The Source of Magic

The Source of Magic

Pierce Anthony

Chapter 1

Closet Skeleton

The magic-sniffer ambled toward Bink, its long limber snout snuffling industriously. When the creature reached him it went into a frenzy of enthusiasm, snorting out flutelike notes, wagging its bushy tail, and prancing in a circle.

"Sure, I like you too, Sniffer!" Bink said, squatting to embrace it. The creature's snout kissed his nose wetly. "You were one of the first to believe in my magic, when-"

Bink paused, for the creature was acting strangely. It had stopped frisking and become subdued, almost frightened. "What's the matter, little friend?" Bink asked, concerned. "Did I say something to hurt your feelings? I apologize!" But the sniffer curled its tail between its legs and slunk away. Bink stared after it, chagrined. It was almost as if the magic had been turned off, causing the thing to lose its function. But Bink's talent, like all others, was inherent; it could not dissipate while he lived. Something else must have frightened the sniffer.

Bink looked about, feeling uneasy. To the east was the Castle Roogna orchard, whose trees bore all manner of exotic fruit, vegetables, and sundry artifacts like cherry bombs and doorknobs. To the south was the untamed wilderness of Xanth. Bink remembered how that jungle had herded him and his companions in here, seeming so menacing, way back when. Today the trees were basically friendly; they had only wanted a Magician to stay and make Castle Roogna great again. King Trent had done that. Now the considerable power of this region exerted itself for the benefit of the kingdom. Everything seemed to be in order.

Well, on with his business. There was to be a ball tonight, and his shoes were badly worn. He proceeded to the edge of the orchard where a stray shoe-tree had rooted. Shoes liked to move about, and often planted themselves in out-of-the-way places.

This one had several ripe shoes. Bink inspected individual ones without plucking them, until he was sure he had found a pair that fit him. Then he twisted them off, shook out the seeds, and put them carefully on his feet. They were quite comfortable, and looked nice because they were fresh.

He started back, walking with exaggerated motion to break in the shoes without scuffing them, his mind still nagged by the episode with the magic-sniffer. Was it an omen? Omens always came true, here in the Land of Xanth, but it was seldom possible to understand them properly until too late. Was something bad going to happen to him? That really seemed unlikely; Bink knew it was no exaggeration to assume that serious evil would have to fall on all Xanth before Bink himself was harmed. So it must be a misreading. The magic-sniffer had merely suffered a fit of indigestion, and had to scoot off.

Soon Bink was within sight of his home. It was a fine cottage cheese just off the palace grounds, which he had moved into when he married. The rind had long since hardened and lost the better part of its flavor, and the walls were fine-grained creamy-yellow petrified cheese. It was one of the most tasteful cottages in existence, but since he hadn't hollowed it out himself he didn't see fit to brag about it.

Bink took a deep breath, nerved himself, and opened the front rind-door. A sweetish waft of seasoned cheese blew out, together with a raucous screech.

"That you, Bink? About time! Where did you sneak off to, right when there's work to be done! You have no consideration at all, do you!"

"I needed shoes," he said shortly.

"Shoes!" she exclaimed incredulously. "You have shoes, idiot!"

His wife was much smarter than he, at the moment, Chameleon's intelligence varied with the time of month, as did her appearance. When she was beautiful, she was stupid-in the extreme, for both. When she was smart, she was ugly. Very smart and very ugly. At the moment she was at the height of the latter phase. This was one reason she was keeping herself secluded, virtually locked in her room.

"I need good-looking ones, tonight," he said, mustering patience. But even as the words were out he realized he had phrased it badly; any reference to good looks set her off. "The hell you do, dunce!"

He wished she wouldn't keep rubbing in his inferior Intelligence. Ordinarily she was smart enough not to do that. Bink knew he was no genius, but he wasn't Subnormal either; she was the one who was both. "I have to attend the Anniversary Ball," he explained, though of course she already knew that. "It would be an insult to the Queen if I attended sloppily dressed."

"Dolt!" she screamed from her hideaway. "You're attending in costume! No one will see your stinking shoes!"

Oops, that was right. He had made his trip for nothing.

"But that's all too typical of your selfishness," she continued with righteous ire. "Bugging off to the party to have a good time while I suffer home alone, chewing on the walls." That was literal; the cheese was old and hard, but she gnawed on it when she got angry, and she was angry most of the time now.

Still, he tried to be positive. He had only been married a year, and he loved Chameleon. He had known at the outset that there would be good times and bad times, and this was a bad time. A very bad time. "Why don't you come to the ball too, dear?"

She exploded with cynical wrath. "Me? When I'm looking like this? Spare me your feebleminded sarcasm!"

"But as you reminded me, it's a costume party. The Queen is cloaking every attendee in a disguise of her choosing. So no one will see-"

"You utter moronic nincompoop!" she bawled, and he had heard something crash.

Now she was throwing things, in a genuine temper tantrum. "How can I go to a party in any guise-when I'm nine months pregnant?"

And that was what was really bothering her. Not her normal smart-ugly phase, that she had lived with all her life, but the enormous discomfort and restriction of her pregnancy. Bink had precipitated that condition during her lovely-stupid phase, only to learn when she got smarter that she had not wanted such a commitment at this time. She feared her baby would be like her-or like him. She had wanted to find some spell to ensure that the child would be positively talented, or at least normal, and now it was up to blind chance. She had accepted the situation with extremely poor grace, and had not forgiven him. The smarter she got, and the more pregnant she got, the more intense her ire became.

Well, soon she would be over the hump, and getting prettier-just in time for the baby. It was due in a week or so. Maybe the baby would be normal, perhaps even strongly talented, and Chameleon's fears would be laid to rest. Then she would stop taking it out on him.

If, however, the baby were abnormal…but best not even think of that. "Sorry, I forgot," he mumbled.

