Bink, nodding again, was suddenly jolted awake. Cherie was braking so hard he was being crushed against her human back. He threw his arms about her waist, hanging on, careful not to grab too high. “What—?”
“I almost forgot. I haven’t nursed Chet in hours.”
“Chet?” Bink repeated dazedly. Oh, the foal.
She signaled to her young one, who promptly came up to nurse. Bink hastily excused himself for another kind of call of nature. Centaurs were not sensitive about natural functions; in fact they could and did perform some of them on the run. Humans were more squeamish, at least in public. It made him realize one reason why Cherie did not seem as lovely now: her breasts were enlarged to the point of ponderosity, so that she could nurse her foal. Little centaurs required a great deal of milk, especially when they had to run as much as this one did.
After a decent interval Bink cautiously returned. The foal was still nursing, but Cherie spied Bink. “Oh, don’t be so damned human,” she snapped. “What do you think I’m doing—magic?”
Bink had to laugh, embarrassed. She had a point; he had no more occasion to let his squeamishness interfere with business than she did. His definitions of what might be obscene made no more sense than hers. He came forward, albeit diffidently. It occurred to him that centaurs were well adapted to their functions; had Cherie had an udder like a horse, the foal would have had a difficult time. He was an upright little chap, whose human section did not bend down like the neck of a horse.
“We’re going the wrong way,” Cherie exclaimed.
Oh, no! “You strayed from the path? We’re lost?”
“We’re on the path. But we should not be going toward Castle Roogna. Nobody there can help.”
“But the King—“
“The King is just an ordinary man, now. What can he do?”
Bink sighed. He had just assumed King Trent would have some sort of answer, but Cherie was right. “What can anyone do without—“ He was trying to spare her the use of the obscene word, though he knew this was foolish.
“Nursing Chet started me thinking,” she said, giving the foal a loving pat on the head. “Here is my foal, Chester’s colt, a representative of the dominant species of Xanth. What am I doing running away from Chester? Chet needs a real stud to teach him the facts of life. I could never forgive myself, if—“
“But you’re not running away!” Bink protested. “We’re going to the King, to find out what to do in the absence of—how we can—“
“Oh, go ahead, say it!” she exclaimed angrily. “Magic! You have shown me in your blundering human way that it is necessary and integral to our way of life, including my own private personal life, damn you. Now I’m taking the rationale further. We can’t just go home and commiserate with former Magicians; we have to do something. Now, immediately, before it’s too late.”
“It’s already too late,” Bink said. “The Demon is gone.”
“But maybe he hasn’t gone far. Maybe he forgot something, and will return to fetch it, and we can trap him—“
“No, that wouldn’t be right. I meant it when I freed him, even though I don’t like the result of that freedom.”
“You have integrity, Bink, inconvenient as it sometimes is. Maybe we can call him back, talk to him, persuade him to give us back a few spells—“
Bink shook his head. “No, nothing we can do will influence the Demon Xanth. He doesn’t care at all about our welfare. If you had met him, you’d know.”
She turned her head to face him. “Maybe I’d better meet him, then.”
“How can I get it through your equine brain!” Bink cried, exasperated. “I told you he’s gone!”
“All the same, I want to see where he was. There might be something left. Something you missed. No offense, Bink, but you are only human. If there were some way we could—“
“There is no way!” Bink cried. Chester had been stubborn enough, but this filly—!
“Listen, Bink. You rubbed my nose in the fact of my need of magic. Now I’m rubbing yours in the fact of your need to do something, instead of just giving in. You may tell yourself you’re going to fetch help, but actually you’re just running away. The solution to our problem is at the prison of the Demon, not at the King’s palace. Maybe we’ll fail—but we do have to go back there and try.” And she started back the way they had come. “You’ve been there; show me the way.”
Involuntarily, he ran along beside her, very much like the foal. “To the cave of the Demon?” he asked incredulously. “There are goblins and demagicked dragons and—“
“To hell with all that obscenity!” she neighed. “Who knows what is happening to Chester now?”
There it was: her ultimate loyalty to her mate. Now that he thought of it that way, his own attitude seemed inferior. Maybe his humanity did make him imperfect. Why hadn’t he stayed at least long enough to locate his friend? Because he had been afraid of what he might find. He had, indeed, been running away!
Maybe Chester could be hauled out of the brine and saved without the aid of magic. Maybe Good Magician Humfrey yet survived. A small chance, certainly —but so long as there was any chance at all, Bink was derelict in his duty to his friends by not making every possible effort to find them. He had the sick certainty that they were dead, but even that confirmation would be better than his hiding from the truth.
He climbed back aboard Cherie, and she launched herself onward. They made amazingly good progress. Soon they had passed the place where they had encountered each other, and were galloping across the terrain in the direction Bink indicated. A centaur could really move—but even so, it was almost as if there were some magic enchantment facilitating their progress. That was an illusion, of course, and not a magical one. It was just that Cherie was now goaded by her eagerness to rescue her stallion, foolish as that ambition might be. Bink directed her to the tangle-tree cleft, bypassing the magic-dust village.
As they galloped up, it seemed to Bink that the tangler quivered. That had to be a trick of the fading light, since without magic the monster was impotent.
Cherie drew up to the branch that overlapped the rim of the chasm. “Climbing down a tangle tree—I find that hard to—“ She broke off. “Bink, it moved! I saw it!”
“The wind,” Bink cried with abrupt illumination. “It rustles the tendrils!”
“Of course!” she agreed, relieved. “For a moment I almost thought—but I knew it wasn’t so.”
Bink peered down into the crevasse, and spied the crack in its base where the tree’s big root crossed. He really did not want to go down there again, but didn’t want to admit it. “I—uh—I can swing down on a vine. But you—“
“I can swing down too,” she said. “That’s why centaurs have strong arms and good chest muscles; we have greater weight to support. Come, Chet.” She grasped a large tentacle and stepped off the brink.
Sure enough, she was able to let herself down, hand under hand, with her front legs acting as brakes. Her posterior swung grandly around in a descending spiral until she reached the base. The colt followed her example, though with such difficulty that she hastened to catch him at the base. Embarrassed by their examples, Bink swung down himself. He should have led the way, instead of letting fillies and foals do it!
At the base of the tree, gazing down into the looming black hole that was the aperture to the underworld, Bink had further misgivings. ‘This descent is worse; I don’t think Chet can make it. And how could you climb up again? It nearly killed me getting to the top, and your weight—no offense—“
“Chester could climb it,” Cherie said confidently. “Then he could haul the rest of us up.”
