In the morning they commenced the mission: three males with woman-problems. All professed to be glad to get away from their situations and into adventure. Crombie especially liked his new form; he spread his wings frequently and took little practice nights.
Indeed, the soldier had much to be pleased about. His lion’s legs were powerfully muscled, and his eagle’s head was handsome with penetrating eyes, and the feathers of his wings were glorious. The plumage of his neck was blue, and on his back it was black, and on the front red, and the wings were white. A prettier monster could hardly be found in Xanth.
But this was the wilderness: no playground. The moment they departed Castle Roogna, the hostile magic closed in. Most of the paths in this vicinity had been charmed by order of the King, so there was little danger to travelers who did not stray from them. But Good Magician Humfrey was never keen on company, so there was no direct path to his castle. All roads led away from it, magically. That meant no safe passage.
Fortunately Crombie’s talent of location could keep them going the right way. Periodically the soldier-griffin paused, closed his eyes, extended one wing or forepaw, spun about, and came to rest pointing. Crombie’s directional sense was never wrong. Unfortunately it did not take note of the inconveniences of straight-line travel.
The first thing they ran into was a clump of hell’s bells. The vines of the plants reared up, their bells ringing stridently. The tintinnabulation became deafening—and disconcerting. “We have to get out of here!” Bink cried, but knew he could not be heard above the noise. Chester had his hands to his ears and he bucked about, kicking at individual bells—but for every one he smashed, a dozen clanged louder.
Crombie spread his wings and flapped violently. Bink thought he was taking off, but instead the griffin dug all four clawed feet into the massed vines and hauled them violently upward. The vines stretched and the clangor of the bells became shrill, then muted. The tension prevented them from swinging properly, so they could not ring.
Bink and Chester took the opportunity to scramble out of the clump. Then Crombie let go and flew up, out of range of the bells. They were free of the hazard, but it was a warning. They could not simply barge ahead as if treading the King’s highway.
They continued on, carefully skirting the tangle trees and noose loops. Now Crombie checked often for the nearest dangers as well as for the proper direction. In some cases they had to turn aside from seemingly innocuous places, ripping through itch-weeds and sliding turf. But they trusted Crombie’s talent; better itching and sliding, than some ignominious death.
Adventure did not seem quite as exciting, now that they were back in the thick of it. Or the thicket of it, Bink thought. There were many grimy little details and inconveniences that one tended to forget in the comfort of home or palace. Bink’s thighs were getting sore from bouncing on the centaur’s back, and he was uncomfortably sweaty.
When they got hungry, Crombie pointed out a soda tree growing in a patch of sugar sand. Chester took a sharp stone and poked a spigot-hole in the tree’s trunk so that they all could drink from the spouting soda. It looked like blood, a shock at first; but it was actually strawberry-flavored. The sugar sand was too sweet, so it was possible to eat only a little. Crombie pointed out a breadfruit tree, and that was much better. The loaves were just ripe, so that they steamed warmly when opened, and were delicious.
Just when the three were feeling confident again, danger came questing for them. Crombie’s talent operated only when invoked; it was not an automatic alert. In this case the threat was a hungry dragon of medium size, land-bound and fire-breathing: about the worst enemy in Xanth except for a large dragon. Such monsters were the lords of the wilderness, and were the standard against which all other viciousness was measured. Had this been the largest variety, they would have been lost. As it was, against this middle range, a man and a griffin and a centaur had a fighting chance.
Still, why had the dragon come after them? Normally dragons did not attack men or centaurs. Dragons fought them, but only when they had to. Because though the dragon was lord of the wilderness, the numbers and organization and weapons of men and centaurs made them more formidable than most dragons preferred. Some men, like the King, had magic that could finish any dragon. Normally people and dragons left each other alone.
That anonymous enemy—could he have sent the dragon? Just a little nudge in the dragon’s small, hot brain—and the result would seem like a normal wilderness accident. Bink remembered the King’s analysis: that his enemy’s magic was very like his own. Not identical, of course. But similar. Therefore insidious.
Then his eyes spotted a little mound of dirt, seemingly freshly deposited. The magic mole here? All Xanth must be infested with the creatures.
Both Crombie and Chester had fighting hearts. But Bink ultimately depended on his secret talent. The trouble was, that protection did not necessarily extend to his two friends. Only by joining the fray directly could Bink hope to help them, for then his talent might have to save them all to save him. He felt guilty about this, knowing that his courage was false; they could die while he was charmed. Yet he could not even tell them about this. There was a lot of this kind of magic in Xanth; it was as if magic liked to clothe itself in superfluous mystery, by that means enhancing itself in the manner of a pretty woman.
