Magician Humfrey’s castle was the same as ever. It stood tall and slender, with stout outer ramparts and a high inner tower topped by embrasures and parapets and similar accouterments normal to castles. It was smaller than Bink remembered, but he knew it had not changed. Perhaps the problem was that his memory of the ulterior made it larger than his memory of the exterior. With magic, it was possible that the inside really was larger than the outside.
The magic access routes had been changed, however, and the hippocampus or water-horse was gone from the moat, its time of service expired. There was surely another creature standing guard inside, in lieu of the manticora Bink had known: the one at the Anniversary party. Even monsters had to give a year of their lives as fee for the Good Magician’s Answers, and they normally performed as guardians of the castle. Humfrey did not appreciate casual intrusions.
As they came to the moat, the nature of the new guardian became apparent Monster? Monsters! The water teemed with serpentine loops, some white, some black, sliding past each other interminably.
“But where are the heads, the tails?” Chester inquired, perplexed. “All I see are coils.”
The three of them stood by the moat, pondering. What could a whole fleet of sea serpents have wanted to ask the Good Magician, needing his Answer so badly that all were willing to pay the fee? How had they gotten here? It seemed it was not for Bink and his friends to know.
Fortunately, this was not a hazard he had to brave.
Bink was on the King’s business, and would be admitted to the castle as soon as he made his presence known. “Magician Humfrey!” he called.
There was no response from the castle. Doubtless the Good Magician was buried in a good book of magic, oblivious to outside proceedings. “Magician, it is Bink, on a mission for the King!” he called again.
Still no response. “The old gnome must be hard of hearing,” Chester muttered. “Let me try.” He cupped his hands before his mouth and bellowed: “MAGICIAN: COMPANY!”
The bellow echoed and re-echoed from the battlements, but the castle was silent “He should be at home,” Bink said. “He never goes anywhere. Still, we can check. Crombie, where is the Good Magician?”
The griffin went through his act and pointed—directly toward the castle. “Must be beyond it,” Chester said. “If your talent’s not on the blink again.”
Crombie squawked, his fine hackle-feathers rising again. He stood on his hind feet and made boxing motions with his front feet, challenging the centaur to fight Chester seemed quite ready to oblige.
“No, no!” Bink cried, diving between them. “We don’t want to make a bad impression!”
“Hell, I wanted to make a good impression—on his feathery face,” Chester grumbled.
Bink knew he had to separate the two combative creatures. “Go around to the other side of the castle and get another fix on the Magician,” he told Crombie.
“Triangulate,” Chester said.
Triangulate? Bink, accustomed to his friend’s surly manner, had forgotten how educated centaurs were. Triangulation was a magical means of locating something without going there directly. Chester had a good mind and a lot of background information, when he cared to let it show.
The griffin decided that the word was not, after all, a scatological insult, and flew to one side of the castle and pointed again. Toward the castle. No question about it: the Magician was home.
“Better fly in and notify him we’re here,” Bink said. “We don’t want to mess with those moat-monsters.”
Crombie took off again. There was a small landing area between the moat and the castle, but no opening in the wall, so the griffin mounted to the high turrets. But there seemed to be no entry there for a creature of that size, so after circling the tower twice the griffin flew back.
“I remember now,” Bink said. “The windows are barred. A small bird can get through, but not a griffin. We’ll just have to brave the moat after all.”
“We’re here on the King’s business!” Chester exclaimed angrily. His unhandsome face was excellent for scowling. “We don’t have to run the gauntlet!”
Bink was piqued himself. But he knew he could make it through, because of his talent. “It is my responsibility. I’ll see if I can navigate the castle obstacles and get his attention, then he’ll let you in.”
“We won’t let you brave that moat alone!” Chester protested, and Crombie squawked agreement. These two might have their rivalry, but they knew their ultimate loyalty.
