As it happened. Smash knew Chameleon. She was Prince Dor's mother, and she changed constantly
from smart to stupid and from beautiful to ugly. Humfrey was right: her nature was just fine. Smash liked to talk with her when she was down at his own level of idiocy, and to look at her when she was at his level of ugliness. But the two never came together, unfortunately. Still, she was a fairly nice person, considering that she was human.
"Very well," Humfrey said in a not-very-well voice. "We are about to have a first: an Answer without a Question. Are you sure you wish to pay the fee?"
Smash wasn't sure, but did not know how to formulate that uncertainty, either. So he just nodded affirmatively, his shaggy face scaring a cuckoo bird that had been about to signal the hour. The bird signaled the hour with a terrified dropping instead of a song, and retreated into its cubby.
"So be it," the Magician said, shrugging. "You will discover what you need among the Ancestral Ogres."
Then he got up and marched to the door. "Come on; my effaced wife will see about your service."
Numbly, Smash followed. Now he had his Answer-and he didn't understand it.
They went downstairs-apparently, somehow, in a manner that might have been intelligible to a creature of greater wit, Smash had gotten upstairs in the process of swimming under the firewall and emerging in the Good Magician's study-where Humfrey's wife awaited them. This was the lovely, faceless Gorgon-faceless because if her face were allowed to show, it would turn men instantly to stone. Even faceless, she was said to have a somewhat petrifying effect. "Here he is," Humfrey said, as if delivering a bag of bad apples.
The Gorgon looked Smash up and down-or seemed to. Several of the little serpents that substituted for her hair hissed. "He certainly looks like an ogre," she remarked. "Is he housebroken?"
"Of course he's not housebroken!" Humfrey snapped. "He dripped all over my study! Where's the girl?"
"Tandy!" the Gorgon called.
A small girl appeared, rather pretty in a human way, with brown tresses and blue eyes and a spunky, turned-up nose. "Yes'm?"
"Tandy, you have completed your year's service this date," the Gorgon said. "Now you will have your Answer."
The little girl's eyes brightened like noontime patches of clear sky. She squiggled with excitement. "Oh, thank you, Gorgon. I'm almost sorry to leave, but I really should return home. My mother is getting tired of only seeing me in the magic mirror. What is my Answer?"
The Gorgon nudged Humfrey, her voluptuous body rippling as she moved. "The Answer, spouse."
"Oh. Yes," the Good Magician agreed, as if this had not before occurred to him. He cleared his throat, considering.
"Also say, what me pay," Smash said, not realizing that he was interrupting an important cogitation.
"The two of you travel together," Humfrey said.
Smash stared down at the tiny girl, and Tandy stared up at the hulking ogre. Each was more dismayed than the other. The ogre stood two and a half times the height of the girl, and that was the least of the contrast between them.
"But I didn't ask-" Tandy protested.
"What me task?" Smash said simultaneously. Had he been more alert, he might have thought to marvel that even this overlapping response rhymed.
The Gorgon seemed to smile. "Sometimes my husband's pronouncements need a little interpretation,"
she said. "He knows so much more than the rest of us, he fails to make proper allowance for our ignorance." She pinched Humfrey's cheek in a remarkably familiar manner. "He means this: the two of you. Smash and Tandy, are to travel through the wilds of Xanth together, fending off hazards together.
That is the ogre's service in lieu of a year's labor at this castle-protecting his companion. It is also the girl's Answer, for which she has already paid."
"That's exactly what I said," Humfrey grumped.
"You certainly did, dear," the Gorgon agreed, planting a faceless loss on the top of his head.
"But it doesn't make sense!" Tandy protested.
"It doesn't have to make sense," the Gorgon explained. "It's an Answer."
Oh. Now Smash understood, as far as he was able.
"May I go back to my tome?" the Good Magician asked petulantly.
"Why, of course you may," the Gorgon replied graciously, patting his backside as he turned. The Good Magician climbed back up toward his study. Smash knew the man had lost valuable working time, but somehow the Magician did not seem unhappy. Naturally the nuances of human interrelations were
beyond the comprehension of a mere ogre.
The Gorgon returned her attention to them. "He's such a darling," she remarked. "I really don't know how he survived a century without me." She focused, seemingly, on Tandy. "And you might, if you would, do me a favor on the way," the Gorgon said. "I used to live on an island near the Magic Dust Village, which I think is right on your route to Lake Ogre-Chobee. I fear I caused some mischief for that village in my youth; I know I am not welcome there. But my sister the Siren remains in the area, and if you would convey my greetings to her-"
"But how can I travel with an ogre?" Tandy protested. "That's not an Answer; that's a punishment 1 He'll gobble me up the first time he gets hungry!"
"Not necessarily so," the Gorgon demurred. "Smash is no ordinary ogre. He's honest and halfway civilized. He will perform his service correctly, to the best of his limited understanding. He will not permit any harm to come to you. In fact, you could hardly have a better guardian while traversing the jungles of Xanth."
"But how does this solve my problem, even if I'm not gobbled up?" Tandy persisted. Smash saw that her spunky nose was a correct indication of her character; she had a
fighting spirit despite her inadequate size. "Traveling won't solve a thing! There's nowhere I can go to-"
The Gorgon touched the girl's lips with a forefinger. "Let your problem be private for now, dear. Just accept my assurance. If my husband says traveling will solve your problem, then traveling will solve it.
Humfrey knew an ogre would be coming here at this time, and knew you needed that sort of protection, since you have so little familiarity with the outside world. Believe me, it will turn out for the best."
"But I don't have anywhere to go!"
"Yes, but Smash does. He is seeking the Ancestral Ogres."
"A whole tribe of ogres? I'm absolutely doomed!"
The Gorgon's expression was facelessly reproving. "Naturally you do not have to follow the advice you paid for, dear. But the Good Magician Humfrey really does know best."
"I think he's getting old," Tandy said rebelliously. "Maybe he doesn't know as much as he used to."
"He likes to claim that he's forgotten more than he ever knew," the Gorgon said. "Perhaps that is so. But do not underestimate him. And don't misjudge this ogre."
Tandy pouted. " Oh, all right! I'll go with the monster. But if he gobbles me up, you'll be responsible! I'll never speak to you again."
"I accept the responsibility," the Gorgon agreed. "Now Smash is hungry." She turned to him. "Come to the kitchen, ogre, for a peck or two of raw potatoes. They haven't been cleaned, and some have worms; you'll like them."
"You're joking!" Tandy said. Then she looked again at Smash, who was licking his chops. "You're not joking!"
"Well spoke; no joke," Smash agreed, hoping there would also be a few barrels of dirty dishwater to glug down with the potatoes. Tandy grimaced.
Chapter 3. Eye Queue
They traveled together, but it was no pleasure for either. Smash had to take tiny slow steps to enable the girl to keep up, and Tandy made it plain she considered the ogre to be a monstrous lout. She refused to let him carry her, as he could readily have done; despite the Gorgon's assurances, she was afraid of getting gobbled. She seemed to have a thing about monsters, and male monsters in particular; she hated them. So they wended their tedious way south toward Lake Ogre-Chobee-a journey that should have taken Smash alone a single day, but promised to take several days with Tandy. The Good Magician had certainly come up with a bad chore in lieu of his year's service for an Answer! And Smash still didn't know what Question had been answered.