The sound of the battle faded behind. The males, Crombie included, moved on down the path, lured by the siren’s song. The unearthly quality was stronger now, thrilling Bink’s inner fiber. He knew the siren meant death, more certainly than the tangle tree —but what a satisfying death it would be!
It was a good path; nothing interfered with their progress. Soon they arrived at the shore of a small lake. In that lake were two tiny islands, like the tips of mountains mostly hidden beneath the surface. The path led over the water to one of these islands. This was the source of the music of the siren.
They started on the path. Bink thought Crombie might balk again, and in his heart hoped he would while fearing that that hope would be fulfilled, but the griffin did not. Apparently his resistance to females had been compromised by the spirit and sacrifice of the village women, and he could no longer master sufficient suspicion. Indeed, he was the first on the water-path, the water depressing slightly under his claws but supporting his weight. The Magician was second, Bink third, and—
There was an angry bleat from the side. A small creature came charging along the small beach. It was four-legged and woolly, like a sheep, with broad curly horns that circled entirely around its head. Evidently the path crossed this creature’s territory, and the animal was taking action.
Chester, in the thing’s path, paused. “A battering ram,” he remarked, recognizing the species. “Not subject to the siren’s call because it is a mere animal. No use to reason with it.”
A battering ram! Bink paused, his curiosity momentarily overriding the lure of the siren. He had heard of such creatures, and of their relatives the hydraulic rams, but never encountered one before. As he understood it, they existed only to batter, and they loved it. If there were a door to be broken down, or a castle to be breached, such a ram was invaluable. At other times, they were a nuisance, because they never stopped beating their heads against obstacles.
Chester was far larger than the ram—but it had cut him off from the siren’s path. Chester dodged it once, nimbly, but the ram screeched to a halt—a neat trick in sand, even with magic—and whirled to recharge. Chester would have been battered in the rear, had he tried to ignore it—and his rear was his proudest feature, despite the recent staining from the tangler’s sap —much handsomer than his face. So he whirled to face the ram, and dodged its charge again.
But there was no end to this. The ram would happily go on forever, screeching up more mounds of sand with each miss, but Chester had a siren call to answer. The ram had to be stopped, somehow.
Bink wondered: his talent could have had a part in saving him from the tangler, as it had used the motives and magic of others freely. Was the ram another device to stop him from reaching the siren? In that case, he should be rooting for the ram, not Chester.
Chester, no dummy, maneuvered between charges until he was directly in front of a large tree. He never took his eye off the ram, lest it catch him by surprise. Next charge would fire the ram right into the trunk that Chester had oriented on peripherally, with luck knocking the animal silly. Or at least starting the process, because it took a lot of knocking to knock a battering ram silly. These creatures were pretty silly to begin with.
Then Bink recognized the variety of tree. “Not that one, Chester!” he cried. “That’s a—“
Too late. Why was he always too late? It was getting quite annoying! The ram charged, Chester danced aside, there was a flutelike trill of music, and the ram plowed headfirst into the tree. Such was the force of impact, all out of proportion to the animal’s size, that the entire tree vibrated violently.
“...pineapple tree,” Bink finished belatedly.
Now the fruits were falling: huge golden pineapples, quite ripe. As each hit the ground, it exploded savagely. That was how this tree reproduced: the detonating fruit sent shrapnel-seeds far across the landscape, where each could generate, with luck and magic, a new pineapple tree. But it was hardly safe to stand too near this process.
One pineapple struck the battering ram on the rump. The ram bleated and spun to face it, rear-scorched and bruised, but of course that was futile. Other fruits were exploding all around. One dropped just before the ram. With a snort of challenge the animal leaped boldly forth to intercept it, catching it squarely on the horns. The resulting concussion really did knock the ram silly; it staggered off, bleating happily.
Meanwhile Chester was doing a truly intricate dance of avoidance, trying to keep his flowing tail and sleek equine haunches out of mischief. He could avoid the pineapples falling to left, right, and front, but those behind were problematical. One dropped almost on his tail; in fact it brushed the elevated top. Chester, in a remarkable maneuver, whipped his entire hind-section out of the way—but in the process brought his head into the location vacated by the tail.
The pineapple exploded. Chester caught the blast right under his chin. His head was engulfed in flame and smoke; then the refuse cleared and he stood there, dazed.
Bink found himself unable to run back along the path, despite his concern for his friend. This was partly because the continuing summons of the siren allowed him to pause but not to withdraw, and partly because the path over the water was one-way. It was firm while he proceeded forward, but was mere water when he tried to go back. The lake was small, but seemed very deep, and he hesitated to trust himself to its reaches. Bad magic tended to lurk in the depths. So he could only watch and call. “Chester! Are you all right?”
The centaur stood there, slowly shaking his head. The explosion had not done much harm to Chester’s facial appearance, since that had always been homely, but Bink was concerned about the centaur’s fine mind. Had the pineapple damaged his brain?
“Chester! Can you hear me?” Then, as Chester ignored him, Bink understood the problem. The blast had deafened him!
