Faun and Games (26 page)

"Yeah, yeah!" Ogle agreed.

"We have returned," Forrest said.

Both centaur and o re looked at ttiem.
 
"You look as if you are

recovering from a freakout," Cathryn said to Forrest.

"And you look as if you are recovering from awful outrage," Ogle said to

Imbri.

"Right on both counts," Forrest said grimly.
 
"We saw the image of your

Xanthine self."

"Bashing a mountain into a molehill," Imbri continued.

"Until he could look in a window and see a panty," Forrest concluded.

Ogle was amazed.
 
"I ogled a panty?"

"That is correct," Imbri said primly.
 
"It was outrageous.
 
You should

be horribly ashamed."

Ogle tried to wipe the amazement, awe, and delight off his puss.

"Horribly," he agreed.
 
"No wonder I feel so high near that border."

He glanced at Forrest with a women-don't-understand expression. Forrest

could only nod slightly hoping the females wouldn't catch it.

"So now you can tell us where Old Ogress is," Cathryn said.
 
As a foal

she did not seem as upset about the report as she might have been, but

it plainly set her back somewhat.

"Right this way," Ogle agreed, and began tramping northwest.

They followed, with Cathryn rapidly aging, and with each step her

expression became firmer.
 
She was achieving adult female human

perspective on the report, unfortunately, even though centaurs normally

didn't care about human hang-ups.
 
Forrest knew there would be no point

in discussing the matter.
 
The ogre was right: women just didn't

understand some things.
 
Maybe that was to prevent them from getting

freaked out by their own apparel.

They passed the general vicinity of the knoll where they had met Ogle

and went on.
 
They entered a region of tumbled timber trees, and there

in a crudely fashioned pig sty was an ogress.
 
She was covered with

stinking mud.

"Hey, what are you doing, Old?" Orgy asked.

"I'm trying to make myself ugly," she responded dolefully.
 
"Usng bad

smelling mud packs."

"Maybe you don't need to be ugly.
 
These folk have a deal for you." Then

Ogle, having fulfilled his part of the exchange, tramped away, looking

at everything except the not-ugly-enough ogress.

She noticed Forrest, Imbri, and Cathryn for the first time.
 
"Faun,

mares-who cares?" she inquired.

Forrest leaned over the rail ot." her sty.
 
"How would you like to live

in a castle with all the food you want, and an ogre who heeds your every

word and doesn't care how you look?"

"Me think me-oh, phooey on the rhymes!
 
I'd love it.
 
What deeply

disgusting thing do I have to do to get it?"

"Just make sure your every word is praise for the ogre's accomplishment

in knocking down the walls so well."

"But that comes naturally!
 
Normally I have to stifle it, lest I be

unogressly nice."

"Come with us, and we'll take you to castle and ogre."

She lurched out of the sty, shedding squishes of manure.
 
"Let's go!
 
"

"You don't even need to wear the mud," Forrest said.

"Excellent." She tramped to a nearby well, hauled out a huge bucket, and

doused herself with cold water.
 
In a moment she was wet but clean.

They set off for the castle.
 
"Out of curiosity," Imbri said, "why is it

that Ogle stares at attractive human women, and their clothing, but

wants an uglier ogress?"

"I have wondered that myself," 016 said.
 
"I think there is something

wrong with his vision, so that he thinks human women are somehow uglier

than ogresses.
 
It's a sad case."

"Very sad," Imbri agreed, satisfied.

They reached the castle and stood at the closed door.
 
Old glared at the

bell-weather, and it immediately sounded the alarm.
 
In a moment the

door opened and Orgy stood there.

"Are you the ogre who so successfully bashes down walls?" the ogress

asked.

'Yes." Orgy looked pleased, for an ogre.

"Show me how you perform this great art.
 
I can never see enough of

superior wall bashing."

Soon it was apparent that they would get along.
 
Orgy was bashing down

walls at twice his prior pace, and Old was waxing ever more delighted in

his accomplishmedt as she feasted at the well stocked table.
 
The

visitors had fulfilled their service.

Orgy paused in his bashing and pointed out through the hole in the wall

he had just made.
 
