The outer wall was unbroken, riveted metal, gleaming at every angle. The front gate was the same, so large it dwarfed even Smash's monstrous proportions. This was the sort of city giants would inhabit!
Smash considered that. The little knobs of the haunted house had shocked him; how much worse would this one be? He was not at all sure he could rip this door from its moorings; it was big and strong, and he was now relatively weak. This was not a situation he liked to admit, but he was no longer properly stupid about such things.
He pondered, drawing on the full curse of the Eye Queue. What he needed was insulation-something to protect him from shock. But there was nothing near; the city wall rose out of sand. He might use his orange jacket-but he was not wearing it, here in the gourd. All he had was the string, and that wasn't suitable.
No help for it. He would have to touch the metal. Actually, there might be a metal floor inside that he would have to walk on; if he were going to get shocked, it would happen with every step. Might as well find out now. He extended a hamfinger and touched the knob.
There was no shock. He grasped and turned the knob. It clicked, and the door swung inward. It wasn't locked!
There was a bright metal hall leading from the gate into the city. Smash walked down it, half expecting the door to slam shut behind him. It did not. He continued through the hall, his bare, furry soles thumping on the cool metal.
He emerged into an open court with a paving of brass, the moonlight bearing down preternaturally. All was silent. No creatures roamed the city.
"Ho!" Smash bellowed, loud enough to disturb the dead, as seemed appropriate in this realm.
No dead were disturbed. If they heard, they were ignoring him. The city seemed to be empty. There was an eerie quality to this that Smash liked. But he wondered who had made this city and where those people had gone. It seemed like far too interesting a place to desert. If ogres built cities, this was the sort of city they would build. But of course no ogre was smart enough to build a single building, let alone a city, certainly not a lovely city of brass.
He tromped through it, his big, flat feet generating a muted booming on the metal street. Brass buildings rose on either side, their walls making blank brass faces at precise right angles to the street. He looked up and saw that the tops were squared off, too. There were no windows or doors. Of course that didn't matter to the average ogre; he could always bash out any windows when and where he wanted. All was mirror-shiny; he could see his appalling reflection in every surface that faced him. Brass ogres paced him to either side, and another walked upside down under the street.
Smash remembered the story his father Crunch had told of entering a sleeping city and discovering the lovely mushfaced ogress who had become Smash's mother. This city of brass was pleasantly reminiscent of that. Was there an ogress here for him? That was an exciting prospect, though he hoped she wasn't made of brass.
He traversed the city, but found no entrance to any building. If an ogress was sleeping here, she was locked away where he couldn't reach her. Smash banged on a wall, making it reverberate; but though the sound boomed pleasantly throughout the city, no one stirred. He punched harder, trying to break a hole in the wall. It was no good; he was too weak, the brass was too strong, and he lacked his protective gauntlets. His fist smarted, so he stuck it in his mouth.
Smash was beginning to be bothered. Before there had been halfway interesting things like walking skeletons, electrified doors, and nightmares. Now there was just brass. What could he accomplish here?
He invoked the curse of the Eye Queue yet again and did some solid thinking. So far, each little adventure within the gourd had been a kind of riddle; he had to overcome some barrier or beat some sort of threat before he could continue to the next event. So it was probably not enough just to enter this empty city and depart; that might not count. He had to solve the riddle, thus narrowing the options, reducing the remaining places for the Night Stallion to hide. Straight physical action did not seem to be the requirement here. What, then, was?
There must be a nonphysical way to deal with this impassive place, perhaps to bring it to life so it could be conquered. Maybe a magical spell. But Smash did not know any spells, and somehow this city seemed too alien to be magical. What else, then?
He paced the streets, still unreeling his string, careful never to cross his own path. And, in a little private square directly under the moon, he discovered a pedestal. Significant things were usually mounted on pedestals directly under the moon, he remembered. So he marched up to it and looked.
He was disappointed. There was only a brass button there. Nothing to do except to press it: There might be serious consequences, but no self-respecting ogre worried about that sort of thing. He turned his big hamthumb down and mashed the button. With luck, all hell would break loose.
As it happened, luck was with him. Most of hell broke loose.
There was a pleasantly deafening klaxon alarm noise that filled all this limited universe with vibrations.
Then the metal buildings began shifting about, moving along the floor of the city, squeezing the streets and the court. In a moment there would be no place remaining for him to stand.
This was more like it! At first Smash planned to brace himself and halt the encroaching buildings by brute ogre strength. But he lacked his full power now, and anyway, it was better to use his brain.
Perhaps the Eye Queue was gradually subverting him, causing him to endorse its nature; already it seemed like less of a curse, and he knew-because, ironically, of the intelligence it provided him - that this was a significant signal of corruption. Mental power tended to corrupt, and absolute intelligence tended to corrupt absolutely, until the victim eschewed violence entirely in favor of smart solutions to stupid problems. Smash hoped he could fight off the curse before it ever ruined him to that extent! If he stopped being stupid, brutal, and violent, he would no longer be a true ogre.
