then, to make sure the ogre understood. Smash repeated it in ogrish: "He eat me she."

The ogre landed bottom-first in the Fen, and the water bubbled and steamed about him. He picked himself up by hauling with one hamhand on the shaggy nape of his neck, then stomped the bog so that the mud flew outward like debris from a meteoric impact and ripped a medium-sized hickory tree from its mooring on an islet. The tree came loose with an anguished "Hick!" and hicked again as the ogre smashed, it down across Smash's head, breaking it asunder. Smash felt sorry for the ruined tree, probably because of the influence of the sweet girl's half soul he had borrowed.

The two ogres faced each other again, having now warmed up. There was a scurrying and fluttering in the surrounding jungle as the creatures of the wild who had remained before now fled the scene of impending violence. There were also ripples in the swamp and the beat of dragons' wings, all departing hastily. None of them wanted any part of this!

Now that Smash had his full strength and had interacted with the other ogre, it was his judgment that he was the stronger of the two and the smarter. He believed he could beat this monster--and it was necessary that he do it to protect Tandy. But a lot of battle remained before the issue would be resolved.

Smash leaned forward, threw his arms around the ogre, picked him up, and charged toward the dense, hard walls of a big walnut tree. The ogre's head rammed right through the wood and was buried inside the wall-trunk, his body dangling outside.

Then there was a chomping sound. The ogre was chewing his way out, despite his missing teeth. Soon his snout broke through the far side of the wall, then chomped to the left and right-He spit out wall-nuts as he went, and they formed little walls around the tree where they fell. Then the tree crashed to the ground, its trunk severed. The ogre returned to the fray.

He ripped a medium rosewood tree from the ground and hurled it at Smash. Smash threw up a fist to block it, but the trunk splintered and showered him with splinter-roses.

Smash, in turn, swung a fist through a sandalwood trunk, severing it. He grabbed the loose part and hurled it at the ogre, who blocked it. This time there was a shower of sandals and other footwear.

The ogre took hold of a fat yew tree, twisting it around and around though it bleated like a female sheep, until the trunk separated from the stump. "Me screw with yew," he grunted, ramming the twisted trunk at Smash's face.

"That is un-ogrammatical," Smash said. "Ogres always say he or she, not you." But he ripped off a trunk of sycamore and used it to counter the thrust. "Syc 'em!" he cried, bashing at the yew. "Syc 'em more!" he cried, bashing again. And because this was the nature of that tree, it sycked 'em more.

Both trunks shattered. Trunks were really better for containing things than for fighting. Some trunks were used for trumpeting. Still, these were the most convenient things to use for this battle.

The ogre tromped into the deeper forest to the south, where larger trees grew. He chopped with both fists at a big redwood trunk. Smash stomped to a bigger bluewood and began knocking chips out of it with his own fists. Soon both trees came crashing down, and each ogre picked one up.

The other ogre was the first to swing. Smash ducked, and the redwood whistled over his head and cracked into a sturdy beech tree. The encounter was horrendous. The red was knocked right out of the redwood, and the sand flew from the beech. A cloud of red-dyed sand formed, making a brief but baleful sandstorm that swirled away in a series of diminishing funnels, coating the other trees.

Now Smash swung his bluewood. The ogre ducked behind a butternut tree. The trunk clobbered the tree. Blue dye flew out, and butter squished out. Blue butter descended in a gooky mass, coating everything the red sand had missed, including a small pasture of milkweed plants. Blue buttermilk formed. All the spectator ogres turned from dry red to dripping blue. It did improve their appearance. Anything was better than the natural hue of an ogre.

The ogre bent to rip out a boxwood tree. This time Smash was faster. He sliced off a section of trunk from a cork tree and rammed that at the exposed posterior. The cork shoved the ogre right into the box, where he was stuck bottom-up, corked.

