The faun turned and fled. The goblins laughed uproariously. They obviously found this surprising reversal very funny. It seemed that the nymph was angry with the faun for some reason and had forgotten that she could go free. She just wanted to catch him.

"I don't understand," Jenny said. "She could have gone on across the pond. Why did she turn back, and why is she so angry?"

"Now I think I understand," Che said with a shudder. "There are love springs in Xanth; it is reasonable to assume that there can also be hate springs."

"You mean it—?" But evidently it did. The nymph had been in the water of hate, and now hated the faun so much that she didn't care about anything except hurting him. The two of them must have known this, because they hadn't wanted to go in the water. It was indeed a terrible thing.

The faun ran, but now things were reversed. The goblins would not let him through, and he had to dodge back, and when he did the nymph closed the gap. Her delicate hands were curved into claws and her pretty teeth were bared in an ugly snarl; there was no doubt she intended to hurt him as much as she could. She was ferocious.

Finally the faun ran down to the water and plunged in. Then he too was transformed by hate. He turned on the nymph. In a moment they were fighting savagely, each one trying to drown the other.

Jenny looked away, feeling sick. She was hardly aware when the goblins hustled her and Che into the hut that the nymph and faun had used. She had never imagined that such mean creatures as the goblins could exist.

The hut was dark, except for a bit of light from the distant fire leaking in around the edges of the door and a thin shaft of moonlight from a round vent at the top. In a moment Jenny's eyes adjusted, and she could see well enough. The hut was empty except for them; there was no furniture, just the packed earth floor, which smelled of urine and worse.

They remained tied; evidently the goblins didn't care about their comfort. There was nothing to do but settle down and rest as well as they could. Che lay down in the center of the hut, as his body was not structured to do anything else. Jenny settled at the edge and leaned against the hard mud wall. She was hungry, but knew that this was the least of her problems; she could eat after she was rescued, and if she wasn't rescued, it would hardly matter whether she ate. She was tired, and this she could do something about simply by resting and sleeping.