Question Quest Part 21

"Of all the men who had come here, you alone have stayed to talk with me," the Gorgon continued pa.s.sionately. Even the little snakes of her hair looked at me beseechingly in the mirror. "I am so lonely! I beg, of you, stay with me and let me love you always."

I started to turn my face toward her, charmed by this maidenly appeal, but my companions warned me in time. I demurred, though the idea of being loved by such a woman was becoming increasingly attractive. I had been alone too long. "Gorgon, if I were to look at you directly-"

"Come, close your eyes if you must," she said urgently, not yet comprehending the danger she represented to men. "Kiss me. Let me show you how much love I have for you. Your least word is my command, if you will only stay!"

Oh, my, what temptation! Suddenly I realized how intense my own loneliness had become, these eight years since my fourth wife had departed for Mundania. (Fourth wife? Then why could I remember only three?) Young women had approached me in this time, but I knew it was my power as a Magician that appealed to them, not my body, which was wizened and gnomish, or my personality, which was grumpy. Certainly not for my mountain of used socks! So how could I trust their motives? But the Gorgon knew nothing of my background. She asked only my presence.

"My dear, I think not," I said with real regret. "Such a course would have its rewards-I hardly deny it!-and I might normally be inclined to dally with you a day or three, though love be blindfolded. But only a Magician could safely a.s.sociate with you, and-"

"Then dally a day or three!" she exclaimed, her bosom (containing two b.r.e.a.s.t.s, I was sure) heaving in a way that made me feel forty years younger. "Be blindfolded! I know no Magician would have interest in me, but even such a Magician could not be more wonderful than you, sir!"

She really didn't know! She was trying to flatter me one way, and succeeding in another. "How old are you, Gorgon?" I asked, wickedly tempted.

"I am eighteen! I am old enough!"

And I was a hundred and ten. What was I thinking of? This was the sort of game Metria liked to play with men. That healing elixir had preserved me remarkably, but how could I think of any dalliance with this virtual child? "I am too old," I said with deep regret. "Not all your flattery can change what I know to be true."

Her lovely face clouded over in the mirror. The snakes hung limply down as if completely suppressed. Tears overflowed her eyes and trailed down her cheeks. "Oh, sir, I beg of you-"

I sighed, yielding to an impulse I might later regret. "Perhaps, after my present quest is over, if you haven't changed your mind, if you would care to visit at my castle-"

"Yes, yes!" she cried eagerly. "Where is your castle?"

"Just ask for Humfrey. Someone will direct you. But you will have to wear a veil-no, even that would not suffice, for it is your eyes that-"

"Do not cover my eyes!" she protested. "I must see!"

"Let me consult." I rummaged through my collection of spells. I found one that might do the job: invisible makeup. "This is not ideal, but it will have to do. Hold this vial before your face and open it." I held it over my shoulder.

She did so. There was a pop as the cork came out, and then the hiss of the expanding vapor. It shrouded her face and disappeared-and her face went with it. There simply wasn't anything showing where it had been.

I lowered my mirror and turned to her. "But you said-" she protested, not realizing how she had changed.

I held the mirror up, facing her. She took it and held it up, gazing at her reflection. She made a little gasp.

Then she returned the mirror and stepped into me. She kissed me. How sweet it was! Her face was there, touchable, just not seeable.

"How long I have longed to do that, with someone," she murmured. "How I thank you, marvelous man!"

Then she stepped away, and I recovered as much of my equilibrium as was feasible. "Companions, you may now remove your blindfolds," I said. "The Gorgon has been nullified." That was a highly misleading statement; she had a greater effect on me than ever now.

The others cleared their blindfolds and gazed at the Gorgon for the first time. They were obviously impressed. I felt a certain suppressed pride.

I used my magic mirror to contact Castle Roogna and report on progress. Queen Iris answered, using her power of illusion to make her voice heard directly from the mirror. Her talent had certainly matured, but she showed scant appreciation for the training I had given her in her girlhood. That was the problem with power: it corrupted.