This was awkward. They had no magical protection. “I’d really rather do it alone,” Bink said. “I am smaller than you, and more likely to slip through. If I fall in the moat, you can lasso me and haul me out, quickly. But I could never haul you out, if—“
“Got a point,” Chester admitted grudgingly. “Crombie can fly across the water, but we already know he can’t get in. Too bad he’s not strong enough to fly with you,”
Crombie started to bridle again, but Bink cut in quickly. “He could carry your rope to me, in an emergency. I really think it is best this way. You can help me most by figuring out what type of monsters are in that moat. Is there anything in the centaur’s lexicon about headless serpents?”
“Some—but the coils don’t match the pattern. They look more like pieces of a—“ Chester broke off, staring. “It is! It’s an ouroboros!”
“An ouroboros?” Bink repeated blankly. “What’s that—a fleet of sea monsters?”
“It is all one monster, a water dragon, clutching its own tail between its teeth. Half of it white, half black. The symbolism is—“
“But there are a score or more segments, all over the moat! Some are in toward the castle, and some out near the edge. Look—there’s three lined up parallel. They can’t be pieces of the same monster!”
“Yes they can,” Chester said wisely. “The ouroboros loops entirely around the castle—“
“But that would account for only a single-file line of—“
“Loops several tunes, and its head plunges below its own coils to catch the tail, A little like a mobius strip. So—“
“A what?”
“Never mind. That’s specialized magic. Take my word: that thing in the moat is all one monster—and it can’t bite because it won’t let go of its tail. So if you’re good at balancing, you can walk along it to the castle.”
“But no segment shows above the water more than five feet! I’d fall in, if I tried to jump from segment to segment!”
“Don’t jump,” Chester said with unusual patience, for him. “Walk. Even coiled several times around the loop, the thing is too long for the moat, so it has to make vertical convolutions. These can never straighten out; as soon as one subsides, another must rise, and this happens in a progressive undulation. That’s how the ouroboros moves, in this restricted locale. So you need never get wet; just follow one stage of the thing to the end.”
“This makes no sense to me!” Bink said. “You’re speaking in Centaurese. Can’t you simplify?”
“Just jump aboard the nearest loop and stay there,” Chester advised. “You’ll understand it once you do it.”
“You have more confidence in me than I do,” Bink said dubiously. “I hope you know what I’m doing.”
“I trusted you to get us out of the nickelpede crevice Crombie got us into,” Chester said. “Now you trust me to get you across that moat. It isn’t as if you’ve never ridden a monster before.”
“Squawk!” Crombie cried, pointing a wing at the centaur. Bink smiled; he had been riding the centaur. Score one for the soldier.
“Just don’t fall off,” Chester continued evenly. “You’d get crushed by the coils.”
“Um,” Bink agreed, sobering. Even with his talent backing him up, he didn’t like this. Walking the back of a moving sea monster? Why not walk the wings of a flying roc, while he was at it!
He cast his gaze about, as he tended to do when he sought some escape from what he knew he could not escape—and spotted another mound of earth. Angrily he marched a few paces and stepped on it, pressing it down.
But when a convenient loop offered, Bink jumped across to it, windmilling his arms in the fashion of a mill-tree to regain his balance. The segment of monster sank somewhat beneath his weight, then stabilized pneumatically. Though glistening with moisture, the white skin was not slippery. Good; maybe this walk was possible after all!
The flesh rippled. The section in front of him subsided into the water. “Turn about!” Chester called from the bank. “Stay with it!”
Bink turned, windmilling again. There, behind/before him, the loop was extending. He stepped along it, hurrying as the water lapped at his heels. This was like a magic highway, opening out ahead of him, closing behind him. Maybe that was the basic principle of such one-way paths; they were really the backs of monsters! Yet though the serpent seemed to be moving toward Bink’s rear, the loop stayed in place, or drifted slightly forward. So he was walking fairly swiftly, to make rather slow progress. “I’ll never get across this way,” he complained. “I’m not even walking toward the castle.”
“You’ll get there,” Chester called. “Keep your feet going.”