Bink visualized the muscles of Chester’s human torso, and remembered the colossal power of the centaur. Only a monster like the ogre had more strength of arm. Maybe, just maybe, it was possible, especially if they set up a double rope so the rest of them could haul on the other end and help Chester lift himself. But that presumed they would actually find and rescue Chester. If they failed, Cherie herself would be lost, for Bink could never haul her up. He might handle the foal, but that was the limit
Cherie was already testing tangler tentacles for strength. She had faith that banished doubt, and Bink envied her that He had always thought of Chester as the ornery one, but now he understood that the true strength of the family lay in Cherie. Chester was mere magic putty in her hands—oops, obscene concept!— and so also, it seemed, was Bink. He did not want to return to the horrors of the depths, to battle uselessly against the half-goblins and snake-dragons in the dark. But he knew he would do it, because Cherie was going to rescue her poor dead stallion, or else.
“This one’s good,” she announced, tugging at a particularly long, stout tentacle that dangled from the very top of the tree. “Bink, you climb up and sever it with your knife.”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” he said with imperfect enthusiasm. Then he was ashamed of himself. If he was going to do this thing, at least he should do it with some spirit! “Yes, of course.” And he started to climb the dread trunk.
He experienced a strange uplift and exhilaration. It was as if a burden had been lifted from his body. In a moment he realized what it was: conscience. Now that he had made his decision, and knew it was right even if suicidal, he was at peace with his conscience, and it was wonderful. This was what Cherie had experienced, which had made her almost fly through the wilderness, her strength expanded. Even without magic, there was magic in a person’s attitude.
He reached the point where the tentacles sprouted like grotesque hairs from the apex of the trunk, braced himself with his legs looped about it, and slashed into the base of the selected tentacle. And felt a shudder in the tree reminiscent of the one made by the tangler Crombie had attacked so long ago.
No! he reminded himself immediately. It was not magic. The tree was still alive, it had merely lost its magic and become as Mundane trees. It might feel the pain of the cut, and react, but would not be able to move its tentacles about consciously.
He severed the tentacle and watched it drop. Then he cut a second and a third, to be sure they had enough.
Yet the tree was still shuddering as he descended, and the hanging tentacles seemed to be quivering more than might reasonably be accounted for by the wind. Would it be possible for a tangler to revive without magic? No; it must be the effect of his climbing, shaking the trunk, sending ripples through the vines.
They tied the first tentacle to the root, knotting it with difficulty because of its diameter, and dangled it down. It seemed to swing freely, marvelously limber, so they hauled it back up. With some care they knotted another tentacle to its end, extending its effective length. This time they heard the thump as it struck the rock below.
“I’ll go first,” Bink said. “Then I’ll stand guard with my sword while you lower Chet. There are goblins— uh, have we anything for a light? We need fire to scare away the—“
Cherie gave him a straight stare. “If you were a goblin, would you mess with a centaur foal?” She tapped one forefoot meaningfully.
Bink remembered how he had foiled her attack, not long ago, when he forced her to face the obscene concept. But he was twice the height of a goblin, and armed with a sword, and familiar with centaurs. Most important, he had known that whatever Cherie’s rage of the moment, she was his friend, and would not really hurt him. No goblin had any such assurance—and a centaur filly protecting her young would be a terror. “I would not mess with a centaur foal even if I were a dragon,” he said.
“I can see in the dark a little when I have to,” she continued. “I can hear the echoes of my hooves, so I’ll know the approximate contours to the caves. We’ll get there.”
Without another word Bink leaned down, grasped the tentacle rope, and swung himself into the hole. He handed himself” into the depths rapidly, feeling much stronger than he had during the ascent. With surprising suddenness he was past the knot and at the floor. He peered up at the wan illumination above. “Okay —I’m down!”
The rope writhed up as Cherie hauled it. Centaurs had excellent balance for this sort of thing, since they could plant four feet on the ground and devote the full strength of their arms to the task. Soon Chet came swinging down, the rope looped about his middle while he held on lightly with his hands. In all this time he had spoken no word and made no demand or complaint; Bink was sure that would change drastically as Chet matured. Bink untied the little fellow at the base and gave him a pat on the back. “Chet’s fine!” he called.
Now it was Cherie’s turn. She had made it into the crevasse all right, but this was a narrower, darker, longer haul, with a less secure rope, and Bink was privately worried. “Stand clear, in case I should— swing,” she called. Bink knew she had almost said “fall.” She was well aware of the hazard, but she had courage.
She swung down without event, handing herself along until she neared the floor. Then the narrowing tentacle snapped, dropping her the last few feet. But she landed squarely, unhurt. Bink relaxed. “All right, Bink,” she said immediately. “Get on my back and tell me where to go.”
Silently Bink went to mount her—and in that silence he heard something. “Something’s moving!” he snapped, surprised to discover how nervous he was. “Where’s Chet?”
“Right here beside me,” she said.
They listened—and now it was plain. A scraping, rustling sound off to the side and up. Definitely not any of them. Yet it didn’t sound like goblins, either.
Then Bink saw a snakelike thing writhing between them and the hole, silhouetted by the light. “A tangler root—it’s moving!” he exclaimed.
“We must have jarred it loose from the earth,” she said. “It’s own weight is pulling it free, and its shape makes it twist as it drops.”
“Yes.” But Bink was uncertain. That looked too much like conscious motion. Could the tangler be animating again? If so, there would be no escape this way!
They started along the cavern trail. Bink found he remembered it fairly well, even in the dark—and he found he could see a little. Maybe some glow remained. Actually, it seemed to get brighter as his eyes adjusted.
“The glow—it’s returning,” Cherie said.
“I thought it was my imagination,” Bink agreed. “Maybe there is some residual magic down here.”
They moved on, more rapidly. Bink couldn’t help wondering: if the tangler was coming back to life, and the glow was getting brighter, could that mean that magic was returning? The implications were—
Suddenly the passage debouched into a palace chamber so large he could not readily compass it with his gaze. Jewels sparkled on every side, hanging brilliantly in air. A fountain of scintillating water spread out upside down, its droplets falling back toward the ceiling. Streamers of colored paper formed whirls and whorls that traveled as if by their own volition, tilting sidewise or curling into spirals, only to straighten out again. On every side were fresh wonders, too many to assimilate; in all it was a display of the most phenomenal magic Bink had seen.
There had been no cave like this in this region before! Cherie looked around, as startled as he. “Is— could this be the work of your Demon Xanth?”
As she spoke the name, the Demon X(A/N)th materialized. He sat in a throne of solid diamond. His glowing eye fixed on Bink, who still bestrode Cherie, while the foal pressed closely to her side.
“You are the one I want,” X(A/N)th exclaimed. “You stupid nonentity who threw yourself and your whole culture into peril, for no likely gain to either. Such idiocy deserves the penalty it brings.”