"You forgot!" The irony in her tone cut through his sensitivities like a magic sword through the cheese of the cottage. "Imbecile! You'd like to forget, wouldn't you! Why didn't you think of that last year when you-"

"I have to go, Chameleon," he muttered, hastily retreating out the door. "The Queen gets upset when people are tardy." In fact it seemed to be the nature of women to get upset at men, and to throw tantrums. That was one of the things that distinguished them from nymphs, who looked like women but were always amenable to the idle whims of men. He supposed he should count himself lucky that his wife did not have a dangerous talent, like setting fire to people or generating thunderstorms.

"Why does the Queen have to throw her ridiculous pointless dull party now?" Chameleon demanded. "Right when she knows I can't attend?"

Ah, the logic of women! Why bother to try to understand it. All the intelligence in the Land of Xanth Could not make sense of the senseless, Bink closed the door behind him.

Actually, Chameleon's question had been rhetorical. They both knew the answer. Queen Iris took every Opportunity to flaunt her status, and this was the first anniversary of that status. Theoretically the ball was to honor of the King, but actually King Trent cared little for theatrics and would probably skip the festivities. The party was really for the Queen-and though she could not compel the King to attend, woe betide the lesser functionary who played hooky tonight! Bink was such a functionary. And why was this so, he asked himself as he trod glumly on. He was supposed to be an important person, title Royal Researcher of Xanth, whose duty it was to probe the mysteries of magic and report directly to the King. But with Chameleon's pregnancy, and the necessary organization of his homestead, Bink had not gotten around to any real research. For that he had only himself to blame, really. He should indeed have considered the consequence of impregnating his wife. At the time, fatherhood had been the last thing on his mind. But Chameleon-lovely was a figure to cloud man's mind and excite his-never mind!

Ah, nostalgia! Back when love was new, carefree, uncomplicated, without responsibility! Chameleon-lovely was very like a nymph-

No, that was a false feeling. His life before he met Chameleon had not been all that simple, and he had encountered her three times before he recognized her. He had feared he had no magic talent-

He shimmered-and suddenly his appearance changed. The Queen's costume had arrived. Bink was same person, mentally and physically, but now he looked like a centaur. The Queen's illusion, so he'd play the game she had devised, in her infinite acuity to generate minor mischief. Each person had to guess the identities of as many others as possible while making his way to the palace ballroom, and there was a prize for the one who guessed the most correctly.

In addition, she had set up a mock-maze-hedge around Castle Roogna. Even if he did not play the people-guessing game, he would be forced to thread his way through the giant puzzle. Damn the Queen!

But he had to go through with it, as did everyone else. The King wisely did not interfere with household matters, and gave the Queen considerable play on her tether. With resignation Bink entered the maze and began the laborious chore of threading his way through the network of false paths toward the castle.

Most of the hedge was illusion, but enough of it was anchored in reality to make it safest simply to honor the maze, rather than barging through. The Queen would have her fun, especially on this important First Anniversary of the King's coronation. She could get uglier than Chameleon when not humored.

Bink whipped around a corner-and almost collided with a zombie. The thing's wormy face dripped earth and goo, and the great square eye-sockets were windows of putrefaction. The smell was appalling.

Morbidly fascinated, Bink stared into those eyes. Far within their depths there seemed to be a faint illumination, as of moonlight on a haunted plain or glow-fungus feeding on the corpse's rotting brain. It was as if he could see through twin tunnels into the very source of its foul animation, and perhaps to the root of all the magic of Xanth. Yet it was a nightmare, for the zombie was one of the living dead, a horror that should be quickly buried and forgotten. Why had this one ripped free of its unquiet grave? The zombies normally roused themselves only in defense of Castle Roogna, and they had been passive since King Trent took over.

The zombie stepped toward him, opening its fossil mouth. "Vvooomm," it said, laboring to make the putrid gas that was its only breath form a word.

Bink backed away, sickened. He feared little in the Land of Xanth, for his physical prowess and magic talent made him one of the most subtly formidable people in the kingdom. But the peculiar discomfort and disgust entailed by dealing with a zombie unnerved him. He spun about and ran down a side avenue, leaving the undead thing behind. With its decayed articulation of bones and moldy flesh it could not match his speed, and did not even try.

Suddenly a gleaming sword rose up before him. Bink halted, amazed by this second apparition. He saw no person, no connections, just the weapon. What was the purpose of this illusion?

Oh-it must be another cute little trick of the Queen's. She liked to make her parties exciting and challenging. All he had to do was walk through the sword, calling the bluff of this ad hoc interference.

Yet he hesitated. The blade looked terribly real. Bink remembered his experience with Jama, as a youth. Jama's talent was the manifestation of flying swords, solid and sharp and dangerous for the few seconds they existed, and he tended to exert his talent arrogantly. Jama was no friend of Bink's, and if he were in the area-

Bink drew his own sword. "On guard!" he exclaimed, and struck at the other weapon, he was expecting his blade to pass through it without resistance. The Queen would be pleased her bluff had worked, and this way he was taking no risk, just incase-

The other sword was solid. Steel clanged on steel. Then the other weapon twisted about to disengage from his, and thrust swiftly at his chest

Bink parried and stepped aside. This was no temporary blade, and no mindlessly flying thing! Some invisible hand guided it, and that meant an invisible man.

The sword struck again, and again Bink parried. This thing was really trying to get him! "Who are you?" Bink demanded, but there was no answer.

Bink had been practicing with the sword for the past year, and his tutor claimed that he was an apt student. Bink had courage, speed, and ample physical power. He knew he was hardly expert yet, but he was no longer an amateur. He rather enjoyed the challenge, even with an invisible opponent

But a serious fight…was something else. Why was being attacked, on this festive occasion? Who was silent, secretive enemy? Bink was lucky that that the spell of invisibility had not affected the sword for then he would have had an awful time countering it. But every item of magic in Xanth was single; a sword could not carry its necessary charms of sharpness and hardness and also be invisible. Well, it was possible, for anything was possible with magic; but it was highly unlikely. At any rate, that weapon was all Bink needed to see.

"Halt!" he cried. "Desist, or I must counter you."

