Question Quest (27 page)

“The fool!” I exclaimed.

“Aw, he must be thirsty,” Grundy said.

“That's the flow from a love spring,” I said. I recognized the glint of the water, from long practice.

Helplessly we watched Bink drink, then encounter a nymph who was typical of her species: long of leg, pert of bottom, slender of waist, full of bosom, and large-eyed of face. She was sorting through a keg of jewels which represented enormous wealth, for those who cared for that sort of thing. There were diamonds, pearls, emeralds, rubies, opals, and other precious stones of many colors and sizes.

“Hoo!” Grundy exclaimed. “What I wouldn't give for that nymph and that tub of gems!”

Precisely. And Bink had just taken a love potion. His talent protected him from magic harm, but didn't define love as harm. It didn't care that he was married. His talent was happy to let him have a little un-innocent fun with an innocent nymph.

I checked a reference, for I had reduced my collection of tomes and had them with me in miniaturized bottles. This was Jewel the Nymph, perhaps the most important rock nymph in Xanth, for she it was who placed the precious stones for others to find. Her barrel was never ending; no matter how many she removed, it remained full. She probably had a soul, unlike the useless nymphs whose sole purpose was to run around barelegged and tease men. Jewel even had a talent: she smelled the way she felt, whether this was of fresh pine needles or burning garbage. Many women did smell, but they had to apply perfume; Jewel did it naturally. Of all the folk for Bink to encounter, she was perhaps the worst, because she was a nice person with a necessary job who should be neither hurt nor distracted. She was bound to suffer both fates, now.

Jewel helped Bink and Chester travel. She summoned a giant of the vole family of creatures, a diggle, who worked for a song. Chester's magic talent had manifested by this time: he could conjure a silver flute, which played beautiful music by itself. This flute now charmed the diggle, so that it was happy to carry them through the solid stone.

Then they encountered the demons. There was Beauregard! Suddenly I knew what I was in for. Sure enough, he just couldn't resist conjuring me out of the bottle. Fortunately he didn't make me do anything bad; we had Crombie point out the direction of our bottle from where Bink was, so he could find it.

Meanwhile the bottle was floating down to the deepest subterranean lake. My references could not get a line on where it was going; there was powerful evil magic here. I did not like this at all.

“You know, something's been spying on us as we travel,” Grundy remarked. “I've got the feeling we're floating into its clutches.”

That was my own impression. I had not discussed it because it seemed pointless to alarm the others.

"But maybe I could get out of the bottle, and then pull it to safety and wedge the cork off,” Grundy continued.

“No living thing or inanimate thing can pass the cork from inside,” I reminded him grimly.

“Yes, but that shard of glass got out, maybe because it's a nonliving yet animate thing: it animates whatever picture you want to see. I'm not exactly living or dead; I might be able to get out too.”

I was amazed. He could be right! “See if you can pass,” I agreed.

He went to the neck of the bottle and pushed against the cork. It didn't budge, but he went on through it. In a moment he was out. He resumed his normal size, which wasn't much larger than the bottle.

But the bottle was floating in the dark pool, and the golem could not get to solid land. His body was made of bits of wood and cloth and string; he would not be able to swim well enough. So we would still have to wait for the bottle to get close enough to land for Grundy to do anything.

Bink and Chester and Jewel the Nymph arrived, riding the diggle. They spied the bottle and headed for it. We were about to be rescued!

Then the trap sprang. Grundy's little mind was taken over by a hostile power. Now he wrapped his string arms around the cork, braced his feet against the neck of the battle, and hauled out the cork. “By the power of the Brain Coral, emerge!” he gasped.

Oh, no! He was Summoning me and Crombie—in the name of the enemy. For suddenly that hostile force overwhelmed my mind, and I knew that this was the thing that had opposed us and spied on us. It was the Brain Coral, a creature that could not move, because it was locked in its subterranean pool, but had tremendous magic and intelligence. It correctly regarded Bink's magic as a threat to its interests, so had done everything it could to eliminate him as a threat. It had to act through other agencies, but was quite facile in that respect. It had sent a magic sword to kill Bink, and the dragon, and had caused the Siren to lure him to the Gorgon, but Bink's talent had foiled all these threats, seemingly coincidentally. The midas fly had been intended for him, and the great curse of the curse fiends, but only with the spell of the love potion had it been able to compromise him at all. That he had actually turned to his advantage, because instead of dissipating his energy chasing the nymph, he had enlisted her help.