Bink kept walking, and the centaur and griffin moved slowly around the moat to keep pace. Suddenly a loop developed between him and his friends. “Hey, I've crossed to an inner loop—and I never left this one!” Bink exclaimed.
“You are spiraling inward,” Chester explained. “There is no other way to go. When you get to the inner bank, jump off.”
Bink continued, rather enjoying it now that he had his sea legs and understood the mechanism. There was no way he could avoid reaching the other shore, so long as he kept his place here. Yet what an ingenious puzzle it was; could he have solved it without Chester’s help?
Abruptly the segment narrowed. He was coming to the end of the tail! Then the head of the ouroboros came in sight, its teeth firmly clamped to the tail. Suddenly nervous again, Bink had no alternative but to tread on that head. Suppose it decided to let go the tail, just this once, and take him in instead? The big dragon eyes stared briefly at him, sending a chill through his body.
Then the head was past, continuing its undulation into the water, and Bink was treading the massive neck, broad as a highway after the slender tail. Apparently this dragon, serpent, or whatever was independent of air; it could keep its head submerged indefinitely. Yet how did it eat, if it never let go of its tail? It couldn’t be eating itself, could it? Maybe that had been its Question for the Magician: how could it let go of its tail, so it could consume the idiots who walked along its length? No, if it had the answer to that, it would have gobbled up Bink as he passed.
“Jump, Bink!” Chester called. Oops—had the serpent changed its mind, let go, and come to gobble? Bink looked back, but saw nothing special. Then he looked ahead—and discovered that the body was twisting down and under the adjacent leg of the spiral. No more highway! He leaped to shore as his footing ended.
Now he was at the outer rampart of the castle. He looked for the great doorway he had encountered on his first approach to this castle, back before Trent was King—and found a waterfall.
A waterfall? How had that gotten here? He traced it upward and saw a ledge; the water issued from somewhere out of sight, to course down over the frame of the door.
Was there an aperture behind the sheet of water? Bink did not relish getting wet here, after traversing the whole moat dry, but he would have to look. He removed his clothing and set it aside, so that it would not get soaked, then nudged cautiously into the waterfall.
The water was cool but not chill. There was a small air space behind it. Then the wood facing of the door. He explored the surface with his hands, pushing here and there, but found no looseness anywhere. There was no entrance here.
He backed out of the fall, shaking his head to clear it of drip. Where could he go from here? The ledge circled the castle, but he knew the wall was solid stone throughout. There would be no access to the interior.
Nevertheless, Bink made the circuit, verifying his suspicion. No access. What now?
He suffered a surge of anger. Here he was on the King’s business; why should he have to go through all this nonsense? The old gnome-Magician thought he was so clever, putting a maze around himself! Bink had just about had it with mazes. First the Queen’s, then the nickelpede crevice, now this.
But at heart Bink was a practical man. In due course the pressure of his anger ceased, like the steam of a relaxing dragon. He came to look at the waterfall again. This was no mountain, with natural drainage. The water had to be raised by mundane or magical means to an upper level, then poured out. Surely it was a circulatory system, drawn from the moat and returning to it Could he swim in where the water was sucked up?
No. Water could go where he could not. Such as through a sieve. He could drown, if his body got stuck in the water channel. Not worth the risk.
The only other direction was up. Could he climb?
Yes he could. He now noted little handholds in the wood at the edge of the waterfall. “Here I come,” he muttered.
He climbed. As his head poked over the sill, he froze. There on the roof squatted a gargoyle. The water issued from its grotesque mouth.
Then he realized that this monster, like the ouroboros, should not be dangerous if he handled it properly. The gargoyle, assigned to water-spouting duty, would be unlikely to chase him.
Bink clambered to the surface of the small roof. He surveyed the situation from this firmer footing. The gargoyle was about his own height, but it was mostly face. The body was so foreshortened as to represent no more than a pedestal. The head was so distorted that Bink could not tell whether it was man, animal, or other. Huge eyes bulged, the nose was like that of a horse, the ears flared out enormously, and the mouth took up fully a third of the face. With the water pouring out like a prolonged regurgitation.