Bink waved his hands violently, and finally Chester took note. “Speak louder—I can’t hear you!” Then the centaur realized it himself. “I’m deaf! I can’t hear anything!”
At least he seemed to be all right, otherwise. Bink, relieved of much of his anxiety, felt himself again overwhelmed by the continuing call of the siren. He beckoned.
“The hell with the siren!” Chester called. “I can’t hear her now. It’s stupid to go to her. She means death.”
Crombie had been briefly freed of the compulsion, back at the tangle tree, but had been recaptured by the siren. Now Chester had been freed by the intercession of the battering ram. It must be the operation of Bink’s talent! But Bink himself was still hooked. He turned about and proceeded toward the island. Crombie and the Good Magician were almost there now, as they had not paused as long as Bink.
Chester galloped along the path, catching up to Bink. His powerful hands picked Bink up by the elbows. “Don’t go, Bink! It’s nonsense!”
But Bink would not be denied. “Put me down, horserear. I have to go!” And his feet kept walking in midair.
“I can’t hear you, but I know what you’re saying, and it’s not worth listening to,” Chester said. “Only one way to stop this before the others are lost.”
He set Bink down, then unslung his great bow. The siren was still far away, but there was no archery like that of a centaur. Chester’s bowstring twanged, and the deadly shaft arced across the water toward the island and the female figure there.
There was a scream of anguish, and the melody halted abruptly. Chester’s arrow had scored. Suddenly they all were freed; the compulsion was gone. Bink’s talent had prevailed at last, saving him from harm without revealing itself.
They ran to the island. There lay the siren—the loveliest mermaid Bink had ever seen, with hair like flowing sunshine and tail like flowing water. The cruel arrow had passed entirely through her torso, between and slightly below her spectacular bare breasts, and she was bleeding from front and back. Her torso had collapsed across her dulcimer.
Yet she was not dead. Though the arrow, with that uncanny marksmanship of the centaur, must have pierced her heart, she still breathed. In fact she was conscious. She tilted her beautiful face weakly to look up at Chester. “Why did you shoot me, handsome male?” she whispered.
“He can’t hear you; he’s deaf,” Bink said.
“I meant no harm—only love,” she continued. “Love to all men, you—why should you oppose that?”
“What joy is there in death?” Bink demanded. “We have brought to you what you have brought to a hundred other men.” He spoke gruffly, yet his heart ached to see the agony of this lovely creature. He remembered when Chameleon had been similarly wounded.
“I brought no death!” she protested as vehemently as she was able, and gasped as the effort pushed a gout of blood from her chest. Her whole body below the shoulders was soaked in bright blood, and she was weakening visibly. “Only—only love!”
Then at last she subsided, losing consciousness. Bink, moved despite what he knew, turned to the Magician. “Is—is it possible she speaks the truth?”
Humfrey brought out his magic mirror. It showed the smiling baby face. “It is possible,” he said, wise to the ways of the mirror. Then he addressed it directly: “Did the siren speak the truth?”
The baby smiled again. “She meant no harm,” the Magician said. “She is not the killer, though she lured men here.”
The men exchanged glances. Then Humfrey brought out his bottle of healing elixir and sprinkled a drop on the siren’s terrible wound. Instantly it healed, and she was sound again.
The Magician offered Chester a drop of elixir for his ears, but the centaur disdained it. So Humfrey sprinkled it on the centaur’s rear, and suddenly it was as beautiful as ever.
“You healed me!” the siren exclaimed, passing her hands wonderingly over her front. “There is not even blood, no pain!” Then, startled; “I must sing!” She reached for her dulcimer.
Chester kicked it out of her reach. The musical instrument flew through the air, smashed, and plunked into the water. “There is the source of her magic!” he cried. “I have destroyed it!”
The source of magic … destroyed. Was that an omen?
Experimentally, the siren sang. Her upper torso expanded marvelously as she took her breath, and her voice was excellent—but now there was no compulsion in it. The centaur had, indeed, deprived her of her devastating magic.
She broke off, “You mean that was what summoned all the men? I thought they liked my singing.” She looked unhappy.
Apparently she really was the lovely innocent, like Chameleon in her beauty-phase. “What happened to all the men?” Bink asked.
“They went across to see my sister,” she said, gesturing toward the other island. She pouted. “I offer them all my love—but they always go to her.”
Curious! Who could lure victims away from the siren herself?
“Who is your sister?” Bink asked. “I mean, what is her magic? Is she another siren?”
“Oh, no! She is a gorgon, very pretty.”
“A gorgon!” Bink exclaimed. “But that is death!”
“No, she would not harm anyone, no more than I would,” the siren protested. “She cherishes men. I only wish she would send some back to me.”
“Don’t you know what the gaze of a gorgon does?” Bink demanded. “What happens to someone who looks upon the face of—?”
“I have looked into my sister’s face many times! There is no harm in her!”
Humfrey lifted his mirror again. “It affects men only?” he asked, and the smiling baby agreed.