Bink, awed, nevertheless tried to defend himself. “Why did you return, then? What do you want with me?”
“They have changed the nomenclature system,” X(A/N)th replied. “They are into differentials now. I shall have to study that system for an eon or two, lest I apply it with gaucherie, so I am returning to this familiar place for the moment.”
“An eon-moment?” Bink asked incredulously.
“Approximately. I brought you here to ensure that my privacy will be preserved. Every entity of this world that knows of me must be abolished.”
“Abolished?” Bink asked, stunned.
“Nothing personal,” the Demon assured him. “I really don’t care about your existence one way or the other. But if my presence is known, other vermin may seek me out—and I want to be left alone. So I must abolish you and the others who are aware of me, preserving my secret. Most of you have already been eliminated; only you and the nymph remain.”
“Leave Jewel out of it,” Bink pleaded. “She’s innocent; she only came because of me. She doesn’t deserve—“
“This filly and her foal are innocent too,” the Demon pointed out. “This has no relevance.”
Cherie turned to face Bink. Her human torso twisted in the supple manner he remembered of old, and her beauty was back to its original splendor. Magic became her, without doubt! “You freed this thing—and this is his attitude? Why doesn’t he go elsewhere, where none of us can find him?”
“He’s leaked a lot of magic here,” Bink said. “It is quiescent without him, but so long as magical creatures like dragons and centaurs remain, we know it hasn’t departed entirely. The whole of the Land of Xanth is steeped with it, and this must be more comfortable for him. Like a well-worn shoe, instead of one fresh from the shoe-tree that chafes. The Demon is not of our kind; he has no gratitude. I knew that when I freed him.”
“There will be a brief delay before I terminate you,” the Demon said. “Make yourselves comfortable.”
Despite his immediate peril, Bink was curious. “Why the delay?”
“The nymph has hidden herself, and I do not choose to expend magic wastefully in an effort to locate her.”
“But you are omnipotent; waste should have no meaning to you!”
“True—I am omnipotent. But there is proportion in all things. It bothers my sensitivities to use more magic than a given situation warrants. Therefore I am minimizing the effort here. I have amplified your persona. She loves you—I do not pretend to know the meaning of that term—and will come to you here, believing you to be in a danger she can ameliorate. Then I can conveniently abolish you all.”
So the return of magic to the Land of Xanth meant the end for Bink and his friends. Yet the rest of Xanth profited, so it was not a total loss. Still—
“I don’t suppose you would be satisfied if we simply promised not to reveal your presence, or took a forget-potion?”
“No good,” a voice said from Bink’s pocket. It was Grundy the golem, back in form with the restoration of magic. He climbed out to perch on Bink’s shoulder. “You could never keep such a promise. Magic would have the truth out of you in a moment. Even if you took a forget-potion, it would be neutralized, then the information would be exposed,”
“A truth spell,” Cherie agreed. “I should have trusted my original judgment. Magic is a curse.”
Bink refused to give up. “Maybe we should reverse it,” he told the Demon. “Spread the word to all the land that you are down here, and will destroy anyone who intrudes—”
“You’d encourage ninety-nine nuts to rise to the challenge,” Cherie pointed out. “The Demon would be constantly annoyed, and have to waste his magic destroying them one by one.”
The Demon looked at her approvingly. “You have an equine rear, but a sapient head,” he remarked.
“Centaurs do,” she agreed.
“And what do you think of me?”
“You are the absolute epitome of obscenity.”
Bink froze, but the Demon laughed. The sound blasted out deafeningly. The magically ornate palace shattered about him, filling the air with debris, but none of it touched them.
“Know something?” Grundy remarked. “He’s changing—like me.”
“Changing—like you,” Bink repeated. “Of course! While his magic was leaking out, infusing the whole Land of Xanth, some of our culture was seeping in, making him a little bit like us. That’s why he feels comfortable here. That’s why he can laugh. He does have some crude feelings.”
Cherie was right on it. “Which means he might respond to a feeling challenge. Can you come up with one?”
“I can try,” Bink said. Then, as the Demon’s mirth subsided, he said: “Demon, I know a way to protect your privacy. We have a shieldstone, formerly used to protect the whole Land of Xanth from intrusion by outsiders. We valued our privacy as much as you value yours. Nothing living can pass through that shield. All I need to do is tell our King Trent about you, and he will set up the shield to prevent anyone from coming down here. The shield worked for us for over a century; it will work for you too. Then it won’t matter who knows about you; every fool who tries to reach you will die, automatically.”
The Demon considered. “The notion appeals. But the human mind and motivation are largely foreign to me. How can I be sure your King will honor your request?”
“I know he will,” Bink said. “He’s a good man, an honest one, and a savvy politician. He will immediately appreciate the need to protect your privacy, and will act on it.”
“How sure of that are you?” the Demon asked.
“I’d stake my life on it.”
“Your life is insignificant compared to my convenience,” the Demon said without humor.
“But my talent is significant in human terms,” Bink argued. “It will act in my interest by encouraging the King to—“
“Your talent is nothing to me. I could reverse it by a simple snap of my fingers.” The Demon snapped his fingers with a sound like the detonation of a cherry bomb. Bink felt a horribly disquieting internal wrench, “However, your challenge intrigues me. There is a certain element of chance involved that cannot occur when I myself undertake a challenge. Therefore I must indulge myself to a certain extent vicariously. You say you shall stake your life on your ability to preserve my privacy. This is really no collateral, since your life is already forfeit, but I’ll accept it. Shall we gamble?”
“Yes,” Bink agreed. “If that’s what it takes to save my friends. I’ll undertake any—”
“Bink, I don’t like this,” Cherie said.
“Here is the testing laboratory,” the Demon said, indicating a huge pit that appeared as he gestured. Around it were spaced half a dozen doorways. The walls were vertical stone, too high and slick to climb. “And here is the intruder.” A monster appeared in the center, a minotaur, with the head and tail and hooves of a bull and the body of a powerful man. “If he escapes this chamber alive, he will intrude on my privacy. You will stop him if you can.”
“Done!” Bink cried. He jumped down into the arena, drawing his sword.
The minotaur surveyed him coolly. The return of magic had invigorated Bink, making him feel strong again—and he had never been a physical weakling. The muscles of his arms showed through the tattered shirt, and his body was balanced and responsive. His sword moved with smooth proficiency, buoyed by its magic, and the charmed blade gleamed. The monster decided to pass up the pleasure of this quarrel. It spun on one hoof and walked toward the exit farthest from Bink.
Bink pursued it. “Turn about and fight like a monster!” he cried, unwilling to cut it down from behind.