"Fifty three of your paces straight out that way," he

said.
 
"Good fortune on your quest."

"Thank you," Forrest replied, and the three of them stepped through the

wall and started counting paces.
 
It required three paces to get beyond

the castle.
 
Sure enough, just fifty of Forrest's paces out from the

wall lay a glowing horn.

Forrest picked it up and gave it to Cathryn.
 
"Now you can show us where

the faun territory is," he said.

She considered.
 
"No, I think not.
 
This is merely the means to the end;

the exchange will not be satisfied until the end is achieved."

Forrest sighed inwardly.
 
She was right.
 
They would have to complete

that aspect before moving on.
 
Still, this was progress.

hey returned toward Cathryn's adult range, as she was not comfortable as

a juvenile.
 
They came to the comic strip.
 
There was nothing to do but

plunge on in, hoping to make it through without suffering permanent

damage to their dignities.

There was a wall.
 
On it were the words PUNNSYLVANIA PUNITENTIARY:

ABANDON SANITY, ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE.

"We have no choice," Cathryn said grimly as she scrambled over.

"How I hate the comic section!"

Forrest and Imbri followed her.
 
He was used to puns in Xanth, but here

on Ptero they seemed to be festering out of control.
 
But he knew the

strip wasn't deep; they would soon be out of it.

They almost crashed into a billbored.
 
It seemed to have been fashioned

from unpaid bills that had gotten bored with their inaction, so had

clumped together to form a sign saying BORING.
 
"Don't touch that!"

Cathryn warned.
 
"You will have to pay any bill you get."

But she was too late.
 
Forrest had already touched a corner, and a bill

had stuck to his hand.
 
It formed into a face.
 
"Pay me!" it cried.

"Why should I?
 
I don't even know you."

"Because otherwise I'll turn you over to a collection agency." And it

indicated a horrendous hooded ogre shape labeled YOUR MONEY OR YOUR

LIFE.
 
It held a huge bone in its paws, which it snapped in half.

Imbri burst out laughing.
 
"It's not funny," Forrest said.
 
"I'm about

to get my bones broken."

'I'm not laughing at you," she chortled.
 
"I'm stuck in this arti cle.

He looked.
 
She was indeed caught in a bush whose twigs resembled little

R's.
 
They were tickling her unmercifully.
 
It was an R-tickle plant.

"How did that happen?" he asked her.

"I followed that head line." She gestured back, where there was a line

of heads on the ground.

He took a step toward her, but stumbled into a plant that looked like a

tangle of spaghetti.
 
"Use your noodle!" it exclaimed angrily.

So he did.
 
He reached across and plucked a handful of R's from Imbri's

bush.
 
"Here is your pay," he told the bill, rubbing the R's against it.

"Oh, ho ho, hee hee!" it squealed.
 
"That's not-ha ha!-what I meant."

"Then blame it on the Retickle bush, there; that's where I got this

ticklish business."

"Collector-hoo hoo!-take care of it," the bill cried as it slid off his

hand.

The hooded ogre tramped to the bush and began pounding it with two

hamfists.
 
R's flew all over.
 
Soon the ogre was laughing as it

flattened the bush.
 
Imbri escaped, but didn't manage to stop laughing.

"I'm not getting-hee hee-tickled any more," she explained.
 
"It's that

it serves it so right."

They lurched away from the bushes.
 
Cathryn was trying to work her way

past a counter made of packed beans.
 
"I can't get by this bean

counter," she complained.

A head formed from the counter.
 
"Of course you can't," it said.

"Nothing gets by me."

But Forrest saw something else.
 
It looked like a huge man, bigger than

an ogre, but it was standing quite still.
 
His feet seemed to become

roots, and his hands sprouted coin sized mints.
 
"What is that?"

The centaur glanced at it.
 
"A Man-Age-Mint, I think," she said.

Then she brightened.
 
She plucked a mint from the tree and stuffed it

into the mouth of the bean counter's head.
 
"Take that," she said with

satisfaction.

The bean counter beGan to fade.
 
His beans became shriveled.
 
A vile