It seemed the siren really did not know the devastating effect her sister’s face had on men. So for years she had innocently lured in males—for the gorgon to turn to stone.
“We shall have to talk with your sister,” Humfrey said.
“The path continues to her island,” the siren informed him. “What will I do, without my dulcimer?”
“Your voice is pretty enough without any accompaniment, and so are you,” Bink said diplomatically. It was true as far as it went; had she a lower portion to match her upper portion, it would have been true all the way. “You can sing a capella, without accompaniment.”
“I can?” she inquired, brightening. “Will it bring nice men like you?”
“No. But perhaps a nice man will find you, regardless.” Bink turned to the Magician. “How can we approach the gorgon? One glance—“
“We shall have to deal with her in the morning,” Humfrey decided. Bink had lost track of time. The stars had been emerging at the village, then they had charged into the night of the jungle to battle the tangle tree, thence to this island—where it seemed dusk was only now falling. Did that make sense? Bink had somehow assumed that the sun set all over Xanth at the same instant, but realized that this was not necessarily so. But he had other things to worry about at the moment, and listened to the rest of Humfrey’s speech: “Siren, if you have food and bed—“
“I’m not really that kind of female,” she demurred.
Bink looked at her sleek fishtail. “Obviously not. We only want a place to sleep.”
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “Actually, I could become that kind, if—“ She shimmered, and her tail transposed into two fetching legs.
“Just sleep,” Chester said. It seemed his hearing was returning naturally. “And food.”
But her indignation had not yet run its course. “After you impaled me with your old messy arrow, and broke my dulcimer?”
“I’m sorry,” Chester said shortly. “I have a headache.”
As well he might, Bink thought. Why hadn’t the ornery creature accepted a drop of elixir for his head as well as for his tail?
“If you were really sorry, you’d show it,” she said.
Crombie squawked. “She’s setting her hooks into you already, ass,” the golem said.
Doubly annoyed, Chester glowered at the siren. “How?”
“By giving me a ride on your back.” Bink almost laughed. Nymphs of any type loved to ride!
“Ride, then,” Chester said, disconcerted.
She walked to his side, but was unable to mount “You’re too tall,” she complained.
Chester turned his front portion, wrapped one arm about her slender waist, and hauled her up easily. “Eeek!” she screamed, delighted, as her feet swished through the air. “You’re so strong!”
Crombie squawked again, and his remark needed no interpretation. She was, indeed, working her wiles on the centaur, needing no siren song.
Chester, not in the best of moods after his encounter with the pineapple, was visibly mollified. “All centaurs are strong.” He set her neatly on his back, and walked forward.
The siren grabbed two handfuls of his mane. “My, your shoulders are so broad! And what sleek fur you have. You must be the handsomest centaur of all!”
“From the rear, maybe,” he agreed. He began to trot.
“Oooh, that’s fun!” she cried, letting go just long enough to clap her hands together girlishly. “You must be the smartest centaur, and the fastest—“ She paused. “Could you, maybe, make a little jump?”
Chester, now quite puffed up by her praise, made a tremendous leap. The siren screamed and flew off his back. They were at the edge of the water, since this was a small island, and she plunked into the lake. “Uh, sorry,” Chester said, mortified. “Guess I overdid it.” He reached down to fish her out.
Fish her out he did: her legs had changed back into a tail. “No harm done,” the mermaid said. “I am quite at home in the water.” And she wriggled within his grasp, bringing her face to his and planting a wet kiss on him.
Crombie squawked. “There’s no fool like a horse-reared fool,” the golem said.
“That’s for sure,” Chester agreed, now in a good mood. “Just don’t tell Cherie.”
“Cherie?” the siren asked, frowning.
“My filly. The prettiest thing in Xanth. She’s back home, tending our foal. His name is Chet.”
She assimilated that. “How nice,” she said, disgruntled. “I’d better see to your fodder now, and stall space.”
Bink smiled privately. Chester wasn’t such a fool after all!
They had a modest repast of fish and sea cucumber, and bedded down in a pile of soft dry sponges. Bink stretched out his feet—and banged into another pile of dirt. This time he was too tired to stomp it flat, so he ignored it.
The siren, having given up on the centaur, nestled down in the dark beside Bink. “Say,” he said, remembering. “We have to give service for hospitality!”
Crombie squawked. “You give service, noodle-brain,” Grundy said. “You’re closest to her.”
“Service?” the siren inquired, nudging him.
Bink found himself blushing furiously in the dark. Damn Crombie’s innuendo! “Uh, nothing,” he said, and pretended to fall suddenly asleep. Very soon it was no pretense.
In the morning they bade farewell to the siren after taking the time to break up some wood for her cooking fire—a service she appreciated, as she was not much for that sort of thing. They set about braving her sister. “The rest of you must be blindfolded,” Humfrey decided. “I will use the mirror.”
So he could view the gorgon indirectly, of course. That was the only way to look at such creatures; everyone knew that. Yet why did a mirror work? The image in the glass should be as horrendous as the original.
