route to Lake Ogre-Chobee. I fear I caused some mischief for that village in my youth; I know I am not welcome there. But my sister the Siren remains in the area, and if you would convey my greetings to her-'
'But how can I travel with an ogre?' Tandy protested. 'That's not an Answer; that's a punishment 1 He'll gobble me up the first time he gets hungry!'
'Not necessarily so,' the Gorgon demurred. 'Smash is no ordinary ogre. He's honest and halfway civilized. He will perform his service correctly, to the best of his limited understanding. He will not permit any harm to come to you. In fact, you could hardly have a better guardian while traversing the jungles of Xanth.'
'But how does this solve my problem, even if I'm not gobbled up?' Tandy persisted. Smash saw that her spunky nose was a correct indication of her character; she had a
fighting spirit despite her inadequate size. 'Traveling won't solve a thing! There's nowhere I can go to-'
The Gorgon touched the girl's lips with a forefinger. 'Let your problem be private for now, dear. Just accept my assurance. If my husband says traveling will solve your problem, then traveling will solve it.
Humfrey knew an ogre would be coming here at this time, and knew you needed that sort of protection, since you have so little familiarity with the outside world. Believe me, it will turn out for the best.'
'But I don't have anywhere to go!'
'Yes, but Smash does. He is seeking the Ancestral Ogres.'
'A whole tribe of ogres? I'm absolutely doomed!'
The Gorgon's expression was facelessly reproving. 'Naturally you do not have to follow the advice you paid for, dear. But the Good Magician Humfrey really does know best.'
'I think he's getting old,' Tandy said rebelliously. 'Maybe he doesn't know as much as he used to.'
'He likes to claim that he's forgotten more than he ever knew,' the Gorgon said. 'Perhaps that is so. But do not underestimate him. And don't misjudge this ogre.'
Tandy pouted. ' Oh, all right! I'll go with the monster. But if he gobbles me up, you'll be responsible! I'll never speak to you again.'
'I accept the responsibility,' the Gorgon agreed. 'Now Smash is hungry.' She turned to him. 'Come to the kitchen, ogre, for a peck or two of raw potatoes. They haven't been cleaned, and some have worms; you'll like them.'
'You're joking!' Tandy said. Then she looked again at Smash, who was licking his chops. 'You're not joking!'
'Well spoke; no joke,' Smash agreed, hoping there would also be a few barrels of dirty dishwater to glug down with the potatoes. Tandy grimaced.
Chapter 3. Eye Queue
They traveled together, but it was no pleasure for either. Smash had to take tiny slow steps to enable the girl to keep up, and Tandy made it plain she considered the ogre to be a monstrous lout. She refused to let him carry her, as he could readily have done; despite the Gorgon's assurances, she was afraid of getting gobbled. She seemed to have a thing about monsters, and male monsters in particular; she hated them. So they wended their tedious way south toward Lake Ogre-Chobee-a journey that should have taken Smash alone a single day, but promised to take several days with Tandy. The Good Magician had certainly come up with a bad chore in lieu of his year's service for an Answer! And Smash still didn't know what Question had been answered.
The scenery was varied. At first they crossed rolling hills; it took some time for Tandy to get the hang of walking on a hill that rolled, and she took several tumbles. Fortunately, the hills were covered with soft, green turf, so that the girl could roll with the punches, head over feet without much damage. Smash did note, as a point of disinterest, that his companion was not the child she seemed. She was very small even for her kind, but in the course of her tumbles she displayed well-formed limbs and torso. She was a little woman, complete in every small detail. Smash knew about such details because he had once traveled to Mundania with Prince Dor and Princess Irene, and that girl Irene had somehow managed to show off every salient feature of her sex in the course of the adventure, all the while protesting that she wanted no one to see. Tandy had less of each, but was definitely of a similar overall configuration. And her exposures, it seemed, were genuinely unintentional, rather than artful. She evidently had no notion of what to wear on such a trip. In fact, she seemed amazingly ignorant of Xanth terrain. It was as if she had never been here before-which, of course, was nonsense. Every citizen of Xanth had lived in Xanth, as had even the zombies and ghosts, who no longer lived, but remained active.