Behind the monster the wall of the castle resumed. There were no handholds, and even if he could scale it, he saw only barred apertures above. No particular hope there.
Bink contemplated the gargoyle. How had it gotten up here? It had no real hands or feet to use to climb the way Bink had. Was there a door behind it? That seemed reasonable.
He would have to move the monster away from that door. But how? The thing had not attacked him, but its attitude might change if he molested it. The gargoyle was more massive than he; it might shove him right off the roof. Too bad he didn’t have his sword to defend himself; that was with his clothing, back beside the moat
Should he climb back down to get it? No, he was sure that would not be wise; it would give away his intent. The gargoyle could move over and crunch his fingers as he ascended with the weapon.
Maybe he could bluff it. “Move over, foulface; I am on a mission for the King.”
The gargoyle ignored him. That was another thing that was getting to Bink: being ignored. “Move, or I’ll move you myself!” He stepped toward the monster.
No reaction. How could he back down now? Trusting his talent to protect him, Bink moved in beside the gargoyle, staying clear of the river of water spouting from its mouth, and applied his hands to its surface. The grotesque face felt like stone, completely hard. It was heavy, too; shove as he might he could not budge it
This monster was defeating him—and it hadn’t even noticed him!
Then Bink had a bright idea. Sometimes creatures were vulnerable to their own specialties. The gargoyle’s specialty was ugliness.
Bink stood before it, straddling the river. “Hey, homely—here’s what you look like!” He put his fingers in the comers of his mouth to stretch it wide while he bugged his eyes.
The gargoyle reacted. It pursed its lips to funnel the water toward Bink. Bink jumped nimbly aside. “Nyaat” he yelled, puffing out his cheeks to make another ludicrous face.
The monster shuddered with rage. It shot another blast of water at him. Bink was tagged by the fringe of it, and almost washed off the ledge. This was, after all, a chancy business!
He opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue. “Haa!” he cried, unable to form anything much better while holding the expression.
The gargoyle was infuriated. Its mouth opened until it took up half the face. But with the opening that large, the water emerged at low pressure, dribbling down the ugly chin.
Bink dived forward—directly into that mouth. He scrambled upstream against the slowly moving water —and emerged into a reservoir tank within the castle. In a moment he had stroked to the surface and climbed out. He was inside!
But not yet safe. A cactus cat perched at the edge of the reservoir. It was about half Bink’s height, with a normal feline face, but its fur was composed of thorns. On the ears the thorns were very large and stiff, like slender spikes. But the cat’s real weapons were on its front legs: knifelike blades of bone projecting from the front, scintillatingly sharp. These obviously could not be wielded endwise like daggers, but would be devastating as slicers.
The thorn-fur was horizontally striped, green and brown, and this pattern carried over into the three tails. A pretty but dangerous creature; one that no cognizant person would pat casually on the head saying “Nice kitty.”
Was this another guardian of the castle, or merely a houseguest? Cactus cats normally ran wild, slicing up cactus with their blades and feeding on the fermenting sap. Needle cactuses fought back, however, shooting their needles into anything that annoyed them, so they were natural enemies to the cactus cats. Encounters between the two were said to be quite something! But there was no cactus of any kind here. Maybe this was an animal soliciting an Answer from the Good Magician.
Bink tried to skirt it, but the cat moved lithely to the only apparent exit and settled there. So it seemed he would have to force the issue, regardless.
Suddenly Bink got mad. He had had enough of these obstructions. He was no mere supplicant, he was here on the King’s business! “Cat, get out of my way!” he said loudly.
The animal began to snore. But Bink knew it would come awake instantly and violently if he tried to sneak past it. Cats were ornery that way. This creature was playing cat and mouse with him—and that made him madder yet.
But what could he do? He was no needle cactus, with hundreds of sliver-thorns to launch. How could he strike at this insufferable cat?
Needles. There were other missiles than needles.