The Gorgon, hearing the Queen call me Good Magician, finally caught on to my status. It dampened her ardor not half a whit. She flung her arms around me and planted another invisible kiss on my mouth. Her hair-serpents, caught by surprise, hissed and snapped at my ear lobes. Fortunately they were too small to do much harm, and they weren't poisonous.

We made our way back to the Magic Dust Village and a.s.sured the women that no more men would be taken. Unfortunately I lacked the power to revert the stone men to life. The Gorgon might not be a full Sorceress, but her power was strong enough to withstand any spell I knew. That, perhaps, was part of her appeal. Certainly I remained somewhat distracted, after so unexpectedly encountering so intriguing a creature.

The ladies provided us with a griffiness as a guide. We were going on through the region of madness, where thick magic dust made things strange. This was the way Crombie's talent pointed. On the way we pa.s.sed a marvelous region of bugs, and I discovered a new species: a Crayon-Drawing Picture-Winged Beetle. I was thrilled, and made careful note of it.

Unfortunately, this region of intense magic had mischief for us. A midas fly buzzed us, getting set to land on me. Knowing the danger, I ducked so low I fell off Crombie. The fly was about to land on him instead, when the female griffin knocked him aside and intercepted the fly.

They touched-and suddenly she was a solid gold statue. She had saved us by sacrificing herself. Crombie was evidently shaken; how was the woman hater to react to a female who had given up her life for him? Her action was surely a considerable enigma to him. Of course she might not have done it had she realized that he was not the griffin he appeared, but I did not see fit to point that out.

Now we were without our guide, and we all understood the danger of our situation. It was late, so we had to camp for the night. We found the bones of an ancient sphinx, and made camp within their protection. Crombie's talent indicated that this was the safest place for us to be.

But our travails had hardly begun. Looking for food, Bink brought me something to check. I made an effort to freak out; probably only my age prevented me. "That's Blue Agony fungus!" I exclaimed. "Get rid of it!" For one bite of that would turn a person's whole body blue, and he would melt into a puddle that killed the surrounding vegetation. Yet Crombie's magic had indicated it was the best possible thing to eat. A second check caused him to indicate that it was the worst possible thing to eat, which was more accurate. What was going on?

After some confusion, we discovered that we were being confused by a chip of what was to become known as reverse-wood, that reversed the magic of the person who touched it. What a deadly effect that could be! I made a note. This variety of magic must have evolved after I did my survey of talents, as I had pa.s.sed through this region without encountering it before.

Then, in the night, things became more interesting. The constellations of the sky came to life. Chester got into a duel with a centaur constellation. Soon we were all climbing into the sky-until Grundy brought the reverse-wood and nullified some of the illusion. We were actually climbing a tree! This was certainly the region of madness!

Seeing our retreat, the constellations came down to the ground to attack us. When we fought them off, they dumped a sky river on us, trying to drown us. This was probably a thunderstorm in real life, but the effect was the same: we were drenched and miserable.

We were saved in the end, perhaps, by that same reverse-wood, because it caused Grundy Golem to reverse his selfish nature and care about us and help us make our way out. There was a certain irony in that, but we were beyond caring.

We proceeded on toward Lake Ogre-Chobee, where the curse fiends dwelt. I wanted to save a bit of that reverse-wood, because it could be useful, but when I tried to conjure it into a bottle, it reversed the spell and put me in the bottle instead. The others found that very funny. But after several tries I did manage to secure the wood. Then I investigated the source of the mysterious mounds of dirt that kept popping up near us. These turned out to be the work of squiggles, one of the branches of the great family of voles. The creatures zipped along just under the ground, leaving the dirt behind. Was it spying on us? If so, why? My magic mirror was not providing a clear answer. Perhaps the underground habitat of the creature obscured the image.