Again the enemy sword slashed at him ferociously. Bink was already aware that he faced no expert; the swordsman's style was more bold than skilled. Bink blocked the weapon off, then countered with a halfhearted thrust to his opponent's exposed midsection. There was only one place that midsection could be, visible or not, for a certain balance and position were essential in swordplay. Bink's strike was not hard enough to maim, but was sufficient to-

His blade passed right through the invisible torso without resistance. There was nothing there.

Bink, startled, lost his concentration and balance. The enemy sword thrust at his face. He ducked barely in time. His instructor, Crombie the soldier, had taught him such avoidance; but this escape was at least partly luck. Without his talent, he could have been dead.

Bink did not like to depend on his talent. That was the point in learning swordsmanship: to defend himself his own way, openly, with pride, without suffering the private snickers of those who assumed, naturally enough, that mere chance had helped him. His magic might stop or blunt an attack by having the attacker slip on a littered fruit rind; it didn't care about his pride. But when he won fairly with his sword, no one laughed. No one was laughing now, but still he did not like being attacked by a-what?

It must be one of the magic weapons of the King's private arsenal, and it was consciously directed. No way this could be the action of the King, however; King Trent never played practical jokes, and permitted no tampering with his weapons. Someone had activated this sword and sent it out to do mischief, and that person would shortly face the formidable wrath of the King.

That was little comfort to Bink at the moment, though. He didn't want to seem to hide behind the protection of the King. He wanted to fight his own battle and win. Except that he would have some problem getting at a person who wasn't there.

As he considered, Bink rejected the notion that a distant person could be wielding this weapon. It was magically possible, but as far as he knew he had no enemies; no one would want to attack him, by magical or natural means, and no one would dare do it with one of the King's own swords, in the garden of Castle Roogna.

Bink fenced with the enemy sword again, maneuvered it into a vulnerable position, and sliced through the invisible arm. No arm was there, of course. No doubt about it: the sword was wielding itself. He had never actually fought one of these before, because the King didn't trust the judgment of mindless weapons, so the experience was a novel one. But of course there was nothing inherently odd about it; why not do battle with a charmed sword?

Yet why should such a sword seek his life, assuming it was acting on its own? Bink had nothing but respect for bladed weapons. He took good care of his own sword, making sure the sharpness charm was in good order and never abusing the instrument. Swords of any type or creed should have no quarrel with him. Perhaps he had inadvertently affronted this particular sword. "Sword, if I have caused you distress or wronged you, I apologize and proffer amends," he said. "I do not wish to fight you without reason."

The sword cut ferociously at his legs. No quarter there!

"At least tell me what your grievance is!" Bink exclaimed, dancing away just in time.

The sword continued its attack relentlessly.

"Then I must put you out of commission," Bink said, with mixed regret, ire, and anticipation. Here was a real challenge! For the first time he took a full defensive posture, fencing the sword with skill. He was a better man than it, he could not strike down the wielder of that sword, because there was none. Nobody to pierce, no hand to slice. The sword showed no sign of tiring; magic powered it. How, then, could he overcome it?

This was more of a challenge than he had supposed! Bink was not worried, because he found it hard to worry about a skill less than his own. Yet if the opposition were invulnerable-

Still, his talent would not allow the sword to hurt him. A sword wielded by a man in ordinary fashion could damage him, because that was mundane; but when magic was involved, he was safe. In Xanth, hardly anything was completely unmagical, so he was extremely well protected. The question was, was he going to prevail honestly, by his own skill and courage, or by some fantastic-seeming coincidence? If he didn't do it the first way, his talent would do it the second way.

Again he maneuvered the sword into a vulnerable position, then struck it across the flat of the blade, hoping to snap it oft short. This did not work; the metal was too strong. He had not really expected such a ploy to be effective; strength was one of the basic charms built into modern swords. Well, what next?

He heard the clop-clop of someone approaching. He had to wrap this up quickly, or suffer the embarrassment of being rescued. His talent didn't care about his pride, just his body.

Bink found himself backed up against a tree-a real one. The hedge-maze had been superimposed on existing vegetation, so that everything became part of that puzzle. This was a gluebark tree: anything that penetrated the bark was magically stuck to it. Then the tree slowly grew around the object, absorbing it. Harmless, so long as the bark was intact; children could safely climb the trunk and play in its branches, as long as they did not use cleats. Woodpeckers stayed well away from it So Bink could lean against it, but had to be careful not to-

The enemy sword slashed at his face. Bink was never sure, afterward, whether his inspiration came before or after his action. Probably after, which meant that his talent was inoperation again despite his effort to avoid that. At any rate, instead of parrying this time, he ducked.

The sword passed over his head and smacked into the tree, slicing deeply into the bark. Instantly the tree's magic focused, and the blade was sealed in place. It wrenched and struggled, but could not escape. Nothing could beat the specific magic of a thing in its own bailiwick! Bink was the victor.

"'Bye, Sword," he said, sheathing his own weapon. "Sorry we couldn't visit longer." But behind his flippancy was a certain grim disquiet: who or what had incited this magic sword to slay him? He must, after all, have an enemy somewhere, and he didn't like that. It wasn't so much any fear of attack, but a gut feeling of distress that he should be disliked to that extent by anyone, when he tried so hard to get along.

He ducked around another corner-and smacked into a needle-cactus. Not a real one, or he would have become a human pincushion; a mock one.

The cactus reached down with a prickly branch and gripped Bink by the neck. "Clumsy oaf!" it snorted. "Do you wish me to prettify your ugly face in the mud?"

Bink recognized that voice and that grip. "Chester!" he rasped past the constriction in his neck. "Chester Centaur!"

"Horseflies!" Chester swore. "You tricked me into giving myself away!" He eased his terrible grip slightly. "But now you'd better tell me who you are, or I might squeeze you like this." He squeezed, and Bink thought his head was going to pop off his body. Where was his talent now?

"Fink! Fink!" Bink squeaked, trying to pronounce his name when his lips would not quite close. "Stink!"