Now the ogre was really angry. He bellowed so hard the box exploded and the cork shot up toward the sun with a loud Bronx cheer. When it hit the sun it detonated, and a foul cloud eclipsed the orb, turning a clear day to the smoggiest night ever to clog the noses of the jungle. Creatures began coughing and choking all around, and a number of plants wilted as the stench spread out like goo.

In the cloying darkness, the ogre retreated. He had had enough of Smash's full strength. But Smash was not through with him. He pursued, following the ogre into the deepest jungle by the sound of his tromping.

Something struck Smash's arm, temporarily numbing it. It was an ironwood bar. In the dark the ogre had harvested another tree and had hurled it from ambush. Some might consider this to be a cowardly act, but ogres did not know the meaning of cowardice, so it must have been some other kind of act. Ogres did comprehend cunning, so perhaps that was it.

Smash picked up the bar, started to twist it into a harmless knot, reconsidered and started to hurl it violently back, reconsidered again, and hung on to it. It would make a decent spear.

He listened, trying to locate the ogre. He heard the sproing! as another ironwood sapling was harvested. He charged that spot--and tripped over a fallen log. Naturally the log splintered into a storm of toothpicks that shot out like shrapnel, making pincushions of the surrounding vegetation. Smash lost his balance. He windmilled an arm and a leg.

Now the ogre knew Smash's location more accurately. The other spear came whistling at him as if it had not a care in the world and caught his outflung foot. That smarted! Smash rolled back, got his feet properly under him, limped, and struck back where his keen ogre hearing indicated the other ogre was.

Unfortunately, he had not realized that dirt remained in his ears, from the time he was spiked into the ground. His blow was countered, being off target, and the other bar clonked him on the side of the head.

This turned out to be a serendipitous blessing, for the clonk knocked out most of the dirt. Now he could hear properly! He reoriented and swung hard and accurately at the other--and missed, for the other was retreating.

The smog was beginning to clear. Smash pressed forward, striking repeatedly at the dim shape before him. The counterings grew fewer and weaker as the enemy retreated. Smash accelerated--and the figure ducked aside, put out a foot--and Smash tripped over it and stumbled headlong into a drop-off.

In midair he realized he had been tricked. The ogre, familiar with the terrain while Smash was not, had led him to the cliff. Smash should have been more suspicious of the sudden, seeming weakness of his opponent. But of course, without his Eye Queue, he was no smarter than any other ogre.

He landed on a bed of sharp gravel. Something yiped. Great yellow eyes opened. A jet of flame illuminated the area. Smash got a clear view of his situation.

Oops! He had fallen directly into a dragon's nest! This was the lair of a big surface dragon, open to the day because such a monster feared nothing, not even ogres. The dragon wasn't here at the moment, but its five cubs were.

In a moment all of them were up and alert. They were large cubs, almost ready to depart the nest and start consuming people for themselves. They were all as massive as Smash, with coppery snouts, green metal neck scales, and manes of silvery steel. Their teeth glinted like stars, and their tongues slurped about hungrily. As the light returned, all recognized him as an enemy and as prey. What a trap this was!

The ogre looked over the brink of the pit. "Ho ho ho ho!" he roared thunderously, causing the nearby trees to shake. "Me screw he blue!" For Smash stood on blue diamonds that made up the nest, which he had taken for gravel. All dragons liked diamonds; they were pretty and hard and highly resistant to heat. Because dragons hoarded diamonds, the stones assumed unreasonable value, being very rare elsewhere. Smash understood this extended even to Mundania, though he wasn't sure how the dragons managed to collect the stones from there.

Dragons were not much for ceremony. All five pounced, blasting out little jets of flame that incinerated the vegetation around the nest and heated the diamonds at Smash's feet, forcing him to jump.

Smash, angry at himself for his stupidity in falling into this mess--imagine being outwitted by a dull ogre!--reacted with inordinate, i.e., ogrish, fury. He just wasn't in the mood to mess with little dragons!

