The Source of Magic (40 page)

A female griffin glided up. “Awk?” she inquired.

“And here’s the one who guided you, released from the midas-spell,” Trolla said. “Where is your handsome griffin?”

Bink thought it best not to tell about the bottle. “He is … confined. He was actually a transformed man. He spoke well of the lady griffin, but he … sends his regrets.”

The griffiness turned away, disappointed. Apparently she did not have a male of her own. Perhaps she would find a male of her kind soon—though with the alteration of form that was slowly taking place in such magical creatures, Bink wondered whether that male would be more like an eagle or more like a lion. Or would the present griffins retain their shapes, while their offspring would be eagles and lions? Suppose Crombie emerged from the bottle, but retained his griffin form; would he then find this griffiness worthwhile? If so, what would
their
offspring be? The loss of magic posed as many questions as the presence of magic!

“Come, we shall fête you royally tonight, and you shall tell us the whole story!” Trolla said.

“I, uh, I’m pretty tired,” Bink demurred. “I’d rather not tell the story. My friend the Good Magician—is missing, and so is the centaur, and the memories—”

“Yes, you need distraction,” Trolla agreed. “We do have a few leftover females, daughters of older villagers. They are very lonely at the moment, and—”

“Uh, no thanks, please,” Bink said quickly. He had broken too many hearts already! “Just some food, and a place to spend the night, if there’s room—”

“We’re short of room; our population has just doubled. But the girls will tend to you. It will give them something to do. They’ll be glad to share their rooms.”

Bink was too tired to protest further. But as it turned out, the “girls” were an assortment of fairies and lady elves who paid him flattering attention, but were not really interested in him as a man. They made a game out of feeding him odds and ends, each one putting her morsel in his mouth with her own little hands, twittering merrily. They wouldn’t let him have a plate; everything had to be trotted in from another room, piecemeal. Then he lay in a bed made out of thirty small colored pillows, while the fairies flitted around, the breeze from their gossamer wings fanning him. They could no longer fly, of course, and soon their wings would fall off as they reverted to mundane forms, but at the moment they were cute. He went to sleep counting the creatures that leaped merrily over him in the course of their game of follow-the-leader.

But in the morning he had to face reality again: the bleak journey home. He was glad his quest had done at least this little bit of good; perhaps his talent had planned it this way, before being nullified by the loss of magic, so as to provide him with a good, safe place for this night. But as for the rest of Xanth—what hope remained for it?

The griffiness accompanied him for a distance, guiding him again, and in a surprisingly brief time he was up to the dead forest: halfway familiar territory. It was no longer so different
from the rest of the wilderness. He thanked her, wished her well, and continued on alone, northward.

The loneliness closed in about him. The lack of magic was so pervasive and depressing! All the little amenities he was accustomed to were gone. There were no blue toads sitting on their squat vegetable stools, no Indian pipes wafting their sweet smoke aloft. No trees moved their branches out of his way, or cast avoidance-spells on him. Everything was hopelessly Mundane. He felt tired again, and not merely from the march. Was life really worthwhile, without magic?

Well, Chameleon would be locked in her “normal” phase, the one he liked best: neither pretty nor smart, but rather nice overall. Yes, he could live with that for some time before it got dull, assuming that he was allowed to—

He paused. He heard a clip-clop, as of hooves on a beaten path. An enemy? He hardly cared; it was company!

“Hallooo!” he cried.

“Yes?” It was a woman’s voice. He charged toward it.

There, standing on a beaten path, was a lady centaur. She was not especially pretty; her flanks were dull, her tail tangled with burrs (naturally a lady would not be able to curse them off), and her human torso and face, though obviously feminine, were not well proportioned. A colt followed her, and he was not only unhandsome, he was downright homely, except for his sleek hindquarters. In fact he resembled—

“Chester!” Bink exclaimed. “That’s Chester’s colt!”

“Why, you’re Bink,” the filly said. Now he recognized her: Cherie, Chester’s mate. Yet she was in no way the beauty he had ridden before. What had happened?

But he had enough sense to express himself obliquely. “What are you doing here? I thought you were staying in the centaur village until—” But that was a trap, too, for Chester would never return.

“I’m trotting to the palace to find out what is responsible for the miracle,” she said. “Do you realize that obscenity has been banished from Xanth?”