At any rate, they were caught in a level clearing: the dragon’s ideal hunting ground. There were no large trees to provide either shelter or escape, and no local magic they could draw on fast enough. The dragon was charging, a shaft of fire jetting from its mouth. One good scorch from that flame would be enough to roast a man entire. Dragons found roasted man very tasty, it was widely rumored.
Chester’s bow was in his hands, an arrow nocked. He was well provisioned with bow, arrows, sword, and a length of pliant rope, and knew how to use them all. “Keep clear of the flame!” he yelled. “He’s got to build up a bellyful between shots. When you see him start to heave, dodge sidewise!”
Good advice! Any creature the size of a dragon was likely to be a trifle slow maneuvering, and that jet of fire needed careful aiming. In fact they might be safest close to the monster, so that they could dodge around it too quickly for it to orient. Not too close, for the dragon’s teeth and claws were devastating.
Crombie, however, also possessed claws, and his beak was as good in its fashion as teeth. He had the advantage of flight. He could maneuver faster than the dragon despite his mass, though of course his weight was only a fraction of that of the dragon. But he was not a natural griffin, so would not be able to react with the same speed and precision as a true one.
Bink himself was the weak link in the defense—or so it would naturally seem to the others. “Bink, stand back!” Chester cried as Bink charged forward. Bink had no way to explain to the centaur his seeming foolishness.
The dragon slowed as it came within a dragon’s-length, its eye on its most formidable opponent: the griffin. Crombie emitted a shriek of challenge and looped toward the dragon’s tail. As the monster’s head turned to follow him, Chester fired an arrow into its neck. The shaft was driven with the power only a centaur could muster, but it merely bounced off the dragon’s metallic scales. “Have to get a shot into its mouth—when there’s no fire,” Chester muttered.
Bink knew how dangerous that was. A clear shot into the mouth could be had only by standing more or less in front of the dragon while it opened its orifice—and normally it only did that to bite or fire. “Don’t risk it!” he cried. “Let Crombie find us an escape!”
But Crombie was out of hearing, and busy, and in any event the ornery centaur was not in a mood to retreat. If they did not attack the dragon at their convenience, the dragon would demolish them at its convenience.
Bink moved in with his sword, seeking a vulnerable spot. The closer he got, the larger the dragon seemed. Its scales overlapped; they might be proof against most arrows, but maybe not against a blade angled up between them. If he could penetrate the armor in the vicinity of a vital organ—
Crombie dived at the dragon, screaming shrilly. The dive-bombing of a griffin was a thing not even a dragon could afford to ignore. The dragon whipped about,, its whole body coiling smoothly, its head striking upward in a circle to intercept the griffin. The huge jaws gaped, but it was not quite set for fire; it intended to bite off a wing or head if it could. Its neck was bowed toward Bink, who was not regarded as a threat. Chester shot an arrow into that mouth, but his angle was bad and the missile ricocheted from a tooth. Crombie came close, talons extended, banking to avoid those gaping jaws and score on an eye. Bink ran in close, and rammed his charmed point into the splayed scales beneath the neck.
The dragon’s body was about as thick as Bink was tall, and each scale was the diameter of a spread-fingered hand, glossy blue and fringed with iridescence. Each edge was sharp as a knife. As Bink’s blade sank in, those beautiful, deadly scales slid closer to his hand. Abruptly he realized that his hand could be sliced apart before his sword did critical damage to the monster. It was indeed a futile thing for a man to attempt to slay a dragon!
Bink’s thrust, however, hurt, as the prick of a thorn could hurt a man. The dragon whipped about to focus on the annoyance. Its neck bent in an S-curve to bring the snout to bear on Bink. That snout seemed twice as large from this vantage. It was the height of his waist, and coppery, with two nostril-valves that hinged inward to prevent air from being expelled. The dragon breathed in through its nose and out through its mouth; probably a snootful of flames would destroy the delicate nasal passages, so the system had to be fail-safe. Below, the lips were burnished and lighter in color, as if alloyed with some sterner metal, able to tolerate the furnace heat of the dragon’s breath. The teeth were stained scorch-brown, with black soot in the crevices.
