the golem cried. 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves?'
Smash stood among the damsels, towering over them, not comprehending the reference. But the Eye Queue curse soon clarified it, obnoxiously. Some of the Mundane settlers in Xanth had a story by that title, and, compared with Smash the Ogre, the seven females were dwarvishly short, as was even Chem the Centaur.
'It seems you have a way with women. Smash,' Prince Dor said, dismounting from the holey cow and coming to greet him. 'What's your secret?'
'I only agreed not to eat them,' Smash said.
'To think how much simpler my life would have been if I had known that,' Dor said. 'I thought girls had to be courted.'
'You never courted me!' Princess Irene exclaimed. She was a striking beauty by human standards, nineteen years old. The other girls all took jealously deep breaths, watching her. 'I courted you! But you never would marry me.'
'You never would set the date!' Dor retorted. Her mouth opened in a pretty O of indignation. 'You never set the date! I've been trying to-'
'They've been fighting about the date since before there was anything to date,' Grundy remarked. 'He doesn't even know what color her panties are.'
'I don't think she knows herself,' Dor retorted.
'I do, too!' Irene flashed. 'They're-' She paused, then hiked up her skirt to look. 'Green.'
'It's only a pretext to show off her legs,' Smash explained to the others.
'So I see,' Tandy said enviously.
'And her panties,' John said. She, like Fireoak, the Siren, and Chem, didn't wear panties, so couldn't show them off. Biythe's panties were copper-bottoms.
'You creatures are getting too smart,' Irene complained. Then she did a double take, turning to Smash.
'What happened to your rhymes?'
'I got cursed by the vine,' the ogre explained. 'It deprived me of both rhyme and stupidity in one swell foop.'
'In a foop? Oh, you poor thing,' she said sympathetically.
'Now that incorrigible ogre charm is working on Irene, too,' Prince Dor muttered.
'Of course it is, idiot,' she retorted. 'All women have a secret passion for ogres.' She turned to Smash.
'Now you had better introduce us all.'
Smash did so with dispatch. 'Tandy, Siren, John, Fireoak, Chem, Goldy, and Biythe-these are Dor, Irene, Grundy, and Chet, and vice versa.'
'Moooo!' lowed the holey cow, each o with a big round hole in it.
'And the Holey Cow,' Smash amended. Satisfied, the bovine swished her tattered tail and began to graze. The cropped grass fell out the holes in her neck as fast as she swallowed it, but she didn't seem to mind.
'I delivered your message,' Chet said. 'King Trent has declared this tree a protected species, and all the other trees in sight of it, and sent Prince Dor to inform the village. There will be no more trouble about that.'
'Oh, wonderful!' the hamadryad cried. 'I'm so happy!' She danced a little jig in air, hanging by one hand from a branch. The tree's leaves seemed to catch fire, harmlessly. Both nymph and tree were fully recovered from the indisposition of their recent separation. 'I could just kiss the King!'
'Kiss me instead,' Dor said. 'I'm the messenger.'
'Oh, no, you don't!' Irene flashed, taking him firmly by the ear.
'Kiss me instead of Dor,' Chet offered. 'There's no shrew guarding me.'
The hamadryad dropped from her branch, flung her arms about the centaur, and kissed him. 'Maybe I have been missing something,' she commented. 'But I don't think there are any males of my species.'
'You could take up with one of the woodland fauns,' Princess Irene suggested. 'You do have pretty hair.' The hamadryad's hair, under its red fringe, was green-as was Irene's hair.
'I'll consider it,' Fireoak agreed.
'How did you gather such a bevy?' Prince Dor asked Smash. 'They certainly seem affectionate, unlike some I have known.' He moved with agility to avoid Irene's swift kick.
'I just picked them up along the way,' the ogre said. 'Each has her mission. John needs her correct name, the Siren needs a better lake-'
'They all need men,' the golem put in.
'I need to go home,' Biythe said.
'Oh. I'll take you there now.' Smash reached for the gourd.
'She's from a hypnogourd?' Princess Irene asked. 'This should be interesting. I always wondered what was inside one of those things.'
Smash hooked his finger into Biythe's brassiere and lifted her high.
'Well, that's one way to pick up a girl,' Dor remarked. 'I'll have to try that sometime.'
'Won't work,' Irene said. 'I don't wear a-'
'Not even a green one?' Tandy asked, brightening.
Smash looked into the gourd's peephole.
The two of them were in the brass spaceship, descending rapidly toward Xanth.
'Oh!' Biythe exclaimed, terrified. She flung her brass arms about Smash. 'I'll fall! I'll fall! Save me, ogre!'
'But I have to bring it down to return to your building,' Smash said. He was having difficulty because there was hardly room for two. He grabbed for a control stick, jerked it around-and the brass girl jumped.
'What are you doing with my knee?' she cried.
Oh. Smash saw now that he had hold of the wrong thing. But it was almost impossible to operate the controls with her limbs in the way. The ship veered crazily, which set Biythe off again. Her nerves certainly were not made of steel! The more she kicked and screamed, the worse the ship spun, and the more frightened she became. They were now plunging precipitously toward ground.
Then they were back under the fireoak tree. 'We thought you had enough time to drop her off,' Tandy said. Then she paused, frowning.
Biythe was wrapped around Smash, her metal arms hugging his neck desperately, her legs clasping his side. He had firm hold of one of her knees.
'I think we interrupted something,' Princess Irene remarked sardonically.
Biythe's complexion converted from brass to copper. Smash suspected his own was doing much the same, as his Eye Queue now made him conscious of un-ogrish proprieties. The two disengaged, and Smash set the brass girl down on the ground, where she sat and sobbed brass tears. 'We were crashing,'
Smash explained lamely.
'Oh-Mundane slang,' Chet said. 'But I think she wasn't quite ready for it.'
'It's really no business of ours what you call it,' Grundy said, smirking.
'Oh, don't be cruel!' the Siren said. 'This poor girl is terrified, and we know Smash wouldn't hurt her.
Something is wrong in the gourd.'
In due course they worked it out. Smash would have to return to the brass building first, then come back for Biythe, who, it seemed, was afraid of interplanetary heights.
But now dawn was coming, and other business was pressing. They had to inform the local village of the protected status of the tree and its environs, and then Chet and his party had to return to Castle Roogna.
In addition, Biythe was no longer so eager to jump into the gourd, with or without the ogre. If she went alone, she might find herself crashing in the ship, and have no way to get back outside, since she was not an outside creature. It would be better to send her back later, once things were more settled.
'Oh,' Chet said. 'Almost forgot. I gave Tandy's message to Crombie, and he made a pointing-that's his talent, you know, pointing out things-and he concluded that if you went north, you'd face great danger and lose three things of value. But when he did a pointing back where you came from, there was something else you'd lose that was even more important. He couldn't figure out what any of the things were, but thought you'd better be advised. He says you're a spunky girl who will probably win through in the manner of your kind.'
Tandy laughed. 'That's my father, all right! He hates women, and he knows I'm growing up, so he's starting to hate me, too. But I'm glad to have his advice.'
'What's back at your home that's worse than the jungle of Xanth?' Chet asked.
