'That was a bad one,' Smash acknowledged. 'But the price was too high.' His Eye Queue curse had made him aware of the significance of the price; otherwise he almost certainly would have succumbed.
'And so you blundered through, allowing nothing to sway you, and thus vacated the lien on four-fifths of your soul. Only one more test remains-but on this one depends all that you have gained so far. You will win your whole soul here-or lose it.'
'Send me to that test,' Smash said resolutely. The Stallion's eyes flickered intensely, but the scene did not change. 'Why did you accept the lien on your soul?' the creature asked.
Smash's Eye Queue warned him that the eye-flicker meant he had been projected to another vision and was being tested. Since the scene had not changed, this must be a different sort of test from the others. Beware!
'To save the soul of my friend, whom I had promised to protect,' Smash said carefully. 'I thought you knew that. It was your minion of the coffin who cheated her out of it.'
'What kind of fool would place the welfare of another before his own?' the Horse demanded, ignoring Smash's remark.
Smash shrugged, embarrassed. 'I never claimed to be other than a fool. Ogres are very strong and very stupid.'
The Stallion snorted. 'If you expect me to believe your implication, you think I'm a fool! I know most ogres are stupid, but you are not. Why is that?'
Unfortunately, ogres were not much given to lying; it was part of their stupidity. Smash had been directly asked; he would have to answer. 'I am cursed with the Eye Queue. The vine makes me much smarter than I should be and imbues me with aspects of conscience, aesthetic awareness, and human sensitivity. I would, rid myself of it it I could, but I need the intelligence in order to help my friends.'
'Fool!' the Stallion roared. 'The Eye Queue curse is an illusion!'
'Everything in the gourd and in the Void is illusion of one sort or another,' Smash countered. 'Much of Xanth is illusion, and perhaps Mundania, too; It might be that if we could only see the ultimate reality, Xanth itself would not exist. But while I exist in it, or think I do, I will honor the rules of illusion as I do those of reality, and draw on the powers my illusory Eye Queue provides as I do on those my real ogre strength provides.'
The Stallion paused. 'That was not precisely what I meant, but perhaps it is a sufficient answer.
Obviously your own intelligence is no illusion. But were you not aware that the effect of the Eye Queue vine is temporary? That it wears off in a few hours at most,' and in many cases provides, not true intelligence, but a vain illusion of it that causes the recipient to make a genuine 'fool of himself, the laughingstock of all who perceive his self-delusion?'
Smash realized that the creature was indeed testing him another way-and an intellectual test was most treacherous for an ogre. 'I was not aware of that,' he admitted. 'Perhaps my companions were too kind to think of me in that way. But I believe my intelligence is real, for it has helped me solve many problems no ordinary ogre could handle, and has broadened my horizons immeasurably. If this be illusion, it is tolerable. Certainly it lasted me many days without fading. Perhaps it works better on ogres, who can _ hardly be rendered more foolish than they naturally are.'
'You are quite correct. You are no ordinary ogre and you are smart enough to give me a considerable challenge. Most creatures who place their souls in peril do so for far less charitable reasons. But, of course, you are only half-ogre.'
Naturally the Lord of Nightmares knew all about him! Smash refused to lose his temper, for that surely was what the Stallion wanted. Lose temper, lose soul! 'I am what I am. An ogre.'
The Stallion nodded as if discovering a weakness in Smash's armor. He was up to something; Smash could tell by the way he swished his tail in the absence of flies. 'An ogre with the wit and conscience of a man. One who makes the Eye Queue vine work beyond its capacities, and makes it work again even when the vine itself is illusory. One who maintains a loyalty to his responsibilities and associates that others would fain define as entirely human.'
'I also made the gourd work in the Void, when it was illusory,' Smash pointed out. 'If you seek to undermine my enhanced intelligence by pointing out that it has no basis, you must also concede that your testing of me has no basis.'
'That was not precisely my thrust. Similar situations may have differing interpretations.' He snorted, clearing his long throat. 'You have mastered the four challenges without fault and are now entitled to assume the role of Master of Challenges. I shall retire from the office; you shall be the Night Ogre.'
'The Night Ogre?' Smash, despite the Eye Queue, was having trouble grasping this.
'You will send the bad images out with your night ogresses and collect the souls of those who yield them. You will be Master of the Gourd. The powers of the night will be yours.'
'I don't want the powers of the night!' Smash protested. 'I just want to rescue my friends.'
'With the powers of the night, you can save them,' the Stallion pointed out. 'You will be able to direct your night creatures to bear them sleeping from the Void to the safety of the ordinary Xanth jungle.'
But Smash's Eye Queue, illusory though it might be, interfered with this promising solution. 'Would I get to return to the world of the day myself?'
'The Master of Night has no need to visit the day!' 'So you are prisoner of the night yourself,' Smash said.
'You may capture the souls of others, but your own is hostage.'
'I can go to the day!' the Stallion protested.
Again the Eye Queue looked' the. horse's gift in the mouth. It was full of dragon's teeth. 'Only if you collect enough souls to pay your way. How many does it take for an hour of day? A dozen? A hundred?'
'There is another way,' the Stallion said uncomfortably.
'Surely so. If you arrange a replacement for yourself,' Smash said. 'Someone steadfast enough to do the job according to the rules, no matter how unpleasant or painful or tedious it becomes. Someone whom power does not corrupt.'
The Dark Horse was silent.
'Why is it necessary to send bad dreams to people?' Smash asked. 'Is this only a means to jog them from their souls?'
'It has a loftier rationale than that,' the Stallion replied somewhat stiffly. 'If no one ever suffered the pangs of conscience or regret, evil would prosper without hindrance and eventually take over the world.
Evil can be the sweet sugar of the soul, temptingly pleasant in small doses, but inevitably corrupting.
The bad dreams are the realizations of the consequence of evil, a timely warning that all thinking creatures require. The nightmares guard constantly against spiritual degradation-that same corruption you have withstood. Take the position, ogre; you have earned it.'
'I wish I could help you,' Smash said. 'But my life is outside the gourd, in the jungles of Xanth. I am a simple forest creature. I must help my friends survive the wilderness in my own fashion, and not aspire to be more than any ogre was ever destined to be.'
The Stallion's eyes dimmed. 'You have navigated the final challenge. You have avoided the ultimate temptation of power. You are free to return to Xanth with your soul intact. The lien is voided.'
Suddenly Smash felt completely strong again, his soul restored. 'But I need help,' he said. 'I must borrow three of your nightmares to carry my party out of the Void.'
'Nightmares are not beasts of burden!' the Stallion protested, scraping the ground with a forehoof. It seemed this creature, if not actually piqued by Smash's refusal to take over the proffered office, was still less cooperative than he might have been. When one scorned an offer of any nature, one had to bear the penalty.
'The nightmares alone can travel anywhere, even out of the Void,' Smash said, knowing he had to find some way to gain the assistance he needed. 'Only they can help us.'
'They could if they chose to,' the Horse agreed. 'But their fee is half a soul for each person carried.'
'Half my soul!' Smash exclaimed. 'I don't have enough for three!'
'Half a soul, not necessarily your own. But it is true you do not have enough. Nightmare rides come steep.'
Smash realized that he was right back in the dilemma he thought he had escaped. He had placed his soul in jeopardy to rescue Tandy from the gourd; now he would have to do it again to rescue Tandy and Chem from the Void. But if he rescued both, he himself would be lost, for the Eye Queue informed him that two halves of a soul