Instead the creature broke into a run. But Bink’s momentum carried him forward faster, and he caught the minotaur before it reached the exit. He hauled on its tail, causing the thing to crash into a wall. Bink put his sword to its throat. “Yield!” he cried.
The minotaur shivered—and became a monster bug, with tremendous pincers, stinger, and mandibles. Bink, startled, stepped back. He was fighting a magic monster—one that could change its form at will! This was going to be a much more formidable challenge than he had, in his naiveté, supposed.
What a fool he had been to hold back his sword, expecting this thing to yield! Surely its life, like his own, would be forfeit if it lost. He had to kill it in a hurry, before it killed him—or got away, which amounted to the same thing.
Even while he realized this, the bug was skittering toward the exit. Bink leaped after it, his sword swinging. But the bug had eye-stalks that looked back at him—in fact, it was now a giant slug, sliding along on a trail of slime. Bink’s sword swished over its head harmlessly.
He could, however, move faster than a slug, even a large one. Bink jumped over it and reached the exit first, barring the way. He took careful aim and made a two-handed strike at the slug’s head, to slice it lengthwise. But his blade clanged off the shell of a snail. The monster had changed again, to the nearest variant that would protect it. Either it was hard-pressed, or it lacked imagination.
Bink gave it no chance to think. He thrust directly into the opening of the shell. This time he scored—on the substance of a big green jellyfish. His blade sliced through it and emerged from the far side, dripping, without really hurting the blob. He carried his stroke on up and out and shook the blade off, disgusted. How could he kill a mass of jelly that sealed up after his cut?
He sniffed. Now he recognized the odor of the thing: lime. Lime-flavored jelly. Was it edible? Could he destroy the monster by eating it?
But as he pondered, the monster changed into a purple vulture the size of a man, Bink leaped for it, trying to slay it before it flew up beyond his reach— and skidded on the remaining patch of lime goo. What a disastrous coincidence!
Coincidence? No—this was his talent operating—in reverse. The Demon had negligently switched it. Now seeming coincidence would always work against Bink, instead of for him. He was his own worst enemy.
Still, he had done all right for himself when his talent had been largely canceled out by the brain coral’s magic. What be needed to do now was to minimize the element coincidence played in this battle. His talent never revealed itself openly, so was restricted, awaiting its chance to operate. Everything he did should be so carefully planned that it left virtually nothing to chance. That way, chance could not operate against him.
The bird did not fly. It ran toward the center of the arena. Bink scrambled to his feet and pursued, watching his step. Here was a pebble that he might have tripped over; there was another spot of grease. His prior slip in the jelly had been mainly carelessness. He could immunize that. But why didn’t the bird simply fly, while Bink was being so careful of his motions? Probably because the monster was not a Magician. Each form it assumed was about the same mass, and landbound. A good talent, but not an extraordinary one. There were definite limits. King Trent could change a fly into a hephalumph, or a worm into a flying dragon; size and function were of no account. But this monster only changed its form, not its abilities. Good!
Bink stalked the vulture, alert for any move it might make toward the exit. To flee him it would have to turn its back, and then he would strike it down. No element of chance involved there, so no way for his reversed talent to intercede. Bink’s early life, when he had not known about his talent, had prepared him for operating without it. His recent adventures, when it had been either neutralized or eliminated entirely, had served as a refresher course. The monster would have to stand and fight, rather than depending on Bink to foul up.
Suddenly it was a man—a burly, tousle-haired brute in tattered clothing, carrying a gleaming sword. The man looked as if he knew his business; in fact he looked familiar.
In fact—it was a replica of Bink himself! The monster was getting smart, fighting sword with sword. “Fair enough!” Bink said, and launched his attack.
As he had guessed, the monster was no swordsman. He might look like Bink, but he couldn’t fight the way Bink could! This battle would soon be over!
Bink made a feint, then engaged the other’s sword and knocked it out of the monster’s hand. He backed the monster up against the wall, ready for the finish. “Bink!” a woman cried in despair. Bink recognized that voice. It was Jewel! Drawn by the spell the Demon had made, she had arrived just at the wrong moment. It had to be the machination of his reversed talent, interfering just in time to save his enemy from destruction. Unless he acted immediately—
“Bink!” she cried again, jumping down into the arena and throwing herself between him and the monster. She smelled of a summer storm. “Why didn’t you stay out of the caverns, where you would be safe?” Then she stopped, amazed. “You’re both Bink!”
“No, he’s the monster,” the monster said before Bink spoke. “He’s trying to kill an unarmed man!”
“For shame!” Jewel flashed, facing Bink. The storm had become a hurricane, with the odors of sleet and dust and crushed brick, windborne. “Begone, monster!”
“Let’s get out of here,” the monster said to her, taking her by the arm and walking toward an exit.
“Of all the nerve!” Cherie cried from above. “Get that fool nymph out of there!”
But Jewel stayed with the cunning monster, escorting him toward safety—and a disaster she could not imagine. Bink stood frozen, unable to bring himself to act against Jewel.
“Bink, she’ll die too, if you let him go!” Cherie screamed.
That nerved him. Bink launched himself at the pair, catching them each about the waist and hauling them down. He intended to separate them, stab the monster, and explain to Jewel later.
But when he righted himself, he discovered that he had a nymph on each arm. The monster now resembled Jewel—and Bink couldn’t tell them apart.
He jumped to his feet, sword ready. “Jewel, identify yourself!” he shouted. The monster could hardly have been smart enough to think of this on its own; Bink’s talent had probably decreed such a fortuitous choice of appearances. Bink had not given it any opportunity to catch him in an accident, so it had acted on the monster instead. Coincidence took many forms.
“Me!” the two nymphs cried together, getting to their feet.
Oh, no! They sounded alike, too. “Jewel, I’m fighting a change-shape monster,” he cried to them both. “If I don’t kill him, he’ll kill me. One way or another. I’ve got to know which one he is.” Assuming the monster was male. Bink had to assume that, because he didn’t want to kill a female.
“Him!” both nymphs cried, pointing at each other. The scent of skunk cabbage filled the air. Both backed away from each other, and from him.
Worse and worse! Now his talent had the bit in its teeth, determined not to let him prevail. Yet he had to kill the monster, and to spare Jewel. He could not afford to choose randomly.
The nymphs were heading for different exits. Already it was too late to catch both. Upon his choice rested the fate of himself and all his friends—and his infernal talent would surely make him choose wrongly. No matter which one he chose, it would be the wrong one. Somehow. Yet to make no choice would also spell doom.
Bink realized that the only way he could be sure of salvaging anything was to kill them both. The monster, and the nymph-woman who loved him. Appalling decision!
Unless he could somehow trick the monster into revealing itself. (Call it it: that would be easy to kill!)
“You are the monster!” he cried, and charged the nymph on the right, swinging his sword.