"I do not stink!" Chester said, becoming irritated. That made his grip tighten. "Not only are you homely as hell, you're impertinent." Then he did a double take. "Hey-you're wearing my face!"

Bink had forgotten: he was in costume. The centaur's surprise caused him to relax momentarily, and Bink snatched his opportunity. "I'm Bink! Your friend! In illusion guise!"

Chester pondered. No centaur was stupid, but this one tended to think with his muscles. "If you're trying to fool me-"

"Remember Herman the hermit? How I met him in the wilderness, and he saved Xanth from the wiggle swarm with his will-o'-the-wisp magic? The finest centaur of them all!"

Chester finally put Bink down. "Uncle Herman," be agreed, smiling. The effect was horrendous on the cactus-face. "I guess you're okay. But what are you doing in my form?"

"The same thing you're doing in cactus form," Bink said, massaging his throat. "Attending the masquerade ball." His neck did not seem to be damaged, so his talent must have let this encounter be.

"Oh, yes," Chester agreed, flexing his needles eloquently. "The mischief of Good Queen Iris, the bitch-Sorceress. Have you found a way into the palace yet?"

"No. In fact, I ran into a-" But Bink wasn't sure he wanted to talk about the sword just yet "A zombie."

"A zombie!" Chester laughed. "Pity the poor oaf in that costume!"

A costume! Of course! The zombie had not been real; it had merely been another of the Queen's illusion-costumes. Bink had reacted as shortsightedly as Chester, fleeing it before discovering its identity. And thereby encountering the sword, which certainly had not been either costume or illusion. "Well, I don't much like this game anyway," he said.

"I don't go for the game either," Chester agreed. "But the prize-that is worth a year of my life."

"By definition," Bink agreed morosely. "One Question Answered by the Good Magician Humfrey-free. But everyone's competing for it; someone else will win."

"Not if we get hoofing!" Chester said. "Let's go unmask the zombie before it gets away!"

"Yes," Bink agreed, embarrassed by his previous reaction.

They passed the sword, still stuck in the tree. "Finders keepers!" Chester exclaimed happily, and put his hand to it.

"That's a gluebark; it won't let go."

But the centaur had already grasped the sword and yanked. Such was his strength there was a shower of bark and wood. But the sword did not come free.

"Hm," Chester said. "Look, tree-we have a glue-bark in Centaur Village. During the drought I watered it every day, so it survived. Now all I ask in return is this sword, that you have no use for."

The sword came free. Chester tucked it into his quiver of arrows, fastening it in place with a loop of the coil of rope he also carried. Or so Bink guessed, observing the contortions of the cactus. Bink had put a hand to his own sword, half-fearing a renewal of hostilities, but the other weapon was quiescent. Whatever had animated it was gone.

Chester became aware of Bink's stare. "You just have to understand trees," he said, moving on, "It's true of course; a centaur never lies. I did water that tree. It was more convenient than the privy."

So this gluebark had given up its prize. Well, why not? Centaurs were indeed generally kind to trees, though Chester had no particular love for needle-cactuses. Which was no doubt why the Queen in her humor had imposed this costume on him.

They came to the place where Bink had encountered the zombie, but the awful thing was gone. Only a slimy chunk of dirt lay in the path. Chester nudged it with one forehoof. "Real dirt-from a fake zombie?" he inquired, puzzled. "The Queen's illusions are getting better."

Bink nodded agreement. It was a disquieting note. Obviously the Queen had extended the illusion greatly-but why should she bother? Her magic was strong, far beyond the talents of ordinary people, for she was one of the three Magician-class citizens of Xanth. But it had to be a strain on even her power to maintain every detail of every costume of every person attending the masquerade. Bink and Chester's costumes were visual only, or it would have been difficult for them to converse.

"Here is a fresh pile of dirt," Chester remarked. "Real dirt, not zombie dirt." He tapped at it with a cactus foot that nevertheless left a hoofprint. "Could the thing have gone back into the ground here?"

Curious, Bink scraped at the mound with his own loot There was nothing inside it except more dirt. No Zombie. "Well, we lost him," Bink said, upset for a reason he could not quite fathom. The zombie had seemed so real! "Let's just find our way into the palace, instead of making fools of ourselves out here."

Chester nodded, his cactus-head wobbling ludicrously. "I wasn't guessing people very well anyway," he admitted. "And the only question I could ask the Good Magician doesn't have any answer."

"No answer?" Bink asked as they turned into another channel.

"Since Cherie had the colt-mind you, he's a fine little centaur, bushy-tailed-she doesn't seem to have much time for me anymore. I'm like a fifth hoof around the stable. So what can I-?"

"You, too!" Bink exclaimed, recognizing the root of his own bad mood. "Chameleon hasn't even had ours yet, but-" He shrugged.

"Don't worry-she won't have a colt."

Bink choked, though it really wasn't funny.

"Fillies-can't run with them, can't run without them," Chester said dolefully.

Suddenly a harpy rounded a corner. There was another scramble to avoid a collision. "You blind in the beak?" Chester demanded. "Flap off, birdbrain."

"You have a vegetable head?" the harpy retorted in a fluting tone. "Clear out of my way before I sew you up in a stinking ball with your own dull needles."

"Dull needles!" Chester, somewhat belligerent even in the best of moods, swelled up visibly at this affront. Had he actually been a cactus, he would have fired off a volley of needles immediately-and none of those darts looked dull. "You want your grimy feathers crammed up your snotty snoot?"

It was the harpy's turn to swell. Most of its breed were female, but this one was male: more of the Queen's rather cutting humor. "Naturally," the bird-man fluted. "Right after you have the juice squeezed out of your pulp, greenface."

"Oh, yeah?" Chester demanded, forgetting that centaurs were not common brawlers. Harpy and cactus squared off. The harpy was evidently a considerably larger creature, one that never had to take any guff off strangers. That odd, half-musical mode of speech-

"Manticora!" Bink exclaimed.