“Then pay the consequence!” Bink snapped. He leaned over the reservoir and sliced his hand across its surface, scooping out a fierce splash of water. The droplets arched across the room and splatted against the wall beside the sleeping cat.
The creature rose up with a screech of sheerest feline fury. Sparks radiated from its ears. Most cats hated water, other than small tame amounts for drinking, and desert cats were enraged by it. The thing charged Bink, its forelimb blades gleaming.
Bink scooped another volley of liquid at it. The cat leaped straight up in horror, letting the splash pass under. Oh, it was ecstatically angry now!
“We can handle this two ways, Cactus,” Bink said calmly, his hand ready by the water. “Either I can soak you down thoroughly—or you can stand and let me pass. Or any combination of the two.”
The cat snarled. It looked at Bink, then at the water. Finally it affected loss of interest, in the manner of balked felines, and stalked to the side, all three tails standing stiffly.
“Very good, Cactus,” Bink said. “But a word to the cunning: if I were to be attacked on the way, I should simply have to grab my antagonist and plunge into the pool and drown him, whatever the mutual cost. That would be inconvenient, and I hope it does not become necessary.”
The cat pretended not to hear. It settled down again to sleep.
Bink walked toward the door, affecting a nonchalance similar to that of the cactus cat, but was wary. Fortunately he had bluffed it out; the cat did not move.
Now he was past the hurdles. He explored the castle until he located the Good Magician Humfrey. The man was gnomelike, perched on top of three huge tomes so as to gain the elevation he needed to pore over a fourth. He was old, perhaps the oldest man in the Land of Xanth, with skin wrinkled and mottled. But he was a fine and honest Magician, and Bink knew him to be a kindly individual under all his gruffness.
“Magician!” Bink exclaimed, still irked by the challenge of entry. “Why don’t you pay attention to who’s visiting! I had to run your infernal gauntlet—and I’m not even coming as a supplicant. I’m on the King’s business.”
Humfrey looked up, rubbing one reddish eye with a gnarled little hand. “Oh, hello, Bink. Why haven’t you visited me before this?”
“We were yelling across the moat! You never answered!”
Humfrey frowned. “Why should I answer a transformed griffin who squawks in a manner that would make a real griffin blush? Why should I acknowledge the bellow of an ornery centaur? The one has no Question, and the other doesn’t want to pay for his. Both are wasting my time.”
“So you were aware of us all the time!” Bink exclaimed, half-angry, half-admiring, with a little indefinable emotion left over. What a personality this was! He started to shout “You let me struggle through the whole needless…!”
“Needless, Bink? You come on a mission that will cost me an inordinate amount of time, and will threaten the welfare of Xanth itself. Why should I encourage you in such folly?”
“I don’t need encouragement!” Bink cried hotly. “All I need is advice — because the King thought that was best.”
The Good Magician shook his head. “The King is a remarkably savvy customer. You need more than advice, Bink.”
“Well, all I need from you is advice!”
“You shall have it, and without charge: forget this mission.”
“I can’t forget this mission! I’m on assignment for the—“
“So you said. I did tell you that you needed more than advice. You’re as ornery as your friends. Why didn’t you leave that poor dragon alone?”
“Leave the poor — “ Bink started indignantly. Then he laughed. “You’re some character, Magician! Now stop teasing me and tell me why, since you obviously have been well aware of my progress, you did not let us into the castle the easy way.”
“Because I hate to be disturbed for minor matters. Had you been balked by my routine defenses, you could hardly have possessed the will to pursue your mission properly. But as I feared, you persevered. What started as a minor diversion with a shapely ghost has become a serious quest — and the result is opaque even to my magic. I queried Beauregard on the matter, and he got so upset I had to rebottle him before he had a nervous breakdown.”
Beauregard — that was the bespectacled demon corked in a container, highly educated. Bink began to feel uncomfortable. “What could so shake up a demon?”
“The end of Xanth,” Humfrey said simply.