“Polarization,” the Magician explained without being asked. “The magic of partial images.”
That didn’t clarify things much. But a more important question remained. “What do we do, to stop the—“ Bink did not want to use the word “kill” in the presence of the innocent siren. Getting close to the gorgon was one thing; dispatching her while blindfolded was another.
“We shall see,” Humfrey said. They submitted to blindfolding, including the golem. Then they formed a chain to follow the Good Magician, who walked backward on the path between the islands, using the mirror to see ahead. In this case he was not utilizing its magic, but merely the ordinary reflection: the natural magic all mirrors possessed.
It was strange and uncomfortable, crossing the water sightlessly. How awful it would be, to lose forever the power of seeing! What magic was better than the natural senses of life?
Bink’s feet felt hard land. “You stand here, facing out,” Humfrey told them. “Just in case. I will deal with the gorgon.”
Still nervous, Bink obeyed. He felt tempted to rip off the blindfold, turn about, and look at the gorgon —but not strongly tempted. Once he had stood atop a tall mountain and suffered an urge to throw himself off it, similarly; it was as if there were a death urge in him along with the life urge. Perhaps the urge to adventure was drawn from the same wellspring.
“Gorgon,” Humfrey said.
Right behind Bink, she answered. “I am she. Welcome to my isle.” Her voice was dulcet; she sounded even more attractive than her sister. “Why do you not look at me?”
“Your glance would turn me into stone,” Humfrey said bluntly.
“Am I not beautiful? Who else has locks as serpentine as mine?” she asked plaintively, and Bink heard the faint hissing of the snakes. He wondered what it would be like to kiss the gorgon, with those snake-hairs twining around their two faces. The notion was both alarming and tempting. Yet what was the gorgon except the literal personification of the promise and threat embodied in every woman?
“You are beautiful,” Humfrey agreed gravely. She must be beautiful indeed, Bink thought, for the Good Magician did not waste compliments. Oh, for a single look! “Where are the other men who came to you?”
“They went away,” she said sadly.
“Where did they go?”
“There,” she said, and Bink assumed she was pointing. “Beyond those rocks.”
Humfrey moved over to investigate. “These are statues,” he said, unsurprised. “Statues of men, exquisitely realistic. Carved, as it were, from life.”
From life...
“Yes,” she agreed brightly. “They look just like the men who came to me.”
“Does that not suggest anything to you?”
“The men left the gifts behind, pictures of themselves, sculptures. But I would rather have had the men stay with me. I have no use for stones.”
She didn’t realize what she had done! She thought these were mere images offered as remembrances. Maybe she refused to realize the truth, blocking it out from her consciousness, pretending she was an ordinary girl. She refused to believe in her own magic. What a fateful delusion!
Yet, Bink thought, wasn’t this too typical of the thought processes of females? What one among them chose to recognize the mischief her sex worked among men!
But that was Crombie’s contention, therefore probably an exaggeration. There might be a little siren and a little gorgon in every girl, but not a lot. There was hardly any in Chameleon.
“If more men come,” Humfrey continued with unusual gentleness, “they will only leave more statues. This is not good.”
“Yes, there are already too many statues,” she agreed naively. “My island is getting crowded.”
“The men must not come any more,” Humfrey said. “They must stay at their homes, with their families.”
“Couldn’t just one man come—and stay a while?” she asked plaintively.
“I’m afraid not. Men just aren’t, er, right for you.”
“But I have so much love to give—if only a man would stay! Even a little one. I would cherish him forever and ever, and make him so happy—“
Bink, listening, was beginning to appreciate the depth of the gorgon’s tragedy. All she wanted was to love and be loved, and instead she sowed a harvest of horrible mischief. How many families had been destroyed by her magic? What could be done with her— except execution?
“You must go into exile,” Humfrey said. “The magic shield has been lowered by order of the King; you can pass freely out of Xanth. In Mundania your magic will dissipate, and you will be able to interact freely with the man or men of your choice.”
“Leave Xanth?” she cried, alarmed. “Oh, no, I would rather die! I cannot leave my home!”
Bink experienced a pang of sympathy. Once he himself had faced exile....
“But in Mundania you would be an ordinary girl, under no curse. You are extremely lovely, and your personality is sweet. You could have your pick of men there.”
“I love men,” she said slowly. “But I love my home more. I cannot depart. If this is my only choice, I beg of you to slay me now and end my misery.”
For once the Good Magician seemed shaken. “Slay you? I would not do that! You are the most attractive creature I have ever seen, even through a mirror! In my youth I would have—“
Now a little ordinary feminine artifice manifested. “Why, you are not old, sir. You are a handsome man.”
Crombie stifled a squawk, Chester coughed, and Bink choked. She had made a gross exaggeration, if not an outright distortion! Humfrey was a good man, and a talented one, but hardly a handsome one. “You flatter me,” the Magician said seriously. “But I have other business.”
“Of all the men who have come here, you alone have stayed to talk with me,” the gorgon continued. “I am so lonely! I beg of you, stay with me, and let me serve you always.”