The harpy paused. "One point for you, Centaur. Your voice sounds familiar, but-"

Startled, Bink reminded himself that he was in the guise of a centaur at the moment, so that it was himself, not Chester, the creature addressed, "I'm Bink. I met you when I visited the Good Magician, way back when-"

"Oh, yes. You broke his magic mirror. Fortunately he had another. Whatever became of you?"

"I fell upon evil times. I got married."

The manticora laughed musically. "Not to this cactus, I trust?"

"Listen, thing-" Chester said warningly.

"This really is my friend, Chester Centaur," Bink said quickly. "He's the nephew of Herman the hermit, who saved Xanth from the-"

"I knew Herman!" the Manticora said. "Greatest centaur there ever was, even before he gave his noble life for his country. Only one I know who wasn't ashamed of his magic talent. His will-o'-the-wisps led me out of a dragon warren once. When I learned of his death, I was so sad I went out and stung a small tangle tree to death. He was so much better than those hoof-headed equines of the common herd who exiled him-" He broke off. "No offense, Cactus, you being his nephew and all. I may have a target to sting with you, but I would not affront the memory of that remarkable hermit"

There was no surer route to Chester's favor than praise of his hero-uncle, as perhaps the manticora knew. "No offense!" he said instantly. "Everything you said is true! My people exiled Herman because they thought magic in a centaur was obscene. Most of them still do. Even my own filly, as nice a piece of horseflesh as you'd care to-" He shook his cactus-head, becoming aware of the impropriety. "They are hoofheads."

"Times are changing," the manticora said. "One day all the centaurs will be flaunting their talents instead of flouting them." He made a gesture with his harpy wings. "Well, I must go identify some more people, not that I need the prize. It's merely a challenge." He moved on. Bink marveled again at the humor of the Queen, to costume as a harpy such a formidable creature as a manticora, who possessed the head of a man with triple jaws, body of a lion, wings of a dragon, and tail of a monstrous scorpion. Certainly one of the most deadly monsters of the Land of Xanth-rendered into the likeness of one of the most disgusting. Yet the manticora was bearing up with grace, and playing the game of charades and costumes. Probably he felt secure in the knowledge that he had a soul, and so he cared little for appearances.

"I wonder if I have a magic talent?" Chester mused, sounding a trifle guilty. The transition from obscenity to pride was indeed a difficult one!

"If you won the prize, you could find out," Bink pointed out.

The cactus brightened. "That's right!" This was evidently the unanswerable question Chester had had in mind, unvoiced. Then the cactus dulled. "But Cherie would never let me have a talent, not even a little one. She's awfully prudish about that sort of thing"

Bink remembered the filly's prim attitude, and nodded. Cherie Centaur was one fine figure of a filly, and well able to handle the general magic of Xanth, but she could not abide it in any centaur. It reminded Bink of his own mother's attitude about sex in young humans. For animals it was natural, but when something like a wild-oats nymph was involved-well, Chester did have a problem.

They turned another corner-corners abounded in this infernal maze-and there was the palace gate, shining beyond the drawbridge over the moat. "Let's get over there before the maze changes!" Bink exclaimed.

They ran toward it-but even as they did, the hedge-pattern shimmered and fogged. The awful thing about this puzzle-pattern was its instability; at irregular intervals it shifted into new configurations, so that it was Impossible to solve it methodically. They were going to be too late to break out.

"I'm not stopping now!" Chester cried. The sound of cactus-galloping became louder. "Get on my back!"

Bink didn't argue. He made a leap for the prickliest portion of the cactus, grimacing in half-expectation of a crotchful of needles. He landed neatly on Chester's back, which felt quite equine. Phew!

At the feel of that impact, Chester accelerated. Bink had ridden a centaur before, when Cherie had kindly given him a lift-but never a powerhouse like this! Chester was husky even by centaur standards, and now he was in a hurry. The huge muscles pulsed along his body, launching him forward with such ferocity that Bink was afraid he would be hurled off as fast as he had landed. But he clutched two handfuls of mane and hung on, confident that his talent would protect him even from this.

Few residents of Xanth were aware of Bink's talent, and he himself had been ignorant of it the first twenty-five years of his life. This was because of the way the talent clouded itself, hiding from publicity. It prevented him from being harmed by magic-but anyone who knew this could then harm him by mundane means. So Bink's talent shrouded itself in seeming coincidence. Only King Trent, besides Bink himself, knew the truth. Good Magician Humfrey probably suspected, and Chameleon had to have an idea.

A new hedge formed between them and the gate. It was probably illusion, since they had just seen the gate. Chester plunged through it-and sent branches flying. No illusion; this time it must have been the gate that was the illusion. The Sorceress Queen could make things disappear, by creating the illusion of open space; he should have remembered that before.

What drive this creature had! Invisible foliage tore at Bink like the winds of a tempest, but he clung tight. Another barrier appeared; Chester veered to follow a new channel that went his way, then smashed past another cross-hedge. Once this centaur got moving, pity the man, beast, or plant that got in his way!

Suddenly they were out of the maze and at the moat But Chester's veer had brought him to it twenty paces to the side of the drawbridge, and there was no room to make a course correction. "Hang on!" Chester cried, and leaped.

This time the thrust was so great that Bink ripped a double handful of mane out of the centaur's hide and still slid off the rear. He tumbled end over end and splashed into the moat.

Immediately the moat-monsters converged, jaws gaping eagerly. They were ever alert; they would have been fired, otherwise. A huge serpent looped down, each glistening tooth as long as one of Bink's fingers. From the other side a purple croc opened its gnarly proboscis, showing off teeth that were even longer. And directly under Bink, rising from the swirling moat-mud, came a behemoth, its back so broad it seemed to fill the entire moat.

Bink thrashed madly in the water, trying to swim to safety, knowing that no man could escape any one of these monsters, let alone all three. The behemoth came up, lifting him half out of the water; the croc came across, its jaws parting cavernously; the serpent struck with lightning velocity from above.

