"These have been good adventures," Smash agreed. "But just what is the Void? The other elements make sense, but I can't place that one."
"I don't know," the centaur admitted. "But I'm eager to find out. I don't think this region has ever been mapped before by anyone."
"Now is certainly the time," Tandy said. "I hope it's not as extreme as the others were."
Chem brought out her rope. "Let's not gamble on that! I should have tied us when the snow mountain turned to slush, but it happened so fast-"
They linked themselves together as they approached the line. It was abrupt. On the near side the pleasant terrain of the merfolk's lake spread southward. On the far side was nothing they could perceive.
"I'm the lightest," Tandy said. "I'll go first. Pull me back if I fall into a hole." She smoothed back her slightly scorched and tangled brown hair and stepped across the formidable line.
Smash and Chem waited. The rope kept playing out, slowly; obviously Tandy was walking, not falling, and not in any trouble. "Is it all right, Tandy?" the centaur called rhetorically.
There was no answer. The rope continued to move. "Can you hear me? Please answer," Chem called, her brow wrinkling.
Now the slack went taut. Chem stood her ground, refusing to be drawn across the line. Smash tried to peer into the Void, but could see nothing except a vague swirl of fog, from this side.
"I think I'd better pull her back," Chem said, swishing her brown tail nervously. It, too, was somewhat bedraggled as a result of then" recent adventures. "I'm not sure anything is wrong; maybe she just doesn't hear me."
Chem hauled. There was resistance. She hesitated, not wanting to apply unreasonable force. "What do you think, Smash?"
Smash put his Eye Queue to work, but it seemed sluggish this time. His logic was fuzzy, his perception confused. "I don't-seem to have much of an opinion," he confessed.
She glanced back at him, surprised. "No opinion? You, with your un-ogrish intelligence? Surely you jest!"
"It best me jest," Smash agreed amicably.
She peered closely at him. "Smash-what happened to your Eye Queue? I don't see the stigma on your head."
Smash touched the fur of his scalp. It was smooth; there was no trace of roughness. "No on; it gone," he said.
"Oh, no! It must have been washed out when you nearly drowned! That's the third thing we've lost-your intelligence. That certainly affects Tandy's prospects here. You're back to being stupid!"
Smash was appalled. Just when he needed intelligence, he had lost it! What would he do now in a crisis?
The centaur was similarly concerned, but she had an answer. "We'll have to use my intelligence for us both, Smash. Are you willing to follow my lead, at least until we get through the Void?"
That seemed to make sense to Smash. "She lead, me accede."
"I'll try to haul her back." Chem drew harder on the rope, and, of course, she had the mass to do it.
Suddenly it went slack, and the loose end of it slid back across the line.
"Oh, awful!" the centaur exclaimed, dismayed. She switched her tail violently in vexation. "We've lost her!"
"Oh, awful," Smash echoed, since his originality had dissipated with his intellect. What had happened to Tandy?
"I think I'd better step partway across so I can look without committing myself," she decided. "You stay on this side-and don't let me cross all the way. After a minute, if I don't back out, you haul me out, slowly. Agreed?"
"Me agree, assuredly," he said. He was furious at the Eye Queue for deserting him in his hour of need.
Of course he had intended to get rid of the curse-but not just yet. Not at the brink of the Void. Now he was liable to do something ogrishly idiotic, and cost his friends their lives. Even his rhyming seemed ludicrous now; what was the point in it? Not until the curse of the Eye Queue had descended on him had he appreciated how stupid a typical ogre seemed-just a hulking brute, too dull to do more than smash things. Indeed, his very name.
The centaur poked her forepart cautiously through the border. It disappeared into the swirl. Smash felt very much alone, though her hindquarters remained with him. He marveled that a human girl as smart and pretty as Tandy could have any interest in him, even as an animal friend. It must have been the Eye Queue that appealed to her, the intelligence manifesting in the oddest of hosts, the sheer anomaly of the bone-headed genius. Her interest would dissipate the moment she discovered what had happened. That, of course, was best; it would free her full attention for her ideal human-type man, whoever and wherever he might be. Yet Smash remained disquieted.
The fact was, he. realized now, the curse had had its positive aspect. Like the curse of the moon that human females labored under-one of the things that distinguished them from nymphs-it was awkward and inconvenient, but carried the potential for an entirely new horizon. Females could regenerate their kind; the Eye Queue enabled a person to grasp far broader aspects of reality. Now, having experienced such aspects, he would be returned to his former ignorance.
A minute had passed and gone some distance beyond, and Chem had not backed out. In fact, she was trying to proceed the rest of the way across the line. Smash knew he had to stop that; even if he was now too stupid to perceive the danger in committing oneself to a potential course-of-no-return, he remembered the centaur's orders. "Me take up slack, haul she back," he said, inwardly condemning his ogrish crudity of expression. He might be stupid; did he have to advertise it so blatantly?
That started another chain of thought. Part of the vaunted dullness of ogres was not because of the fact, but because they insisted on the distinguishing characteristic of expression. He could have said, "Because my friend the filly centaur, a decent and intelligent person with a useful magic graphological talent, may be in difficulty, I am required to exert myself according to her expressed wish and draw her gently but firmly back across the demarcation between territories. Then we shall consider how best to proceed." Instead, he had spouted the idiotic ditty in the ludicrous manner of his kind. Surely the Eye Queue vine had been as much of a curse in its untimely departure as in its arrival!
There was resistance. Either Chem didn't want to come back, or something was hauling her forward.
Smash drew harder on the rope, but the centaur braced forward, fighting it. Something was definitely amiss. Even an idiot could tell that Smash was tempted to give one monstrous tug on the rope and haul her back head over tail, as an ordinary ogre would, but several things restrained him. First, her mass was similar to his own; he might lose his footing and yank himself across the line, in the wrong direction.
Second, the rope was bound about her humanoid waist, which was delicately narrow; too harsh a force could hurt her. Third, he was not at full strength, so he might not be able to move her effectively even if properly anchored.
Then the rope went slack. Chem, too, was proceeding unfettered into the Void.
Smash dived for her disappearing rump, his ogrish action preceding his inadequate thought. He was too late. She crossed the line. Only her tail flicked back momentarily, as if flicking free a fly.
Smash caught the tail and worked his way along it, hand over hand. Her forward impetus hauled him right up to the line; then he got his balance, dug -his toes in, and brought the centaur and himself to a halt.
Now he exerted what remained of his power and drew her back. It sufficed; slowly her rump reappeared.