He found a path, but distrusted it, because it was too convenient. Sure enough, it led directly to a tangle tree. A full ogre might tramp down it anyway, being too stupid to know the difference, and bash the tree, being too strong to care, but Esk was only a quarter ogre and had to exercise some discretion. So he shunned the path-and sure enough, he blundered into a patch of curse burrs.

"Confound you!" he exclaimed as one dug into his leg. That one hesitated, then dropped off; his curse had been pretty mild. Too bad he didn't have any harpy blood; a harpy could curse so villainously that the foliage around her dirty body smoked. Curse burrs never bothered harpies!

Three more burrs were p.r.i.c.king him. "Go jump in the lake!" he exclaimed, and one fell off, reluctantly. "Your parent is a weed!" and another loosened. "May a dragon roast you!" and the third let go.

His problem was that he had never learned to curse effectively. Tandy, being a gentle creature, had not been any suitable role model in this respect, and Smash was not all that verbal; when annoyed, he simply turned ogre and bashed whatever bothered him. Esk knew that his education had been neglected in this respect, but it was rather late to do much about it.

There were two more burrs p.r.i.c.king his ankles. They were difficult to reach, because when he bent over his backpack tended to shift, so he sat down. Unfortunately, there were more burrs below, and what the demoness had termed his mule landed solidly on them.

"#$^%^[0!!" he bawled, sailing up. The burrs flew from him like zapping wiggles, leaving little vapor trails behind.

Esk stared after them. He hadn't realized that he knew language like that! Of course, he had been stung hard in an indelicate place, so had reacted involuntarily. Still . . .

He tried to recall what he had said, but could not. Apparently this was like his ogre strength or his curse fiend acting that came only in extreme need. Too bad.

He resumed his trek, and in due course encountered a promising path. It did not lead to a tangle tree or a dragon's lair, so seemed good. He wasn't sure how to tell whether it was enchanted, but if no hostile creatures appeared on it, he would a.s.sume that it was.

He stopped for lunch. Tandy had made him blueberry sandwiches, his favorite, and current pie. His teeth received a pleasant little shock when he bit into the pie and caused the current to flow. The sandwiches were delightfully cold, because the berries had been harvested when blue with cold, in the month of FeBlueberry, and retained their frigid nature. Tandy had a special touch with food, which she said she had learned while serving the Good Magician.

Well, maybe he would pick up useful skills too, while serving his term. By all accounts, the service the Magician required was not arduous, and was often beneficial to the server in unantic.i.p.ated ways. The monsters that came with questions served as guardians, and Tandy had served as a housekeeper. Smash Ogre had performed a task in lieu of a year, traveling with Tandy and guarding her from danger. Esk would be willing to perform alternate service, especially in the company of some young woman resembling his mother in certain respects.

But that reminded him of Metria, who had offered him entirely too much companionship. He still wondered why he had so resolutely refused her offer. It wasn't because he really valued his hideout; he could have fashioned another in a different region of the forest. Probably it was because he simply wasn't ready for the type of experience she offered-at least, not with a creature who was totally cynical about it. A real girl, with real feelings and sensitivities and concerns-that would have been most interesting. But a century-old unhuman creature who did it purely as a matter of bargaining-that was frightening. She could have gotten him fairly into it, then changed into a harpy or something, and laughed her demoniac head off. He did not trust her at all.

There, maybe, was the real key: trust. Demons were absolutely untrustworthy, because they had no souls; everyone knew that. The only safe way to handle a demon was to stay away from it, because there was no telling what it might do next. Metria had first tried to kill him, then to seduce him; now she threatened his family, and that only confirmed the popular wisdom. He hoped he reached the Good Magician's castle soon, so that he could set that matter right.

He completed his lunch and resumed walking. He did not know how far distant the Good Magician's castle was, but doubted that it was far. He knew a little geography, of course: his folks lived in the heart of Xanth, and to the southeast was Lake Ogre-Chobee, and Lake Wails to the east, and the great Gap Chasm to the north. The only direction remaining was west, where there was the Good Magician, and beyond him Castle Roogna, where King Dor lived. The King was a friend of Smash Ogre, but they hadn't been in touch for a while. Apparently King Dor had a child or two, and a pet dragon; that was about the extent of what was known.

There was a noise ahead. Esk paused, listening. That sounded like a small dragon, but it couldn't be, because it was on the path. But what else could pound and hiss like that? Now he smelled smoke, and that too suggested dragon. Dragons came in a number of varieties, adapted for land, water, and air; some were fire-breathers, some steamers, and some smokers. Suddenly he wished he were armed, but all he had was a walk-big staff.

The thing came into sight-and it was a dragon, a small brown smoker with bright claws and dusky teeth, because of staining by the smoke. This was not the worst variety of dragon, but any variety was trouble, because all dragons were tough and hungry. What was it doing on the enchanted path?

Esk had no time to ponder, because the dragon was charging him, mouth agape. He hefted his staff, but it seemed feeble even in the face of this rather small dragon; one chomp would break the staff in two. He thought to jump out of the way, but here the path was lined with curse burrs and worse.

