Ogre, Ogre (Xanth 5) Read Online Free PDF Page B

region, but with no better effect. The firewall danced unharmed, mocking him with foul-smelling noises.
    Ogres were slow to anger, because they lacked the wit to know when they were being insulted. But Smash was getting there. He scooped harder, his paw moving like a crude paddle, hurling a steady stream of moatwater at the wall. Still the fire danced, though the water flooded the region. Smash labored yet harder, feeling the exhilaration of challenge and violence, until the level of the moat lowered and the entire cavity between the outer wall and the firewall surged with muddy fluid. The sea monster's tail was exposed by the draining water; it hastily squiggled deeper. Still the fire danced, humming a hymn of victory; it could not be quenched. Water was as much its element as fire. It merely flickered on the surface, spreading wider, reaching toward Smash. Was there no way to defeat it?
    "Hooo!" Smash exclaimed, frustrated. But the blast of his breath only made the flame bow concavely and leap yet higher. It liked hot air as well as cool water, Smash couldn't think of anything better to do, so he kept shoveling water. The flood level rose and backwater coursed out through the gap. Smash tried to dam it up with rubble, but the level was too high. The fire still flickered merrily on the surface, humming a tune about an old flame.
    Then the ogre had one more smart notion, a prohibitively rare occurrence for his kind. He dived forward, spread his arms, and swam under the fire. It couldn't reach him below the moatwater. He came up beyond it, the last hurdle navigated.
    "Ccurrssess!" the firewater hissed furiously, and flickered out.
    Now Smash stood within a cluttered room. Books overflowed shelves and piled up on the floor. Bottles and boxes perched everywhere, interspersed with assorted statuettes and amulets and papers. In the middle of it all, like another item of clutter, hunched over a similarly crowded wooden desk, was a little gnome of a man. Smash recognized him--the Good Magician Humfrey, the man who knew everything.
    Humfrey glanced up from his tome. "Don't drip on my books, Smash ," he said.
    Smash fidgeted, trying not to drip on the books. There was hardly room for him to stand upright, and hardly a spot without a book, volume, or tome. He started to drip on an amulet, but it crackled ominously and he edged away. " Me no stir. Magician sir," he mumbled, wondering how the Good Magician knew his name. Smash knew of Humfrey by description and reputation, but this was the first time the two had met.
    "Well, out with it, ogre," the Magician snapped irritably. "What's your Question?"
    Now Smash felt more awkward than ever. The truth was , he did not know what to ask. He had thought his life would be complete when he achieved his full growth, but somehow he found it wasn't. Something was missing--and he didn't know what. Yet he could not rest until the missing element was satisfied. So he had tromped to see the Good Magician, because that was what creatures with seemingly insoluble problems did--but he lacked the intellect to formulate the Question. He had hoped to work it out during the journey; but, with typical ogrish wit, he had forgotten all about it until this moment. There was no getting around it; there were some few occasions when an ogre was too stupid for his own good. "No know," he confessed, standing on one of his own feet.
    Humfrey scowled. He was a very old gnome, and it was quite a scowl. "You came here to serve a year's service for an Answer--and you don't have a Question?"
    Smash had a Question, he was sure; he just didn't know how to formulate it. So he stood silent, dripping on stray artifacts, like the unsmart oaf he was.
    Humfrey sighed. "Even if you asked it, it wouldn't be the right Question," he said. "People are forever asking the wrong Questions, and wasting their efforts. I remember not long ago a girl came to ask how to change her nature. Chameleon, her name was, except she wasn't called that