The Source of Magic (27 page)

They marched up to the main gate. A behemoth rose out of the muck, mostly mouth.

“Hooold!” the behemoth bellowed. “Whoo goooes there?” It was very proficient and resonant on the long
O
’s; the sound reverberated across the reaches of the cavernous maw.

“Chester and Bink, travelers,” Bink said with some trepidation. “We’d like lodging for the night.”

“Soooo?” the monster inquired. “Then goooo!” Its mouth gaped even more horrendously.

“Go?” the centaur repeated aggressively. “We just came!”

“Soo gooo!” the behemoth reverberated, its orifice gaping so widely that the centaur could have ridden right into it without ducking his head.

Chester reached for his sword. “Uh, hooold—I mean hold,” Bink murmured. “I remember—the gargoyle—I think it means to go inside. Inside the mouth.”

The centaur peered into the monster’s tunnel-like throat. “Damned if I’ll cooperate in my own consumption!”

“But that’s the entrance to the castle!” Bink explained. “The behemoth itself.”

Chester stared. “Well I’ll be gelded!” And without further hesitation he galloped in.

Sure enough, the throat continued on into the castle. Lights appeared at the end of the tunnel, and soon they emerged into a palatial receiving hall. Intricately woven tapestries covered the walls, and the floor was done in fancy wooden squares.

A handsome, almost pretty young man walked up to greet
them. He had ornate curls about his ears and a neat mustache. His costume was a princely robe embroidered with brightly colored threads, and he wore soft slippers with pointed toes. “Welcome to Gateway Castle,” he said. “May I inquire your identities and the purpose of this visit?”

“You may,” Chester said.

There was a pause. “Well?” the man said, a bit nettled.

“Well, why don’t you inquire?” Chester said. “I gave you permission.”

Small muscles quirked about the man’s mouth, making him less pretty. “I so inquire.”

“I am Chester Centaur, and this is my companion Bink. He’s human.”

“So I noted. And your purpose?”

“We seek the source of magic,” Bink said.

“You have lost your way. It is at the amazon village, some distance north. But the direct route is hazardous to your sanity.”

“We have been there,” Bink said. “That is not the ultimate source, but merely the upwelling of magic dust. What we seek lies below. According to our information, a more convenient route passes through this castle.”

The man almost smiled. “Oh, you would not care for that route!”

“Try us and see.”

“This is beyond my cognizance. You will have to talk with the lord of the manor.”

“Good enough,” Bink said. He wondered what sort of a fiend this lord would be, who had such a docile human servant.

“If you would be good enough to come this way.”

“We’re good enough,” Chester said.

“But first we must do something about your hooves. The floor is teak parquet; we do not wish it scratched or dented.”

“Why put it on the floor, then?” Chester demanded.

“We do not apply it to the floor of our stable,” the man said. He produced several disks of furry material. “Apply these to your hooves; they will adhere, and muffle the impact.”

“How about wearing one of these on your mouth?” Chester demanded.

“It’s a small concession,” Bink murmured. Chester’s hooves were sound, since the healing elixir had eliminated all damage to the centaur’s hind end, but they were hard enough to leave an imprint. “Humor the poor man. The fiends are probably very strict about such things, and punish their servants for violations.”

With imperfect grace, Chester pressed his hooves one at a time onto the felt disks. The material clung to them, and it made the centaur’s footfalls silent.

They moved through an elegant hall, descended carpeted steps, and entered a small chamber. There was barely room for Chester to stand. “If this is your main hall—” he began.

The man touched a button. The door slid closed. Then, abruptly, the room moved.

Bink flung out his hands, startled, and Chester kicked a hole in the rear wall.

“Easy, visitors,” the man said with a small frown. “Haven’t you ridden an elevator before? It is inanimate magic, a chamber that rises or sinks when occupied. Saves wear on stairs.”

“Oh,” Bink said, abashed. He preferred more conventional magic.

The magic lift stopped. The door slid open. They stepped out into another hall, and in due course came to the chambers of the lord of the manor.

He was, to Bink’s surprise, a man, garbed richly in silver cloth and diamonds, but with the same foolish slippers his servant wore. “So you proffer service for a night’s lodging,” he said briskly.

