"That's not awful!" she protested. "Che loved fresh pastry!"

"What's it made from?" the golem asked.

"Why, fresh flour from sea oats, and—oh." For of course plants like oats would not like the smell of their brethren being baked. Breadfruit trees and pie trees did not mind giving up their wares, but when grains were stripped from the plants it was another matter. "An awful smell," she agreed.

"The foal sniffed it and followed it right here," Grundy said. "But here there was only a bit of cloud, an evil fog. The smell came from that. The foal went in, and there was the sound of a struggle, and then the fog lifted and nothing remained. The plants didn't see what happened, only that Che went in and didn't come out."

"Magic!" Chex exclaimed. Other centaurs often didn't like magic. She had thought them old-fashioned and unrealistic, but now she was beginning to appreciate their view. Magic had taken her foal from her!

"Must have been. And that fog sounds like Fracto. He's always interested in doing something nasty."

"Fracto!" she cried, remembering the worst of clouds. It was true: wherever there was mischief to be done, there was Fracto. "We should search him out and make him talk!"

"We might find him, but even if we spoke his language, he probably wouldn't tell," Grundy pointed out.

He was right. There was no point in giving Fracto the satisfaction. They would have to find some other way to investigate.

This was evidently a pretty sophisticated abduction. It had been set up so that it could not readily be traced. Why such an effort—for one flightless little centaur? It didn't seem to make a lot of sense.

They left the forest and took off from the glade. Chex was mystified and dispirited. The early shock of the loss was wearing off and being replaced by the grim certainty that there would be no easy resolution. She still had no idea where Che had been taken.

"We had better see how the others are doing," Grundy said, sounding dispirited himself. "Che has to be somewhere."

He was trying to cheer her, and successfully failing. But it was good advice anyway. She was supposed to be the liaison between the teams.

"Closest is the ogre," Grundy announced. It seemed that he had a list of the assignments. "Checking the Goblinate of the Golden Horde."

"The Golden Horde!" Chex exclaimed, horrified. "Those terrible goblins!"

"They're your closest evil neighbors to the west," he pointed out.

They certainly were! They liked to catch creatures and torture them before cooking them. They lived around a hate spring, which perhaps accounted for their extreme meanness. If Che had fallen into their grubby hands.

It was good that the ogre was going there. An ogre knew how to handle goblins. It was said that goblins who attacked an ogre would find some of their number orbiting the moon—and those were the lucky ones. Still, if they had Che, the foal could get bashed right along with the goblins, because ogres were justifiably proud of their stupidity.