“But all I’m looking for is the source of magic,” Bink protested. “I’m not going to do anything to harm Xanth. I love Xanth!”
“You weren’t going to install the Evil Magician as King, last time you were here,” Humfrey reminded him. “Your minor personal quests have a way of getting out of hand.”
“You mean this present mission is going to be worse than the last one?” Bink asked, feeling both excited and appalled. He had only wanted to find his own talent, before.
The Magician nodded soberly. “So it would seem. I cannot fathom in what precise manner your quest will threaten Xanth, but am certain the risks are extraordinary.”
Bink thought of giving up the quest and returning to Chameleon, ugly and sharp of tongue as she was at the moment, with Millie the nonghost hovering near. Suddenly he became much more interested in the source of the magic of Xanth. “Thanks for your advice. I’m going on.”
“Less hasty, Bink! That was not my magic advice; that was just common sense, for which I make no charge. I knew you would ignore it.”
Bink found it hard at times not to get impatient with the Good Magician. “Let’s have your magic Answer, then.”
“And what do you proffer for payment?”
“Payment!” Bink expostulated. “This is—“
“The King’s business,” the Magician finished. “Be realistic, Bink. The King is merely getting you out of his hair for a while until your home life sweetens up. He can’t have you tearing up his palace every time he tries to make out with the Queen. That hardly warrants my waiver of fee.”
Only a foolish man tried to argue with a Magician whose talent was information. Bink argued. “The King merely timed the mission conveniently. My job always has been to seek out the source of magic; it just took me a while to get around to it. It is important for the King to have this knowledge. Now that I’m actually on the quest, the authority of the King is behind it, and he can call on your resources if he chooses. You knew that when you helped make him King.”
Humfrey shook his head. “Trent has become arrogant in his power. He draws ruthlessly on the talents of others to forward his purposes.” Then he smiled.
“In other words, he is exactly the kind of monarch Xanth needs. He does not plead or petition, he commands. I as a loyal citizen must support that exercise of power.” He glanced at Bink. “However capriciously it happens to be exercised. Thus my fee becomes forfeit to the good of Xanth, though in this case I fear it is the bad of Xanth.”
This capitulation was too sudden and too amiable. There had to be a catch. “What is your Answer, then?”
“What is your Question?”
Bink choked on a mouthful of air. “What do I need for this quest?” he spluttered.
“Your quest cannot be successful unless you take a Magician along.”
“Take a Magician!” Bink exclaimed. “There are only three Magician-class people in Xanth, and two of them are the King and Queen! I can’t—“ He broke off, realizing. “You?”
“I told you this was going to cost me time!” Humfrey grumbled. “All my arcane researches interrupted, my castle mothballed—because you can’t wait a few days for your wife to finish her pregnancy and get sweet and pretty again.”
“You old rogue!” Bink cried. “You want to come!”
“I hardly made that claim,” the Magician said sourly. “The fact is, this quest is too important to allow it to be bungled by an amateur, as well the King understood when he sent you here. Since there is no one else of suitable expertise available, I am forced to make the sacrifice. There is no necessity, however, that I be gracious about it.”
“But you could have sought the source of magic anytime! You didn’t have to co-opt the quest right when I—“
“I co-opt nothing. It is your quest; I merely accompany you, as an emergency resource.”
“You mean you’re not taking over?”
“What do I want with leadership? I shall stick to my own business, leaving the pesky details of management and routing to you, until my resources are needed—which I trust will not be soon or often.”
Now Bink was uncertain how serious Humfrey was.
Surely a man who specialized in magical information would be seriously interested in the source of magic— but certainly the Good Magician liked his convenience and privacy, as his castle and mode of operation testified. Probably Humfrey was torn between desires for isolation and knowledge, so reacted negatively while doing what he deemed to be the right thing. No sense in aggravating the situation. The man would certainly be an incalculable asset on a quest of this nature. “I am sorry to be the agent of such inconvenience to you, but glad to have your help. Your expertise is vastly greater than mine.”