He put out his two gauntleted hands and snatched the first dragon out of the air. He whipped it about and used it to strike the second in mid-pounce. Both dragons were knocked instantly senseless. Weight for weight, no dragon was a match for an ogre; only the advantage of size put the big dragons ahead, and these lacked that.

Smash hurled both dragons at the other ogre, who stood gloating, and grabbed for two more. In a moment both of these were dragging, and the dragging dragons were hurled up to drape about the ogre.

The fifth dragon, meanwhile, had fastened its jaws on Smash's legs. They were pretty good jaws, with diamond-hard teeth; they were beginning to hurt. Smash plunged his fist down with such force that the skull caved in. He ripped the body away and hurled it, too, at the other ogre.

The smog had largely cleared, perhaps abetted by the breeze from Smash's own activity. Now an immense shadow fell across them. Smash looked up. It was the mother dragon, so huge her landbound bulk blocked off the light of the sun. Not all big dragons were confined to Dragonland! It would take a whole tribe of ogres to fend her off--and the tribe of the Ogre-Fen Ogres would certainly not do that. Smash had been tricked into this nest because the other ogre knew it would be the end of him.

But Smash, having cursed the darkness of his witlessness, now suffered a flashback of dull genius. "Heee!" he cried, pointing a hamfinger at the other ogre.

The dragoness looked. There stood the ogre, in midgloat, with the five limp, little dragon cubs draped around his body like so much apparel. He had been so pleased with his success in framing Smash that he had not thought to clear the debris from himself. The liability of the true ogre had betrayed him--his inability to concentrate on more than one thing at a time. Naturally the dragoness assumed that he was the guilty creature.

With a roar so horrendous that it petrified the local trees and caused a layer of rock on the cliff to shiver into dust, several diamonds to craze and crack; and a blast of fire that would have vaporized trees and cliff face, had the one not just been converted from wood to stone and the other not just powdered out, she went for the guilty ogre.

The ogre was dim, but not that dim, especially as a refracted wash of fire frizzled his fur. While the dragoness inhaled and oriented for a more accurate second shot, he flung off the little dragons and dived into the nest-pit, landing snoot-first in the diamonds. The contrast was considerable--the sheer beauty of the stones versus the sheer ugliness of the ogre. It looked as if he were trying to eat them.

Smash hardly paused for thought. At the moment, the dragoness was a greater threat to his health than the ogre. He wrestled a boulder out of the pit wall and heaved it up at the dragoness, while the other ogre struggled to his feet, shedding white, red, green, blue, and polka-dot diamonds. The dragoness turned, snapped at the boulder, found it inedible, and spit it out.

Smash realized that the other ogre had disappeared. He checked, and saw a foot in a hole. The boulder he had thrown had blocked a passage, and the ogre was crawling down it, leaving Smash to face the fire alone. Smash didn't appreciate that, so he grabbed the foot and hauled the ogre back and out. Several more diamonds dropped from crevices on the creature's hide--black, yellow, purple, plaid, and candy-striped. In a moment Smash had the ogre in the air, swinging him around by the feet in a circle.

The dragoness was pumping up for a real burnout blast. Such an exhalation could incinerate both ogres in a single swoop. She opened her maw, letting the first wisps of superheated steam emerge, and her belly rumbled with the gathering holocaust.

Smash let go of the ogre, hurling him directly into the gaping maw, headfirst.

The dragon choked on her own blocked fire, for the ogre's body was just the right size to plug her gullet. The ogre's feet, protruding slightly from the mouth, kicked madly. Then the ogre's broken teeth started working as he chewed his way out. The dragoness looked startled, uncertain how to deal with this complication.

Smash wasn't sure how this contest would turn out. The dragoness' fire was bottled, and her own teeth could not quite get purchase on the ogre in her throat, but she did have a lot of power and might be able to clear the ogre by either coughing him out or swallowing him the rest of the way. On the other hand, the ogre could chew quite a distance in a short time. Smash decided to depart the premises with judicious dispatch.