Nevertheless, the expedience of the moment forced him to utilize his mind. He knew that a block that moved one way had to leave a space behind it, unless it happened to be expanding rapidly. He zipped between buildings, emerging from the narrowing aisle just before the two clanged together. Sure enough, there was a new space where a building had stood. It was perfectly smooth brass except for a cubic hole where the center of the building had been. Probably that was the anchoring place, like part of a lock mechanism; a heavy bolt would drop down from the building to wedge in that hole and keep the building from sliding about when it wasn't supposed to. When he had pressed the brass button, the lock bolts had lifted, freeing the buildings. Buildings, like clouds, bashed about all over the place when given the freedom to do so. The klaxon had sounded to warn all crushable parties that motion was commencing, so they could either get out of the way or pick their favorite saiiishin-snot. It all made a sort of violent sense, his Eye Queue informed him. He liked this city better than ever.
Now the building blocks were bouncing back, converging on him. Smash moved again, avoiding what could be a crushing experience. He found himself in a new open space, with another anchorage slot.
But the blocks were moving more quickly now, as if getting warmed up. Because they were big, he needed a certain amount of time to run between them. If they speeded up much more, he would not have time to clear before they clanged. That could be awkward.
"Well, brain, what do you say to this?" he asked challengingly. "Can you outsmart two buildings that plan to catch me and squish me flat?"
His vine-corrupted brain, thus challenged, rose to the occasion. "Get in the pit," it told him.
Smash thought this was crazy. But already the brass was moving, sounding off with its tune of
compression, and he had to act. He leaped into the pit as the blank metal face of the building charged him.
Too late, it occurred to him, or to his Eye Queue-it became difficult at times to distinguish ogre-mind from vine-mind-that he could be crushed when the bolt dropped down to anchor the bui
lding. But that should happen only when the building was finished traveling and wanted to settle down for a rest. He would try to be out by then. If he failed-well, squishing was an ogrish kind of demise.
It was dark there as the metal underbody of the building slid across. He felt slightly claustrophobic-another weakness of intelligence, since a true ogre never worried about danger or consequence. What would happen if the building did not move off?
Then light flashed down from above. Smash blinked and discovered that the center of the building was hollow, glowing from the inner walls. He had found his way inside!
He scrambled up and stood on the floor, still holding his ball of string. The building was still moving, but there was no way it could crush him now. The building floor covered everything except the square where the anchorage hole would be when it lay at anchor, so he could simply ride along with it.
He looked about-and spied an army of brass men and women, each individual fully formed, complete with brass facial features, hair, and clothing-the men fully clothed, the women less so. But they were statues, erected on platforms that, like the floor, moved with the building. Nothing here was of interest to an ogre. He knew brass wasn't good to eat.
Then he spied another brass button.
Well, why not? Maybe this one would make the building stop moving. Of course, if this one stopped and the other buildings did not, there would be a horrendous crash. Smash jammed his thumb down on the button.
Instantly the brass statues animated. The metal people spied the ogre and converged on him. And Smash-Found himself leaning against the fireoak tree. Tandy stood before him, holding the gourd. She had broken his line of vision to the peephole. "Are you all right, Smash?" she asked with her cute concern.
"Certainly!" he grumped. "Why did you interrupt me? It was just getting interesting."
"The lunatic fringe is tearing," she said worriedly. "The human villagers are in the area and will soon discover the tree."
"Well, bring me back when they do," Smash said. "I have metal men to fight inside."
"Metal men?"
"And women. Solid brass."
"Oh," she said, uncomprehending. "Remember, you're in there to fight for your soul. I worry about you.
Smash."
He guffawed. "You worry about me! You're human; I'm an ogre!"
"Yes," she agreed, but her face remained drawn. "I know what it's like in there. You put your soul in peril for me. I can't forget that. Smash."
"You don't like it in there," he pointed out. "I do. And I agreed to protect you. This is merely another aspect." He took the gourd back and applied his eye to the peephole.
The brass people were converging, exactly where they had been when he left. They seemed not even to be aware of his brief absence. The building was moving, too-but it had not moved in the interim. His Eye Queue-cursed brain found all this interesting, but Smash had no time for that nonsense at the moment. The brassies were almost on him.
The first one struck at him. The man was only half Smash's height, but the metal made him solid. Smash hauled him up by the brassard and threw him aside. Smash still lacked the strength to do real damage, but at least he could fight weakly. In his strength he would have hurled the brass man right through the brass wall of the building.
A female grabbed at him. Smash hooked a forefinger into her brassiere and hauled her up to his eye level. "Why are you attacking me?" he asked, curious rather than angry.
"We're only following our program," she said, kicking at him with a pretty brass foot.
"But if you fight me, I shall have to fight you," he pointed out. "And I happen to be a monster."
"Don't try to reason with me, you big hunk of flesh; I'm too brassy for that." She swung at him with a metal fist. But he was holding her at his arm's length, so she could not reach him.
Something was knocking at his knee. Smash looked down. A man was striking at him with his brass knuckles. Smash dropped the brass girl on the brass man's brass hat, and the two crashed to the floor in a shower of brass tacks. They cried out with the sound of brass winds.