And croc and serpent collided, their teeth throwing off sparks as they clashed. Both monsters were shunted aside by the mass of the rising behemoth-and Bink slid down that lifting slope as on a greased skid, away from the teeth and safely to the stone-lined inner wall of the moat. An amazing coincidence-

That was his talent operating, saving him once again from his own folly. Trying to ride a galloping centaur that looked like a cactus-he should have picked his way out of the maze the way the others were doing. He was just lucky that both centaurs and moat-monsters were magical, so that his talent could function.

Chester had landed safely, and was on hand to haul him out of the moat. With one hand the centaur lifted Bink clear, hardly seeming to exert himself. But his voice shook. "I thought-when you fell among those monsters-I never saw anything like-"

"They weren't really hungry," Bink said, preferring to disparage the significance of the event. "They were just playing with their food, and overdid it. Let's go on inside. They must be serving the refreshments by now."

"Hey, yes!" Chester agreed. Like all powerful creatures, he had a chronic appetite.

"Hay, yes," Bink muttered, centaurs did not eat hay, despite what detractors it may imply.

They moved to the castle-and the illusions faded, the spell was off, here they were themselves again, Bink and the centaur. "You know, I never realized how homely my face was, until I saw it on you," Chester laid musingly.

"But you have an exceedingly handsome posterior," Bink pointed out

"True, true," the centaur agreed, mollified. "I always said Cherie didn't become my mate for my face."

Bink started to laugh, but realized his friend was serious. Also, they were at the entry now, and others were within earshot.

The guard at the palace gate frowned. "How many you guess, Bink?" he inquired, pad poised for an answer.

"One, Crombie," Bink said, indicating Chester. Then be remembered the manticora. "Two, rather."

"You're out of the running, then," Crombie said. "The leading contestant has twelve." He glanced at Chester. "You?"

"I didn't want the prize anyway," the centaur said

"You folk haven't been trying," Crombie said. "If I'd been out there, instead of stuck here running errands for the Queen-"

"I thought you liked this palace job," Bink said. He had first encountered Crombie when the man soldiered for the prior King.

"I like it-but I like adventure better. The King's okay, but-" Crombie scowled. "Well, you know the Queen."

"All fillies are difficult," Chester said. "It's their nature; they can't help it, even if they wanted to."

"Right you are!" Crombie agreed heartily. He was original woman-hater. "And the ones with the biggest magic-who else would have dreamed up idiocy of a masquerade? She just wants to show off her sorcery."

"She hasn't got much else to show off," Chester said. " The King pays no attention to her."

"The King's one smart Magician!" Crombie agreed. "When she's not making mischief like this, this palace guard duty is dull as hell. I wish I were out on a man's mission, like the time when Bink and I-"

Bink smiled reminiscently. "Wasn't that Technicolor hailstorm something? We camped out under the quiescent tangle tree-"

"And the girl ran off," Crombie agreed. "Those were the days!"

Surprised, Bink found himself agreeing. The adventure had not seemed like fun at the time, but in retrospect it had a certain twilight luster. "You told me she was a threat to me."

"And she was," Crombie said. "She married you, didn't she?"

Bink laughed, but it was a trifle forced. "We'd better get on in before the refreshments are gone." He turned-and almost stumbled over another little mound of dirt "You have moles around the palace?" he inquired with a certain edge.

Crombie squinted at the dirt. "That wasn't there a moment ago. Maybe a magic mole was attracted by the party. I'll notify the head grounds keeper, when I get off shift"

Bink and Chester moved on in. The palace ballroom had been decorated by Queen Iris, naturally. It was an undersea setting, with streamers of seaweed rising from the rocky deeps, and brightly colored fish swimming through, and barnacles on the walls. Here and there were subaqueous beaches of fine white sand, which shifted location magically, so that if a person stood still the scenery would come to him. A large serpentine sea monster coiled around the entire area, its pulsing, convoluted coils showing here and there in lieu of the walls.

Chester glanced around. "She's a bitch, and she shows off, but I have to admit her magic is impressive. But I'm worried about the quantity of food; if there isn't enough-"

There turned out to be no danger of a shortage. The refreshments were mountainous, and under the personal guard of Queen Iris. She had a picklepuss on a little leash. Whenever someone had the temerity to take a delicacy, the picklepuss pickled it. "No one eats it until the grand prize is awarded," Iris announced, glaring about. Since she had garbed herself as a warrior-queen-mermaid, complete with spiked crown, trident, and powerful tail, and the points of the trident glistened with a coating of slime that was probably illusion too but just might possibly be genuine poison, this was an effective enough deterrent even without the picklepuss.

Bink and Chester separated, mixing with the other guests. Just about every creature of note in Xanth was present, except for Chester's filly Cherie, who was no doubt still wrapped up in the colt, and Bink's Chameleon, wrapped up in her misery. And the Good Magician Humfrey, who never socialized voluntarily.

Bink spotted his father Roland, down from the North Village. Roland was careful not to embarrass Bink by any overt show of affection; They shook hands

"Nice shoes, son."

This was nevertheless a miscue, after the scene with Chameleon. "Fresh from the tree," Bink said awkwardly.

"What have you been doing these past few months?" Bubbles rose from Roland's mouth as he spoke, quivering spherically as they sought the surface of the ocean. When Queen Iris put on an illusion, it was some illusion! Ordinary citizens, with their motley individual magic talents, could only look upon the works of the Sorceress and despair. Which was, of course, why the Queen was putting on this show.

"Oh, practicing with the sword, tilling the garden, that sort of thing," Bink said.

"I understand Chameleon is expecting momentarily."

"That, too," Bink said, again experiencing the frustration of his situation.

"A son will help fill the house."

Provided it turned out to be a normal, talented son. Bink changed the subject. "We have a delicate young slipper plant just blossoming; I think it will bear her first pair of slippers soon."

"The ladies will be pleased," Roland said gravely, as if this were significant news. Suddenly Bink realized that he had very little to show for his past year. What had he accomplished? Virtually nothing. No wonder he felt out of sorts!

