'You're right. The Good Magician knew,' he said, cuddling her close to him. In the dark she did not seem tiny; she seemed just right. As with riding the nightmares, things were always compatible. He had known Tandy was very feminine; now this quality assumed phenomenal new importance. 'He sent me to the ogres-to find you.'
'And he sent me to find you-the one creature rough enough to drive off the demon I fled, while still being gentle enough for me to love.'
Love. Smash mulled that concept over. 'I cried for you last night,' he confessed.
'Silly,' she teased him. 'Ogres don't cry.'
'Because I thought I would lose you. I did not know that I loved you.'
She melted. 'Oh, Smash! You said it!'
He said it again. 'I love you. That's why I fought for you. That's why I bargained my soul for you.'
She laughed, again teasingly. 'I don't think you know what love is.'
He stiffened. 'I don't?'
'But I'll show you.'
'Show me,' he said dubiously.
She showed him. There was no violence, no knocking of heads against trees, no screaming or stomping.
Yet it was the most amazing and rewarding experience he had ever had. By the time it was done. Smash knew he never wanted to be anything but a man and never wanted any woman but her.
They found another way out of the netherworld, avoiding the lurking dragon, and trekked south along the east coast of Xanth. Smash, by the light of day, was smaller than he had been, and less hairy, and hardly ugly at all. But he didn't really mind giving up his previous assets, because the acquisition of Tandy more than made up for them. She sewed him a pair of shorts, because men wore them, and he did rather resemble a man now.
They traveled quietly, avoiding trouble. When this threatened to rankle his suppressed ogre nature, Tandy would take his hand, and smile up at him, and the rankle dissipated.
The trip took several days, but that didn't matter, because it was sheer joy. Smash hardly noticed the routine Xanth hazards, since most of his attention was on Tandy. Somehow the hazards seemed
diminished, anyway, for news had spread among the griffins, birds, dragons, goblins, and flies that Tandy's companion was best left alone, even if he didn't look like much. It seemed that a certain ogre of the Fen had staggered out of the jungle with a headache, and though he had not given any details, it was evident that he had been roughly treated by the stranger he had fought. Even the crossing of the Gap, which Smash had almost forgotten until he encountered it again, was without event. The Gap Dragon, reputed to have a sore tail, stayed clear.
At length, they drew near the entrance to Tandy's home region. The route was through a chasm guarded by a tangle tree. It was a big, aggressive tree, and Smash knew he could not overcome it. So he drew on his human intelligence and harvested a number of hypnogourds, intending to roll them down to the tree.
If it made the mistake of looking in a single peephole-
But as they carried two gourds from the patch, a cloud of smoke formed-before them. This coalesced into a dusky demon.
'Well, my little human beauty,' the demon said to Tandy, switching his barbed tail about. 'You were lost, but now are found. I shall have my will of you forthwith.' He advanced on her, grinning lasciviously.
Tandy screamed and dropped her gourd, which shattered on the ground. 'Fiant!'
So this was the demon who sought to rape her! Smash set his own gourd down carefully and stepped forward. 'Depart, foul spirit!' he ordered.
The demon ignored him, addressing Tandy instead. 'Ah, you seem more luscious than ever, girl-creature! It will be long before I tire of you.'
Tandy backed away. Smash saw that she was too frightened even to throw a tantrum. The demon had come upon her so suddenly she had not been able to brace emotionally for the assault.
Smash interposed himself between demon and girl. 'Desist, Fiant,' he said.
The fat demon put out a band and shoved him. Smash tripped on a stone and tumbled to the ground ignominiously. The demon stepped on his stomach and advanced on Tandy. 'Pucker up, cutie; your time has come at last.'
Smash was becoming perturbed. Tandy might believe in crossbreeding as the hope of Xanth, but she had not chosen to do it with the demon. As she had explained, there was a considerable difference between what was given voluntarily and what was forced. Smash scrambled to his feet and hurried after Fiant, catching him on the shoulder.
The demon swung about almost carelessly, delivering a brain-rattling slap across Smash's cheek. Smash fell back again, reeling.
Now Fiant shot out a hand and caught Tandy by the hair. She screamed, but could not pull away.
Smash charged back into the fray-only to be met with a careless straight-arm that nearly staved in his teeth. Now the demon deigned to notice him, momentarily. 'Get lost, lout, or I'll hurt you.'
What was this? Fiant seemed to be stronger than Smash!
The demon drew Tandy in to him by the hair, reaching with the clawed fingers of his other hand to rip off her blouse.
Smash charged again, fists swinging. He caught the demon on his pointed ear.
This time Fiant became annoyed. 'You seem to be a slow learner, creep.' He loosed the girl, spun about, and struck Smash with a lightning-fast one-two combination punch on chin and stomach. Smash went down, head fogging, gasping for breath. 'No man can stand against a demon,' Fiant said arrogantly, and turned again to Tandy.
But the brief respite had given her a chance to work up some spunk. She dived for Smash. 'Take my soul!' she cried, and he felt its wonderful enhancement infusing him, He had forgotten how weak he was with only half a soul.
Then she was yanked away by the hair. Fiant held her up, her feet dangling. 'No more Mr. Nice Guy,'
he said. 'Off with your skirt.' On the trip down, Tandy had remade the tatters of her red dress into a good skirt, and completed her wardrobe and Smash's by sewing material from cloth bushes.
Smash leaped up and tackled the demon. Now he had his strength! But Fiant poked two fingers at his eyes. Painfully blinded. Smash fell to the ground again. He had a full soul again; why couldn't he prevail?
It was Tandy who came up with the answer. 'Smash, you're too much of a man now!' she cried from her dangle. 'Too gentle and polite. Try thinking of yourself as an ogre!'
It was true. Smash had spent several days becoming manishly civilized. As Fiant had said, no man was a match for a demon.
But an ogre, now...
Smash thought of himself as an ogre. It wasn't hard. He had spent his life indulging in just such thinking; the old thought patterns were strong. He visualized the ground trembling at his stomp, trees being ripped from their moorings, boulders being crushed to sand by single blows of horny fists.
Hair sprouted on his arms. Muscles bulged horrendously. His height jumped. His orange jacket, which hung on him loosely, abruptly became tight. His shorts split apart and fell off. His hands swelled into hams. His bruised eyeballs popped into awful ogre orbs. Ogre, ogre...
Smash put one hamfinger to the ground and lifted his whole body into the air, then he flipped neatly to his rockcalloused feet He roared-and the leaves of the nearest trees swirled away. So, unfortunately, did Tandy's clothes, such as remained; they were not constructed for hurricane winds.
She swung in dainty nudity by her hair. 'Go get him, ogre!' she cried, and kicked the demon on the nose.
Fiant looked at Smash-and gaped. Suddenly he faced a monster far worse than himself. He dropped the girl and turned to flee.
Smash bent down, hooked his fingers in the turf, and yanked. The turf came toward him in a rug, dumping the demon on his horns. Smash took one tromp forward and launched a mighty kick at Fiant's elevated rump. The kick should have propelled the demon well toward the sun.
But Smash's foot passed right through Fiant. Smash, thrown off balance by the missed kick, did a backward flip and whomped on his head. That hardly mattered to an ogre, but it gave the demon a chance to get organized.
Fiant realized that the ogre could not really hurt him, thanks to his ability to dematerialize at will. This