“This is our custom,” Bink said.

“And ours too!” the lord agreed heartily. “Have you any special talents?”

Bink couldn’t tell his own, and didn’t know Chester’s. “Uh, not exactly. But we’re strong, and can do work.”

“Work? Oh my heavens no!” the lord exclaimed. “People do not work here!”

Oh? “How do you live, then?” Bink asked.

“We organize, we direct—and we entertain,” the lord said. “Have you any entertainment abilities?”

Bink spread his hands. “I’m afraid not.”

“Excellent! You will make an ideal audience.”

“Audience?” Bink knew that Chester was as perplexed as he. The mirror had shown him watching a play—yet that could hardly be a service!

“We send our troupes out to entertain the masses, accepting payment in materials and services. It is a rewarding profession, esthetically and practically. But it is necessary to obtain advance audience ratings, so that we can gauge our reception precisely.”

This innocuous employment hardly jibed with the local reputation! “To be an audience—to watch your shows—that’s all you require? It hardly seems equitable! I’m afraid we would not be able to present an informed critical report—”

“No necessity! Our magic monitors will gauge your reactions, and point up our rough edges. You will have nothing to do but react, honestly.”

“I suppose we could do that,” Bink said dubiously. “If you really are satisfied.”

“Something funny here,” Chester said. “How come you have a reputation as fiends?”

“Uh, that’s not diplomatic,” Bink murmured, embarrassed.

“Fiends? Who called us fiends?” the lord demanded.

“The ogre,” Chester replied. “He said you blasted a whole forest with a curse.”

The lord stroked his goatee. “The ogre survives?”

“Chester, shut up!” Bink hissed.

But the centaur’s unruly nature had taken control. “All he was doing was rescuing his lady ogre, and you couldn’t stand to have him happy, so—”

“Ah, yes, that ogre. I suppose to an ogre’s way of thinking, we would be fiends. To us, crunching human bones is fiendish. It is all in one’s perspective.”

Apparently the centaur had not antagonized the lord, though Bink judged that to be sheer luck. Unless the lord, like his troupe, was an actor—in which case there could be serious and subtle trouble. “This one is now a vegetarian,” Bink said. “But I’m curious: do you really have such devastating curses, and
why should you care what an ogre does? You really don’t have cause to worry about ogres, here under the lake; they can’t swim.”

“We do really have such curses,” the lord said. “They constitute group effort, the massing of all our magic. We have no individual talents, only individual contributions toward the whole.”

Bink was amazed. Here was a whole society with duplicating talents! Magic
did
repeat itself!

“We do not employ our curses haphazardly, however. We went after the ogre as a professional matter. He was interfering with our monopoly.”

Both Bink and Chester were blank. “Your what?”

“We handle all formal entertainments in southern Xanth. That bad actor blundered into one of our sets and kidnapped our leading lady. We do not tolerate such interference or competition.”

“You used an ogress for a leading lady?” Bink asked.

“We used a transformed nymph—a consummate actress.
All
our players are consummate, as you shall see. In that role she resembled the most ogrelike ogress imaginable, absolutely horrible.” He paused, considering. “In fact, with her artistic temperament, she was getting pretty ogrelike in life. Prima donna …”

“Then the ogre’s error was understandable.”

“Perhaps. But not tolerable. He had no business on that set. We had to scrub the whole production. It ruined our season.”

Bink wondered what reception the ogre would encounter, as he rescued his ideal female. An actress in ogress guise, actually from the castle of the fiends!

“What about the reverse-spell tree?” Chester asked.

“People were taking its fruit and being entertained by the reversal effects. We did not appreciate the competition. So we eliminated it.”

Chester glanced at Bink, but did not speak. Perhaps these people really were somewhat fiendish. To abolish all rival forms of entertainment—

“And where did you say you were traveling to?” the lord inquired.

“To the source of magic,” Bink said. “We understand it is underground, and that the best route leads through this castle.”

“I do not appreciate humor at my expense,” the lord said, frowning. “If you do not wish to inform me of your mission, that is certainly your privilege. But do not taunt me with an obvious fabrication.” Bink had the impression that obviousness was a worse affront than fabrication, to this person.

