"What's so interesting?" she asked.

"I don't know yet," Chris said. "I'm waiting for Hornpipe to get to it."

Hornpipe stamped the ground restlessly.

"Maybe I shouldn't have brought it up," he said.

"You certainly shouldn't have," Valiha agreed, glowering at him. But Hornpipe went ahead doggedly.

"Well, you are here to find a way to prove your heroism to Gaea. I just thought I should point out opportunities. Take it or leave it."

"I leave it," Robin said. She looked at Chris. "You aren't serious, are you?"

"I don't really know," Chris admitted. "I came because Gaby said it was better than sitting around and waiting for opportunity to come to me, and that made sense. I never did really decide if I was rejecting Gaea's rules. I'm here, so I must not have rejected them completely. But I'll admit I hadn't given much thought to taking off on my own."

"And you shouldn't," Valiha said.

"Still, I ought to hear what's out there."

Robin snorted but had to admit she was interested to know.

"That mountain," Hornpipe said. Robin saw a conical black smudge. "It's nearly at the northern rampart," he went on. "It's a bad area, from all accounts, where little lives. I have never been there myself. But all know it is the home of Kong."

"What's Kong?" Chris asked.

"A giant ape," said Gaby, who now joined them. "What else? Let's get going, folks. The canoes are ready."

"Just a minute," Chris said. "I'd like to hear more."

"What's to hear? He sits up there... ." She looked suspicious. "Say, you weren't thinking of ... right. Come over here, Chris, and I'll tell you about Kong." She took him a few meters away, glancing at Cirocco. Robin followed, but the Titanides did not. When Gaby spoke, she kept her voice low.

"Rocky doesn't like to hear about Kong," she said, and grimaced. "I can hardly blame her. Kong is a one-shot, about a hundred years old and the only one of his species. He's in the same class with the dragons Gaea told you about; each one different, no provision to breed. They pop out of the ground after Gaea creates them, live as long as they're programmed to live, which is usually quite a long time, and die. Kong was based on a movie Gaea saw, like the giant sandworm in Mnemosyne. There're several things like that in here. Of course, they become objects for quests by pilgrims. I hate to think how many people have been slaughtered by Kong. Short of a gun the size of a tree or one hell of a lot of dynamite, he's unkillable. Believe me, a lot of people have tried it."

"It must be possible," Chris said.

Gaby shrugged. "I guess anything is if you try long enough. I don't think you're ready to take him, though. I know I wouldn't try it. Come on, Chris. There are simpler ways to commit suicide."

"Why does Cirocco fear him?" Robin asked. "Or perhaps 'fear' is not the right word."

" 'Fear' is precisely the right word," Gaby said almost in a whisper. "Kong will eat anything that moves. The Wizard is the one exception. Gaea built him with a tropism. He can smell her at a hundred kilometers, and her scent is the only thing that will bring him from his mountain. I don't think you can call it love, but it's a strong compulsion. He'll follow her right to the edge of the twilight zone. Whatever else I might say about Gaea, she usually leaves an escape clause, so she made Kong with an aversion to light, like the sandworm hates the cold on either side of Mnemosyne. He won't follow her into Tethys or Crius.

"But if the wind were from the south, we wouldn't be in Phoebe right now. Rocky crosses at the southern rampart when she can-if she has to visit Phoebe at all-because if Kong smells her, he will come running. If he catches her, he takes her back to his mountain. He did catch her once, about fifty years ago. It was six months before she could get away."

"What did he do?" Robin asked.

"She won't talk about it." Gaby raised her eyebrows and looked at each of them, then turned and walked away.

Robin looked back to the mountain, then saw that Chris was staring at it, too.

"You aren't-"

"What has she been telling you?"

Robin was startled at the nearness of the Wizard and wondered how she had approached so silently.

"Nothing," she said.

"Come on, I heard some of it before she so cleverly moved you away. You didn't believe all that, did you?"

Robin thought back over it and realized, with some chagrin, that she had.

"Well, it wasn't all lies," Cirocco conceded. "Kong is there, and he is twenty meters tall, and he did capture me and hold me prisoner, and I don't talk about it much because it was extremely unpleasant. He fouls his nest. By now the compressed shit in his cave must be ninety meters deep. He likes to take his prisoners out and look at them from time to time, but as for the sexual innuendo, forget it. He isn't even equipped; he's neuter.

"He does have a terrific sense of smell, too, but that business about smelling just me is bunk. He is attracted to all human females. What he homes in on is menstrual blood."

Robin felt concerned for the first time. Why had they come through Phoebe now?

"Don't worry," Cirocco soothed. "His nose is so good there's not really any time when you're safe. Anyhow, your smell is what would protect you, in a way. When he catches a man, he eats him. Titanides confuse him. He doesn't rely on his eyes too much, but when he gets a Titanide, he bites off part and saves the torso because at least it looks right. Then he plays with it until it falls apart." She frowned at the memory, looking away from them.

"But he is killable," she went on. "I could think of a couple of ways that should turn the trick. There was one go-getter about thirty years back who even managed to capture him. I think he planned to bring him back alive, though I don't know how because Kong got loose and ate him. The point is the guy had him tied down and could have killed him.

"But nobody goes to his mountain to kill him because there's something that's marginally easier and will get the same result if you're a pilgrim. You can rescue one of his captives. If you're a woman, there isn't even the risk of getting killed yourself because he never kills women. Not that I'd recommend being captured by him; there're more pleasant ways to spend your time. Still, he's usually got somebody up there. I know for sure there's one woman he's had for six months now, and there might even be more."

She turned away from them, reconsidered, and came back.

"One thing Gaby didn't tell you is how I got out. If you think it was a case of turning my knowledge of Gaea to good use or of outthinking the old bastard, you're wrong. I might still be there if I had been left to my own devices. The fact is that Gaby got me out at great risk to her own freedom, and I don't talk about it because it frankly doesn't fit well with my image of myself. Kong is a pretty scruffy monster, but he's nothing to laugh about, and Gaby fills the role of knight in shining armor as well as anyone could, but I'm afraid I was a miserable damsel in distress. I didn't have much self-respect left by the time she dragged me out of there." She shook her head slowly. "And I couldn't give her the traditional reward." She hurried away from them.

Robin looked once more toward the mountain, then back at Chris, saw a suspicious look in his eye, and remembered what she had been about to say before Cirocco interrupted.

"No," she said firmly, taking his arm and pulling him toward the waiting canoes. "That's what Gaea wants you to do. She wants you to put on a good show for her, and she doesn't care whether you live through it."

Chris sighed but did not resist her.

"You must have a pretty low opinion of my ability to take care of myself."

The remark surprised her, and she searched his face. "Is that what you think? Look, I understand the need to prove yourself. I probably have it stronger than you do, after all. But personal honor cannot be placed at the service of malevolence. It must mean something."