She flicked a glance over her shoulder, saw him, and screamed in mortal terror. And the smell of dragon’s breath, the essence of terror, was strong.
Bink completed his swing, avoiding her as she cowered, and hurled his sword at the second nymph, who was almost at the other exit. The one he had decided was really the monster.
But the near-nymph, in her terror, threw up her hands defensively. One hand brushed Bink’s sword arm, just as he threw the weapon, fouling his aim. His talent again, using his friend to balk his attack on his enemy!
Yet it was not over. The monster, seeing the approaching blade, leaped to the side—right into the misthrown sword. The blade struck the chest and plunged through, such was the force of Bink’s throw and the charm of the weapon. Transfixed, the monster fell. Two bad lucks had canceled each other out!
Bink, meanwhile, crashed into Jewel, bearing her to the floor. “Sorry,” he said. “I had to do it, to make sure—“
“That’s quite all right,” she said, struggling to get up. Bink got to his own feet and took her by the elbow, helping her. But his eyes were on the dead or dying monster. What was its natural form?
The monster didn’t change. It still looked exactly like Jewel, with full bosom, slender waist, healthy hips, ideal legs, and sparkling hair—and blood washing out around the embedded sword. Strange. If the monster was mortally injured, why didn’t it revert to form? If it were not, why didn’t it scramble up and out the exit?
Jewel drew away from him. “Let me go clean up, Bink,” she said. At the moment she smelled of nothing.
Of nothing? “Make a smell,” Bink said, grabbing her arm again.
“Bink, let me go!” she cried, pulling toward the exit.
“Make a smell!” he growled, twisting her arm behind her back.
Suddenly he held a tangle tree. Its vines twisted to grab him, but they lacked the strength of a real tangler, even a dwarf species. Bink clamped both his arms about the tree, squeezing the tentacles in against the trunk, hard.
The tree became a squat sea serpent. Bink hunched his head down and continued squeezing. The serpent became a two-headed wolf whose jaws snapped at Bink’s ears. He squeezed harder; he could afford to lose an ear in order to win the battle. The wolf became a giant tiger lily, snarling horrendously, but Bink was crushing its stem.
Finally it got smart. It changed into a needle cactus. The needles stabbed into Bink’s arms and face—but he did not let go. The pain was terrible, but he knew that if he gave the monster any leeway at all it would change into something he couldn’t catch, or his talent would arrange some coincidental break for it. Also, he was angry: because of this creature, he had cut down an innocent nymph, whose only fault was loving him. He had assumed that jinxes had canceled out when his misthrown sword cut her down, but that had not been the case. What an awful force his talent could be! His hands and face were bleeding, and a needle was poking into one eye, but Bink squeezed that cactus-torso with the passion of sheer hate until it squirted white fluid.
The thing dissolved into foul-smelling goo. Bink could no longer hold on; there was nothing to grasp. But he tore at the stuff with his hands, flinging gobs of it across the arena, and stomped the main mass flat. Could the monster survive dismemberment, even in this stage?
“Enough,” the Demon said, “You have beaten it.” He gestured negligently, and abruptly Bink was fit and clean again, without injury—and somehow he knew his talent was back to normal. The Demon had been testing him, not his talent He had won—but at what cost?
He ran to Jewel—the real Jewel—reminded of the time Chameleon had been similarly wounded. But the Evil Magician had done that, while this time Bink himself had done it. “You desire her?” the Demon asked. “Take her along.” And Jewel was whole and lovely, smelling of gardenias, just as if she had been dunked in healing elixir. “Oh, Bink!” she said—and fled the arena.
“Let her go,” Cherie said wisely. “Only time can heal the wound that doesn’t show.”
“But I can’t let her think I meant to—“
“She knows you didn’t mean to hurt her, Bink. Or she will know, when she thinks it out at leisure. But she also knows that she has no future with you. She is a creature of the caverns; the openness of the surface world would terrify her. Even if you weren’t married, she could not leave her home for you. Now that you’re safe, she has to go.”
Bink stared the way Jewel had gone. “I wish there were something I could do.”
“You can leave her alone,” Cherie said firmly. “She must make her own life.”
“Good horse sense,” Grundy the golem agreed.
“I will permit you to perform the agreed task in your fashion,” the Demon said to Bink. “I hold no regard for you or your welfare, but I do honor the conditions of a wager. All I want from your society is that it not intrude on my private demesnes. If it does, I might be moved to do something you would be sorry for—such as cauterizing the entire surface of the planet with a single sheet of fire. Now have I conveyed my directive in a form your puny intellect can comprehend?”
Bink did not regard his intellect as puny, compared to that of the Demon. The creature was omnipotent, not omniscient: all-powerful, not all-knowing. But it would not be politic to remark on that at the moment. Bink had no doubt that the Demon could and would obliterate all life in the Land of Xanth, if irritated. Thus it was in Bink’s personal interest to keep the Demon happy, and to see that no other idiots like him intruded. So his talent would extend itself toward that end—as X(A/N)th surely was aware. “Yes.”
Then Bink had a bright flash. “But it would be easier to ensure your privacy if there were no loose ends, like lost Magicians or pickled centaurs—“
Cherie perked up alertly. “Bink, you’re a genius!”
“This Magician?” Xanth inquired. He reached up through the ceiling and brought down a gruesome skeleton. “I can reanimate him for you—“
Bink, after his initial shock, saw that this skeleton was much larger than any Humfrey could have worn. “Uh, not that one,” he said, relieved. “Smaller, like a —a gnome. And alive.”
“Oh, that one,” X(A/N)” said. He reached through a wall and brought back Good Magician Humfrey, disheveled but intact.
“About tune you got to me,” Humfrey grumped. “I was running out of air, under that rubble.”
Now the Demon reached down through the floor. He brought back Chester, encased in a glistening envelope of lake water. As he set the centaur down, the envelope burst; the water evaporated, and Chester looked around.
“So you went swimming without me!” Cherie said severely. “Here I stay home tending your colt while you gad about—“
Chester scowled. “I gad about because you spend all your time with the colt!”
“Uh, there’s no need—“ Bink interposed.
“Stay out of this,” she murmured to him with a wink. Then, to Chester, she flared: “Because he is just like you! I can’t keep you from risking your fool tail on stupid, dangerous adventures, you big dumb oaf, but at least I have him to remind me of—“
“If you paid more attention to me, I’d stay home more!” he retorted.
“Well, I’ll pay more attention to you now, horse-head,” she said, kissing him as the arena dissolved and a more cozy room formed about them. “I need you.”
“You do?” he asked, gratified. “What for?”