Now a half-dozen brassies were grabbing at Smash's legs, and he lacked the strength to throw them all off at once. So he reached down to pluck them off one at a time-He was under the tree again. He saw the problem immediately. Half a dozen brassies-no, these were men and women of the human village-were converging on the tree, bearing wicked-looking axes. The hamadryad was screaming.
Smash had no patience with this. He stood up, towering over the villagers, ogre-fashion. He roared a fine ogre roar.
The villagers turned and fled. They didn't know Smash was short of strength at the moment. Otherwise they could have attacked him and perhaps put him in difficulty, in the same way the brassies were doing in the gourd. He had replaced the illusion of the lunatic fringe with the illusion of his own formidability.
The hamadryad dropped from her tree, her hair glowing like fire, catching him about the neck. She was now a vibrant, healthy creature. "You great big wonderful brute of a creature!" she exclaimed, kissing his furry ear. Smash was oddly moved; as the centaur had noted, ogres were seldom embraced or kissed by nymphs.
He handed the hamadryad back into her tree, then settled down for another session in the gourd. None of them had anywhere to go until the King got the news and acted to protect the tree permanently, and he wanted to wrap up this gourd business.
"Wake me at need," he said, noting that the shimmer of the lunatic fringe was now almost gone. If trees had ogres to protect them instead of cute but helpless hamadryads, very few trees would be destroyed.
Of course, ogres themselves were prime destroyers of trees, using them to make toothpicks and such, so
he was in no position to criticize. He applied his left eye to the peephole this time, giving his right orb a rest.
He stood in an alley between buildings. What was this? The sequence was supposed to pick up exactly where it had left off. What had gone wrong?
The two buildings slid toward him, forcing him to scoot out of the way. Smash emerged into a new space-and saw his line of string. He was about to cross his own path! But he couldn't retreat; the buildings were clanging behind him.
Still, his cursed Eye Queue wouldn't let him leave well enough alone. It wanted to know why the gourd scene had slipped a notch. Was the gourd getting old, beginning to rot, breaking down its system? He didn't want to be trapped in a rotting gourd.
The buildings separated, starting to converge on a new spot. The alley reopened, the string he had just set out running down its length-and stopping.
Smash ran to the end of it. The string had been severed cleanly; it ended at the point he had re-entered the vision.
But as the buildings separated. Smash saw another cut end of string. That must be where he had been before, just a little distance away. He had jumped no farther than he could have bounded by foot. But he hadn't jumped physically; he had left the scene, then returned to it slightly displaced. Why?
The buildings reversed course and closed on him again. They certainly wasted no time pondering questions! Smash ran back, his mind working. And suddenly it came to him-he had switched eyes! His left eye was a little apart from his right eye-and though that distance was small in the real world of Xanth, it was larger in the tiny world of the gourd. So there had been a shift, and a break in his string.
Well, that had freed him of the brass folk. But Smash couldn't accept that. He didn't want to escape, he wanted to win, to conquer this setting and go on to the next, knowing he had narrowed the Night Stallion's options. He wanted to do his job right, leaving no possible loophole for the loss of his soul. So he had to go back to the place he had left off, and resume there.
He followed his prior line, dragging his new line behind him. He found the square pit as the building moved off it, and he got down into it. The building swung back, and the interior light came on. Smash climbed out and ran to the end of his string.
The brass folk saw him and came c
harging in. Smash tied the two ends of string together, making his line complete, then stood as half a dozen people grabbed him. This was where he had left off; now it was all right.
He resumed plucking individual brass folk off. One of them was the girl in the brassiere. "You again?"
he inquired, holding her up by one finger, as he had done before. It was really the best place, since she was flailing all her limbs wildly. "Do I have to drop you again?" "Don't you dare drop me again!" she flashed, her brass surface glinting with ire. She took an angry breath-which almost dislodged her, for she had a full brassiere and his purchase on it was slight. "I have a dent and three scratches from the last time, you monster!" She pointed at her arms. "There's a scratch. There's another. But I won't show you the dent."
"Well, you did kick at me," Smash said reasonably, wondering where the dent was.
"I told you! We have to-"
Then he was back in Xanth again. Smash saw the problem immediately; a cockatrice was approaching the tree. The baby basilisk had evidently been recently hatched and was wandering aimlessly-but remained deadly dangerous.
"Put me down, you lunk!"
Startled, Smash looked at the source of the voice. He was still holding the brass girl, dangling by her brassiere hooked on his finger. She had been brought out of the gourd with him!
Hastily Smash set her down, carefully so she would not dent. He had a more immediate matter to attend to. How could he get rid of the cockatrice?
"Oh, look," the brass girl said. "What a cute chick!" She stepped over to the terrible infant, reaching down.
"Don't touch it!" the Siren cried. "Don't even look at it!"
Too late. The brass girl picked up the baby monster. "Oh, aren't you a sweet one," she cooed, turning it in her hand so she could look it in the snoot.
"No!" several voices cried.
Again they were too late. The brass girl stared deeply into the monster's baleful eyes. "Oh, I wish I could keep you for my very own pet, along with my other pets," she said, touching her pert nose to its hideous schnozzle. "I don't have anything like you in my collection."
Ogre Ogre x-5 Page 15