Now Crombie squawked aloud. “Don’t turn about, fool!” the golem cried. “Keep using the mirror!”
“Um, yes,” Humfrey agreed. The griffin’s hearing must be acute, Bink thought, to detect the sound of the Magician’s incipient turning! “Gorgon, if I were to look at you directly—“
“You would feel obliged to go away, leaving only a stone memento in your likeness,” she finished. “I do not understand why men are like this! But come, close your eyes if you must, kiss me, let me show you how much love I have for you. Your least word is my command, if you will only stay!”
The Magician sighed. Was the old gnome tempted? It occurred to Bink that it might not have been disinterest in women that kept Humfrey single, but lack of a suitable partner. The average woman was not interested in a wizened, dwarfish old man—or if she expressed interest, it was likely to be only because she wanted a piece of his formidable magic. Here was a woman who knew nothing of him but his appearance, and was eager to love him, asking only his presence.
“My dear, I think not,” Humfrey said at last “Such a course would have its rewards—I hardly deny it! —and I would normally be inclined to dally with you a day or three, though love be blindfolded. But it would require the resources of a Magician to associate safely with you, and I am on a quest that takes precedence, and may not—“
“Then dally a day or three!” she exclaimed. “Be blindfolded! I know no Magician would have interest in me, but even a Magician could not be more wonderful than you, sir!”
Did she suspect the magnitude of Humfrey’s talent? Did it matter? The Magician sighed again. “Perhaps, after my present quest is over, if you would care to visit at ray castle—“
“Yes, yes!” she cried. “Where is your castle?”
“Just ask for Humfrey. Someone will direct you. Even so, you cannot show your face to man. You would have to wear a veil—no, even that would not suffice, for it is your eyes that—“
“Do riot cover my eyes! I must see!”
Bink felt another surge of sympathy, for at the moment he could not see.
“Let me consult,” Humfrey said. There was a rustle as he rummaged through his magic props. Then: “This is not ideal, but it will do. Hold this vial before your face and open it.”
More rustling as she accepted the vial that he held out over his shoulder. There was a pop as the cork came out, the hiss of escaping vapor, a gasp, then silence. Had the Magician executed her after all, giving her poison vapor to sniff?
“Companions, you may now remove your blind-folds and turn about,” Humfrey said. “The gorgon has been nullified.”
Bink ripped off the cloth. “Magician! You didn’t—?”
“No, I did her no harm. Observe.”
Bink observed, as did the others. Before them stood a breathtakingly lovely young woman with hair formed of many small thin snakes. But her face was —absent. There simply wasn’t anything there.
“I applied a spell of invisibility to her face,” Humfrey explained. “She can see out well enough, but I regret that no man can look upon her face, since it is the loveliest part of her. But this way it is impossible to meet her gaze. She is safe—as are we.”
It was too bad, really, Bink had to agree. She seemed like such a nice girl, burdened with such a terrible curse. Magic was not always kind! The Magician had nullified the curse, but it was disconcerting to look into that vacuum in lieu of her face.
Crombie walked around the island, studying the statues. Some were of centaurs, and some of griffins. “Squawk!”
“Look at the damage the bitch has done! She must have petrified hundreds of innocent males. What good is it to nullify her now? It is like closing the house door after the man has escaped.” He was evidently thinking more like a griffin, now. That was a danger of prolonged transformation.
“Yes, we shall have to do something about the statues,” Humfrey agreed. “But I have expended enough of my valuable magic. Too much, in fact Crombie, point out where the solution to this problem lies.”
The griffin whirled and pointed. Down.
“Hm. Now point out the source of magic, again.”
Crombie did. The result was the same. “So I supposed,” Humfrey said. “Our quest has more than informational significance.”
Another factor fell into place for Bink. This whole escapade with the tangle tree and the devastating sisters had seemed like a diversion from the quest and a serious threat to Bink’s welfare, yet his talent had permitted it. Now he saw that his experience related to the quest. Still, it should not have been necessary to expose himself to these dangers in order to reach the source of magic. Something other than his talent must be operating.
He remembered the mound of earth, last night. Did that relate? He really could not fathom how, yet he distrusted coincidental occurrences unless they derived from his talent. If an enemy were—
The Good Magician brought out his mirror again. “Get me the Queen,” he said into it.
“The Queen?” Bink asked, surprised.
The mirror fogged, then showed the face of Queen Iris. “About time you called in, Humfrey,” she said. “How come you’re dawdling there on the gorgon’s isle, instead of pursuing your fool quest?”
Crombie squawked angrily. “Don’t translate that!” Humfrey snapped at the golem. Then, to the Sorceress: “It is Bink’s quest, not mine. We have nullified siren and gorgon, and are proceeding toward the source of magic. Notify the King.”
Iris made a minor gesture of unconcern. “When I get around to it, midget” she said.
The visage of King Trent appeared in the mirror behind her. Abruptly she assumed the aspect of a Sweet Young Thing, complete with long braids. “Which will be very soon, Good Magician,” she amended hastily. Trent waved jovially and tugged on a braid as the mirror went blank.
