Layer 9: Down the Drainpipe


Had Fiona taken any time to think about what she was about to do, 
she would never have attempted it, for she would have realized it 
was impossible.

Fortunately for Moyre, the princess did not take time to think.

Fiona saw the root ripping from the ground, and how dangerously thin 
it was where Moyre's hand had hooked it.  But the princess also saw 
that the part that was pulling out of the dirt was getting 
progressively thicker.  So Fiona reacted.

She launched herself into the pit, aiming toward the far edge just 
above Moyre.

With her right hand Fiona reached for and grasped the thicker part 
of the root.  With her left hand she reached for Moyre's right 
wrist, clasping it just as the thinner part of the root that Moyre 
had caught broke and the elder ogress found herself in freefall.  
Fiona gritted her teeth and held on tight with both hands as the 
link she had formed between the root and Moyre grew suddenly taught 
across her arms and, with two ogresses now weighing upon it, the 
root continued to pull out of the ground.  Two feet.  Three feet.  
Both ogresses screamed as they dropped further toward the darkness.

Then the root held.  A few seconds later the ogresses stopped 
screaming and found themselves gently swaying just below the opening 
of the pit, with a great, dark nothingness all about them and below 
them.

Fiona looked up.  She held onto the root, which had come some four 
feet out of the ground and left her a total of some five feet up to 
the edge of the Drainpipe.  She then looked down.  She could just 
barely make out Moyre's form in the gloom, even this close to the 
opening.

"Are you all right?" Fiona asked between gasps as she tried to will 
her heart to stop beating quite so fast.

"A-aye," Moyre replied, slightly turning the wrist that Fiona held 
and clasping her daughter-in-law's wrist with her own hand, 
strengthening their bond.  "Again, thanks to YOU.  Great Heavens, 
child, that was AMAZING!"

"Thanks," Fiona said, blushing.  A moment later she was back to 
practicality, asking, "Now, can you reach up and grab my arm with 
your other hand?"

Moyre began to raise her left arm, then screamed again, this time in 
pain.

"What's wrong?!" Fiona asked with concern.

"My arm!  Where I fell on it ..." Moyre gasped.  "I ... I think it's 
broken.  I'm sorry, Fiona, it's not going t'be of any use."

"Well ... just hang tight," Fiona said.  "Shrek and Groyl were 
watching and should be here any second to pull us out."  Fiona then 
heaved a heavy sigh.

"What is it, Fiona?" Moyre asked.

"Actually, I was rather hoping that *I* wasn't going to need rescued 
for a change," the princess replied as she watched the opening, 
expecting her husband's large face to appear there at any time.

Unknown to Fiona, however, Shrek was having his own problems at that 
moment.


*     *     *

It had been a less than patient wait for Shrek as he had lain beside 
his father, anxiously waiting for Fiona to appear while staring over 
the edge of the rise with Groyl and Donkey at the scene transpiring 
at the pit around his entranced mother.

"What's keeping her?" Groyl asked, his own anxiety starting to get 
the better of him.

"Aye," Shrek agreed.  "It's been some time.  Maybe we should --"

"Hey!  Guys!  She just left!  Give her a chance!" Donkey said.

Shrek sighed.  If it were up to him, he would have given his wife 
all day.  But this was a life-and-death situation, one which was 
edging closer to death at every passing second.  Then he saw that 
villager place a pitchfork at his mother's back, and all thoughts of 
patience leapt from his mind as he quickly rose, ready to make that 
dash across the road he had begun earlier.  But by the time he had 
reached his feet Fiona had appeared, dispatched the villager, and 
knocked Moyre back away from the pit.  Shrek saw the crimson 
musician begin to raise that pipe to his lips and was about to call 
a warning to his wife, but Fiona was already on it, leaping at the 
man, kicking his instrument into the pit and then knocking him back 
with a blow so hard that Shrek could almost feel it in his own 
stomach.

"Oh m'God!" gasped Groyl, who had risen along with Shrek and, also 
like him, was now simply standing on the road just beyond the rise 
and staring at the action around the Drainpipe.  "She IS good!"

"Aye," Shrek said with more than a hint of pride as a relieved smile 
spread across his face.  "That she is."