“For making another foal, you ass! One that looks just like me, that you can take out for runs—“
“Yeah,” he agreed with sudden illumination. “How about getting started right now!” Then he looked about, remembering where he was, and actually blushed. The golem smirked. “Uh, in due course.”
“And you can run some with Chet, too,” she continued. “So you can help him find his talent.” There was no hint of the discomfort she must have suffered getting the word out.
Chester stared at her. “His—you mean you—“
“Oh, come on, Chester,” she snapped. “You’re wrong ten times a day. Can’t I be wrong once in my life? I can’t say I like it, but since magic seems to be part of the centaur’s heritage, I’ll simply have to live with it. Magic does have its uses; after all, it brought you back.” She paused, glancing at him sidelong. “In fact, I might even be amenable to a little flute music,”
Startled, Chester looked at her, then at Bink, realizing that someone had blabbed. “Perhaps that can be arranged—in decent privacy. After all, we are centaurs.”
“You’re such a beast,” she said, flicking her tail at him. Bink covered a smile. When Cherie learned a lesson, she learned it well!
“Which seems to cover that situation sufficiently, tedious as it has been,” the Demon said. “Now if you are all quite ready to depart, never to return—“
Yet Bink was not quite satisfied. He did not trust this sudden generosity on the part of the Demon. “You’re really satisfied to be forever walled off from our society?”
“You cannot wall me off,” the Demon pointed out. “I am the source of magic. You will only wall you off. I will watch and participate anytime I choose—which will probably be never, as your society is of little interest to me. Once you depart, I forget you.”
“You ought at least to thank Bink for freeing you,” Cherie said.
“I thank him by sparing his ridiculous life,” X(A/N)th said, and if Bink hadn’t known better he might have thought the Demon was nettled.
“He earned his life!” she retorted. “You owe him more than that!”
Bink tried to caution her. “Don’t aggravate him,” he murmured. “He can blink us all into nothingness—“
“Without even blinking,” the Demon agreed. One eyelid twitched as if about to blink.
“Well, Bink could have left you to rot for another thousand years, without blinking himself,” she cried heedlessly. “But he didn’t because he has what you will never understand: humanity!”
“Filly, you intrigue me,” X(A/N)th murmured. “It is true I am omnipotent, not omniscient—but I believe I could comprehend human motive if I concentrated on it.”
“I dare you!” she cried.
Even Chester grew nervous at this. “What are you trying to do, Cherie?” he asked her. “Do you want us all extinguished?”
The Demon glanced at Grundy. “Half-thing, is there substance to her challenge?”
“What’s in it for me?” the golem demanded.
The Demon lifted one finger. Light coalesced about Grundy. “That.”
The light seemed to draw into the golem—and lo, Grundy was no longer a thing of clay and string. He stood on living legs, and had a living face. He was now an elf.
“I—I’m real!” he cried. Then, seeing the Demon’s gaze upon him, he remembered the question. “Yes, there is substance! It’s part of being a feeling creature. You have to laugh, to cry, to experience sorrow and gratitude and—and it’s the most wonderful thing—“
“Then I shall cogitate on it,” the Demon said. “In a century or so, when I have worked out my revised nomenclature.” He returned to Cherie. “Would one gift satisfy you, feeling filly?”
“I don’t need anything,” she said. “I already have Chester. Bink is the one.”
“Then I grant Bink one wish.”
“No, that’s not it! You have to show you understand by giving him something nice that he would not have thought of himself.”
“Ah, another challenge,” the Demon said. He pondered. Then he reached out and lifted Cherie in one hand. Bink and Chester jumped with alarm, but it was not a hostile move. “Would this suffice?” The Demon put her to his mouth. Again Bink and Chester jumped, but the Demon was only whispering, his mouth so large that the whisper shook her whole body. Yet the words were inaudible to the others.
Cherie perked up. “Why yes, that would suffice! You do understand!” she exclaimed.
“Merely interpolation from observed gestures of his kind.” The Demon set her down, then nicked another finger. A little globe appeared in air, sailing toward Bink, who caught it. It seemed to be a solidified bubble. “That is your wish—the one you must choose for yourself,” the Demon said. “Hold the sphere before you and utter your wish, and anything within the realm of magic will be yours.”
Bink held up the globe. “I wish that the men who were restored from stone by the absence of magic, so they could return to the village of magic dust, will remain restored now that magic is back,” he said. “And that the lady griffin will not turn back to gold. And that all the things killed by the loss of magic, like the brain coral—“
The Demon made a minor gesture of impatience. “As you see, the bubble did not burst. That means your wish does not qualify, for two reasons. First, it is not a selfish one; you gain nothing for yourself by it. Second, those stone and gold spells can only be restored by reapplication of their inputs; once interrupted, they are gone. None of those people have returned to stone or gold, and none of the similar spells in your land have been reinstated. Only magic life has been restored, such as that of the golem and the coral. The other spells are like fire: they burn continuously once started, but once doused remain out. Do not waste my attention on such redundancy; your wish must go for a selfish purpose.”
“Oh,” Bink said, taken aback. “I can’t think of any wish of that kind.”
“It was a generous notion, though,” Cherie murmured to him.
The Demon waved his hand. “You must carry the wish until it is expended. Enough; I become bored with this trivia.”
And the party stood in the forest that Bink and Cherie and the colt had left. It was as if the Demon had never been—except for the sphere. And Bink’s friends, restored. And the reviving magic of the forest. Even Cherie seemed satisfied with that magic, now.
Bink shook his head and pocketed the wish-globe. All he wanted to do now was to get home to Chameleon, and he needed no special magic for that
“I’ll carry Bink, as usual,” Chester said. “Cherie, you carry the Magician—“ He paused. “Crombie! We forgot the loud-beaked griffin!”
Bink felt in his pocket. “No, I have him here in the bottle. I can release him now—“
“No, let him stew there a while longer,” Chester decided. Evidently he had not quite forgiven the soldier for the savage fight the two had had.
“Maybe that’s best,” Cherie agreed. “He was in a life-and-death struggle when he was confined. He might come out fighting.”
“Let him come!” Chester said belligerently.
“I think it would be better to wait,” Bink said. “Just in case.”
It was dusk, but they moved on rapidly. The monsters of the night seemed to hold no terror, after their adventure. Bink knew he could use his stored wish to get them out of trouble if he had to. Or he could release Crombie and let him handle it. Most of the more dangerous wilderness entities were still recovering from the shock of the temporary loss of magic, and were not aggressive.
Chester had a problem, however. “I have paid the fee for an Answer,” he reminded the Good Magician. “But I found my talent by myself. Now I could ask about Cherie’s talent—“
“But I already know it,” Cherie said, coloring slightly at this confession of near-obscenity. “Don’t waste your Question on that!”