“How can she talk on the mirror?” Bink inquired. “It shows silent pictures for everyone else.”
“She is mistress of illusion,” Humfrey explained.
“Mistress of the King, you mean,” Crombie squawked.
“We only think we’re hearing her,” Humfrey continued. He put away the mirror. “And the King only thinks he can yank at an illusory braid. But illusion has its uses, in whatever capacity.”
“I’d like the illusion of reality,” the golem said wistfully.
Humfrey returned his attention to the gorgon. “We shall return in due course. I suggest you go comfort your sister, meanwhile. She has lost her dulcimer.”
“I will, I will!” the gorgon cried. “Farewell, handsome Sorcerer!” She flung her arms around Humfrey and planted au invisible kiss on his mouth while the snakes snapped at his ears and hissed up a storm. “Hurry back! I have so much love stored up—“
“Um. Just so,” the Magician agreed, embarrassed. He brought up a finger to snap away one serpent-hair that was gnawing too vigorously on his earlobe.
The magic path ended at the gorgon’s isle, so it was necessary to swim back. They used Crombie’s talent to locate a safe route across, avoiding lake monsters; then Bink mounted Chester and Humfrey rode the griffin. It was now midmorning, and the return to the magic-dust village was easy and swift. Hostile magic had not yet had time to move in to replace the prior charm of the path.
The tangle tree was a charred stump. The villagers had really done the job, destroying a long-term enemy. But the village itself was now quiet, with black drapes in the windows; it was in mourning for the last party of males to be lost to the siren.
How suddenly that changed, as those males marched in!
“You survived!” Trolla cried, tears of untrollish joy streaming down her horrible face. “We tried to follow you, but could not hear the siren and could not trace the path in the dark. In the morning we knew it was too late, and we had wounded to attend to—“
“We have nullified the siren—and her sister, the gorgon,” Bink said. “No more men will go that way. But the men who went before—“
“They are all dead; we know.”
“No. They are stone. There may be a way to reverse the spell and restore them. If we are successful in our quest—“
“Come, we must celebrate!” Trolla cried. “We shall give you such a party—“
Bink knew the answer to that. “Uh, no thanks. You are very kind, but all we want to do now is get on with our quest. We seek the ultimate source of magic— the source of your magic dust, underground.”
“There is no way down there,” Trolla said. “It wells up in a solid shaft—“
“Yes. So we will seek elsewhere. If any avenue of access exists, from another direction—“
Disappointed, Trolla accepted the situation with grace. “Which way do you go?”
“That way,” Bink said, indicating the direction Crombie had pointed for the resumption of their quest.
“But that’s into the heart of the Region of Madness!”
Bink smiled. “Perhaps our access is through madness, then.”
“The route past the tangle tree is open now. You could go out that way, and loop about to avoid the madness—“
Bink shook his head in negation, knowing that had that been the best way, Crombie would have indicated it.
“You males are so unreasonable! At least wait a few days. We will stop lofting the magic dust into the air, and the effect will diminish. Then you may traverse the region less hazardously.”
“No. We have decided to push on.” Bink feared that a few days’ relaxation in this village of eager females would be as ruinous as continued dalliance with the siren and gorgon. They had to move on.
“Then we shall provide a guide. She can warn you of the immediate traps, and it is barely possible you will survive until clear of the worst of it. You are already half mad, after all.”
“Yes,” Bink agreed with a wry smile. “We are males.” Neither sex understood the other; that was yet another aspect of the magic of Xanth. He rather liked this tame female troll; apparently almost any monster could be worthwhile once it was possible to know it personally.
The guide turned out to be a very pretty female griffin. “Squawk!” Crombie protested.
“Awk! Awk!” she replied archly.
“Don’t saddle us with a chick like that!” Grundy translated happily. “Who are you calling a chick? I’m a lioness!”
“You’re a nuisance!”
“And you’re a bore!”
“Female!”
“Male!”
“Uh, that’s enough translation, Grundy,” Bink said. “They’re down to ultimate insults.” He turned to Trolla. “Thank you for the guide. We’ll be on our way now.”
All the females of the village lined up to wave goodbye. It was a sad but necessary parting.
The wilderness of Xanth soon abolished sentimentality. The trees were extremely large here, closing in to form a dense jungle. This was the downwind region of the magic dust, as Trolla had warned; magic flourished here. Monstrous pincushions grew at the lowest level, stabbing anyone who passed too near, living stalagmites projected between the cushions, their stony points glistening with moisture that fell on them from above. Oil slicks twined wherever suitable depressions were available. The oil was more slippery than anything else, and at the same time more tenacious. “Those tanker trees shouldn’t flush their wastes on the surface,” Chester muttered. “They should bury it, the way civilized creatures do.”