Then Shrek's smile began to fade with new anxiety as he saw 
Fiona boldly striding towards the rest of the villagers.  The 
ogress didn't command the overwhelming physical presence of a 
male like Shrek, but she WAS as tall as the tallest of the 
villagers, considerably larger than any of them, and far 
stronger than their strongest.  Still, if they launched some 
sort of coordinated attack, there were enough of them that they 
COULD overpower her.  Shrek recalled how only a handful of 
Farquaad's men were able to keep her restrained at the church 
while it had taken considerably more of them to restrain him.  
But Fiona had still been somewhat weak from her transformation.  
('Darling', she had once told him, 'when you have every molecule 
in your body taken apart, rearranged, and shoved back together, 
it takes a little while to recover your full strength.')  Plus, 
those had been Farquaad's best trained and disciplined soldiers, 
whereas these were just peasants, and as he had once told Fiona, 
if you kept peasants on the psychological defensive then you 
were already well over half-way to winning the battle.  But even 
then there was the danger of a stray, panicked pitchfork thrust. 
 Now that Moyre was out of danger, Shrek decided that he would 
give Fiona a hand with the rest.  He began moving forward when 
he felt Groyl lay a restraining hand on his arm.

"It's all right, Son," the elder ogre said, his voice sounding 
relieved now that Moyre was out of danger.  "Let her be.  She's 
doing fine!"

Shrek, not feeling as secure with his OWN wife only a few steps away 
from the ignoble gaggle, was about to voice his dissent when he saw 
Fiona stop and strike a cross-armed pose.  That was different -- he 
knew she always preferred the direct approach before.  Was she 
trying to reason with them?  Shrek knew from experience that trying 
to talk reason into a peasant was about as much use as trying to 
talk a hunk of lead into spontaneously turning into gold.  But then 
one of the villagers started waving a torch at her and she casually 
blew it out.  Shrek actually chuckled.  He noticed about this time 
the musician finally staggered to his feet, but as the villain then 
started stumbling quickly toward the south away from his wife and 
mother, Shrek didn't give him much more thought for now.  There 
would be time to hunt him down as soon as they were done with the 
villagers.

Then Fiona opened her mouth and roared.  Shrek's own mouth dropped 
open -- in an amazed gape.  Groyl laughed heartily as Fiona finished 
and wiped her lips while the villagers continued screaming in 
fright.

"Woooow!" Donkey exclaimed.  "Looks like there's some SERIOUS green 
goin' down over there!"

"Did ye teach her that, Son?" Groyl asked as the villagers all 
started running away.

"Aye," Shrek said, still somewhat shocked at what he had just 
witnessed.  "I suppose in a way I did."

"Man, Shrek!" Donkey said.  "I think you created a MONSTER!"

"No, Donkey, I didn't 'create' anything," Shrek replied as he 
watched Fiona's eyes seeking him out from the far side of the pit 
and then a smile crease her sweet lips when she found him.  "I've 
just tried t'encourage her to open herself up to what's already 
inside."  Layers indeed, he thought, and allowed himself another 
relieved smile.

Shrek then watched in horror as his mother suddenly dropped from 
view into the Drainpipe, followed a moment later by his wife driving 
in after her.  And then he heard them both scream.

"NOOOO!!!" Shrek cried, and bounded forward toward the pit.

The bounding was a mistake.  Shrek came down with all his 
considerable weight on his left foot.  The ground beneath the foot 
immediately began to cave in.  His right foot landed beside it, but 
the traction there was fleeting as well.  Suddenly Shrek found 
himself hip-deep in the middle of a new, quickly collapsing 
sinkhole, with his feet flailing in empty air underneath.  He may 
well have fallen all the way through, but suddenly he felt something 
grab the top back part of his vest, arresting his fall.

"GOTCHA!" Donkey said through teeth clenched on the back of Shrek's 
vest.  The equine braced his legs against the substantial weight 
pulling him downward and threatening to detach his oversized teeth 
from his gums.  But somehow he managed to hold on, his own front 
hooves anchored just inches from the edge of the new sinkhole, all 
four legs locked and trembling with the effort of keeping Shrek from 
falling completely through.

Groyl, who had also begun dashing forward in panic at the sight of 
the two ogresses disappearing into the pit, turned around at the 
sound of Shrek's travails.  The elder ogre's eyes, already wide with 
fright for the females, now nearly popped from their sockets.  
"SHREK!" he cried, and began to turn around.

"NO!" Shrek yelled.  "GO ON, DAD!  HELP MOM AND FIONA!  I'LL BE 
FINE!"

Desperate confusion took hold on Groyl's face.  "But --"

"GO!  GO!" Shrek insisted.  "OUR FEMALES NEED YOU!  GO!"