The eyes were situated on the sides of the dragon’s cranium, but the muzzle was channeled so that the creature could look directly forward to see where its fire struck. At the moment those eyes were on Bink, who stood there with one hand on the hilt of his sword embedded in the lower curve of the S-bend of the neck. Dragons varied in intelligence, like all creatures, but even a stupid dragon would be quick enough to connect Bink with the injury in such a circumstance. The nostril-valves closed with little pings. The mouth cracked open. Bink was about to be thoroughly scorched.
He froze. All he could think of was his sword: it was a good weapon, charmed to be always sharp and tight in his hand, a gift from the King’s arsenal. If he dodged out of the way, he would have to leave that faithful blade embedded in the dragon’s neck, for there was not tune to lever it loose. He did not want to lose it, so he hung on—and was unable to move out of the projected path of flame.
A roaring developed in the belly of the dragon. The throat opened into a round tube, ready to eject the column of fire. Bink was a standing target.
Then an arrow swished over Bink’s still shoulder and down that open throat. A perfect shot by the centaur!
Too perfect. Instead of penetrating the softer lining of the deep gullet and punctuating a vital organ, the arrow disappeared into the stirring flame. Now that flame came out, a deadly shaft of golden light, destroying the arrow, hurtling toward Bink’s head.
And the griffin crashed into the dragon’s snout, bearing it down just as the fire emerged. The snout met the ground at Bink’s feet There was something like explosion. The dragon’s head was bathed in the blast, and a small crater was gouged out of the earth. The griffin just missed having a wing scorched. Bink was left standing there, sword in hand, at the smoking rim, unscathed.
The griffin snatched Bink in his claws as the dragon reoriented. They were momentarily airborne as a second blast of fire passed beneath Bink’s dangling feet.
Crombie could not support Bink’s weight long on the ground, let alone airborne. “Find an escape!” Bink cried. “Use your talent!”
Surprised, the griffin dropped Bink in a pillow bush and performed his direction-pointing routine in midair. Meanwhile the dragon coughed out several dusty fireballs, sprayed particles of soot, cleared its pipe, and charged after them. Chester galloped beside it, trying to get in another good shot. It was evident that this dragon was too tough for the three of them together.
Crombie’s right wing pointed to the side. “Squawk!” he cried.
Chester looped back and cruised by. “On my back!” he cried.
Bink leaped, and sprawled across the centaur’s rump. He started to slide off, grabbed wildly, caught a handful of mane, and righted himself while the centaur galloped on, head held low. Bink almost tumbled forward, but clasped his knees tightly and held on.
He looked up—and saw the dragon charging headlong at them. The monster must have looped back too! “Chester!” Bink screamed in panic. “It’s in front of us!”
“Front, hell!” the centaur yelled from behind him. “You’re facing backward, dodo.”
Oops. So he was. The dragon was following them, trying to catch up. Bink was holding onto Chester’s handsome tail. No wonder the head had seemed low!
Well, it was a good way to watch the dragon. “The monster’s gaining,” Bink reported. “Where’s Crombie pointing?”
“That’s where I’m going!” Chester called back. “But I don’t know how far it is!” His evident ire was understandable; he did not like fleeing an enemy, even so formidable a one as a dragon. If it weren’t for Bink, the centaur would not have retreated at all.
Crombie had indicated the direction, but could not know whether they would be able to reach the place of safety in time. Suppose the dragon caught them first? Bink feared his talent would have to come into operation again.
“That was the bravest thing I ever saw in a man,” Chester called. Obviously he felt centaurs had elevated standards of bravery. “You stood right in front of the dragon’s mouth, attracting his attention, and you kept absolutely still so I could get a clear shot around you. You could have been fried.”
Or skewered by the centaur’s arrow. But centaurs seldom missed their targets. “That wasn’t bravery,” Bink replied. “I was too terrified to move a muscle.”
“So? And what about when you spiked your sword into old firesnoot’s neck?”
That had resembled bravery. How could Bink explain that the protection provided by his devious talent made such acts easier? Had he really believed he might get killed, he might never have had the nerve. “I only did what you two were doing: attacking. To save my hide.”
Chester snorted derisively and charged on. The dragon continued to gain. Had it been a flying one, they would have been lost—except that the flying dragons were smaller, and consequently less powerful. But any dragon was real trouble, unless the one being attacked had nullifying magic.