Yet the higher growths were no more promising; the huge metal trunks of ironwood trees crowded against the burned-out boles of ash. Rust and ashes coated the ground around them. Here and there bull spruces snorted and flexed their branch-horns menacingly. Above, it was worse yet; caterpillar nettles crawled along, peering down with prickly anticipation, and vomit-fungus dangled in greasy festoons. Where was there safe passage?
“Awk!” the guide said, showing the way. She glided past an outcropping of hissing serpentine, between two sharp blades of slash pine, and on over the rungs of a fallen ladder-bush. The others followed, wary but swift.
It was gloomy here, almost dark, though the day was rising onto noon. The canopy overhead, not satisfied with shutting out the sun, now constricted like an elastic band until it seemed to enclose them in one tight bubble. Like elastic? Now Bink saw it was elastic, from a huge elastic vine that stretched between and around the other foliage. Elastic was not a serious threat to people carrying swords or knives, but it could be a considerable inconvenience.
There seemed to be few large creatures here, but many small ones. Bugs were all over. Some Bink recognized: lightning bugs zapping their charges (this must have been where the demonstration bug had come from, the one that had burned up in the village), soldier beetles marching in precise formations to their bivouac, ladybugs and damselflies hovering near in the immemorial fashion of easy-virtue females near armies. Almost under Chester’s hooves a tiger beetle pounced on a stag beetle, making its kill with merciless efficiency. Bink averted his gaze, knowing that such activity was natural, but still not liking it.
Then he noticed Humfrey. The man was staring as if enchanted: a worrisome sign, here. “Are you all right, Magician?” Bink asked.
“Marvelous!” the man murmured raptly. “A treasure trove of nature!”
“You mean the bugs?”
“There’s a feather-winged beetle,” Humfrey said. Sure enough, a bug with two bright feathers for wings flew by. “And an owl-fly. And two net-wings!” Bink saw the large-eyed, tufted bug sitting on a branch, watching the two nets hover. How a net-wing flew was unclear, as the nets obviously could not hold air. But with magic, what did it matter? “And a picture-winged fly!” the Magician exclaimed, really excited. “That’s a new species, I believe; it must have mutated. Let me get my text.” He eagerly fumbled open a vial. The vapor came forth and formed a huge tome that the Magician balanced precariously on the back of the griffin, between the folded wings, as he turned over the pages. “PICTURE-WING,” he read. “Pastoral, Still-life, Naturalistic, Surrealistic, Cubist, Watercolor, Oil, Pastel Chalk, Pen-and-ink, Charcoal—I was right! This is a Crayon-Drawing species, unlisted! Bink, verify this for the record!”
Bink leaned over to look. The bug was sitting on the griffin’s right ear, its wings outspread, covered by waxy illustrations. “Looks like crayon to me,” he agreed.
“Yes!” Humfrey cried. “I must record it! What a fantastic discovery!” Bink had never seen the man so excited. Suddenly he realized something important: this was what the Good Magician lived for. Humfrey’s talent was information, and the discovery and classification of living things was right in line with this. To him there was nothing more important than the acquisition of facts, and he had naturally been resentful about being distracted from this. Now chance had returned him to his type of discovery. For the first tune, Bink was seeing the Magician in his animation. Humfrey was not a cold or grasping individual; he was as dynamic and feeling as anyone—when it showed.
Bink felt a tug at his sword. He clapped his hand to the hilt—and two robber flies buzzed up. They had been trying to steal his sword! Then Chester jumped, almost dislodging him. “Almost stepped on a blister beetle,” the centaur explained. “I wouldn’t want to pull up with a blistered hoof at this stage!”
The lady griffin glanced back, rotating her head without turning her body, in the way griffins had. “Awk!” she exclaimed impatiently. “Hurry up, shrimp,” the golem translated. “We’re getting near the madness zone.”
“Squawk!” Crombie replied irritably. “We’re doing the best we can. Why don’t you show us a better path, birdbrain?”
“Listen, cattail!” she awked back. “I’m only doing this as a favor to you! If you numbskulls had stayed at the village where you belonged—“
“Stay in a village of females? You’re mad already!”
Then they had to stop squawking and awking to dodge a snake-fly that wriggled through, fangs gaping. This time Chester did step on a bug—a stink bug. A horrible odor wafted up, sending them all leaping forward to escape it. The lady griffin’s passage stirred up a motley swarm of deerflies, tree hoppers, tiger moths, and a fat butterfly that splattered the Magician with butter.
One lovely gold bug fluttered up under Bink’s nose. “Maybe this is another new one!” he cried, getting caught up in the Magician’s enthusiasm. He grabbed for it, but Chester stumbled just then so that Bink missed it. “It’s headed toward you, Magician!” he cried. “Catch it!”
But Humfrey shied away. “That’s a midas fly!” he exclaimed in horror. “Don’t touch it!”
“A midas fly?”
“Everything it touches turns to gold.” The fly was now circling the Magician, looking for a place to land.
“But that’s wonderful!” Bink said. “We must capture it. We can use gold!”
“Not if we become gold ourselves!” Humfrey snapped. He ducked so low that he fell off the griffin. The midas fly settled down to land in his place.