“Umph,” Humfrey agreed, trying not to seem mollified. “Let’s get on with it. Go tell the troll to let down the drawbridge for your companions.”
“Uh, there is one other thing,” Bink said. “Someone may be trying to kill me—“
“And you want to know who.”
“Yes. And why. I don’t like—“
“That is not the King’s business. It will have to be covered by a separate fee.”
Oh. Just when Bink had begun to suspect there was a decent streak in the Good Magician, he had this confirmation of the man’s mercenary nature. One year of service for the Answer? Bink preferred to locate and deal with his enemy himself. “Forget it,” he said.
“It is already forgotten,” Humfrey said graciously.
Milled, Bink trekked downstairs, found the troll, and gave it the instruction. The brute winched down the bridge. Where the drawbridge mechanism was Bink did not know, as it had not been apparent from the outside, and the troll stood in a chamber near the center of the castle. There had to be magical augmentation to connect what the troll did to what the bridge did. But it worked, and Chester and Crombie entered at last, emerging from a gate that opened from the center of the castle. How could there be an opening here, with no hole through the wall? The Magician was evidently squandering a lot of magic here! Maybe some clever technician had brought a Question, and constructed this mechanism in fee.
“I knew you’d come through, Bink!” the centaur said. “What did the old gnome say about your quest?”
“He’s coming with me.”
Chester shook his head. “You’re in trouble.”
The Magician came downstairs to meet them. “So you want to know your obscene talent,” he said to the centaur. “What fee do you offer the old gnome?”
Chester was for once abashed. “I’m not sure I— centaurs aren’t supposed to—“
“Aren’t supposed to be wishy-washy?” Humfrey asked cuttingly.
“Chester just came along to give me a ride,” Bink said. “And fight dragons.”
“Bink will still need a ride,” Humfrey said. “Since I am now associated with this quest, it behooves me to arrange for it. I proffer you this deal: in lieu of the customary year’s service for the Answer, I will accept service for the duration of this quest.”
Chester was startled. “You mean I do have a talent? A magic one?”
“Indubitably.”
“And you know it already? What it is?”
“I do.”
“Then—“ But the centaur paused. “I might figure it out for myself, if it was so easy for you to do. Why should I pay you for it?”
“Why, indeed,” the Magician agreed.
“But if I don’t figure it out, and if Bink gets in trouble because he meets a dragon when I’m not there—“
“I would love to let you stew indefinitely in your dilemma,” Humfrey said. “But I am in a hurry and Bink needs a ride, so I’ll cut it short. Undertake the service I require, in advance of my Answer. If you fail to solve your talent yourself, I will tell you at the termination of the quest—or any prior time you so request. If you do solve it yourself, I will provide a second Answer to whatever other question you may ask. Thus you will in effect have two Answers for the price of one.”
Chester considered momentarily. “Done,” he agreed. “I like adventure anyway.”
The Magician turned to Crombie. “Now you are directly in the King’s service, so are committed for the duration. He has given you a fine form, but it lacks intelligible speech. I believe it would be better for you to be more communicative. Accordingly, meet another of my fee-servitors: Grundy the Golem.” A miniature man-figure appeared, his whole height hardly the span of an ordinary man’s hand. He seemed to have been formed from bits of string and clay and wood and other refuse, but he was animate.
The griffin looked at the golem with a certain surprised contempt. One bite of that eagle’s beak could sever all four appendages from the figure. “Squawk!” Crombie remarked.
“Same to you, birdbeak,” the golem said without special emphasis, as if he didn’t really care.
“Grundy’s talent is translation,” the Magician explained. “I shall assign him to render the soldier’s griffin-speech into human speech, so we can better understand him. He already understands us, as so many animals do, so no reverse translation is required. The golem is small enough for any of us to carry without strain, so his transportation will be no problem. Bink will ride the centaur, and I will ride the griffin. That way we shall make expeditious progress.” And so, efficiently, it was arranged. The quest for the source of the magic of Xanth had begun.