so-'
'And so I escorted my little sister this far,' Chet finished. He was a handsome centaur, with noble features, a fine coat, and excellent muscles on both his human and equine portions. But a purple scar marred his left shoulder, where a wyvem had once bitten him, causing serious illness. 'I know she'll be safe with you. Smash. You're a big ogre now.'
'Safe? We're about to try to cross this gulf!' Smash protested. 'And we don't know how.'
'Oh, yes. The Gap Chasm. I brought you a rope.' Chet presented a neat coil. 'Humfrey said you would need it.'
'A rope!' Suddenly their way down into the chasm was clear. Centaur rope was always strong enough for its purpose.
'I'll help get you down,' Chet said. 'But I'm not supposed to go myself. I have to return immediately to Castle Roogna with a message or two. What's the message?'
Smash's curse of intelligence enabled him to catch on. 'A village is about to cut down a fireoak tree for timber. The tree's hamadryad will die. The King must save the tree.'
'I'll tell him,' Chet agreed. 'Where is it?'
Smash turned to Fireoak, who sat listlessly on the ground. 'Where is your tree?'
The hamadryad made a feeble motion with her hand.
'This is no good,' Chet said. 'Chem, let's use your map.'
The filly walked over to Fireoak. 'Show me on my picture,' she said.
An image formed between them. It was a contour map of the Land of Xanth, a long peninsula with the Gap Chasm across its center and the ocean around it. 'Show me where the tree is,' Chem repeated.
Fireoak looked, slowly orienting on the scene. 'There,' she said, pointing to a region near the northern rim of the Gap.
Chem nodded. 'There is a human village there, just setting up. That's already on my chart.' She looked at her brother. 'Got it, Chet?'
'Got it, Chem,' the male centaur replied. 'You always do make the scene. Smash, the moment you're down in the Gap, I'll gallop back and tell the King. I'm sure he'll handle the business about the tree. But it will take me a couple days to get there, so you'll have to protect the tree until then.' He glanced about.
'Was there any other message? It seems there should be more than one.'
The people looked around at each other. Finally Tandy said, 'I'd like to send a greeting to my father Crombie, if that's all right.'
Chet tapped his head, making a mental note. 'One greeting to Crombie from daughter. Got it.' He looked more carefully at Tandy. 'He always bragged he had a cute daughter. I see he was correct.'
Tandy blushed. She hadn't known her father had said that about her.
They tied the rope to the trunk of a steelwood tree. Chem insisted on going down first. 'That will prove the rope is safe,' she explained. 'Even Smash doesn't weigh more than I do.' Of course she was correct, for though her human portion was girlishly slender, her equine portion was as solid as a horse.
She backed down, her four hooves bracing against the steep side of the chasm. The rope looped once about her small human waist, just below her moderate bosom, and she used her hands to give herself slack by stages. When she got down to where the slope leveled out enough to enable her to stand, she released the rope.
The Siren went down next, having less trouble because she had so much less mass. Then Tandy,
followed by the fairy, who fluttered her wings to make herself even lighter than she was. Smash then made a harness out of the end of the rope, set Fireoak in it, and stood on the brink to lower her carefully to Chem's waiting arms.
Finally Smash himself descended, merely applying one gauntlet to the rope and sliding rapidly down.
Chet undid the upper end from the steelwood tree and dropped it into the chasm. They would need the rope again on the north slope.
'I'm on my way with one and a half messages,' Chet called, and galloped off. 'Remember: two days.'
The slope continued to level, until they stood at the base. Here grass grew, but no trees. It was pleasant enough, and the north slope was visible a short distance away. They walked across, studying the rise for the most suitable place to ascend.
It certainly wasn't good for climbing with a party of girls. The ground sloped gently up to a comer; from there the cliff went almost straight up a dizzying height, beyond the reach of the rope, even if there were any place or way to anchor it.
'We must do what-we started to do before,' the Siren said. 'Spread out and look for a suitable place to climb.'
'I believe there are paths here and there,' Chem said. 'I don't have them on my map, because few people remember the Gap Chasm; it has an enduring forget-spell on it. But there has been enough travel in Xanth so that people have to have crossed it, and not just at the magic bridges.'
'A forget-spell,' the Siren said. 'How interesting. That accounts for Fireoak's forgetting it. And I'm sure Smash has been here before, too. I hope that's the extent of the spell.'
'What do you mean?' Tandy asked.
'Oh, I'm just a worrier over nothing.'
'I don't think so,' Tandy said. 'If there's any danger, you should warn us.'
The Siren sighed. 'You're right. Yet if there is danger here, it's too late for us to avoid it, since we're already here. It's only that once I heard something about a big dragon in a chasm-and this is a chasm. It would be hard to escape a monster here. But of course that's far-fetched.'
'Let's look for good hiding places, too,' Tandy said. 'Just in case.'
'Just in case,' John agreed, overhearing. 'Oh, suddenly I don't really like this place!'
'So we must try to get out of this chasm as fast as we can,' Smash said, though the prospect of danger did not bother him. There really had not been much violence on this journey.
Chem trotted east, while Smash lumbered west, since these were the two fastest movers of the group.
The girl, Siren, and fairy spread out in between. They left the hamadryad in the shade of a bush, since she was now too weak to walk.
The cliff face changed, sloping at different angles and different heights, but Smash found nothing that would really help. It looked as if he would have to bash out a stairway of sorts, tedious as that would be.
But could he get the party up that way within two days, let alone in time to save the hamadryad and her tree?
There was a commotion to the east. Chem was galloping back, her lovely brown hair-mane flinging out, tail swishing nervously. 'Dragon! Dragon!' she cried breathlessly.
The Siren's concern had been justified! 'I'll stop it,' Smash said enthusiastically, charging east.
'No! It's big. It's the Gap Dragon!'
Now Smash remembered. The Gap Dragon ranged the Gap Chasm, trapping and consuming any
creatures foolish enough to stray here. The forget-spell had deceived him again. The monster really profited from that spell, since no one remembered the danger. But it was coming back to him now. This was a formidable menace.
The Siren, Tandy, and John were running west. Behind them whomped the monster. It was long and low, with a triple pair of stubby legs. Its scales were metallic, glistening in the sunlight, and clouds of steam puffed out of its nostrils. Its body was the thickness of a good-sized tree trunk, but exceedingly limber. It moved by elevating one section and whomping it forward, then following through with another, because its legs were too short for true running. But the clumsy-seeming mechanism sufficed for considerable velocity. In a moment the Gap Dragon would overtake the Siren.
Smash lumbered to the fray. He stood much taller than the dragon, but it reached much longer than he.
Thus they did not come together with a satisfying crash. The dragon scooted right under Smash, intent on the nymphlike morsel before it.
The ogre screeched to a stop, literally, his calloused hamfeet churning up mounds of rubble. He bent forward and grabbed the dragon's tail as it slid westward. He lifted it up, holding it tightly in both hands.
This would halt the monster!
Alas, he had underestimated the dragon. The creature whomped onward. The tail lost its slack-but such was