But now it had found a way to accomplish its purpose. It had taken over the golem, and caused the golem to invoke Crombie and me from the bottle. We now had to serve the Brain Coral. That meant that all my magic and knowledge and intelligence were ranged against Bink, and that was the most formidable challenge he had faced since his duel with Magician Trent.

Other facts came into my mind as I assimilated the tremendous information of the Brain Coral. The cork had been partly dislodged from our bottle before, a seeming coincidence that would have enabled me to rejoin Bink, but the Coral's magic had arranged to have it jammed back. Grundy had escaped then, and clung to the bottle, but the Coral had made it seem that he remained inside. I should have realized that if one shard of glass could get out, so could other things. The real battle had been over control of this bottle, and Bink had almost recovered it, but the Coral had just managed to take it as it floated into the center of the Coral's region of power.

Now my resources were at the disposal of the Brain Coral. I had to try my best to make Bink give up his quest for the source of magic and go away. For that was the Coral's objective: to prevent Bink from accomplishing his mission. This I told Bink, urging him to depart immediately.

I had to admire his stubbornness. He refused to quit, though it meant open combat between us. I opposed him directly, while Crombie-Griffin would nullify Chester Centaur.

It did come to combat, unfortunately. After a horrendous fight, Crombie succeeded in knocking Chester into the pool, where the Coral quickly took him under and in. Meanwhile Bink had been able to nullify or avoid my myriad spells; that talent of his was truly amazing! Perhaps it was the strongest talent in Xanth, for all its subtlety.

But now it was two against one, and the griffin could attack him physically. Still he did not yield. He had once been relatively clumsy with the sword, but Crombie himself, in human form, had trained him, and now that sword was deadly. Bink managed to injure the griffin and hurl him into a crevice where he could fight no more. This, despite the distraction of the spells I was hurling against him. That was too impressive for comfort.

And, in the end, Bink actually won. I think the Brain Coral was as surprised as I was. I had to yield to him. He had the nymph sprinkle healing elixir on the sadly wounded griffin, who jumped up as if to attack Bink again. The nymph jumped between the two. “Don't you dare!” she cried with the odor of burning paper. That was an extraordinary act for a nymph, as the breed is generally pretty empty-headed. It was, in retrospect, a significant event, yet another aspect of Bink's extremely powerful and subtle talent.

The Brain Coral reconsidered. It agreed to show Bink the source of magic, now believing that if he knew the truth, he would come to agree with the Coral's position.

The source of magic was the Demon X(A/N)th, who resided in the nethermost cave and whose thoughts were in the form of fluxes through the cave. He was one of a number of such extremely powerful entities. The very rock near him was charged with magic, because of the trace leakage of it from his body. When this rock welled out to the surface it became the magic dust, which spread the magic to the rest of Xanth. He did not like to be disturbed.

The Demon was playing a game with others of his kind, which was the only way to alleviate the boredom that came to otherwise omnipotent creatures. Its rules were obscure to those of us with merely mortal comprehension. One aspect of this game was that a mortal such as Bink could by a single word free the Demon from his self-imposed captivity.

Now it was clear why the Brain Coral, one of the most powerful entities of Xanth because it was closest to the source of magic, had labored to keep Bink away. Coral was afraid Bink would do something unutterably stupid, such as releasing the Demon X(A/N)th, who would then depart, leaving Xanth without magic. That would be disaster.

Sure enough, Bink wrestled with his concept of honor, and did the most stupid imaginable thing: he freed the Demon.

Instantly X(A/N)th was gone, and with him the magic of Xanth. There followed the most unpleasant few hours in the history of Xanth, for it was a sorry place without magic.

Yet, somehow, it all worked out, for the Demon returned. After certain incidental complications, he made Grundy Golem fully real and gave Bink a special gift: all his descendants would have Magician-class magic. In return, it was agreed that the ordinary creatures of Xanth, including man, would be barred from access to the Demon, so as not to bother him further.

So Bink had come out ahead after all, just as if his talent had planned it that way. Which was impossible— yet maybe not.

