Ogre, Ogre

by Piers Anthony

  At last he got her all the way across. She was intact. That relieved one concern. "Tell why she untie," he grunted, not letting her go.

  Chem seemed dazed, but soon reorganized herself. "It's not what you think, Smash. It's beautiful in the Void! All mist and fog and soft meadows, and herds of centaurs grazing--"

  Smash might be stupid, but not that stupid. "She still in daze. Centaurs no graze."

  Her eyes rounded, startled. "Why, that's right! Sea cows graze. Water-horses graze. Black sheep graze. Centaurs eat in human fashion. What am I thinking of?"

  Perhaps she had seen a herd of grazing animals and jumped to a conclusion. But that was of little moment at the moment. "That is dandy. Where is Tandy?"

  "Oh, Tandy! I didn't see her." Chem was chagrined. "I crossed the line to seek her and was so distracted by the beauty of the region that I forgot my mission. I'm not usually that flighty!"

  True enough. Chem was a filly with all four hooves on the ground. She was less aggressive than her father Chester and less imperious than her mother Cherie, but still had qualities of determination and stability that were to be commended. It was entirely unlike her to act in an impetuous or thoughtless manner.

  Now something else occurred to Smash. There were various kinds of magic springs in Xanth that trapped the unwary. Some caused a person to fall in love with the first creature of the opposite sex he or she saw; that was how the species of centaur had originated. Some caused a person to turn into a fish. Some healed a person's wounds instantly and cleanly, as if they had never been. Had the group encountered one of those before, John the Fairy would have been able to restore her lost wings. And some springs caused a person to forget.

  "She get wet, she forget?" he asked, wishing he could voice his concern more eloquently. Damn his bonehead!

  "Wet?" Chem was perplexed. "Oh--you mean as in a lethe-spring? No, I didn't forget in that fashion, as you can see, and I'm sure Tandy didn't. For one thing, there was no spring nearby, certainly not within range of the rope. It's something else. It's just such lovely land, so pleasant and peaceful, I simply had to explore it. Nothing else seemed important, somehow. I knew that farther in there would be even more wonder, and--" She paused. "And I just couldn't step back. I realize that was very foolish of me. But I'm sure that place is safe. No monsters or natural hazards, I mean."

  Smash remained doubtful. Tandy was gone, and Chem had almost been gone. It had been no simple distraction of mind that kept her there; she had untied her safety rope and resisted his pullback with all her might. Yet she seemed to be in full possession of her faculties now.

  Tandy must have been similarly seduced. She now was wary of the easy paths leading to tanglers and ant-lion lairs, but would not have experienced this particular inducement. Instead of being an easy access path to a pleasant retreat, this was an entire landscape that lured one in. Was that why it was called the Void--because no one ever returned from it, so that nothing was known about it?

  If that were so, how could they leave Tandy to its merciless mercy? She needed to be rescued immediately!

  "As I see it," Chem said, "we shall have to go in and look for Tandy and try to bring her out. We risk getting trapped ourselves--not, I think, by some monster, but by the sheer delight of the region. We won't want to leave." She flicked her tail, perturbed. "I realize this is a lot to ask of you now. Smash, but do you have any opinion?"

  How ironic! If the curse had stayed with him just a little longer, he could have marshaled its formidable power and expressed an eloquently cogent and relevant thought that might completely clarify their troubled course. Something like: "Chem, I suggest you employ your three-dimensional holographic map-projection to chart the Void as we explore it, so that not only will we be able to orient more specifically on Tandy's most likely course, we shall also have no difficulty finding our way out again." But the curse had left him, so that he had become too stupid to think of that, let alone express it. All that actually came out was, "Make map, leave trap."

  "Map? Trap?" she asked, her brow furrowing. "I do want to chart the Void, as I do everything, but I don't see how--"

  Sure enough, he had not gotten through. He tried again. "Find way, no stay."