Bink remembered: Cherie considered magic obscene, at least when it manifested in centaurs. She tolerated it as a
necessary evil in others, for she regarded herself as a liberal-minded filly, but preferred to discuss it only clinically.

Well, he had the detail on it! He was glad that at least one person liked the change. “I’m afraid I’m responsible.”

“
You
abolished magic?” she asked, startled.

“It’s a long story,” Bink said. “And a painful one. I don’t expect others to accept it as well as you will.”

“Get on my back,” she said. “You travel too slow. I’ll take you in to the palace, and you can tell me the whole story. I’m dying to know!”

She might be dying literally, when she learned the truth about Chester. But he had to tell her. Bink mounted and hung on as she broke into a trot. He had anticipated a daylong march, but now this would be unnecessary; she would get them to the palace before dark.

He told her the story. He found himself going into more detail than strictly necessary, and realized this was because he dreaded the denouement—where Chester had fought his dreadful battle and lost. True, he might have won, had the evil eye intended for Bink not stunned him—but that would be scant comfort to her. Cherie was a widow—and he had to be the one to tell her.

His narrative was interrupted by a bellow. A dragon hove into view—but it was a miserable monster. The once-bright scales had faded into mottled gray. When it snorted fire, only dust emerged. The thing was already looking gaunt and ill; it depended on magic for its hunting.

Nevertheless, the dragon charged, intent on consuming centaur, rider, and colt. Bink drew his sword, and Cherie skittered lightly on her feet, ready to kick. Even a bedraggled dragon of this size was a terror.

Then Bink saw a scar on the dragon’s neck. “Say—don’t I know you?” he exclaimed.

The dragon paused. Then it lifted its head in a signal of recognition.

“Chester and Crombie and I met this dragon and made a truce,” Bink said. “We fought the nickelpedes together.”

“The nickelpedes are harmless now,” Cherie said. “Their
pincers have lost their—” She pursed her lips distastefully. “Their magic. I trotted right down inside the Gap and stepped on them and they couldn’t hurt me.”

Bink knew. “Dragon, magic is gone from Xanth,” Bink told it. “You’ll have to learn to hunt and fight without your fire. In time you will change into your dominant mundane component, or your offspring will. I think that would be a large snake. I’m sorry.”

The dragon stared at him in horror. Then it whipped about and half-galloped, half-slithered off.

“I’m sorry too,” Cherie said. “I realize now that Xanth isn’t really Xanth, without magic. Spells do have their place. Creatures like that—magic is natural to them.” This was a considerable concession, for her.

Bink resumed his narrative. He could stall no longer, so nerved himself and said what he had to. “So I have Crombie here in the bottle,” he concluded. And waited, aware of the awful tenseness in her body.

“But Chester and Humfrey—”

“Remain below,” he said. “Because I freed the Demon.”

“But you don’t know they are dead,” she said, her body still so tense that riding her was uncomfortable. “They can be found, brought back—”

“I don’t know how,” Bink said glumly. He didn’t like this at all.

“Humfrey’s probably just lost; that’s why you couldn’t find his body. Dazed by the collapse. Without his informational magic he could be confused for a goblin. And Chester—he’s too ornery to—to—he’s not dead, he’s just pickled. You said that was a preservative lake—”

“So I did,” Bink agreed. “I—but it was drained, so that I could see the convolutions of the brain coral.”

“It wasn’t drained all the way! He’s down there, deep below, I know it, like the griffin in the bottle. We can find him, revive him—”

Bink shook his head. “Not without magic.”

She bucked him off. Bink flew through the air, saw the ground coming at his head, knew that his talent would do
nothing—and landed in Cherie’s arms. She had leaped to catch him at the last moment. “Sorry, Bink. It’s just that obscenity bothers me. Centaurs don’t …” She righted him and set him on his feet, never completing her statement. She might not be beautiful now, but she had the centaur strength.

Strength, not beauty. She had been a magnificently breasted creature, in the time of magic; now she remained ample, but she sagged somewhat, as most human or humanoid females of similar measurement did. Her face had been delightfully pert; now it was plain. What could account for the sudden change—except the loss of magic?

“Let me get this straight,” Bink said. “You feel all magic is obscene—”

“Not
all
magic, Bink. For some of you it seems to be natural—but you’re only human. For a centaur it is a different matter. We’re civilized.”