And my son Crombie, as a result of his experience with Jewel the Nymph, who had sprinkled the healing elixir on him and stood up to him when he threatened to attack Bink again, because she loved Bink—he had realized that if only such a creature were to love him, Crombie, she would be worth marrying. So he set aside his hatred of women and took a love potion to use on her, and they were in due course married. Thus my most significant failure was abated; my son had become a family man. All because of Bink.

I shook my head, reflecting on that. How phenomenally I had misjudged that young man, the first time I encountered him! He had enabled Magician Trent to return and become king, and he had discovered the true source of the magic of Xanth, and he had restored my son to a proper life. And, as it turned out, he had virtually single-handedly ended the dearth of Magicians and Sorceresses in Xanth, thus helping to usher in what might prove to be the Bright Age, so soon after the Dark Age.

Yet even then I had underestimated Bink's impact, for he had also affected my own life most significantly. It merely took another sixteen years for that to become fully apparent.

I returned to my comparatively dull existence at the castle. Somehow it no longer satisfied me as it had before. Something was missing from my life, but I wasn't sure what.

Meanwhile the chain of supplicants continued, at the rate of about one a month. Most were routine; I solved their problems, made them serve their year, and sent them on their way. But one nymph surprised me. She had come to ask me for a spell to turn off a faun who was pursuing her. She lived outside the main encampment of her kind and did not forget each day as it passed, though most nymphs did. Every day this faun came after her, remembering nothing, and she was tired of it. So I dug in my collection of spells and found a faun repellent. She could use this on him early in the day, each day, and be free for the rest of it. That was ideal, she said; she was quite satisfied with this remedy.

But as it happened, there was no useful service she could do for me for a day, let alone a year. I had someone to fix my meals, and someone else to sort my socks, and someone else to figure out a suitable set of challenges for the next person who came with a Question. I didn't want to let the nymph go without service, because that would set a bad precedent, but neither did I want her hanging around the castle doing nothing. What was I to do?

I asked the magic mirror. I now had several of these, having long since gotten rid of the one that became unreliable with time. This one merely showed a cherub falling over with laughter. No help there. The problem with competent mirrors was that they also tended to be too bright, and found ways to express themselves that I did not necessarily appreciate. But even so, a bright mirror was better than a dull one.

So I did what I didn't like: I told the nymph that I had no use for her, and she was free to depart. I asked her not to bruit the news about, lest others be dissatisfied by unequal treatment. But to my surprise she refused; she had her Answer, and she intended to pay for it. She wouldn't leave until her year was done.

That was exactly what I didn't want. But there wasn't much I could do about it. So I assigned her a room, and hoped something would turn up.

That night, when I finished my researches and went to my hard cold lonely pallet to sleep, I discovered it occupied. The nymph was there. “I think I have found something I can do for you, Good Magician,” she said. Then she clasped me and kissed me and lay down with me. And somehow my pallet was no longer hard, cold, or lonely.

I had forgotten what nymphs were for, but in the course of that year I remembered. A man could not summon the stork with an ordinary nymph, for they were not subject to that call, but he could do a heroic job of imitation. Jewel the Nymph had not been ordinary; she had a soul, and could do anything a normal woman could. But regular nymphs were made for pleasure without responsibility, so the storks ignored them. How could a person take proper care of a baby, if she did not remember her activity from one day to the next? This one wasn't interested in marriage, just in completing her service. I had to agree that I was satisfied.

In fact, when her year was done, I was sorry to see her go.

After that, when a similar creature elected to serve in that manner, I did not protest. I now knew what was missing from my life. It was a woman. But who would want to marry a century-plus old gnome of a man?

Then in 1054, eleven years after our meeting, the Gorgon came with a Question. She was now a marvelously developed woman of twenty-nine, and to my eye the most ravishing creature imaginable. But of course I couldn't tell her that; this was business.

We had set challenges, of course. When I can, I tune them to the individual person, but sometimes they are all-purpose for whoever comes. We had a foghorn guarding the moat, and it was lovely to see it operate. When the Gorgon tried to cross in the boat provided, the horn blasted out such columns of fog that she couldn't see or hear anything. In that obscurity her boat turned around and came back to the outer shore. That was the boat's magic; it had to be steered, or it returned to its dock. One of my prior querents had built it for me during his service. When the fog cleared, the Gorgon was a sight; her snake-hair was hissing with frustration, and her dress was plastered to her body. I had thought that body to be voluptuous; now I knew I had underestimated its case. I remembered our dialogue and how she had seemed to dote on me in the brief time of our encounter. Naturally she would have forgotten that, but it was a fond reminiscence. If only—but why be foolish?

