"Wake up, Smash!" Tandy whispered urgently. "A monster's coming!"
But Smash, in a dream-daze, hardly stirred. He had no fear of the most horrendous ogress.
The monster stamped near, eyes glowing, teeth gleaming, breath fogging out in dank, cold clouds. It was pure white, and every hair seemed to be an icicle.
"Smash!" Tandy hissed. "It's an abom-abom-an awful Snowman! Help!"
The Snowman looked over them, as pale as a snowstorm. It reached out to grab the nearest edible thing.
The girls cowered behind Smash, who was mostly covered by a nice snow blanket, so that little of him showed. This snow was not nearly as cold as that of the rest of the mountain, because this was near the heat wave; he was comfortable enough. But it deceived the Snowman, who -caught hold of Smash's nose and yanked.
Ouch! Suddenly Smash woke up all the way. A truly ogrish rage shook him. He reached up one huge, hairy arm and grabbed the snow monster by the throat.
The Snowman was amazed. He had never encountered a worse monster than himself before. He had not known anything like that existed. He did not know how to deal with this situation.
Fortunately, Smash knew how to deal with it. He stood up, not letting go, and shook the hapless monster. "Growl!" he growled, and dropped the creature on top of the heat wave.
There was a bubbling and hissing as the Snowman's posterior converted from ice to steam in one foop.
The monster sailed into the ah- and shot out of there like a gust from a gale. Smash didn't bother to pursue; he knew better than to stray from the vicinity of the heat wave again. He was no Snowman!
"It will be a long time before that creature bothers travelers again," Chem remarked with private satisfaction.
"Yes, we have adverse monster on our side," Tandy said, patting Smash's knee. She seemed to like the notion.
Smash was just glad he had enough of his strength back to handle such things as snow monsters. But soon he would have to meet the Night Stallion and put it all on the line. He had better get the girls beyond these dangerous wilderness regions of Xanth first, just in case.
Once more they settled down to sleep, grouping closely around the heat wave. By morning it had melted them deep into the snow, so that they were in a cylindrical well. There seemed to be no bottom to this layer of snow; was the whole mountain made of it? That could be, since this was the Water Wing, and snow was solidified water.
Smash bashed out a ramp to the surface, and the party resumed the trek. They were all hungry now, but had to be satisfied with mouthfuls of snow.
As they entered the icy ridge of the mountain, the sun melted the remaining clouds and bore down hard on the snow. The snow began to melt. Smash put the heat wave back in its envelope, but soon they were sloshing through slush anyway.
Then the slush turned to water, and the slope became a river flowing over ice. They tried to keep to their feet, but the entire mountain seemed to be dissolving. The treacherous surface gave way beneath them and washed them all helplessly along in the torrent.
Chem seemed to be able to handle herself satisfactorily in the water; and, of course, the Siren assumed her mermaid form and swam like a fish. But Tandy was in trouble because of the sheer rush of water.
She could swim well enough in level water, but this was a cataract.
Smash tried to swim to her, but got bogged down himself. He was not really a strong swimmer; he normally waded or whomped through water. But right now he was not at full strength and had been frozen and thawed. This water was becoming too deep and violent for him.
Too much indeed! Smash gulped for air-and got water instead. He coughed and gasped and sucked in a replacement lungful-only to fill up the rest of the way with water.
This was awful! He clawed at his throat, trying foolishly to clear the water while his body struggled for air. But it was no good. The torrent was all about him, finding excellent purchase against his brute body, and he could not breathe.
The agony of suffocation became unbearable. Then something snapped, like the lid of his head, and half his consciousness departed. Smash gave himself up for lost. But it seemed to him that it had been more comfortable to be frozen than to be drowned.
Then he was calm, accepting the inevitable. It was, after all, halfway pleasant doing without air. Maybe this wasn't really worse than freezing. He drifted with the slowing current, relieved, feeling like loose seaweed. How nice just to float forever free.
Then something was tugging fretfully at him. It was the mermaid. She wrapped her arms about one of his and threshed violently with her tail, drawing him forward. But his mass was too much for her.
Progress slowed; she needed air herself, with all this exertion. She let him go, and Smash sank blissfully to the depths while she shot up toward the surface.
Slowly he became aware of more tugging, this time on both arms. He tried to shake himself free, but his arms did not respond. He watched himself being drawn upward from the gloom to the light. There seemed to be two figures drawing him, one on each arm, each with a fish-tail-but maybe he was seeing double.
Smash was not sure how long or far he was dragged; time was compressed or dilated for him. But he became aware that he was on a sandy beach, with a nightmare tromping her hooves on his back. He was mistaken. It was a filly centaur; Chem was treading the water out of his body. The experience was almost as bad as vomiting out all the Stallion manure, after that sequence in the gourd. Almost.
In due course Smash recovered enough to sit up. He coughed another bucket or two of water out of his lungs. "You rescued me," he accused the Siren.
"I tried," she said. "But you were too heavy-until Morris helped."
"Morris?"
"Hi, monster!" someone called from the water.
It was a triton. Now Smash understood why there had seemed to be two merfolk hauling him along. The Siren and Morris the Merman.
"We lost the Ear and the heat wave, but we saved you," the Siren said. "And Chem rescued Tandy."
Now Smash saw Tandy, who was lying face-down on the sand. The centaur was now kneading her back, using hands instead of hooves. "You breathed water, too?" Smash asked.
Tandy raised her head. "Ungh," she agreed squishily. "Did you-float?"
"When I sank," he answered. "If that's what dying is like, it's not bad."
"Let's not talk about death," Chem said. "This is too nice a place for that. I'm already upset about losing the Ear."
"Not more upset about that than I am with me for losing the heat wave," the Siren said.
"Maybe you should have thrown Smash and me back and saved the magic items," Tandy said, forcing a watery smile.
"It was fated that we lose them," Smash said, remembering his dream. "Soldier Crombie said Tandy would lose three things, and our loss is her loss."
"That's true!" Tandy agreed. "But what's the third thing?"
Smash shrugged. "We don't have any third thing to lose. Maybe two covers it."
"No, my father always points things out right. We've lost something else, I'm sure. We just don't know what it is."
"Maybe one of you should stay and look for the lost items," the merman said. He was a sturdy male of middle age, roughly handsome. It was evident that he could not make legs and walk on land the way the Siren could- he Was a full triton.
"Maybe one of us should," the Siren said thoughtfully. After that, it fell naturally into place. This was a pleasant region on the fringe of the Water Wing, where the drainage from the snow mountain became a lake that spread into the mainstream wilderness of Xanth. There was a colony of merfolk here, mostly older, scant of maids. It looked very promising for the Siren.
Chapter 12. Visible Void
The three of them-Smash, Tandy, and Chem-proceeded north to the border of the Void, the last of the special regions of central Xanth. "There is great significance to these five elemental regions," Chem said. "Historically, the five elements-Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and the Void-have always been mainstays of magic. So it is fitting that they be represented in central Xanth, and I'm extremely gratified to get them on my map."