Now the dragon was coming within torching range. There was dirt on its nose, but its fires remained stoked. It opened its mouth—
Chester dropped into a hole. “Hang on!” the centaur cried belatedly. “It’s a crevice too broad to leap!”
Evidently so. Bink narrowly avoided doing a somersault over Chester’s tail, hung on, and landed with gut-jarring .impact The walls rose up rapidly on either Side. They must have approached this chasm obliquely, so that it was easy to rush down inside it. This must be the escape Crombie had indicated. Indeed, the griffin was angling down to join them.
But the dragon followed them into the crack. Its long, sinuous body was well adapted to this type of fissure. There was no crevice a centaur could hide in. But soon it would be too narrow for the dragon. That made Bink uncertain; could this be a diversion, and not the escape route?
Suddenly Chester skidded to a halt. “Don’t stop!” Bink cried. “The monster’s right behind us!”
“Some escape route that featherbrain picked for us,” Chester muttered with disgust. “We’d better fight the dragon.”
“We’ll have to,” Bink said, turning around to face the centaur’s head. “We can’t outrun it—“
Then he saw what had stopped Chester. “Nickelpedes!” he cried with new horror.
The dragon saw the nickelpedes too. It skidded to a halt and tried to turn about—but the crevice was too narrow for effective circling. It might have looped up and over its own body, but that would have meant exposing its neck again, where it had already been stung.
Crombie came to land between them. “This was your way out, birdbrain?” Chester demanded as the nickelpedes scuttled close, forming living barricades wherever there were shadows, cutting off any likely escape.
“Squawk!” the griffin replied angrily. He understood both the language and the insult perfectly, though he could not reply in kind. He stood up, wings furled so they would not bang against the close walls and get smudged. He closed his eyes, whirled awkwardly, and pointed with a forepaw. But the paw was not firm; it wavered across half a circle.
A few bold nickelpedes attacked. Each was girt with about five hundred legs and a single set of pincers, and each had a taste for fresh meat. A single nickelpede could be killed, with a certain amount of effort and unpleasantness; a hundred were insurmountable without extraordinary armor or magic. But the attempt had to be made, for if there was one thing worse than being roasted by a dragon, it was being gouged by nickelpedes.
The dragon youped. A nickelpede had clamped on its smallest front claw and was gouging out a disk of substance nearly an inch across. The dragon’s claws were iron, but the nickelpede’s pincers were nickel hardened by magic; they could gouge from almost anything. Chester chuckled grimly.
Then the centaur leaped high, emitting a cry like a neigh. Another nickelpede had scooped out a piece of one hoof. Chester came down, stomping the little monster hard. But the nickelpede scuttled to the side, avoiding the blow—while others attacked Chester’s remaining hooves. And the dragon chuckled.
But their predicament was not funny. The crevice was deep, with a level footing below sheer vertical stone walls. It was too deep for Bink to jump out of. He might have made it by standing on Chester’s back, but how would the centaur himself get out? The dragon could lift its head that high—but not its forefeet. Only the griffin might escape—except that the narrowness of the cleft prevented him from spreading his wings far enough. He had glided into a landing, but taking off required more vigorous action and lift. With Chester’s help he might get high enough—but again, what about Chester? They were trapped as much by the situation as by the walls.
Very soon they would all be food for the swarm, if they didn’t get out of here. Yet the Bink of the dragon blocked the exit. At this stage the dragon was fidgeting about, trying to hoist its body off the ground so that it would not get gouged in a tender place, while the nickelpedes went gleefully for its feet. Chester was performing similarly. So was Crombie, who could not fly at the moment. And Bink himself, whose extremities were the most tender of all. Where was his talent now?
“It’s only the sunlight that holds them back,” Chester said. “When the sun moves over, they’ll all be on us.”
Bink looked at the line of shadow. At the moment the sun was high, and there was only a small shadowed area. But that area was packed with the pinching monsters. Only one nickelpede in a hundred ventured forth into the light, scuttling across to the shadow of someone’s body—but even so, there were a dozen or more coming.
Then Bink had an inspiration. “We must cooperate!” he cried. “All together—before we all get eaten together!”
“Of course,” Chester said. “But how do we get rid of the dragon?”
“I mean cooperate with the dragon!” Chester, Crombie, and the dragon looked at him, mutually startled. All of them were still dancing in place.
“A dragon’s too dumb to cooperate, even if it wanted to,” Chester objected. “Even if there were any point There’s just a pilot light in the monster’s brain. Why help it eat us?”