“Crombie!” Bink screamed. “Watch out!”
Then the lady griffin crashed into Crombie, knocking him out of the way with her leonine shoulder. He escaped—but the midas fly landed instead on her.
Just like that, she was a gold statue. The fly buzzed up and away, no longer a threat—but its damage had been done.
“They’re extremely rare, and they don’t land often,” Humfrey said from the bush he had landed in. “I’m amazed we encountered one. Perhaps it was maddened by the dust.” He picked himself up.
“It may have been sent,” Bink said. “It appeared near me first.”
Crombie rolled to his feet with the litheness of his kind. “Squawk!”
“She did it for me—to save my life,” Grundy translated. “Why?”
“It must indeed be madness,” Chester said drily.
Bink contemplated the statue. “Like the handiwork of the gorgon,” he murmured. “Gold instead of stone. Is it possible she can be restored?”
Crombie whirled and pointed. “Squawk!”
“The answer lies in the same direction as the quest,” Grundy said. “Now birdbeak has personal reason to complete it.”
“First we must pass through the madness—without a guide,” Chester pointed out
Bink looked ahead, dismayed. Things had abruptly taken a more serious turn—and they had not been un-serious before. “How can we find our way safely through this jungle, even without madness?”
“Crombie will have to point out our best route—one step at a time,” Humfrey said. “Look—there is a walking stick.” He indicated the stick, ambling along on two tiny feet at the base, its hooked top wobbling erratically. The huge text was gone; he must have conjured it back into its bottle while Bink had been distracted. He hardly needed it. “Mahogany-handled— a very fine specimen.”
Crombie pointed the way, and they went slowly on, leaving the gold lady griffin where she stood. There was nothing they could do for her—except complete their quest, hoping to find the magic that would restore her.
Crombie looked back twice, not squawking; he seemed to be having serious private thoughts. For him, the woman-hater, the female’s sacrifice had to be an awful enigma, of more significance than his own near-miss with the golden doom. As a soldier he was used to danger, but not to self-sacrifice.
All too soon, dusk loomed. Glowworms appeared from their tunnels in the ground, and bedbugs were already snoring in their bunks. A confused cockroach crowed, mistaking dusk for dawn. Swallowtails consumed their hind parts and disappeared for the night. A group of sawflies sawed boards for their own nocturnal roosts.
Bink looked about “Right now, I wouldn’t mind being a bug,” he said. “They’re at home here.”
Chester agreed soberly. “I have spent the evening in the open before, but never in the deep wilderness. We will not enjoy this night.”
Bink looked at Humfrey. The Magician was still absorbed in his taxonomy. “There’s a rhinoceros beetle, trying to bull-doze down houses,” Humfrey said. “Those houseflies aren’t going to like that!”
“Sir, it will be dangerous to sleep out here. If your magic can help us pick the best spot—“
“Now they’re bringing in carpenter ants to shore up the timbers!”
“Maybe something from one of your bottles, some temporary shelter for the night—“ Bink continued.
“But that rhino is too stupid to quit! He—“
“Magician!” Bink snapped, losing patience.
Humfrey glanced up. “Oh, hello, Bink. Haven’t you set up for the night yet?” He glanced down again. “Look! They’ve hired an assassin bug! They’re going to get rid of that—“
It was useless. The Magician cared more for information than for safety. Humfrey was no leader, which explained why he had been so ready to leave that chore to Bink. So it was up to Bink, again.
“We’ll have to make some sort of shelter,” he decided. “And keep watch in turns.” He paused, considering the problems. How could they make shelter, when every piece of wood, stone, or foliage would be fiercely protective of its rights? This was the untamed wilderness!
Then his roving gaze spied a prospect: the great curving bones of a defunct monster. He couldn’t tell what kind of animal it had been in life, but it must have been larger than a dragon. The bones seemed too solid for a roc, and there was no sign of wings, so probably it had been a grown groundborne sphinx. Ten times the height of a man. The only reason sphinxes did not rule the jungle was their rarity, and disinterest in ordinary matters. Dragons were common, while sphinxes were hardly ever encountered. Bink wondered why that was so, and what could kill a sphinx in its prime. Boredom, perhaps. “Crombie, point out the direction of the closest suitable or adaptable site for our overnight camp,” he said, wishing to verify his notion.
Crombie obliged. He pointed toward the bones. Bink’s hunch had been right! He was gratified. “We’ll gather some blanket leaves and spread them over those bones,” he said. “That will make us a decent shelter, and it can serve as a fort in case of attack. Crombie, point us out the nearest blankets.”
The griffin pointed—right into the quivering ropes of a predator tree. It was not a tangler, but seemed related; it would hardly be safe to go there! “Well, maybe we can stay on guard better if we can see out,” Bink decided. “Chester, why don’t you stand the first watch. Wake me up the moment you find yourself getting sleepy, then wake Crombie.”
The centaur nodded agreement. He did not inquire about Humfrey’s share of the work; obviously the Magician would not be reliable for this.