The cat brightened. It nodded its whiskered head. They laid the catnip plants down before it, then moved the basket to the expanded tail. The three of them climbed in and drew the wicker lid over, enclosing themselves.
The cat sniffed the catnip. Its tail stiffened ecstatically. Then it nipped the catnip. As the potent stuff took effect, the tail suddenly sprang up, carrying the basket along. Suddenly the party of three was flying.
They looked out between the slats. Xanth was cruising by beneath them, all green and blue and yellow.
There were scattered, low-hanging clouds around them, white below, all other colors above, where they couldn't be seen from the ground. Some were rainclouds, shaped like pools, brimming with water. Stray birds were taking baths in them, and flying fish were taking breathers there, too. The basket clipped the
edge of one of these rainclouds and tore a hole in it; the water poured out in a horrendous leak. There was an angry uproar from below as the unscheduled deluge splashed on the forest. But this was the Region of Madness anyway; no one would be able to prove the difference.
Now it occurred to Smash to wonder about their descent. They had risen smoothly enough, but the fall might be less comfortable.
Then some sort of material popped out of the lid of the basket. It spread into a huge canopy that caught the air magically and held back the basket. The descent became slow, and they landed by the shore of Lake Ogre- Chobee.
They opened the basket and stepped out. 'That was fun!' Tandy exclaimed girlishly. 'But how will the catapult get its basket back?'
An orange creature hurried up, vaguely catlike. 'I'll take that,' it said.
'Who are you?' Tandy asked.
'I am the agent of this region. It is my job to see that things get where they belong. The catapult has a contract for the return of its baskets.'
'Oh. Then you had better take it. But I don't know how you'll be able to carry that big basket through that thick jungle, or past the Region of Madness.'
'No problem. I'm half mad already.' The orange agent picked up the basket and trotted north. The vegetation wilted and died in the creature's vicinity, making a clear path.
'Oh-that's its magic talent,' Tandy said. 'Agent Orange kills plants.'
They turned to Lake Ogre-Chobee. It was a fine blue expanse of water with a whirlpool in the center.
'Don't go there,' the Siren cautioned. 'The curse-fiends live there.'
'What is wrong with the curse-fiends?' Smash asked. 'My mother was one.'
The Siren turned her gaze on him, startled. 'Oh-I understood you were an ogre. The/curse-fiends are of human derivation. I didn't mean to-'
'My mother is an actress. She had to play the part of an ogress in an adaptation of Prince Charming, a Mundane tale. Naturally she was the ingenue.'
'Naturally,' the Siren agreed faintly.
'But my father Crunch happened onto the set, innocently looking for bones to crunch, and spied her and was instantly smitten by her horribleness and carried her away. Naturally she married him.'
'Yes, of course,' the Siren agreed, looking wan. 'I am jealous of her fortune. I'm of human derivation myself.'
'The curse-fiends fired off a great curse that killed a huge forest,' Smash continued. 'But my parents escaped the curse by becoming vegetarians. Most ogres crunch bones, so this confused the curse and caused it to misfire.'
'You were raised in a non-bone-crunching home!' Tandy exclaimed.
'I'm still an ogre,' he said defensively.
'I'm glad it worked out so well,' the Siren said. 'But I think it would be wise to avoid the curse-fiends.
They might not appreciate your position.'
'I suppose so,' Smash admitted. 'But they are excellent actors. No one ever confused my mother for a human being.'
'I'm sure they didn't,' the Siren agreed. 'I saw one of the curse-fiends' plays once. It was very well done.
But it can be awkward associating with someone who throws a curse when aggravated.'
Smash laughed. 'It certainly can be! I acted un-ogrish once, letting a wyvem back me off from an emerald I had found-'
'My mother set that emerald in place!' Tandy exclaimed.
'And my mother threw a curse at me,' he continued. 'It scorched the ground at my feet and knocked me on my head. I never let any monster back me off again!'
'That was cruel,' Tandy said. 'She shouldn't have cursed you.'
'Cruel? Of course not. It was ogre love, the only kind our kind understands. She cursed my father once, and it was two days before he recovered, and the smile never left his face.'
'Well, I don't know,' Tandy said, and she seemed unusually sober. Did she have some connection to the curse-fiends? Smash filed the notion for future reference.
They walked around a portion of Lake Ogre-Chobee, trying not to attract attention. There were no ogres in evidence, and no traces of their presence-no broken-off trees or fragmented boulders or flat-stomped ground.
There seemed to be no threats, either; the entire lake was girded, as far as they could see, by a pleasant little beach, and the water was clear and free of monsters. Evidently the curse-fiends had driven away anything dangerous.
'Look at the noses!' Tandy cried, pointing across the water. Smash looked. There were scores of nostrils swimming in pairs toward the shore, making little waves. As they drew near, he saw that the nostrils were the visible tips of more extensive snouts, which continued on into long reptilian bodies.
'Oh-the chobees,' the Siren said, relaxing. 'They're mostly harmless. Chobees aren't related to other kinds of bees; they don't sting. Once in a while one strays up to my lake.'
'But what big teeth they have!' Tandy said.
'They're imitation, teeth, soft as pillows.'
A chobee scrambled out onto the beach. It had short, fat, green legs and a green corrugated skin. The Siren petted it on the head, and the chobee grinned. She touched one of its teeth, and the tooth bent like rubber, snapping back into place when released.
But Smash had a nagging doubt. 'I remember something my father said about the chobees. Most of them are innocent, but some-'
'Oh, yes, that's right,' the Siren agreed. 'A few, a very few, have real teeth. Those kind are dangerous.'
'Let's stay away from the bad ones, then,' Tandy said. 'What do they look like?'
'I don't know,' the Siren admitted.
'They look just like the nice ones,' Smash said slowly, dredging his memory.
'But then any of these could be a bad one,' Tandy said, alarmed.
'True,' Smash agreed. 'Unless the curse-fiends got rid of them.'
'How could the curse-fiends tell the difference, if we can't?' Tandy asked.
'If a chobee eats a curse-fiend, it's probably a bad one,' the Siren said, smiling obscurely.
'Do we need to tell the chobees apart the same way?' Tandy asked worriedly.
The Siren laughed musically. Her voice was only a shadow of what it must have been when she had her luring magic, but it remained evocative. 'Of course not, dear. Let's avoid them all.' That seemed easy enough to do, as the three of them could walk faster than the reptiles could. Soon the chobees gave up the chase and nosed back into the water, where they buzzed away toward the deeper portions of the lake.
Tandy watched the wakes their nostrils left with relief.
At one point the lake become irregular, branching out into a satellite lake that was especially pretty. A partial causeway crossed the narrow connection between the large and small lakes. 'I'll wade across!'
Smash said, delighting in the chance to indulge in some splashing.
'I don't know,' Tandy said. 'The nice paths can be dangerous.' She had learned from her experience with the tangler and the ant-lions; now she distrusted all the easy ways.
'I 'will explore the water,' the Siren said. 'I will be able to tell very quickly whether there are dangerous water creatures near. Besides, I'm hungry; I need to catch some fish.' She slid into the small lake, her legs converting to