But where could he go? If he scrambled out of the nest, the dragoness might chase after him, and he would be more like a sitting duck than a running ogre, in the open. If he remained--

"Hssst!" someone called. "Here!"

Smash looked. A little humanoid nymph stood within the hole left by the boulder.

"I was raised in the underworld," she said. "I know tunnels. Come!"

Smash looked back at the dragoness, who was swelling with stifled pressure, and at the kicking ogre in her throat. The former was about to fire the latter out like a missile. He had sympathy for neither and was fed up with the whole business. What did he want with ogres anyway? They were dull creatures who crunched the bones of human folk.

Human folk. "Tandy!" he cried. "I must save her from the ogres!"

The nymph was disgusted. "Idiot!" she cried. "I am Tandy!"

Smash peered closely at her. The nymph had brown hair, blue eyes, and a spunky, upturned little nose. She was indeed Tandy. Odd that he hadn't recognized her! Yet who would have expected a nymph to turn out to be a person!

"Now get in here, you oaf!" she commanded. "Before that monster pops her cork!"

He followed Tandy into the tunnel. She led him along a curving route, deep down into the ground. The air here turned cool, the wall clammy. "The dragon mines here for diamonds that my mother leaves," she explained. "There would be terrible disruption in Xanth if it weren't for her work. The dragons would go on a rampage if their diamonds ran out, and so would the other creatures if they couldn't get their own particular stones. It certainly is nice to know my mother has been here! Of course, that could have been a long time ago. There might even be an aperture to my home netherworld here, though probably she rode the Diggle and left no passage behind."

Smash just followed, more concerned about escaping the dragon than about the girl's idle commentary.

There was a sound behind them, like a giant spike being fired violently into bedrock. The dragoness had no doubt disgorged the ogre from her craw and now was ready to pursue the two of them here. Though the diameter of the tunnel was not great, dragons were long, sinuous creatures, particularly the wingless landbound ones, who could move efficiently through small apertures. Or she could simply send a blast of flame along, frying them. Worse yet, she might do both, pursuing until she got close, then doing some fiery target practice.

"Oh, I'm sure there's a way down, somewhere near," Tandy fussed. "The wall here is shallow; I can tell by the way it resonates. I've had a lot of experience with this type of formation. See--there's a fossil." She indicated a glowing thing that resembled the skeleton of a fish, but it squiggled out of sight before Smash could examine it closely.

Fossils were like that, he knew; they preferred to hide from discovery. They were like zombies, except that they didn't generally travel about much; they just rested for eons. He had no idea what their purpose in life or death might be. "But I can't find a hole!" Tandy finished, frustrated.

Smash knew they had to get out of this particular passage in a hurry. He aimed his fist and smashed a hole in the wall. A new chamber opened up. He dropped through, carefully lifting Tandy down.

"That's right!" she exclaimed. "I forgot about your ogre strength! It's handy at times."

A rush of fire flowed along the tunnel they had quitted. They had gotten out just in time!

"This is it!" Tandy cried. "The netherworld! I haven't been in this section before, but I recognize the general configuration. A few days' walk, and I'm home!" Then she reconsidered. "No, there isn't any direct connection. The--what's that thing that cuts Xanth in half? I can't remember--"

"The Gap Chasm," Smash said, dredging it out of his own fading memory. In his ogre personality, he was too stupid to forget things as readily as Tandy could.

"Yes. That. That would cut off this section from the section I live in, I think. Still--"

She led him through a dark labyrinth, until the sounds of the enraged dragon faded. They finally stood on a ledge near cool water. "She'll never find us here. It would douse her fire."

"I hope you'll be able to find our way out. I'm lost." Ogres didn't care one way or the other about the depths of the earth, but did like to be able to get around to forage for food and violence.

"When the time is right," she said. "Maybe never."

"But what of our missions?" Smash demanded. "What missions?" she asked innocently. Then Smash remembered. She no longer cared about seeking fulfillment. She had given up her soul.