“You know your talent?” Chester repeated, startled. “What—“
“I’ll tell you another time,” she said modestly.
“But that leaves me without a wish—I mean without an Answer,” he said. “I paid for it with my life, but don’t know what to ask.”
“No problem,” Humfrey said. “I could tell you what to ask.”
“You could?” Then Chester saw the trap. “But that would use it up! I mean, your telling me the Question would use up the Answer—and then I wouldn’t have the Answer to my Question!”
“That does seem to present a problem,” Humfrey agreed. “You might elect to pay another fee—“
“Not by the hair of your handsome tail!” Cherie cried. “No more adventures away from home!”
“Already my freedom is slipping away,” Chester muttered, not really displeased.
Bink listened glumly. He was glad to be getting home, but still felt guilt about what had happened to Jewel. He had a wish—but he knew he could not simply wish Jewel out of love with him. Her love was real, not magical, and could not be abolished magically. Also, how would Chameleon react to this matter? He would have to tell her....
They galloped up to the palace as night became complete. The grounds were illuminated by shining luna moths whose fluttering green radiance gave the palace an unearthly beauty.
Queen Iris was evidently alert, for three moons rose to brighten the palace as they entered, and there was a fanfare from invisible trumpets. They were promptly ushered to the library, the King’s favorite room.
Without ceremony, Bink told his story. King Trent listened without interrupting. As Bink concluded, he nodded. “I shall make arrangements to set the shield as you suggested,” the King said at last. “I think we will not publicize the presence of the Demon, but we shall see that no one intrudes on him,”
“I knew you would see it that way,” Bink said, relieved. “I—I had no idea there would be such a consequence to my quest. It must have been terrible here, without magic.”
“Oh, I had no trouble,” the King said. “I spent twenty years in Mundania, remember. I still have a number of little unmagic mannerisms about me. But Iris was verging on a nervous breakdown, and the rest of the kingdom was not much better off. Still, I believe the net effect was beneficial; citizens really appreciate their magic, now.”
“I suppose so,” Bink agreed. “I never realized how important magic was, until I saw Xanth without it. But here in our group we’re left with distressing magical loose ends. Chester has a surplus Answer, and I have a wish I can’t use, and Crombie is confined—“
“Ah, yes,” the King agreed. “We’d better reconstitute him now.”
Bink uncorked the bottle, releasing Crombie. The griffin coalesced. “Squawk!” he proclaimed.
“About time,” Grundy translated.
King Trent looked at the griffin—and it became a man.
“Well,” Crombie said, patting himself to make certain of his condition. “You didn’t need to leave me bottled up. I could hear what was going on, all the time.” He turned to Chester. “And you, you hoof-headed hulk—I only fought you because the coral controlled me. You didn’t have to be scared of me once that was settled.”
Chester swelled up. “Scared of you! You featherbrained punk—“
“Anytime you want to try it again, horsetail—“
“That will suffice,” the King said gently, and both shut up, albeit with imperfect grace.
King Trent smiled, returning his attention to Bink. “Sometimes you miss the obvious, Bink. Let Chester give his Answer to you.”
“To me? But it’s his—“
“Sure, you can have it,” Chester said. “I don’t need it.”
“But I already have a wish I can’t use, and—“
“Now you use Chester’s Question to ask the Good Magician what to do with your wish,” the King said.
Bink turned to Humfrey. The man was snoring quietly in a comfortable chair. There was an awkward pause.
Grundy went up and jogged the Magician’s ankle. “Get with it, midge.”
Humfrey woke with a small start. “Give it to Crombie,” the Magician said before Bink opened his mouth, and lapsed back into sleep.
“What?” Chester demanded. “The Answer I sweated for only brings a free wish to this bird?”
Bink marveled himself, but handed the wish-bubble to Crombie. “May I ask what you mean to use it for?”
Crombie fidgeted a moment, an unusual performance for him. “Uh, Bink, you remember that nymph, the one who—“
“Jewel,” Bink agreed. “I dread trying to explain about her to—“
“Well, I—uh, you see, I had this fragment of the magic mirror in the bottle, and I used it to check on Sabrina, and—“
“I fear constancy was never her strong suit,” the King interposed. “I don’t believe you two were right for each other anyway.”
“What about her?” Bink asked, perplexed.
“She was two-timing me,” Crombie said, scowling. “Right when she had me on the verge—but the other guy is married, so she was going to let on the kid was mine, and—I knew I couldn’t trust a woman!”
So Sabrina had deserted Crombie, as she had deserted Bink himself, before he knew Chameleon. Yet she connived to marry Crombie anyway—and it had been fated that he would have to marry her unless he married someone else first. “I’m sorry,” Bink said. “But I think it would be best simply to let her go. No sense wasting a wish for vengeance.”
“No, that’s not what I had in mind,” Crombie assured him. “I wouldn’t trust any woman now. But I think I could love a nymph—“
“Jewel?” Bink asked, amazed.
“I don’t expect you to believe this,” Crombie said seriously. “I don’t really believe it myself. But a soldier has to face realities. I lost the battle before it started. There I was, lying in that cleft where you had slain me, Bink. I don’t blame you for that; it was a hell of a good fight, but I was really hurting. Suddenly she came, smelling of pine needles and gardenias, bringing the healing elixir. I never saw anything so sweet in my life. She was weak and hesitant, just like a nymph. No threat to any man, least of all a soldier. No competition. The kind of female I could really get along with. And the way she stood by you—“ Crombie shook his head. “That’s why I went back in the bottle, after pointing out the antidote for you. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt that nymph, and killing you would have torn her up. And if you got the antidote, you’d get out of love with her, which was how I wanted you. She’s lovely and loyal. But since she still loves you—“
“That’s hopeless,” Bink said. “I’ll never see her again, and even if I did—“ He shrugged. “There can be nothing between us.”
“Right. So if you don’t mind, I’ll just take this wish and wish her to drink some of that love potion—and to see me next thing. Then she’ll feel about me the way you felt about her. Only I’ll be available, seeing as I have to marry someone anyway.”
And Crombie was a dashing soldier and a handsome man. Inevitably the love the potion started would become real. The hurt Jewel felt for what Bink had done to her, striking her down with his sword, would make the transition easier. Except— “But you like to travel about,” Chester said before Bink could formulate the same objection. “She lives below, planting precious stones. That’s her job; she wouldn’t leave it”
“So we’ll separate—and rejoin,” Crombie said. “I’l1 be seeing her part-time, not all the time. That’s the way I like it. I’m a soldier.”
And that, neatly, solved Bink’s problem.
“What about me?” Grundy demanded. “Without birdbeak, I have no job. I’m real, now; I can’t just disappear.”