To safely approach the curse fiends, who it seemed were on our route to the source of magic, we had to diminish our number. I conjured Crombie and Grundy and me into a bottle, which Bink and Chester would carry. They would take water-breathing pills I had provided, so as to be able to walk on the bottom of the lake. I was not entirely sanguine about this arrangement, but we had to chance it.

Thus we found ourselves in a nicely carpeted chamber. The outside world seemed far removed. "Say, we're traveling in style!" Grundy remarked.

The griffin squawked. "Well, you'd think so if you were in manform, beak-brain!" the golem retorted, understanding Crombie perfectly.

I liked the magic mirror, which I had similarly shrunk. It showed what was happening outside the bottle better than the gla.s.s wall did, because the mirror lacked distortion and was not confined to Bink's pocket.

Bink and Chester walked under the lake and encountered the curse fiends. Wouldn't you know it: they managed to aggravate the fiends and had to plunge into the central whirlpool which traversed the underwater city. The bottle we were in-was flung free and went rushing out of control in the fierce current. We were in for it now!

It was a horrendous ride. I was trying to watch the outside realm in the mirror so that I could keep track of where we were, a.s.suming we survived. But the violence of the water made our chamber whirl around dozens of times. It banged into a wall or stone, and I went banging into the floor of our chamber. The mirror flew from my hand and shattered against the wall.

Then the motion ceased. I picked myself up, and Grundy and Crombie picked themselves up. We were shaken but not hurt. It could have been another story, had the bottle we were in smashed. As it was, the furniture was scattered and overturned, and part of the carpet had been wrenched askew.

"Next time, let's not let idiots carry us," Grundy said, and the griffin squawked agreement. I would have been hard put to disagree.

I picked up the largest fragment of the mirror. It remained operative; the magic was in the gla.s.s, not the shape or frame. I held it carefully. It remained oriented on Bink.

Bink was at this moment rousing from his strewn condition at the edge of the lake our bottle floated in. He dragged himself up, and found Chester Centaur. He picked up a shard of gla.s.s-and it was from the magic mirror! It must have flown right out from the bottle, though the bottle remained sealed. I wasn't sure exactly how that was possible; I would have to investigate the phenomenon when I had leisure.

Bink saw me in the shard. He waved. I waved back. We had established contact.

But already our bottle was being carried along in the current, and the lake was becoming a river. We had not been all that close to Bink and Chester to begin with, and now we were moving away from them.

"Well, we don't need to hide anymore," Grundy said. "Let's pop the cork and come out into the real world, before we get worse lost."

"Not applicable," I said, now tuning the fragment to the water around us.

"Why not?" he demanded in that obnoxious way of his.

"Several reasons. One is that I can't, as you so quaintly put it, pop the cork from inside. This bottle is designed to contain what is in it, whether it be hate elixir or a demon. The spell on the cork makes it impervious to pressure from inside. Another is that if we did get out, we would abruptly resume our full size, and quite possibly be stuck in a channel that is less than that size." I showed him a flash of the outside, where the river boundaries had constricted considerably. "A third is that the water may be poisonous. A fourth-"

The griffin squawked. "I agree," Grundy said dourly. "Three's enough."

There was nothing to do but ride along, hoping that Bink would in due course find us. Since he had the other shard from the magic mirror, this was possible. Then he could open the battle, and we would be reunited.

"What's the idiot doing now?" Grundy asked, evidently suffering a similar thought.

I reoriented the shard. Bink was now scrambling through a hole in the cavern wall. He came to a streamlet, and was about to w.a.n.gle a drink from it.

"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 pa.s.s the cork from inside," I reminded him grimly.

"Yes, but that shard of gla.s.s 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 pa.s.s," 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 a.s.similated 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 gla.s.s 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 ent.i.ties. 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 ent.i.ties 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-cla.s.s 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.

Chapter 14: Gorgon.

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 pa.s.sed, 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.