“There would have to be a truce,” Bink said. “We help it, it doesn’t eat us. The dragon can’t turn about, it can’t lift its body off the ground for any length of tune. So it is vulnerable, just as we are. But it can fight the nickelpedes much better than we can. So if we protect its flank—“
“Flame!” Chester exclaimed. “Nickelpedes hate light—and flame has lots of light!”
“Right,” Bink said. “So if we protect its dark side, and its feet—“
“And its back,” Chester added, glancing at Crombie. “If it will trust us—“
“It has no choice,” Bink said, moving toward the dragon.
“It doesn’t know that! Watch out—it’ll scorch you!”
But Bink, protected by his magic, knew he would not get scorched. He walked up to the nose of the dragon and stood before the copper nostrils. Wisps of smoke drifted up from them; there was a little leakage when the system was idle. “Dragon,” he said, “you understand me, don’t you? You can’t talk, but you know we’re all in trouble now, and we’ll all get gouged to pieces and consumed by the nickelpedes unless we help each other fight them off?” And he jumped to avoid the onslaught of another nickelpede.
The dragon did not respond. It just looked at him. Bink hoped that was a good sign. He drew his sword, sighted at the nickelpede between his feet, and impaled it neatly on the point The thing clicked its pincers as Bink lifted it, undead, and it strove to get at anything gougeable. From this vantage the pincers were circular; a nickelpede normally clamped onto its target with a few hundred legs and scooped inward to cut away a shallow disk of flesh. Horrible!
“I can nullify one nickelpede at a time,” Bink continued, showing his captive to the dragon’s right eye.
“I could sit on one of your feet and protect it. My friend the centaur could defend your tail. The griffin is actually a transformed soldier, another friend; he could watch for enemies dropping on your back, and crunch them in his beak. We can help you—if you trust us.”
“How can we trust it?” Chester demanded.
Still the dragon did not react. Was it stupid, or comprehending? As long as it listened, Bink had to assume that all was reasonably well. “Here’s what we have to do,” he continued hurriedly, as the shadow advanced and the nickelpedes grew bolder. Three were coming at Bink’s own feet now; it would be hard to spear them all in time. “The three of us must climb over you to get to your tail and back feet. Crombie will perch on your back. So you will have to let us pass, and tolerate our weight on your body. We’ll do what we can to keep your scales intact. But the main job is yours. Once we get clear, you scorch the whole mass of nickelpedes in the crevice before you. Fry them all! They don’t like light, and will clear out. Then we can all back out of here. Agreed?”
The dragon merely stared at him. Had it really comprehended? Chester took a hand. “Dragon, you know centaurs are creatures of honor. Everyone knows that! I give my word: I will not attack you if you let me past. I know Bink; even though he is a man, he is also a creature of honor. And the griffin—“ He hesitated.
“Squawk!” Crombie said angrily.
“Crombie is also a creature of honor,” Bink said quickly. “And we assume you are too, dragon.”
Yet the dragon still stared at him. Bink realized he would have to gamble. The dragon might be too stupid to comprehend the nature of their offer, or it still might not trust them. It was possible it had no way to respond. They would have to gamble on the last alternative.
“I am going to climb over your back,” Bink said. “My friends will follow me. The truce will hold until we all get out of this crevice.”
Truce. He had learned to appreciate this mode of compromise over a year ago, when he and Chameleon had made truce with the Evil Magician. That arrangement had saved them all from disaster in the wilderness. It seemed no enemy was too awful to deal with in tune of sufficient peril.
He addressed the silent dragon again. “If you don’t believe me, scorch us now, and face the nickelpedes alone.”
Bink walked boldly around the dragon’s head to the base of the neck where the front legs projected. The dragon did not scorch him. He saw the wound he had made in the neck, dripping ichor that a nickelpede was greedily eating as it landed. The little monster was gouging disks out of the stone floor to get every last bit of the delicacy puddling there. The nickelpedes had to be the most rapacious monsters for their size in all the Land of Xanth!
Bink sheathed his sword after wiping off the impaled nickelpede, then stretched up his hands and jumped. His head and chest cleared the top of the leg, and he was able to scramble over the scales. Because they were lying flat, they did not cut him—so long as he did not rub them the wrong way. The dragon did not move. “Come on, Chester, Crombie!" he called back.