Groyl hesitated a moment longer, then turned and continued running 
toward the Devil's Drainpipe.  Once he was on his way, Shrek, who 
was now submerged down to the bottom of his chest in the new hole, 
began clawing with his hands at the dry, pebbly soil around him, 
trying to get a hand-hold.  But it was no use, and the movement only 
caused him to slip a little further into the new hole.

"Will you hold still?!" Donkey mumbled through his clenched teeth as 
Shrek's movements caused Donkey's hooves to slip a couple of more 
inches toward the hole.

Shrek grumbled something unintelligible, but realized this friend 
was right.  He stopped struggling -- for now -- and tried to simply 
support as much of his own weight on his arms as he could as he 
watched his father.  Groyl had reached the Drainpipe and was 
kneeling and looking down into it.  Nearby, Puppy -- without a means 
to help anyone for now -- whined powerlessly.  Shrek knew how she 
felt.  He said a silent prayer that by some miracle both ogresses 
were alive and safe as his eyes stayed glued to the Drainpipe.

*     *     *

Groyl felt relief flood through his veins when he squinted down into 
the abyss and was able to make out both ogress's forms in the gloom.  
"Moyre!  Fiona!" he cried.  "You're both alive!"

"For now!"  Fiona replied, smiling.  Then after a moment her smile 
faded and she asked, "But where's Shrek?"

Groyl's expression also grew more serious.  "Just a moment," he 
said, then sat up and looked back at his son, still stuck in the new 
sinkhole, the anxiety in his face easy to read even over a hundred 
yards away.  "THEY'RE BOTH FINE!" Groyl called to him, perhaps 
exaggerating the security of their predicament a bit.

"Thank Heaven," Groyl could more see than hear Shrek say, then his 
son closed his eyes and heaved a great sigh of relief -- or was that 
a true prayer of thanks?

"Dad!" Groyl heard Fiona say from beneath him, her own voice seeming 
to inherit the anxiety that had just escaped her husband.  "Why 
isn't Shrek with you?  Where is he?"

Groyl reluctantly leaned back over the edge of the Drainpipe and 
looked down into his daughter-in-law's worried face.  "He's ... 
hanging around back there with Donkey," he replied evasively.

"WHAT?!" Fiona blurted.

"Groyl, what's happened to our son?" Moyre asked from beneath the 
princess.

Suddenly there was a small cracking sound.  The ogresses gasped as a 
split could be seen starting across the root just a few inches above 
where Fiona grasped it.

"First things first," Groyl said.  "We need t'get ye outta this 
hole!"

With that he sat up again and quickly looked about the relatively 
barren ground immediately around him for something that would give 
him leverage.  Then he noticed the unconscious villager's pitchfork 
lying nearby.  Groyl grabbed the pitchfork and drove it hard into 
the ground near the pit's edge, the prongs sinking in almost to 
their tops.

Groyl then laid himself flat on the ground so just the upper part of 
his body from the middle of his chest onward were over the 
Drainpipe's edge.  He then reached down with both hands and took 
hold of the root that Fiona was hanging onto.  With a great grunt he 
carefully pulled upward, trying not to exacerbate the split that was 
gradually spreading on its own.  The root and the attached ogresses 
started slowly rising ... one foot ... two feet ... until finally 
Fiona was close enough that Groyl was able to let go of the root 
with his right hand and promptly seize her wrist.  Once he had a 
secure hold on her wrist with his right hand, he let go of the root 
with his left hand and quickly grabbed hold of the pitchfork to 
anchor himself.  Just as he had done so, the split in the root 
became complete and Fiona gave a short little shriek as she suddenly 
found herself holding onto a useless piece of wood.  The rest of the 
root sprang away, out of reach of any of them.  Fiona dropped the 
worthless fragment that was left in her hand and grabbed hold of 
Groyl's wrist, mirroring the bond that she maintained with Moyre.

"Okay.  That's good," Groyl grunted, his aged sinews straining as he 
was now supporting the full weight of two ogresses.  "Now, Moyre, 
can ye climb over --"

"No, she can't," Fiona said.

"I think I broke me left arm," Moyre explained.  "Anyway, I can't 
raise it."

"Oh, great," Groyl sighed.  "Well, just hold on.  I'll try to --"

Suddenly the ground shifted below Groyl, collapsing a few inches 
where he lay.  Both ogresses shrieked this time as the sudden 
shudder traveled down Groyl's arm and started them swaying again in 
the blackness.   Except for the involuntary swaying, all three ogres 
froze in fright, their grips on each other growing tighter.