“There is occasional need for translation around this court,” the King said, “We shall find employment for you.” He glanced about “That about suffices for tonight. Quarters have been arranged for all of you, here at the palace.” With that he ushered them out.
Bink was last to go. “I—I’m sorry I caused all this trouble,” he said. “The Good Magician tried to warn me, and so did Beauregard the demon, but I wouldn’t listen. Just because I wanted to know the source of magic—“
“Have no concern, Bink,” the King said with a reassuring smile. “I was aware that there was an element of risk when I sent you—but I was as curious about the source of magic as you, and I felt that it was best to have the discovery made by you, protected by your talent I knew your talent would see you through.”
“But my talent was lost when the magic went, and—“
“Was it, Bink? Didn’t it strike you that the Demon’s return was unusually fortuitous?”
“Well, he wanted a private place to—“
“Which he could have arranged anywhere in the universe. What really brought him back? I submit that it was your talent, still looking out for your long-range interests. Your marriage was in trouble, so your magic indulged in an extraordinary convolution to set it straight.”
“I—I can’t believe my talent could operate to affect the origin of magic itself!” Bink protested.
“I have no such difficulty. The process is called feedback, and it can and does reflect profoundly on the origin. Life itself may be regarded as a feedback process. But even if that were not the case, your talent could have anticipated the chain of events, and established a course that would inevitably bring magic back to the Land of Xanth, much as an arrow shot into the air inevitably returns—“
“Uh, when we fought the constellations, Chester’s arrows didn’t—”
The King shook his head. “Forgive an inept analogy. I shall not bore you further with my Mundane perspective. I am satisfied with the result of your quest, and you should be satisfied too. I suspect that had any other person released the Demon, X(A/N)th would never have returned to our realm. At this point the matter is academic. We shall have to find another occupation for you, but there is no rush. Go home to your wife and son.”
“Son?”
“Oh, did I forget to inform you? As of dusk you became the father of a Magician-class baby, my likely successor to the throne—in due course. I suggest that infant’s talent is the Demon’s selected gift to you, and perhaps another reason your own talent put you through this adventure.”
“What talent does the baby have?” Bink asked, feeling giddy. His son—an overt Magician at birth!
“Oh, I wouldn’t spoil the surprise by telling you! Go home and see for yourself!” King Trent clapped him heartily on the shoulder. “Your home life will never be dull again!”
Bink found himself on his way. Talents never repeated in the Land of Xanth, except maybe among fiends, so his son could not be a transformer like the King or a storm master like the prior King, or a magic-adapter like King Roogna who had built Castle Roogna, or an illusionist like Queen Iris. What could it be, that showed so early?
As he approached the cabin at the edge of the palace estate, and smelled the faint residual odor of cheese from the cottage, Bink’s thoughts turned to Chameleon. It had been only a week since he had left her, but it seemed like a year. She would be in her normal phase now, ordinary in appearance and intelligence: his favorite. Their mutual worry about the prospects of their baby was over; the boy was not variable like her, or seemingly without talent like him. His love for her had been tested most severely, by the love potion and availability of a most desirable alternative. What a relief to have Crombie going after Jewel...though that could be another action of his talent At any rate, now Bink knew how much he loved Chameleon. He might never have realized, had he not had this adventure. So the King was right; he—
Someone emerged from the cabin. She cast a triple shadow in the light of the three moons, and she was beautiful He ran to meet her with an exclamation of joy, grabbed her and—discovered it was not Chameleon.
“Millie!” he exclaimed, turning her hastily loose. She had phenomenal sex appeal, but all he wanted was Chameleon. “Millie the ghost! What are you doing here?”
“Taking care of your wife,” Millie said. “And your son. I think I’m going to like being a nursemaid again. Especially to so important a person.”
“Important?” Bink asked blankly.
“He talks to things!” she blurted enthusiastically. “I mean, he goo-goos at them, and they answer back. His crib sang him a lullaby, his pillow quacked like a duck, a rock warned me not to trip over it so I wouldn’t drop the Magician—“
“Communication with the inanimate!” Bink breathed, seeing the significance of it. “He’ll never get lost, because every rock will give him directions. He’ll never be hungry, because a lake will tell him the best place to fish, or a tree—no, not a tree, that’s alive— some rock will tell him where to find fruit. He’ll be able to learn more news than the Good Magician Humfrey, and without consorting with demons! Though some of my best friends are demons, like Beauregard...No one will be able to betray him, because the very walls will tell him about any plots. He—“
A grim shape loomed out of the dark, dripping clods of earth, Bink gripped his sword.
“Oh, no, it’s all right!” Millie cried. “That’s only Jonathan!”
‘That’s no man—that’s a zombie!” Bink protested.
“He’s an old friend of mine,” she said. “I knew him back when Castle Roogna was new. Now that I’m alive again, he feels responsible for my welfare.”
“Oh.” Bink sensed a story there—but at the moment he only wanted to see his wife and son. “Was he the zombie I met—?”
“In the garden,” she agreed. “He got lost in the Queen’s maze, the night of the anniversary party. Then he came to me, inside, and got pickled. It took quite a spell to undo that! Now we’re looking for a spell to make him alive again, too, so we can—“ She blushed delicately. Obviously the zombie had been more than a friend, in life. Millie had displayed an embarrassing interest in Bink himself, during that party, but it seemed the appearance of the zombie ended that. Another loose end Bink’s talent had neatly tied up.
“When my son gets older we can have him ask about that,” Bink said. “There must be some rock, somewhere, that knows where a spell to restore zombies would be.”
“Oh, yes!” Millie cried ecstatically. “Oh, thank you!”
Bink faced the zombie, but did not offer to shake hands. “I think you were another omen for me, Jonathan. When I met you the first time, it signaled death with all its horrors: the death of magic. But through that death I found a kind of rebirth—and so will you.”
Bink turned to the door of the cottage, ready to join his family.
Piers Anthony was born in August, 1934, in England, spent a year in Spain, and came to America at age six. He was naturalized American in 1958 while serving in the U.S. Army. He now lives in Florida with his wife Carol and their daughters Penny and Cheryl. His first story was submitted to a magazine in 1954, but be did not make his first story sale until 1962. Similarly, he submitted his first novel, which was also his thesis for his B.A. degree from college, in 1956, but did not sell a novel until 1966, In 1985 his 50th book was published. His first Xanth novel, A Spell for Chameleon, won (he August Derleth Fantasy award for 1977. His novel Ogre. Ogre may have been the first original fantasy paperback ever to make the New York Times bestseller list, and all his fantasies since then have been bestsellers. He is currently writing three or four novels and answering seven or eight hundred letters a year. His house is hidden deep in the forest, almost impossible to find, and he now has a computer in the horse pasture.