The Gorgon was no dummy. She pondered a moment, then set out again. This time she steered the boat directly toward the foghorn, the one thing she could hear. Since it was inside the moat, she soon completed the crossing. I think I would have been disappointed had she not figured this out.

She navigated the other two challenges successfully and entered the castle. I braced myself and met her. She was even more impressive from aclose than she had been from afar. Her face was heavily veiled, including her deadly eyes, but the rest of her was nevertheless stunning. I was now a hundred and twenty-one years old, but in her presence I felt more like eighty-one. I remembered the surprising delight of our first encounter, when I had made her face invisible so that she would no longer stone any man who met her gaze. That spell would have been aborted at the Tune of No Magic, of course; all the men she had stoned had returned to life then, and of course she had let them go.

I knew I should tackle her Question and give her an Answer, but I was reluctant to terminate our second contact quickly. So I dallied somewhat. “What have you been up to, Gorgon?” I inquired in as close an approximation to sociability as I could manage. It was an effort, but less of one for her than for others, because I didn't care about others.

“After the Time of No Magic my face was restored, and since I didn't want to make any more mischief in Xanth, I went to Mundania, where there is no magic, as you recommended. I hated to do it, for I love Xanth, but because I love Xanth I had to leave it, so as not to do it any harm.” Her face went wry behind the veil; I could see the outline of the expression. "Mundania was colossally dreary. But what you had told me was true: I was normal there, and my face did not stun anyone. So I bore with it, and found employment as an exotic dancer, for it seems that Mundane men enjoy the appearance of my body.”

I tried to wrench my eyes from that same body, embarrassed. “Mundanes are odd,” I mumbled, feeling like the hypocrite I was.

“But in time I got to miss Xanth too much to bear,” she continued blithely, taking a breath that threatened to pop a button on her décolletage or a lens on my spectacles. “The magic, the magical creatures—even the ogres and tangle trees had become fond memories. I realized that I had been born to magic; it was part of my being, and I just couldn't endure without it. But I also did not want to do harm. So I have returned and come to the man I most respect, and that is you.”

“Um,” I said, foolishly flattered.

“But when I returned to Xanth after several years, I discovered that my talent had matured along with my body,” she continued, sighing. It was some sigh; my old eyeballs threatened to overheat. “Originally I stoned only men; now I stone men and women, and animals, and even insects. It's much worse than it was!”

Obviously she wanted another invisibility spell for her face. I could readily give her that. Then she would perform some service and be gone. And I would be twice as lonely as before. But I had to do it. “Evidently your talent is not far short of Sorceress class,” I said. “Ordinarily that would be an asset.”

“Perhaps when I'm a mean old woman, I'll enjoy stoning folk,” she said. “But now I am in my prime, and I don't.”

She was certainly in her prime! “What is your Question?” I asked, knowing too well what it was.

“Would you marry me?”

“I do have another vial of invisible makeup,” I said. Then something registered. “What?”

“Would you marry me?”

“That is your Question?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“It is.”

“This is not a joke?”

“This is not a joke,” she assured me. “Understand, I'm not asking you to marry me; I merely want to know whether you would, if that were my desire. In this manner I seek to spare us both the unpleasantness of rejection.”

Oh. I had to stall, because suddenly my heart was beating at a rate somewhat beyond my age. “If you really want my Answer, you will have to give me a year's service.”

“Of course.”

“In advance.”

“Of course.”

I was amazed at the readiness of her agreement. It was evident that she had thought this out, and preferred a considered Answer to an extemporaneous one. Perhaps she believed that I would be more likely to be affirmative if she associated with me for a while. In that she was grossly mistaken: I was locked into affirmation the moment I saw her approach the castle. The reason for my delay in answering was other than my private preference.

So the Gorgon worked for me a year. I made her face invisible again, of course, because otherwise her veil might have slipped sometime and made a nuisance. Now she could go around unveiled, which was easier.