“Suppose centaurs had magic too?”

Her face shaped into controlled disgust. “We had better be on our way before it gets too late. There is a fair distance yet to cover.”

“Like Herman the hermit, Chester’s uncle,” Bink persisted. “He could summon will-o’-the-wisps.”

“He was exiled from our society,” she said. Her expression had a surly quality that reminded him of Chester.

“Suppose other centaurs had magic—”

“Bink, why are you being so offensive? Do you want me to have to leave you here in the wilderness?” She beckoned to her colt, who came quickly to her side.

“Suppose you yourself had a magic talent?” Bink asked. “Would you still consider it obscene?”

“That does it!” she snorted. “I will not endure such obnoxious behavior, even from a human. Come, Chet.” And she started off.

“Damn it, filly, listen to me!” Bink cried. “You know why Chester came on my quest? Because he wanted to discover his own magic talent. If you deny magic in centaurs, you deny him—because he does have magic, good magic, that—”

She spun about, raising her forehooves to strike him down. A filly she might be, but she could kill him with a single blow.

Bink danced back. “Good magic,” he repeated. “Not anything stupid, like turning green leaves purple, or negative, like giving people hotfeet. He plays a magic flute, a silver flute, the most lovely music I ever heard. Deep inside he’s an awfully pretty person, but he’s suppressed it because—”

“I’m going to stomp you absolutely flat!” she neighed, smashing at him with both forefeet. “You have no right even to suggest—”

But he was cool, now, while she was half-blinded by rage. He avoided her strikes as he would those of a savage unicorn, without ever turning his back or retreating more than he had to. He could have stabbed her six times with his sword, but never drew it. This debate was all academic now, since magic was gone from Xanth, but he was perversely determined that she should admit the truth. “And you, Cherie—you have magic too. You make yourself look the way you want to look, you enhance yourself. It’s a type of illusion, restricted to—”

She struck at him with both forefeet at once, in a perfect fury. He was affronting her deepest sensitivities, telling her that she herself was obscene. But he was ready, anticipating her reactions, avoiding them. His voice was his sword, and he intended to score with it. He had had too much of delusion, his own especially; he would wipe the whole slate clean. In a way, it was himself he was attacking: his shame at what he had done to Xanth when he freed the Demon. “I challenge you,” he cried. “Look at yourself in a lake. See the difference. Your magic is gone!”

Even in her fury, she realized she was not getting anywhere. “All right I’ll look!” she cried. “Then I’ll kick you to the moon!”

As it happened, they had passed a small pond recently. They returned to it in silence, Bink already starting to be sorry for what he was doing to her, and the lady centaur looked at herself. She was certain what she would find, yet honest enough to have her certainty disrupted by the fact. “Oh, no!” she cried, shocked. “I’m homely, I’m hideous, I’m uglier than Chester!”

“No, you’re beautiful—with magic,” Bink insisted, wanting to make up for the revelation he had forced on her. “Because magic is natural to you, as it is to me. You have no more reason to oppose it than you do any other natural function, like eating or breeding or—”

“Get away from me!” she screamed. “You monster, you—” In another fit of fury she stamped her hoof in the pond, making a splash. But the water only settled back, as water did, and the ripples quieted, and the image returned with devastating import.

“Listen, Cherie!” Bink cried. “You pointed out that Chester can be rescued. I’m just building on that. I don’t dare open Crombie’s bottle because the process requires magic, and there is none. Chester must stay in the lake for the same reason, in suspended animation. We
need
magic. It doesn’t matter whether we
like
it. Without it, Chester is dead. We can’t get anywhere as long as you—”

With extreme reluctance, she nodded agreement. “I thought nothing would make me tolerate obscenity. But for Chester I would do anything. Even—” She gulped, and twitched her tail. “Even magic. But—”

“We need a new quest!” Bink said with sudden inspiration as he washed himself in the pond. “A quest to restore magic to the Land of Xanth! Maybe if we all work together, humans and centaurs and all Xanth’s creatures, we can find another Demon—” But he petered out, realizing the futility of the notion. How could they summon X(A/N)
^th
or E(A/R)
^th
or any other super-magical entity? The Demons had no interest in this realm.