  "Use my magic map to find our way out?" She brightened. "Of course! We can't get lost if I keep it current. I'll mark a dotted line; then we can follow it back if there is any problem. That's a very good idea, Smash." She said it comfortingly, as one would to a dull child. And, of course, intellectually, that was what he was. What he had been when infected by the weed of smartness was of no present relevance; he had to accept the reality, depressing as it now seemed. He was not, and never would be, inherently intelligent. He was, after all, an ogre.

  That would definitely solve one problem, he thought. Tandy might have taken a certain girlish fancy to him--but it had been the enhancement of his intellect provided by the Eye Queue that appealed to her. Now that he was back to normal, she would properly regard him as the animal he was. That was certainly best--though, somehow, he was too stupid to appreciate the nicety of it fully. He had, in fact, been somewhat puffed up by her attention, undeserved as it was, and had rather enjoyed her company, the flattery of her uncritical nearness. He did not relish the prospect of going his way alone again. But of course he had no choice. An ogre went the ogre's way.

  "Let's try it," Chem said, coiling her rope. "Let's keep each other in sight, and call out any special things we see. Our object is to locate Tandy and then to bring us all out on the north side of the Void. Do you agree?"

  "Good stratagem, centaur femme," he agreed inanely.

  She smiled briefly, and he saw how nervous she was. She was afraid of what they were about to encounter in the Void, pleasant though it seemed. She knew their perspectives would change the moment they crossed the line, and that they might never return. "Wish us luck, monster."

  "Luck, Chem, pro-tem," he said.

  They stepped across the line together.

  Chem had been correct. The landscape was even, slightly sloping down ahead, with low-hanging clouds cruising by. The ground was covered with lush turf that seemed innocent and had a fragrant odor, with pretty little flowers speckled through it. Certainly there was no obvious danger. And that, he feared, was the most obvious danger of all.

  Now Chem generated her magic map. The image appeared in the air by her head. But this time it expanded enormously, rapidly overlapping the terrain they stood on, so that the features of the Land of Xanth in image passed by them both. Mountains, lakes, and the Gap Chasm--apparently her map was not affected by the forget-spell on the Gap, an item of possible significance--rushed by them. Then trees and streams became large enough to be seen individually, and even occasional animals, frozen as recorded yet seeming to move because of the expansion of the map. "Hey, it's not supposed to do that!" she protested. "It's turning life-size!"

  Obviously the map was careering out of control. Smash wondered why that should happen here. If only he had his Eye Queue back, he would be able to realize that this was surely no coincidence, and that it related in some fundamental way to the ultimate nature of the Void. He might even conjecture that the things of the mind, whether animated in the form of a map or remaining inchoate, had considerable impact on the landscape of the Void. Perhaps the interaction between the two created a region of animated imagination that could be a lot of fun, but might also pose considerable threats to sanity if it got out of control. Perhaps no purely physical menace lurked within the Void, but rather, the state of mental chaos that might prevail when no aspects of physical reality intruded upon or limited the generation of fanciful imagery. But naturally a mere stupid ogre could in no way appreciate the tiniest portion of such a complex conjecture, so Smash was oblivious. He hoped this foolish oblivion would not have serious consequences. Ignorance was not necessarily bliss, as any smart creature would know.

  Chem, confused by her map's misbehavior, turned it off. Then she tried it again, concentrating intently. This tim
e it expanded from its point source, then contracted to pinpoint size, gyrating wildly, until it steadied down around the size she wanted it. She was learning new control, and this was just as well, for lack of discipline might be extraordinarily troublesome here.

  "See, there are the grazing centaurs," Chem said, pointing ahead.

  Smash looked. He saw a tribe of grazing ogres. Again, if only he had retained the curse of intelligence, he might have comprehended that another highly significant aspect of this region was manifesting. Chem perceived one nonsensical thing, and he perceived another. That suggested that the preconceptions of the viewer defined in large part what that viewer saw; there was not necessarily any objective standard here. Reality, literally, was something else. In this case, perhaps, a herd of irrelevant creatures was grazing, neither centaurs nor ogres.