“Listen, fiend!” Chester said, bridling in most obvious fashion. “Centaurs do not lie!”

“Uh, let me handle this,” Bink said quickly. “There is surely some misunderstanding. We are on quest for the source of magic—but perhaps we have been misinformed as to its access.”

The lord mellowed. “That must be the case. Below this castle lies only the vortex. Nothing that goes that route ever returns. We are the Gateway; we straddle the vortex, protecting innocent creatures from being drawn unwittingly into that horrible fate. Who informed you that the object of your quest lay in such a direction?”

“Well, a Magician—”

“Never trust a Magician! They are all up to mischief!”

“Uh, maybe so,” Bink said uneasily, and Chester nodded thoughtfully. “He was very convincing.”

“They tend to be,” the lord said darkly. Abruptly he shifted the subject. “I will show you the vortex. This way, if you please.” He led the way to an interior panel. It slid aside at his touch. There was a glistening wall of glassy substance. No, not glass; it was moving. Fleeting irregularities showed horizontally. Now Bink could see through it somewhat vaguely, making out the three-dimensional shape. It was a column, perhaps twice his armspan in diameter, with a hollow center. In fact it was water, coursing around in circles at high speed. Or in spirals, going down—

“A whirlpool!” Chester exclaimed. “We are looking at the nether column of a whirlpool!”

“Correct,” the lord said with pride. “We have constructed
our castle around it, containing it by magic. Substances may pass into it, but not out of it. Criminals and other untoward persons are fed into its maw, to disappear forever. This is a most salutary deterrent.”

Surely so! The mass of moving fluid was awesome in its smooth power, and frightening. Yet it was also in its fashion luring, like the song of the siren, or the madness.

Bink yanked his gaze away. “But where does it go?”

“Who would presume to know?” the lord inquired in return, quirking an eyebrow expressively. He slid the panel across and the vision of the vortex was gone.

“Enough of this,” the lord decided. “We shall wine and dine you fittingly, and then you will audience our play.”

The meal was excellent, served by fetching young women in scant green outfits who paid flattering attention to the travelers, especially Chester. They seemed to admire both his muscular man-portion and his handsome equine portion. Bink wondered, as he had before, what it was girls saw in horses. The siren had been so eager to ride!

At last, stuffed, Bink and Chester were ushered to the theater. The stage was several times the size of the chamber for the audience. Apparently these people did not like to watch as much as they liked to perform.

The curtain lifted and it was on: a gaudily costumed affair replete with bold swordsmen and buxom women and funny jokers. The staged duels were impressive, but Bink wondered how proficient those men would be with their weapons in a real battle. There was a considerable difference between technical skill and combat nerve! The women were marvelously seductive—but would they be as shapely without the support of their special clothes, or as wittily suggestive minus the memorized lines?

“You do not find our production entertaining?” the lord inquired.

“I prefer life,” Bink replied.

The lord made a note on his pad:
MORE REALISM
.

Then the play shifted to a scene of music. The heroine sang a lovely song of loss and longing, meditating on her faithless
lover, and it was difficult to imagine how any lout, no matter how louty, could be faithless to such a desirable creature. Bink thought of Chameleon again, and longed for her again. Chester was standing raptly beside him, probably thinking of horsing around with Cherie Centaur, who was indeed a fetching filly.

Then the song was augmented by a hauntingly lovely accompaniment. A flute was playing, its notes of such absolute quality and clarity that the lady’s voice was shamed. Bink looked toward that sound—and there it was, a gleaming silver flute hanging in the air beside the heroine, playing by itself. A magic flute!

The lady ceased singing, surprised, but the flute played on. Indeed, freed of the limitations of her voice, it trilled on into an aria of phenomenal expertise and beauty. Now the entire cast of players stood listening, seeming to find it as novel as Bink did.

The lord jumped to his feet. “Who is performing that magic?” he demanded.

No one answered. All were absorbed in the presentation.

“Clear that set!” the lord cried, red-faced. “Everybody out. Out, out!”

Slowly they cleared, fading into the wings, looking back at the solo instrument. The stage was empty—but still the flute played, performing a medley of melodies, each more lovely than the one preceding.