After they passed the rolling hills they came to a more stable area, where a tangle tree held sway.
Tanglers were like dragons and ogres in this respect: no sensible creature tangled voluntarily with one.
Smash didn't even think about it; he just stepped around it, letting it sway alone.
But Tandy walked straight down the neat, clear path that always led to such trees, innocently sniffing the pleasant fragrance of the evil plant. She was almost within its quiveringly hungry embrace before Smash realized that she really didn't know what it was.
Smash dived for the girl, trying to snatch her out of the grasp of the twitching tentacles. 'No go!' he bellowed.
Tandy saw him. 'Eeek! The monster's going to gobble me!' she cried. But it was Smash she meant, not the real menace. She scooted on inside the canopy of the dread tree.
With a gleeful swish, the hanging tentacles pounced. Five of them caught her legs, arms, and head. The girl was hauled up and carried toward the slavering wooden orifice in the base of the trunk. She screamed foolishly, as was her kind's wont in such circumstances.
Smash took only a moment to assess the situation. Thought with his brain was tedious and fatiguing and none too effective, but thought with his muscles was swift and sure. He saw Tandy in midair, wearing a pretty red print dress and matching red slippers; tentacles were grabbing at these, assuming them to be edible portions. One tentacle was tugging at her hair, dislodging the red ribbon in it. In a moment the tree would realize that the red was only the wrapping, and would tear that away and get down to serious business.
Smash could handle a small tangler; he was, after all, an ogre. But this was a big tangler. It had a hundred or more pythonlike tentacles, and a personality to match its strength. There was no way to negotiate or to reason with it; Smash had to fight.
The ogre charged in. That wasn't hard; tanglers wanted creatures to enter their turf. It was the getting out again that was difficult. He grabbed the mass of tentacles that had wrapped around the terrified and struggling girl. 'Tree let be,' he grunted, hauling the works back away from the sap-drooling orifice.
Now, tanglers were ferocious, but not unduly stupid. This tree was full-sized-but so was the ogre. Very few things cared to cross an ogre. The tree hesitated, and its coils about the girl loosened.
Then the tree decided that it could, after all, handle this challenge and gain a respectable meal in the bargain. It attacked Smash with its remaining tentacles.
Smash had been wary of this, but was stuck for it. He grabbed a tentacle in each hand and yanked-but the material was flexible and stretchable, and moved with him. He lacked the leverage to rip the tentacles out. Meanwhile, Tandy was being carried back to the orifice, trailing torn swatches of red cloth.
Smash tried a new tactic: he squeezed. Now the tree keened in vegetable pain as its two tentacles were constricted into jelly, dripped and spurted juice, and finally were lopped off. But the thing expected to take some losses, and it could always grow new tentacles; Tandy was almost at the glistening maw. A limber fiber tongue was tasting the red fabric. By the time Smash could truncate all the tentacles, the girl would be long digested.
Smash hurled himself at the orifice. He smashed his gauntleted fists into it, breaking off the wooden teeth. Sap splashed, burning his fur where it struck. The tree roared with a sound like sundering timber, but the tentacles kept coming.
The ogre braced himself before the orifice, blocking the entry of the girl. She banged into him before the tree realized this, and he was able to grab a couple more tentacles and pinch them off. Now the tree could not consume her until it dealt with him-and he was turning out to be tougher than it had anticipated. In fact, he was turning out tougher than he had anticipated; he had thought the tree had the advantage, but he was faring pretty well.
It was a bad thing in Xanth when a predator misjudged its foe. The tree was now in trouble, but had to fight on. As new tentacles converged. Smash caught them, twisted several together, and tied their tips into a great raveled knot that he shoved into the orifice in the trunk. The maw closed automatically, squirting digestive sap-and the tree suffered a most unpleasant surprise. The keening of agony magnified piercingly.
During this distraction. Smash unwrapped the girl, squeezing each tentacle until it let go. Soon Tandy stood