Prompted by his call and the encroaching nickelpedes, the two creatures followed. The dragon eyed them warily, but held its flame. Soon the three assumed their battle stations. Just in time; the nickelpedes had massed so thickly that the shadowed walls were bright with their highlights. The shadow was advancing inexorably.
“Blast out the passage ahead!” Bink yelled to the dragon. “We’re protecting your flank!” And he drew his sword and speared another nickelpede on the point.
The dragon responded by belching out a tremendous wash of fire. It scorched the whole crevice, obscuring everything in flame and smoke. It was as if a bolt of lightning had struck. Nickelpedes screeched thinly as they fell from the walls, burning, some even exploding. Success!
“Very good,” Bink said to the dragon, wiping his tearing eyes. There had been a fair backlash of hot gas. “Now back out” But the creature did not move.
“It can’t back,” Chester said, catching on. “Its legs don’t work that way. A dragon never retreats.”
Bink realized it was true. The dragon was limber, and normally it twined about to reverse course. Its legs and feet were structured for forward only. No wonder it had not expressed agreement to Bink’s proposal; it could not perform. Without words, it could not explain; any negation would have seemed to be a refusal of the truce. Even a really intelligent creature would have been in a dilemma there, and the dragon was less than that. So it had shut up.
“But that means we can only advance deeper into the crevice!” Bink said, appalled. “Or wait until dark.” Hither course was disaster; in complete darkness the nickelpedes would be upon them in a mass, and gobble every part of their bodies in disk-chunks called nickels. What a horrible fate, to be nickeled to death!
The dragon’s flame would not last forever; the creature had to refuel. Which was what it had been trying to do at the outset, chasing them. The moment its fires gave out, the nickelpedes would swarm back in.
“The dragon can’t be saved,” Chester said. “Get on my back, Bink; I’ll gallop out of here, now that we’re past the obstruction. Crombie can leap from its back and fly.”
“No,” Bink said firmly. “That would violate our truce. We agreed to see the whole party safe outside.”
“We did not,” the centaur said, nettled. “We agreed not to attack it We shall not attack it. We shall merely leave it.”
“And let the nickelpedes attack it instead?” Bink finished. “That was not my understanding. You go if you choose; I’m finishing my commitment, implied as well as literal.”
Chester shook his head. “You*re not only the bravest man I’ve seen, you’re the manheadedest.”
I.e., brave and stubborn. Bink wished it were true. Buoyed by his talent, he could take risks and honor pledges he might otherwise have reneged on. Crombie and Chester had genuine courage; they knew they could die. He felt guilty, again, knowing that he would get out of this somehow, while his friends had no such assurance. Yet he knew they would not desert him. So he was stuck: he had to place them in terrible peril to honor his truce with an enemy who had tried to kill them all. Where was the ethical course?
“If we can’t go back, well just have to go forward,” Chester decided. “Tell your friend to get up steam.”
The irony was unsubtle—but Chester was not a subtle centaur. In fact, he was an argumentative brawler. But a loyal friend. Bink’s guilt remained. His only hope was that as long as they were all in this fix together, his talent might extricate them together. Might
“Dragon, if you would—“ Bink called. “Maybe there’s an exit ahead.”
“Maybe the moon isn't made of green cheese,” Chester murmured. It was sarcasm, but it reminded Bink poignantly of the time in his childhood when there had been what the centaurs called an eclipse: the sun had banged into the moon and knocked a big chunk out of it, and a great wad of the cheese had fallen to the ground. The whole North Village had gorged on it before it spoiled. Green cheese was the best—but it only grew well in the sky. The best pies were in the sky, too.
The dragon lurched forward. Bink threw his arms about its ankle to keep from being dislodged; this was worse than riding a centaur! Crombie spread his wings partially for balance, and Chester, facing the rear, trotted backward, startled. What was a cautious pace for the dragon was a healthy clip for the others.
Bink was afraid the crevice would narrow, making progress impossible. Then he would really have a crisis of conscience! But it stabilized, extending interminably forward, curving back and forth so that no exit was visible. Periodically the dragon blasted out the path with a snort of flame. But Bink noticed the blasts were getting weaker. It took a lot of energy to shoot out fire, and the dragon was hungry and tiring. Before long it would no longer be able to brush back the nickelpedes. Did dragons like green cheese? Irrelevant thought! Even if cheese would restore the fire, there was no moon available right now, and if the moon were in the sky, how could they reach it?
Then the crevice branched. The dragon paused, perplexed. Which was the most promising route?