The illumination dimmed. It was as if dusk were falling, causing the sea to darken, too. But the diffused daylight was replaced by nocturnal fluorescence. The flotation sacs on the seaweed glowed like little lamps, and the neon-coral was brightly outlined in assorted colors. Even the puffy sponges emitted wan beams. The animal life had sharper light, with electric eels flashing searchlight beams, and assorted fish shone translucently. The overall effect was bewilderingly beautiful.

"If only her personality were as excellent as her taste," Roland murmured, referring to the Queen.

"We shall now award the door prize," Queen Iris announced. She glowed most of all: streams of light emanated from the points of her crown and trident, and her beautifully bare mermaid torso was clearly outlined. She was the mistress of illusion; she could make herself as lovely as she chose, and she chose well.

"I understand it was a marriage of convenience," Roland continued. Though no Magician himself, Roland was the King's regent north of the Gap, and did not hold royalty in awe. "It must be extremely convenient at times."

Bink nodded, slightly embarrassed by his father's evident appreciation of the well-displayed if illusory charms of the Queen. The man was bordering on fifty, after all! Yet it had to be true. The King professed no love for the Queen, and governed that temperamental woman with a subtly iron hand that amazed those who had known Iris before her marriage. Yet she thrived under that discipline. Those who knew the King well understood that not only was he a more powerful Magician than she, he was also a stronger person. In fact, it looked as if the magic Land of Xanth had its most effective King since the Fourth Wave Reign of Roogna, the builder of this castle-palace. Already formidable changes were occurring; the magic shield that had protected Xanth from intrusion had been removed, and Mundane creatures are allowed to cross the border. The first to cross had been the members of the King's former Mundane army; they had been settled in wilderness regions and were becoming productive citizens of Xanth. The requirement that each citizen demonstrate a magic talent had been abolished-and to the amazement of some conservatives, chaos had not resulted. People were becoming known and respected for their total qualities, not just the accident of their magic. Selected parties were exploring nearby Mundania, where no magic existed, and outlying guard posts were being established so that no invasion could happen by surprise. The King had not destroyed the shieldstone; he would restore the shield if it were ever needed.

At any rate, Bink was sure King Trent had an eye for all things good and useful, including the flesh of fair women, and the Queen was his to command. She could and would be anything the King wished, and he would not be human if he did not avail himself of this, at least on occasion. The question was, what did he want? This was common palace speculation, and the prevailing opinion was that the King wanted variety. The Queen seldom appeared in the same guise twice.

"Palace Guard, your report," the Queen demanded peremptorily.

Soldier Crombie came forward slowly. He was resplendent in his palace uniform, every inch the soldier in a kingdom that hardly needed soldiers. He could fight well and savagely with sword or bare hands and did not like serving as lackey to a woman-and he showed it. Therefore she enjoyed ordering him about. But she could not push him too far, for his loyalty was to the King, and the King's favor lay on him.

"The winner-" Crombie began, consulting his notes.

"No, not that way, idiot!" she exclaimed, blotting him out with a cloud of diffusing dye. More illusion, of course, but quite effective. "First you give the runner-up, then you give the winner. Do something right, for a change."

Crombie's scowling face emerged from the thinning illusion "Women!" he muttered with caustically.

The Queen smiled, enjoying his ire. "The runner-up, with nine correct identifications, is-" He scowled again. "A woman. Bianca of the North Village."

"Mother!" Bink breathed, surprised.

"She always did enjoy guessing games," Roland said with pride. "I think you inherit your intelligence as well as your looks from her."

"And my courage and strength from you," Bink said, appreciating the compliment.

Bianca walked sedately to the stage area. She was a handsome woman who in youth had been beautiful, and unlike the Queen she was genuine. Her talent was the replay, not illusion.

"So the distaff proves itself again," the Queen said, smirking at Crombie the woman-hater. "The prize is-" She paused. "Doorman, fetch the second prize. You should have had it ready."

Crombie's scowl became truly ominous, but he walked to a cabinet half concealed by seaweed and brought out a covered container.

"The prize is," the Queen repeated, then whipped off the cover. "A potted snapdragon!"

There was a murmur of well-meaning awe and envy from the ladies present as the plant's several flower-heads flexed about on their stems, snapping viciously. Snapdragons were very good for eliminating insect and animal pests, and served as useful guards for houses. Woe to the intruder who stepped in or near such a plant! But they did not take readily to potting, so that a special and rather difficult spell was necessary to confine them. Thus wild snapdragons were common enough, but potted ones rare and much prized.

Bianca showed her pleasure as she accepted the plant, turning her face away with a smile as a little dragon-head snapped at her nose. Part of the potting process included a spell to render the plant harmless to its owner, but it took a while for it to get to know that owner. "It's beautiful," she said. "Thank you, Queen Iris." Then, diplomatically: "You're beautiful too-but not the same way."

The Queen snapped her teeth in mock imitation of the snapdragon, then smiled graciously. She craved the recognition and praise of such established and reputable citizens as Bianca, for Iris had lived in semi-exile for years before assuming the crown. "Now the top winner, servitor," she said to Crombie. "This time give it some flair, if you have any."

"The winner, with thirteen correct identities," Crombie drawled without flair, "is Millie the ghost." And he shrugged as if to express bemusement at yet another female success. He had made the count, so he knew the contest wasn't rigged. However, it was generally understood that the men had not been trying very hard.

The pretty, young-seeming ghost floated up. She was in her fashion both the youngest and the oldest of Castle Roogna's inhabitants. She had been in her teens when she died over eight hundred years before. When Bink first saw her she had been a formless blob of vapor, but since the occupancy of the castle by mortals she had shaped up until her outline was as firm and sightly as that of any living woman. She was a very sweet ghost, well liked by all, and there was applause at her victory.

"And the grand prize is-" The Queen spread her hands dramatically. "This certificate for one free Answer by the Good Magician Humfrey!" There was background fanfare, punctuated by magically augmented applause, as she handed the paper to the ghost.