  If this were so, he might have continued his thought, how could they be certain that anything they saw here was not a kind of illusion? Tandy could be lost in a world of altered realities and not realize it. Since Chem and Smash also were in altered states of perception, the problem of locating Tandy might be immensely more complicated than anticipated. But he, a dull ogre, would merely blunder on, heedless of such potential complications.

  "Something funny here," Chem said. "We know centaurs don't graze."

  "It seem a dream," Smash said, trying vainly to formulate the concept he knew he could not master without the curse of intellect.

  "Illusion!" Chem exclaimed. "Of course! We're seeing other creatures that only look like centaurs." She was smart, as all centaurs were; she caught on quickly. But she didn't have it all yet. "Me no see centaur she," he said clumsily.

  "You see something else? Not centaurs?" Again her brow furrowed. "What do you see, Smash?"

  Smash tapped his own chest.

  "Oh, you see ogres. Yes, I suppose that makes sense. I see my kind, you see yours. But how can we see what is really there?"

  This was far too much for him to figure out. If only he had his Eye Queue back, he might be able to formulate a reversal of perspective that would cancel out the mind-generated changes and leave only the undisturbed truth. Perhaps a kind of cross-reference grid, contrasting Chem's perceptions with his own, eliminating the differences. She saw centaurs, he saw ogres--obviously each saw his own kind, so that was suspect. Both saw a number of individuals, so there the perceptions aligned and were probably accurate. Both saw the creatures grazing, which suggested they were, in fact, grazing animals, equine, caprine, bovine, or other. Further comparison on an organized basis, perhaps mapping the distinctions on a variant of Chem's magic map, would in due course yield a close approximation of the truth, whatever it might be.

  Of course, it might be that there was nothing. That even their points of agreement were merely common fancies, so that the composite image would be that illusion that was mutually compatible. It just might be, were the fundamental truth penetrated, that what remained in the Void was--nothing. The absence of all physical reality. Creatures thought, therefore they existed--yet perhaps even their thinking was largely illusion. So maybe the thinkers themselves did not exist--and the moment they realized this, they ceased to exist. The Void was--void.

  But without his mental curse he wouldn't see any of that, and perhaps this was just as well. If he were going to imagine anything, he should start with the Eye Queue vine! But he would have to use it cautiously, lest the full power of his enhanced intellect succeed only in abolishing himself. He needed to preserve the illusion of existence long enough to rescue Tandy and get them out of the Void, so that their seeming reality became actual. "Me need clue to find Eye Queue," he said regretfully.

  Chem took him literally, which was natural enough, since she knew he now lacked the wit to speak figuratively. "You think there are Eye Queue vines growing around here? Maybe I can locate them on my map."

  She concentrated, and the suspended map brightened.

  Parts of it became greener than others. "I can't usually place items I haven't actually seen," she murmured. "But sometimes I can interpolate, extrapolate from experience and intuition. I think there could be such vines--here." She pointed to one spot on her map, and a marker-glow appeared there. "Though they may be imaginary, just ordinary plants that we happen to see as Eye Queues."

  Smash was too stupid to appreciate the distinction. He set off in the direction indicated by the map. The centaur followed, keeping the map near him so he could refer to it at need. In short order he was there--and there they were, the dangling, braided eyeball vines, each waiting to curse some blundering creature with its intelligence and perception.

  He grabbed one and set it on his head. It writhed and sank in immediately. How far had he sunk, to inflict so eagerly this curse upon himself!

  His intelligence expanded, much as the centaur's map had. Now he grasped many of the same notions he had wished to grasp before. He saw one critical flaw in the technique of using a cross-reference grid to establish reality: turned on his own present curse of intelligence, it would probably reveal his smartness to be illusion. Since Smash needed that intelligence to rescue Tandy, he elected not to pursue that course. It would be better to use the devices of perspective to locate Tandy first, then explore their unreal mechanisms when the loss of such mechanisms no longer mattered. It would also be wise not to ponder the intricacies of his own personal existence.

  What would be the best way to find her? If her footprints glowed, it would be easy to track her. But he was now far too smart to believe that anything so coincidentally convenient could exist.