Crombie closed his griffin eyes and spun as well as he could on the dragon’s back. But again his wing pointed erratically, sweeping past both choices and finally falling, defeated. Crombie’s spell was evidently in need of the spell doctor—at a most inopportune time.
“Trust the bird-head to foul it up,” Chester muttered.
Crombie, whose bird hearing evidently remained in good order, reacted angrily. He squawked and walked along the dragon toward the centaur, the feathers of his neck lifting like the hackles of a werewolf.
“Relax!” Bink cried. “We’ll never get out if we quarrel among ourselves!”
Reluctantly, Crombie moved back to his station. It seemed to be up to Bink to decide on the route.
Was there a chance the two branches looped around and met each other? If so, this was a handy way to get the dragon turned about, so they all could get out of here. But that seemed unlikely. At any rate, if it were this way, either path would do. “Bear left”
The dragon marched into the left one. The nickelpedes followed. It was getting harder to drive them off; not only was the shadow advancing, the oblique angle of the new passage made a narrower shaft for the sunlight
Bink looked up into the sky—and discovered that things were even worse than they had seemed. Clouds were forming. Soon there would be no sunlight at all. Then the nickelpedes would be bold indeed.
The passage divided again. Oh, no! This was becoming a maze—a deadly serious one. If they got lost in it—
“Left again,” Bink said. This was awful; he was guessing, and it was getting them all deeper into trouble. If only Crombie’s talent were operative here! Strange how it had failed. It had seemed to be in good order until they entered the crevice. In fact, it had pointed them here. Why had it sent them into a region that blanked it out? And why had Bink’s own talent permitted this? Had it failed too?
Suddenly he was afraid. He had not realized how much he had come to depend on his talent. Without it he was vulnerable! He could be hurt or killed by magic.
No! He could not believe that. His magic had to remain—and Crombie’s too. He just had to figure out why they were malfunctioning at the moment
Malfunctioning? How did he know they were? Maybe those talents were trying to do their jobs, but weren’t being interpreted correctly. Like the dragon, they were powerful but silent Crombie merely had to ask the right question. If he asked “Which road leads out of the maze?” it was possible that any of them did —or none. What would his talent do then? If he demanded the specific direction of out, and the escape route curved, wouldn’t his pointing appendage have to curve about, too? There was no single direction, no single choice; escape was a labyrinth. So Crombie was baffled, thinking his talent had failed, when perhaps it had only quit in disgust
Suppose Bink’s talent was aware of this. It would not worry; it would show him a way to make Crombie’s talent operate, in due course. But it would be better if Bink figured that way out himself, because then he could be sure that all of them escaped. That way, both friendship and honor would be preserved.
So now the test of his mettle was upon him. How could he solve the riddle of the balked talent? Obviously straight direction was not the answer to the question of out Yet Crombie’s talent was directional. He asked where something was, and it showed the direction. If direction were not the answer in this case, what was—and how could Crombie identify it?
Maybe he could use Crombie’s talent to find out “Crombie,” he called around the dragon’s body. “Where is something that will get us out of here?”
The griffin obligingly went through his routine, to no avail.
“It’s no good,” Chester grumbled. “His talent’s soured. Not that it ever was much good. Now if I had a talent—“
Crombie squawked, and the tone was such that it was obvious that the centaur had been treated to a rich discourse on prospective orifices available for shoving such a talent. Chester’s ears reddened.
“That’s what you’re along to find out,” Bink reminded him. “Right now, Crombie’s all we have. I think there’s a key, if I can only find it in time.” He paused to skewer another nickelpede. The things died slowly, but they didn’t attack after skewering. They couldn’t; their companions gobbled them up immediately. Soon it would not be possible to concentrate on anything but nickelpedes! “Crombie, where is something that will show us how to get out of here?”
“You just asked that,” Chester grumbled.
“No, I modified the language slightly. Showing is not the same as—“ He stopped to watch the griffin. For a moment it seemed Crombie’s talent was working, but then his wing wavered back and forth and gave up.
“Still, we must be getting warm,” Bink said with false hope. “Crombie, where is there something that will stop the nickelpedes?”
Crombie’s wing pointed straight up.
“Sure,” Chester said, disgusted. “The sun. But it’s going behind a cloud.”
“At least it proves his talent is working.”
They came to another fork. “Crombie, which fork will bring us fastest to something that will help us?” Bink asked.