The first thing she did was tackle my mountain of socks. She was good with them, which was an excellent sign. Next she tackled the castle, getting it organized and cleaned up. She went through my study and put all my papers and vials in order. When my meal-fixing maid completed her service and departed, the Gorgon took over that too. She even tended the roses in back. She was good at everything she tried, and I was better off than I had been in decades. I no longer needed other assistance around the castle; the Gorgon was running it.

I treated her in a cursory manner. In fact I was downright grumpy. I called her “girl” and I was never quite satisfied with what she did.

Now you might wonder about this. My reason was simple: I had been intrigued by her when she was a maiden of eighteen, and fascinated by her as a woman of twenty-nine. Her mere proximity caused my pulses to pulse. There was, it has been said, no fool like an old fool, and the Gorgon's competence, appearance, and power of magic had made a conquest of me in a matter of moments. I had loved MareAnn, I had loved Rose of Roogna; now I loved the Gorgon.

She was considering marrying me? Then she deserved to see what marriage to such a gnome was like.

I was showing her the worst of me, deliberately. If that didn't alienate her, nothing would.

Surely it would alienate her! But it had to be done, in fairness. The Gorgon, with her face masked, was simply more of a woman than I deserved.

Yet she survived even that challenge of mistreatment, and when her year of service concluded I gave her my Answer: “Yes, I would marry you, if you asked.” I would go to Hell for her, if she asked.

She considered that. “There is one other thing. I shall want a family. I have too much love for just a man; it must overflow for a child.”

“I'm too old to summon the stork,” I said.

“There is a vial of water from the Fountain of Youth on your shelf,” she said. “You can take some of that and be young enough.”

“There is? Fountain of Youth elixir? I didn't know that!”

“That's why you need a woman around the castle. You can't even keep track of your socks.”

She had me there. “Still, I would have to be a great deal younger to—” For the truth was that, pleasant as it had been to have the company of certain nymphs in the past, I had seldom gotten to that stage with them, knowing that it made no difference. If I should have to do it for real, would I be able? I had realistic doubt.

“Why don't we find out? I will spend the night with you, and you can take drops of elixir until you are young enough." She was nothing if not practical, which was yet another trait I liked.

The notion intrigued me. It might require more elixir than I had, but I could go fetch more tomorrow; I of course knew where the Fountain of Youth was. So that night she came to me with the vial, and she wore a translucent nightdress. Suddenly I felt forty years younger, and wished it were eighty.

She kissed me. Her face was invisible, but solid; I could feel her lips on mine. My feeling of age reduced another twenty years. I hadn't yet taken a drop of elixir.

Of course feeling is not the same as being, and my body did lag somewhat behind. I might have the aspirations of a younger man, but lacked the capacity.

Rather than go into tedious detail, I will say that each drop of youth elixir took ten years off my age, and that two drops turned out to suffice. At a physical age of a hundred and two, with close proximity to that gorgeous creature, I discovered I was young enough. Health, youth, and love carried the night. I knew it would have taken several more drops with any other woman, however.

And so we were betrothed, though we did not rush to marriage, and thereafter every decade or so I took another drop of youth elixir so as to keep my physical age at about a hundred. With one exception I will cover in due course. The happiest period of my later life was upon me. I hope this was true for the Gorgon, too.

Meanwhile, less interesting events continued. Bink's son, Dor, was of course a Magician, thanks to the Demon's largess. He could talk to the inanimate and make it respond. But he was dissatisfied, because he lacked the physical stature of his father and was bullied by other boys. So he went on a Quest to the past of eight hundred years before, to fetch the elixir of restoration that would enable Millie the Maid (formerly a ghost) to restore her zombie friend Jonathan to life. Dor was now twelve years old, which was young, but he was a bright boy, and of course his status as Magician enormously expanded his capabilities.

Naturally much of this had to be explained to him, and he came here to inquire. Because he was a Magician and probable future king of Xanth, I did not charge him a year's service; instead I made a deal with him. I would enable him to undertake his Quest, and he would bring me information on a period in the history of Xanth whose details were somewhat obscure.

But I did set up challenges, as a matter of form. Dor came with Grundy Golem, who was now a real live person, but still small and with a mouth larger than the rest of him. They came to the moat and found it guarded by a triton: a merman with a triple-tipped spear.