"DAD, ARE YE ALL OKAY?!" Groyl heard Shrek's agitated voice call 
from across the valley.

"WE'RE FINE, SON!  EVERYTHING'S STABLE NOW!" Groyl called back, not 
sure if he was right or not.  Then he looked down at the females and 
said, "Maybe we should just stay still for a wee bit."

"Agreed," Fiona said, trying to regain control of her breath.

"Fiona," Moyre said softly, "let me go."

*     *     *

Fiona blinked, not sure she's heard correctly.   She looked down at 
Moyre, trying to make her face out in the darkness.  "What did you 
say?" the princess asked.

"Ye heard me right," Moyre said.  "You two try 'n heave me outta 
here and we'll all likely get killed.  I'm old.  I've lived my life.  
You and my son have just started yours.  So please, don't throw that 
away trying t'save an old windbag like me.  Just let me go."

"What're ye SAYING, woman?!" Groyl asked, alarmed.

"I don't think I can make it any PLAINER, ye'old beast!" Moyre 
replied, her soft tone now tinged with irritation.  "You know I'm 
right.  So tell your daughter-in-law t'let me go!"

"I ... I can't do that!" Groyl said, his voice choking a bit.

Moyre sighed.  "Ye always were a softie, Groyl, no matter how hard 
ye tried to hide it" she said with surprising tenderness.  "I'll see 
ye later."  She then let go of Fiona's wrist.

"NO!" Fiona cried, tightening her own grip on Moyre's wrist.  The 
princess tried to summon her most authoritative command voice.  
"Stop this!  Moyre, you grab back hold of my arm NOW!"

Moyre shook her head, unimpressed.  "Ye can't hold onto me forever, 
Fiona," she said glumly.

"Oh, can't I?" Fiona asked, her thoughts drifting back to an 
unexpected adventure on the trip to her and Shrek's honeymoon 
destination, when a post-corporeal Farquaad had attempted to 
assassinate her and her companions by plunging them over a 
waterfall.  She had found herself in a similar situation, clinging 
on for dear life in the middle of a living chain, but back then she 
had had to uphold the weight of both Shrek and Donkey.  She had done 
it, too, finding the strength from somewhere, holding on until a 
support above them gave way and broke the chain, but long enough for 
Dragon to get into position to save their lives.  If she had to find 
the strength to sustain Moyre's relatively lighter load, then she'd 
do that that, too, for as long as it took.  "You're be surprised at 
what I can do, Moyre," Fiona said.

"After what I've seen today, I doubt that," Moyre chuckled wryly.  
"And dear, I'd be honored if ye'd call me 'Mom'."

"Why ... thank you," Fiona said softly, genuinely moved.  She then 
reluctantly ushered more steel into her voice as she added, "And ... 
Mom ... I'd be honored if you'd GRAB HOLD OF MY BLASTED WRIST!"

"Fiona, I'm the past," Moyre said forlornly.  "You're the future.  
Ye owe it to Shreklecheh t'save yourself.  You've got a pack of my 
grandkids to give 'em.  They need an example like you t'show 'em 
what being an ogress is all about."

Fiona tried desperately to think of something else to break Moyre's 
despondency.  Then an idea occurred to her.  She winced inwardly.  
This was going to be painful, but it was the only thing she could 
think of at the moment.  "Well," Fiona said, "better me than you, I 
suppose."

Moyre blinked, confused.  "I BEG your pardon?" she asked.

"As an example of an ogress," Fiona continued, injecting a tone of 
rebuke into her voice.  "I mean, I wouldn't want them to just GIVE 
UP when the going gets tough, like YOU'RE doing now."

Moyre's eyes narrowed.  "Fiona --" she began through clenched teeth.

"But then, what DO I know about being a REAL ogress?" Fiona 
interrupted her.  "You were right earlier.  I certainly didn't have 
any training in it growing up.  YOU'RE the only example I've ever 
had.  And look at you, ready to just take the easy way out and give 
up, not even CARING about the grief you'll cause your husband and 
son.  Not to mention the schism you'll cause between Shrek and me, 
him knowing that I let you drop into the abyss.  But as long as you 
get to play the martyr, oh, that's just fine with you!"