The wing pointed firmly to the right “Hey, it actually worked!” Chester exclaimed mockingly. “Unless he’s faking it.”
Crombie let out another vile-sounding squawk, almost enough in itself to scorch a few nickelpedes.
But now the cloud covered the sun, sinking the entire cleft in awful shadow. The nickelpedes moved in with a multiple clicking of satisfaction and anticipation and garden-variety greed. “Dragon, take the right fork!” Bink cried. “Blast it out ahead of you, and run. Use up your last reserves of fire if you have to. We’re on to something good.” He hoped.
The dragon responded by shooting out a searing bolt of flame that illuminated the passage far ahead. Again the nickelpedes squeeked as they died. The dragon galloped over their smoking corpses, carrying Bink and Chester and Crombie along. But it was tiring.
Something sparkled in the dim passage ahead. Bink inhaled hope—but quickly realized it was only a will-o’-the-wisp. No help there!
No help? Suddenly Bink remembered something. “That’s it!” he cried. “Dragon, follow that wisp!”
The dragon obeyed, despite Chester’s incredulous neigh. It snorted no more flame, for its furnace was almost exhausted, but it could still run at a respectable pace. The wisp dodged about, as wisps had always done, always just at the verge of perception. Wisps were born teases. The dragon lumbered through fork after fork, quite lost—and suddenly emerged into a dry riverbed.
“We’re out!” Bink cried, hardly believing it himself. But not yet safe; the nickelpedes were boiling out of the chasm.
Bink and Chester scrambled away from the dragon and up and out of the gully, and found themselves in the ashes of an old burn. Crombie spread his wings and launched into the sky with a squawk of pure relief. The nickelpedes did not follow even the dragon; they could not scuttle well through ashes, and might get caught by returning sunlight The party was safe.
The dragon collapsed, panting, in a cloud of ashes. Bink walked around to its snout “Dragon, we had a good fight, and you were winning. We fled, and you pursued, and we all got caught in the cleft. We made a truce to escape, and you honored it well and so did we. By working together we saved all our lives. Now I would rather have you as a friend than an enemy. Will you accept friendship with the three of us before we part?”
The dragon looked at him. Finally, slowly, it inclined its nose slightly forward in an affirmative nod.
“Until we meet again—good hunting,” Bink said. “Here, we can help you a little. Crombie, where is the nearest good dragon-prey—something even a tired dragon can nab?”
Crombie spun in the air and flung out a wing as he fell. It pointed north—and now they heard the thrashing of something large, probably caught in a noose-loop bush. Something fat and foolish, who would die a slow death in the loops if not dispatched more mercifully by the scorch of a dragon.
“Good hunting,” Bink repeated, patting the dragon on its lukewarm copper nose and turning away. The dragon started north.
“What was the point in that?” Chester asked in a low tone. “We have no need of a dragon’s friendship.”
“I wanted it amicable, here,” Bink said. “This is a very special place, where peace should exist among all creatures of Xanth.”
“Are you crazy? This is a burnout!”
“I’ll show you,” Bink said. “We’ll follow that wisp.”
The will-o’-the wisp was still present, hovering not quite close enough to overtake. “Look, Bink,” Chester protested. “We lucked out on that wisp—bat we dare not follow it any farther. It’ll lead us into destruction.”
“Not this one,” Bink said, following it After a moment Chester shrugged, gave a what-can-you-do? kick with his hind hooves, and followed. Crombie glided down to join them.
Soon the wisp stopped at a glowstone marking a grave. As they approached, the stone lit up with the words HERMAN THE HERMIT.
“Uncle Herman!” Chester exclaimed. “You mean this is the place he—?”
“The place he saved Xanth from the wiggles,” Bink said. “By summoning many creatures with his wisps, then setting a salamander-fire to burn the wiggles out. He gave his noble life in that effort, and died a hero. I knew the wisp would lead us here, once I recognized the burnout, because you are his kind and kin and the wisps honor his memory. Crombie’s talent located the wisp, and the wisp—“
“Uncle Herman, hero,” Chester said, his face twisting into an unfamiliar expression. The belligerent centaur was unused to the gentle emotions of reverence and respect. Almost, it seemed there was a forlorn melody played by a flute, enhancing the mood.
Bink and Crombie withdrew, leaving Chester to his contemplation in privacy. Bink tripped over a pile of dirt that hadn’t been there a moment ago and almost fell headlong; that was the only sour note.