"You were doing it for us," the centaur said. "We can get along on half souls if we're careful. I understand they regenerate in time."
"Yes," Tandy said, grasping this notion as if being saved from drowning. "Each person can pay her own way." She turned to the nearest mare, who happened to be Crisis. "Take half my soul," she said.
Chem faced the second, Imbri. "Take half of mine."
The mare of Rains hesitated, for she had not expected to be rewarded, and she had not carried Chem.
"Take it!" the centaur insisted.
The mares, glad to have the matter resolved, galloped past their respective donors. Smash saw two souls attenuate between girls and mares; then each one tore in half, and the mares were gone.
Smash was left standing by the third mare. Vapor. He realized that he could not do less-and of course Vapor was supposed to have a half soul. In fact, she had been promised half of his. Now she would get it, though she had not carried him. "Take half of mine," he said.
Vapor charged him. There was a wrenching and tearing; then he stood reeling. Something awfully precious had been taken from him-but not all of it.
Then he saw the two girls standing similarly bemused, and he knew that something even more precious had been salvaged.
Chapter 14. Ogre Fun
In the morning they woke, having suffered no bad dreams. The nightmares were not about to venture near them now, for that might give them the opportunity to change their minds about their souls. Also, what dreams could they be served, worse than what they had already experienced?
Xanth was lovely. The green trees glistened in the fading dew, and flowers opened. White clouds formed lazy patterns around the sun, daring it to bum them off, but it ignored their taunts. The air was fragrant. Mainly, it was a joy to be alive and free. Much more joy than it had been before Smash discovered that such things were by no means guaranteed. He had died in a great dark ocean, under the teeth of lions, under a rock he was too fatigued to move, and of starvation in prison. He had won back his soul, then given it up again. Now he was here with half his soul and he really appreciated what he had.
For some time they compared notes, each person needing reassurance because of the lingering ache of separated souls. But gradually they acclimated, finding that half a soul was indeed much better than none.
Smash tested his strength-and found it at half-level. He had to use both hands instead of one to crush a rock to sand. Until the other half of his soul regenerated, he would be only half an ogre in that respect.
But this, too, seemed a reasonable price to pay for his freedom.
"I think it is time for me to go my own way," Chem said at last. "I think I have had about as much of this sort of adventure as I can handle. I have it all mapped; my survey is done. Now I need to organize the data and try to make sense of it."
"Magic doesn't have to make sense," Smash said rhetorically.
"But where will you go?" Tandy asked.
The centaur filly generated her map, with all of northern Xanth clearly laid out, their travel route neatly marked in a dotted line. "It is safe for my kind around the fringes of Xanth," she said. "Centaurs have traded all along the coasts. I'll trot west to the isthmus, then south to Castle Roogna. I'll have no trouble at all." Her projected route dotted its way down the length of northern Xanth confidently. She seemed to have forgotten her protestation of last night about how they would perish without Smash's protection, and Smash did not remind her of it. Obviously it had been his welfare, not her own, she had been concerned with.
"I suppose that's best," Tandy said reluctantly. "I really liked the company of all you other creatures, but your missions are not my mission. Just remember, you're not as strong as you should be."
"That's one reason I want to get on home," Chem said. "I'd recommend the same for both of you, but I know your destiny differs from mine. You have to go on to the Ogre-fen-Ogre Fen, Smash, and take what you find there, though I personally feel that's a mistake."
"Me make mistake?" Smash asked. The things of the Void had faded in the night, since they had left it, and now he found it easier to revert to his normal mode of speech. There was no hypnogourd and no Eye Queue vine, so he was not smart any more.
"Smash, you're half human," Chem said. "If you would only give your human side a chance-"
"Me no man, me ogre clan," he said firmly. That faith had brought him through the horrors of the gourd.
She sighed. "So you must be what you must be, and do what you must do. Tandy-" Chem shook her head. "I can't advise you. I hope you get what you want, somehow."
The two girls embraced tearfully. Then the centaur trotted away to the west, her pretty brown tail flying at half-mast as if reflecting the depressed state of her soul.
"I'm as foolish as you are," Tandy said, drying her eyes, so that the blue emerged again like little patches of sky. "Let's get on to the Fen before night, Smash."
They moved on. Smash, now so near his destination, found himself strangely uneasy. The Good
Magician had told him he would find what he needed among the Ancestral Ogres; Humfrey had not said what that would be, or whether Smash would like it.
Suppose he didn't like what he needed? Suppose he hated it? Suppose it meant the denial of all that he had experienced on this journey with the seven girls? The Eye Queue had been a curse, and surely he was well rid of it-yet there had been a certain covert satisfaction in expressing himself as lucidly as any human being could. Facility of expression was power, too, just as was strength of muscle. The gourd had been a horror-yet that, too, had had its fine moments of exhilarating violence and deep revelation. These things were, of course, peripheral, no concern of a true ogre-but he had felt something fundamentally good in them.
He struggled through his annoying stupidity as he tromped on toward the Ogre Fen. Exactly what had made his journey so rewarding, despite its nuisances and problems? Not the violence, for he could have that any time by challenging stray dragons. Not the intelligence, for that was no part of an ogre's heritage. Not the exploration of the central mysteries of Xanth, for ogres were not very curious about geography. What, then?
As the day faded and the sun hurried down to the horizon so as not to be caught by night. Smash finally broke through to a conclusion. It wasn't a very original one, for ogres weren't very original creatures, but it would do. He had valued the camaraderie. The seven girls had needed him, and had treated him like a person. His long association with the human beings and centaurs of Castle Roogna had acclimated him to company, but this time he had had the wit to appreciate it more fully, because of the Eye Queue curse.
Now he was cursed with the memory of what could not be again. Camaraderie was not the ogre way.
At dusk they reached the dismal fringe of the Ogre-fen-Ogre Fen. The swampy marsh stretched out to the east and north as far as the eyeball could peer, riddled with green gators and brown possums and other half-fanciful denizens. Were the Ancestral Ogres also here?
"Look!" Tandy cried, pointing.
Smash looked. There were three ironwood trees braided together. That was a sure signal of the presence of ogres, since no other creature could do such a thing.
"I guess you'll get what you want tomorrow," Tandy said. "You'll meet your tribe." She seemed sad.
"Yes, me agree," he said, somehow not as overjoyed as he thought he should be. His mission was about to terminate; that was what he wanted, wasn't it?
He twisted a coppertree into the semblance of a shelter for her and spread a large leaf from a table tree over it. In the heyday of his strength he could have done better, but this would have to do for tonight.