The dragon scrambled right up to him, puffing smoke. It was about Esk's own ma.s.s, and however small that might be for a dragon, it was big enough to be a real threat to the tender flesh of a man. The jaws were big and the teeth like little daggers.

Those jaws and those teeth snapped at him. "No!" Esk said.

The dragon's snout moved aside, and the teeth chomped on air. The smoky eyes looked startled. It was wondering how it could have missed so ready a target. It reset itself and aimed another chomp.

"No."

Again the bite missed. An angry plume of smoke issued from the monster's mouth, bathing Esk and making him cough. He fanned the air with his hands, dissipating the smoke, but it clung to his clothing. Now he would smell like a smoker!

The dragon, slow to grasp the nature of the opposition, made a third attempt. Its jaws opened wide.

"No," Esk repeated, poking at the mouth with his staff.

The jaws froze in their open mode. They could not bite down on the staff, because of Esk's magic. Disgruntled, the monster backed away, and then it was able to close its mouth.

The dragon pondered. Just as the thought that perhaps it should try once more started to percolate through the somewhat dense substance of its head, Esk said "no" once more.

This time the thought itself was balked. Out of sorts, the little dragon moved on down the path, giving up on this particular prey.

Esk resumed his hike, disturbed. If this path was enchanted against predators, why had the dragon been on it? If it was not, was it the right one? He didn't want to be on the wrong one. Yet it was the only path he had found; if it was wrong, where did it lead?

He sighed. For now, he would continue along it. Possibly it was an unenchanted tributary, and in due course it would intersect the enchanted one. If not-well, then he would simply have to scout crosscountry for the right one.

As the day waned, the path gave no sign of merging with any other. It curved along contours and around large trees and crossed small streams just as if it had every business doing so. It certainly extended too far to be justified as a false path!

Then another little dragon appeared. Naturally it charged him. "No," he told it firmly several times, and finally it gave up and smoked on down the path.

Two dragons! One might have been a fluke, but two of a similar type? The enchantment was definitely flawed!

Now there was a notion: the spell might indeed exist, but have a glitch in it so that a certain type of creature could slip through. That would mean that this was after all the right path.

But as evening drew nigh, he worried. Even if it was the right path, there were dragons on it. How could he lie down and sleep, if a dragon might come upon him? He could only tell them no while he was awake; if he got chomped in the night he could cry no and stop it, but the original damage would still have been done. If he got chomped badly enough before he woke, he could be dead. Even a little dragon was nothing to ignore.

He concluded that he could not afford to sleep. Not until he knew it was safe.

Then he heard a commotion ahead. "Go away! Shoo! Shoo! Away!" It sounded like a woman.

He ran toward it. Soon he discovered not a woman but a centaur-a filly, with helplessly flapping wings and an ineffectively wielded staff in her hands. Another little dragon was attacking her, being held off only by the staff. The dragon evidently knew it could get by the staff before long. Smoke was puffing from it, as its internal fires heated.

Esk readied his own staff. "Get out of here!" he yelled at the dragon. Startled, it whipped around to face him, its smoke cutting off for a moment as it held its breath. Then, deciding that this was a possible rival for the prey, it let out its smoke with a ferocious growl and leaped at him.

"No!" Esk cried. The jaws snapped in air as the dragon drew its snout aside. It landed, disgruntled, beyond him. It started to turn back. "No," he repeated, and it traveled on away from him, too stupid to realize that this had not been its own decision.

"Oh thank you, traveler!" the filly said. "I don't know what I would have done, if-"

"Uh, sure," he said, looking at her more carefully. She had gray eyes and a brown mane, and the wings were gray, matching the eyes. She wore a pet.i.te knapsack, across which a st.u.r.dy bow was hung. The points of several arrows projected beside the knapsack. Evidently the dragon had come upon her so suddenly that she had not had a chance to set up with her bow. Her head was somewhat higher than his; this was because the human aspect of a centaur began above the equine aspect. Her shoulders were actually narrower than his.

Now he did a double take. Wings?

"Don't stare at me as if I'm a freak!" she exclaimed.

"I, uh, just never saw-that is-"

"My father is a hippogryph," she said. "I inherit my wings from him."

"Uh, yes, of course," he said. "But why didn't you just fly away?"

She put her face in her hands and burst into tears.

Completely discomfited, Esk stood on one foot and then the other, uncertain what to do.

In a moment her mood shifted somewhat. "I can't fly!" she said despairingly. "These wings just don't have enough lift!"

"Uh, sorry," he said awkwardly.

"Anyway, thank you for rescuing me from the dragon. I didn't expect anything like that here; the path is supposed to be safe."

"That's what I thought," Esk said. "But that's the third little smoker I've seen on it."

She brushed back her mane, which was just like the tresses of a human woman, and took a deep breath, which accentuated a bosom that also resembled that of a human woman, only more so. Centaurs, of course, did not wear clothing; they considered it to be a human affectation. "h.e.l.lo," she said brightly. "I'm Chex."

"I'm Esk."

"Did you notice that we match?"

"Hair and eyes," he agreed. And wings, he added mentally; they matched his suit in color and, to a moderate but reasonable extent, in texture.