  The centaur, however, might be deceivable. "I suspect there could be some visible evidence of the passage of outsiders," he remarked. "We carry foreign germs, alien substances from other magic regions. There could be interactions, perhaps a small display of illumination--"

  "Smash!" she exclaimed. "It worked! You're smart again!"

  "Yes, I thought it might."

  "But it's illusion. The Eye Queue is only imaginary! How can it have a real effect?"

  "What can affect the senses can also affect the mind," Smash explained. She had seemed so smart a moment ago. Now, from the lofty vantage of his restored intelligence, she seemed a bit slow. Certainly it was stupid of her to attempt to explain away his mental power, for that would put them right back in the morass of incompetence. He had to persuade her--before she persuaded him. "In Xanth, things are mostly what they seem to be. For example, Queen Iris's illusions of light enable her to see in the dark; her illusion of distant vision enables her to see people who are otherwise too far away. Here in the Void, in contrast, things are what they seem not to be. It is possible to finesse these appearances to our advantage, and to generate realities that serve our interests. Do you perceive the footprints?"

  She looked, dismayed by his confusing logic. "I--do," she said, surprised. "Mine are disks, yours are paw-prints. Mine glow light brown, like my hide; yours glow black, like yours." She looked up. "Am I making any sense at all? How can a print glow black?"

  "What other color befits an ogre?" he asked. He did not see the prints, but did not remark on that "Now we must cast about for Tandy's prints." He cracked the briefest smile. "And hope they do not wail."

  "Yes, of course," she agreed. "They must originate where we crossed the line: that's the place to intercept them." She started back--and paused. "That's funny."

  "What's funny?" Smash was aware that the Void was tricky and potentially dangerous. If Chem began to catch on to its ultimate nature, he would have to divert her in a hurry. Their very existence could depend on it.

  "I seem to be up against a wall. It's intangible, but it balks me."

  A wall. That was all right; that was a physical obstacle, not an intellectual one, therefore much less dangerous. Much better to wrestle that sort of thing. Smash moved to join her--and came up against the wall himself. It was invisible, as she had suggested, but as he groped at it he began to discern its rough stones. It seemed to be fashioned of ogre-resistant stuff, or
maybe his weakened condition prevented him from demolishing it properly. Odd.

  His Eye Queue had another thought, however. If things in the Void were not what they seemed to be, perhaps this was true of the wall. It might not exist at all; if he could succeed in disbelieving in it, he could walk through it. Yet if he succeeded in abolishing a wall this tangible by mental effort, what then of the other things of the Void, such as the Eye Queue? He might do best not to disbelieve.

  "What do you perceive?" Chem asked.

  "A firm stone wall," he said, deciding. "I fear we shall find it difficult to depart the Void." He had thought that intellectual dissolution, or the vacating of reality, might cause the demise of intruders into the Void; perhaps it was, after all, a more physical barrier. He would have to keep his mind open so as not to be trapped by illusions about these illusions.

  "There must be a way," she said with a certain false confidence. She suspected, as he did, that they could be in worse trouble right now than they had been when the Gap Dragon charged them or the volcano's lava flows began breaking up under them. Mental and emotional equilibrium was as important now as physical agility had been then. "Our first job is to catch up with Tandy; then we can tackle the problem of departure."

  At least she had her priorities in order. "Certainly, We can intercept her footprints by proceeding sidewise. We now have a notion why she did not return. This wall must be pervious from the edge of the Void, impervious from the interior. A little like a one-way path through the forest."

  "Yes. I always liked those "one-way paths. I don't like this wall quite as well." Chem proceeded sidewise, following the wall. She did not see it or really feel it, yet it balked her effectively. Meanwhile, Smash did not see the glowing footprints, but knew they would lead the two of them to Tandy. There seemed to be more substance to these illusions than was true elsewhere. The illusions of Queen Iris seemed very real, but one could walk right through them. The illusions of the Void seemed unreal, yet prevented penetration. Would they really all dissipate at such time as he allowed himself to fathom the real nature of the Void?