Moyre's upper lip started curling back from her teeth and one eye 
started twitching as she began to grumble, "That's enou--"

"I don't know," Fiona again cut her mother-in-law off.  "Maybe ogres 
like Shrek and Groyl are exceptions.  Perhaps most ogres are more 
like you, or at least the females are, and whatever stronger 
personality traits I have really ARE from my human side.  Hey, I 
know what!  Once Groyl and I get out of here I'm going to see what I 
can do about finding someway, somehow to restore my humanity.  Purge 
this slimy green ogre stain once and for all! After all, I AM a 
princess, I've GOT connections.  I'm sure I can find SOMEBODY to 
help.  Maybe I'll even find another batch of that 'Happily Ever 
After' potion somewhere and bring Shrek over with me!  After all, 
I've got him wrapped around my little finger, he'll do ANYTHING I 
ask.  Then we can both move in with my royal family and live happily 
ever after as humans!  That would certainly take care of having to 
worry about your moronic ogre marriage rules, and any children that 
we have will be humans themselves, not swamp-dwelling aberrations.  
Heck, we won't even tell them of our past -- why burden them with 
the dishonor of knowing their parents were once despicable beasts?  
At any rate, I'll at least know my daughters won't grow up to be 
big, ugly, scraggly-haired monsters who'd just give up when faced 
with the least peril, like YOU!"

"Why you pernicious, over-inflated tadpole!" Moyre growled, her eyes 
flaring.  Her right hand -- more like a claw now -- again clenched 
Fiona's wrist in a grip so tight that, had Fiona been human, it 
would have crushed it. "We'll settle this LATER!" Moyre added 
ominously through grinding teeth.

"Looking forward to it, lady.  Bring it on!" Fiona retorted, trying 
to feign defiance while masking her relief.

*     *     *

Dragon landed with a thump in the clearing in front of Shrek and 
Fiona's home.  A moment later six dragon/donkey hybrids all pattered 
to landings around her.  They measured some six feet long now from 
the tips of their equine snouts to the ends of their reptilian 
tails, and all began making excited noises, anticipating seeing 
their father emerge from his friends' home to greet them.  Some of 
the offspring were so energized they accidentally released little 
spurts of flame from their mouths.

But Donkey didn't appear.  And neither did any ogres.

Dragon's yellow eyes narrowed in concern.  She made a curt little 
roar, signaling her children to be still.  They did so, or as best 
as they could given their youth and the genes they inherited from 
their father.

The swamp was quiet.

Too quiet.

Dragon tapped on the door with one claw.  After a few seconds with 
no answer, she pushed it open, leaned down and held an eye to the 
doorway.  She could see no one inside.  But then she detected the 
smell.

It was an ogre.  A new one.  A stranger.  No, not one.  TWO.  Two 
strange ogres had been here recently.  Their smells were 
particularly similar to Shrek -- they were perhaps even related -- 
but they were strangers nonetheless.  They had arrived, and now 
Shrek, Fiona, and Donkey had vanished.

Dragon sat up.  Her eyes glowed slightly and her bright red lips 
curled back a bit.  A little smoke escaped from her nostrils.  She 
made a short, louder roar to see if she would get any response from 
anywhere else in the swamp, in case the occupants had simply gone 
for a walk or some similarly innocuous activity.  But she received 
no reply.  She then began sniffing around the ground.  After a 
minute or so she was able to determine a particularly recent trail 
of scents -- encompassing Shrek, Fiona, Donkey, as well as the new 
ogres -- oddly, one of the new ogre's smells was slightly more fresh 
than the other's -- heading off across the clearing in a relatively 
straight path.  Dragon lifted her head and looked past the clearing, 
extrapolating where that path would lead.  She then spread her great 
wings, growled for her children to follow her, and took off in the 
direction that the scents seemed to be heading.

*     *     *

As the pack of panicked peasants plunged down the path through the 
rocky, hilly terrain back toward their village, they had to pass 
through a particularly narrow -- some ten yards wide -- gorge 
between a couple of steep hills.  As they approached it, a tall, 
burly, bearded figure wearing a brown Stetson cowboy hat and sitting 
atop a cream-colored stallion rode out into the middle of the 
passage.

"Greetings, gentlemen," the stranger said jovially, a wickedly 
playful gleam in his eyes.  "In a hurry?"

"SHERIFF!" several of the villagers at the front of the group 
gasped, stopping in their tracks.  This caused some of the villagers 
following them to run into the ones that had stopped, resulting in 
about half of the villagers ending up on the ground.