"My father is Xap Hippogryph. My mother is Chem Centaur."

She was making the introduction easy enough! "My father is Smash Ogre. My mother is Tandy Nymph."

"So you're a crossbreed too!" she exclaimed happily.

"Quarter ogre, half human, quarter nymph," he agreed. "The human portion is half curse fiend, technically. I'm going to see the Good Magician."

"Why so am I! What a coincidence!"

"Well, we are on the same path."

"Only one of us must be going the wrong way."

"Well, I live east of his castle, so I'm going west," Esk said.

"And I live west of it, so I'm going east."

They stood there, considering. "Maybe there's a turnoff one of us missed?" Esk said after a pause.

"That must be so," Chex agreed. "I was traveling pretty fast; I could have trotted past one."

"I was traveling slowly; I don't think I did."

"Then let's go west," she said brightly. "And look to the sides."

"You are easy to get along with," he remarked. They walked west, with him parallel to her front section. This was a little crowded on the path, but there didn't seem to be any better way to do it.

"I'm just mostly tired of traveling alone," she confessed. "That dragon -how did you get rid of it so easily? I couldn't make it quit."

"I just told it no. That's my talent-to protest things. The effect doesn't last long, but dragons aren't very smart, so it works well enough."

"I wish I had a talent," she said. "It used to be that centaurs weren't supposed to have magic, but now it's acceptable for the younger ones. My female parent is a mapmaker; she can project a map of anything. She told me how to reach the Good Magician's castle; it's hard to imagine that she could have been mistaken."

"Geography changes," he said. "Tangle trees make new paths all the time when the old ones get too familiar, and streams change their courses when their old beds get too rocky. The path must have changed since your mother surveyed it."

"That must be it," she agreed.

"And you probably have a talent; it just hasn't manifested yet."

"You're pretty easy to get along with yourself," she remarked with a smile that became her marvelously.

"I suppose I'm tired of traveling alone too." They laughed together. Esk realized with a tinge of guilt that he was finding it much easier to relate to this filly than to a real girl. Perhaps this was because nothing much was expected of a relationship between a man and a centaur; it was strictly convenience and company.

Now night was closing. "Perhaps we should stop for supper and a place to sleep," Chex said. "Do you think there will be other dragons?"

Esk had been thinking the same thing; his legs were tired. "I had feared I couldn't afford to sleep; maybe now we can take turns watching."

"Yes!" she agreed gladly.

They foraged for fruit, then set their watches: Chex would stand guard until she got sleepy, then would wake him for a similar spell. She a.s.sured him that she would not fall asleep without knowing it; some centaurs slept on their feet, but her legs tended to buckle, waking her.

Esk retreated to some bushes for natural functions, which modesty Chex found amusing, then piled some leaves beside the path and lay down. But though he was tired, he was not yet sleepy. "Are you going to the Good Magician to ask what your talent is?" he inquired.

She swished her tail as if snapping off a fly. "No; I'm afraid I would have to serve a year for news that I have none. My concern is more- well, awkward."

"Oh. I didn't mean to pry."

"It's all right. I can talk to you. It isn't as if you're a centaur."

"I'm not a centaur," he agreed. How well her sentiment echoed his own!

"It's to find out how to fly."

Of course! He should have guessed. "You know, your wings don't seem as big as those of the big birds," he said. "I'm not sure they could support you in the air even if they worked perfectly. I mean, they might lift a smaller creature, but not a centaur."

"That's obvious," she said somewhat coldly. "I've been practicing flapping them for months, developing my pectoral muscles, and as you can see they have filled out, but I just don't have the lift I require."

Esk was too embarra.s.sed to tell her that he had taken her front muscles for b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and rather well-formed ones too. Centaurs wore only occasional harnesses or protections against heat or cold, and never concealed their s.e.xual attributes. The b.r.e.a.s.t.s of female centaurs tended to be impressive by human standards, perhaps because they were structured to provide enough milk for offspring whose ma.s.s was several times that of human babies. Chex appeared to be no older than he was, but her b.r.e.a.s.t.s would have been considered more than generous on any human woman. Obviously, he had let himself be deluded by a preconception.

"What I meant to say was," he said somewhat awkwardly, "could it be that your magic talent is flying? That your muscles and wingspan only provide a small part of it, and magic the main part?"

"If it is, then why can't I fly?"

"Well, if you were flapping your wings instead of doing your magic, then it wouldn't work."

"But how would I work my magic?" she asked plaintively. "I have thought of that and tried to will myself into flight, but nothing happens."

"I don't know. I think you're right: you must ask the Good Magician. Maybe he will be able to tell you some spell you can invoke that will make it work."

"That is my hope," she said. "Why are you going to see him?"

"I have to find out how to get rid of a demoness who threatens my family." He explained the rest of it, except for the business of Metria's amatory offerings. That matter was too embarra.s.sing.

"I'm surprised she didn't try to tempt you s.e.xually," Chex said. "Human males are known to be vulnerable to that kind of inducement, and demons are unscrupulous."

He felt himself blushing in the darkness. "Uh, well-"