As they scrambled to their feet, the sheriff nodded toward one of 
the villagers who was still carrying his pitchfork.  "I'd say that 
this is a rather odd and out-of-the-way place to be working with 
haystacks," he observed dryly.  "You all wouldn't by chance be going 
against my orders and harassing a certain neighboring contingent of 
the green persuasion, would you?"

The peasants looked at each other guiltily.

"I thought you might," the sheriff said.  "And I assume you failed 
again?"

The peasants now looked embarrassed as well as guilty.

"I thought you might have done that as well," the sheriff chuckled 
mirthlessly.  "You know, some lawmen might consider the shame and 
disgrace that comes from such incompetent ineptitude punishment 
enough."

The villagers looked at him hopefully.

"However, I'M not such a lawman," the sheriff said with a sneer.  
"You're all under arrest!"

The villagers now panicked again.  "RUN AWAY!" one of them cried, 
and they began to scatter in two groups, one trying to make it 
through one side of the gorge around the sheriff and another group 
through the other.  The sheriff quickly took his rope, swung it in a 
circle through the air a few times to loosen its lasso end, and then 
threw the lasso at a group of the fleeing villagers.  The noose fell 
across the midsection of three of them; the sheriff yanked on the 
rope and the noose tightened across the group, binding their arms to 
their sides and causing them to fall to the ground with muffled 
grunts.

As another group of villagers tried to run through the gorge to the 
sheriff's rear, the crook end of a shepherd's staff suddenly 
appeared from an outcropping, hooking the neck of the lead fleeing 
villager, causing his feet to fly forward while his body fell 
backwards.  He landed in a heap on the hard ground, hitting his head 
and knocking himself out cold.  The villager just behind him came to 
a sudden halt, mouth agape, as he looked down on his companion.  He 
then looked back up as Bo Peep stepped away from the outcropping, 
her staff held at the ready, a self-satisfied little smirk on her 
lips.  "Why you little --" the villager began, but didn't get any 
further as Bo whipped the bottom end of her staff upward, striking 
the villager between his legs.  The man gasped and fell to his 
knees.  Bo then quickly brought the crook end of her staff down on 
his head.  The man collapsed by his companion, as unconscious as he.

Two more villagers were behind these.  They stared wide-eyed at Bo.  
Bo twirled her staff over her head like a baton for a couple of 
seconds, the rod making a swishing sound, and then she struck a 
crouching pose while holding the staff horizontally above her head 
with one hand like a samurai warrior holding his sword, the crook 
end of the staff pointing at the awe-struck villagers.

"Any other customers?" she challenged.

The men blushed and meekly held up their hands in surrender.

"Good work, Bo!" the sheriff said admiringly, still atop his horse.

"Thanks," she said, smiling up at him.

The sheriff's features then hardened as his eyes shifted to the last 
group of four fleeing peasants.  "You keep these covered," he said, 
nodding toward the men holding up their hands.  "I'll go round up 
the rest."

"What about the ogres?" Bo asked.

The sheriff shrugged.  "Apparently these yokels fouled up again.  
I'm sure the ogres are just fine."

*     *     *

The Piper could feel the hate building within him.  Normally he did 
not allow emotions to get in the way of his business -- that was 
usually a reckless, foolhardy thing to do.  But this ogress had not 
only bettered him, but embarrassed him.  Embarrassment was not 
something he took well.  So he had slunk off up the southern hill 
overlooking the Drainpipe, but instead of fleeing, he had sought out 
a small cave where he could observe the valley below him while 
remaining hidden himself, and perhaps find some way to cause 
mischief to the ogress or her party.  He was glad he had decided to 
do so, as he now gazed down with glee upon the two helpless groups; 
the older ogre trying to support the two ogresses trapped in the 
Drainpipe while the other ogre was on the verge of being sucked down 
into the new sinkhole as the donkey held onto him for dear life.

The Piper's glee quickly faded, however, when he heard the roar from 
overhead and looked up to see the large red dragon.  He had heard 
tales about the great beast and its unlikely relationship with the 
donkey.  And he had to shake his head in bewilderment when he saw 
the hybrid offspring trailing their mother as she had seen the 
quandary of her companions and was heading in for a landing.

Then a smile returned to the Piper's face as he realized that this 
was something he could use to his advantage.  He quickly detached 
the case from his belt, laid it out in front of him, and opened it.  
He scanned through the remaining mouthpieces until he found the one 
with the label he sought: 'DragonMaster 1000'.  He then reached down 
inside a special crevice in his right boot and withdrew his smaller, 
spare chalumeau.