Millie hesitated. Having no physical substance, she could not carry the certificate.

"That's all right," the Queen said. "I'll just write your name on it, and Magician Humfrey will know it's yours. In fact, he's probably watching us in his magic mirror at this moment Why don't you ask your question now?"

Millie's reply was inaudible, for she could hardly speak above a ghostly whisper.

"Don't be concerned; I'm sure everyone will be glad to help," the Queen said. "Here-we'll write it down on the magic slate, and Magician Humfrey can respond in the same way." She gestured at Crombie. "Flunky, the slate!"; Crombie paused, but his curiosity made him go along with it. He fetched the slate. The Queen conscripted the nearest centaur, who happened to be Chester (who had been trying without success to sneak a cookie from the refreshment stand without having it pickled), to transcribe the ghost's inaudible words. Centaurs were literate; many of them were teachers, so writing chores fell naturally to them.

Chester did not like the Queen's attitude much better than Crombie did, but he also played along. What possible Question could a ghost have for the Magician? He wrote in flourishing capitals: HOW CAN MILLIE LIVE AGAIN?

There was more applause. The guests liked that Question. It was a challenging one-and the Answer, given publicly, might provide insights for them all. Usually Magician Humfrey's Answers cost the asker a year's service, and were given only to the one who asked. This party was getting interesting!

The words disappeared as if erased by an invisible sponge. Then the Magician's Answer showed: THE REQUIREMENTS ARE 3REE: 1RST--YOU MUST HAVE THE TRUE WILL TO BECOME MORTAL.

It was evident that Millie did. She gestured imploringly at the slate to continue, so that she could know whether the other requirements were similarly easy-or impossible. Technically, as the common saying went, nothing was impossible with magic, but in practice some spells were prohibitively difficult. Bink yearned with her: he had once longed as ardently for a magic talent, upon which his citizenship, welfare, and self-respect then depended. To one who had died prematurely, but not expired, what a tremendous hope mortality might be! Of course, if Millie lived, she would also die, in due course. But really she would be completing the life she had started, so many centuries ago. As a ghost she was in hiatus, unable to affect her destiny materially, unable to love and fear and feel.

Well, no, Bink corrected himself. Obviously she did feel-but not in the fashion physical people did. She could not experience bodily pleasure or pain.

2COND, the slate continued, YOU MUST HAVE A SPELL DOCTOR RESTORE YOUR TALENT TO OPTIMUM POTENCY.

"Is there a spell doctor in the house?" the Queen inquired, looking about, her points flashing. "No? Very well, errand boy-point out the nearest spell doctor."

Crombie started a snarl, but again was overcome by curiosity. He closed his eyes, spun about, and extended his right arm. It came to rest pointing northeast.

"That would be the Gap Village," the Queen said. There was a spell on the Gap that rendered the giant crevice that separated Xanth into the northern and southern sections unmemorable, but a spot counter-spell had been applied to the Castle so that inhabitants and visitors could remember such things. The King would have had trouble governing properly if he could not remember so critical a feature of the landscape as the Gap! "Where is our transporter?"

"On my way, Your Highness," a man said. He sighted along the line Crombie was pointing out, concentrated-and suddenly an old woman stood before them. She looked about, bewildered by the people and water, for they were still in the undersea illusion.

"You are a spell doctor?" the Queen demanded.

"Yes," the old woman agreed. "But I don't do no doctoring for foolish people sunk in the ocean. Especially when I get yanked from my laundry without a-"

"This is King Trent's Coronation Anniversary Celebration Ball," the Queen said haughtily. "Now you have a choice, old crone: doctor one spell for us, and have the run of the party and all the food and fun you want, in a costume like this-" The old woman was abruptly garbed like a matron of honor, courtesy of the Queen's illusion magic. "Or don't doctor the spell, and this creature will pickle you." She held up the picklepuss, who hissed eagerly.

The old woman, like Crombie and Chester, looked rebellious, but decided on the expedient course. "What spell?"

"Millie's spell," the Queen said, indicating the ghost. The spell doctor studied Millie, then cackled. "It is done," she said, smiling broadly so that all four of her teeth showed.

"I wonder what is so funny?" Roland murmured. "Do you know what Millie's talent is?"

"Ghosts don't have talents," Bink said.

"Her spell in life. It must be something special."

"Must be. I guess we'll find out, if she can fulfill the third requirement"

3IRD, the slate continued. IMMERSE YOUR SKELETON IN HEALING ELIXIR.

"We have plenty of that," the Queen said. "Lackey-"

The soldier was already on his way. In a moment he returned with a bucket of elixir.

"Now-where is your skeleton?" the Queen demanded.

But at this point Millie balked. She seemed to be trying to speak, but was unable.

"A silence spell!" the Queen exclaimed. "You aren't permitted to tell where it is! That's why it has remained hidden all these centuries!"

Millie nodded sadly.

"This is better yet!" the Queen said. "We shall have a treasure hunt! In which closet is Millie's skeleton? A special prize to whoever finds it first!" She pondered fleetingly. "I'm out of regular prizes…I know! The first date with Millie the mortal!"

"But what if a woman finds it?" someone asked.

"I'll have my husband the King change her into a man for the occasion," the Queen said.

There was an uneasy laugh. Was she joking-or serious? As far as Bink knew, the King could transform anything living into any other thing living-of the same sex. But he never used his talent capriciously. So it must be humor.

"But what about the food?" Chester demanded.

"That's it!" she decided, "The women have already proved their superiority, so they'll be barred from the treasure hunt. They'll start in on the refreshments while the men go look for-" But she saw Chester swelling up, and realized she was going too far. "Oh, all right, the men can eat too, even those with appetites like horses. But don't touch the Anniversary cake. The King will serve that-when the treasure hunt is over." She looked momentarily pensive, which was unusual for her; was she sure the King would perform?

The cake was magnificent: tier on tier of scintillating icing embroidered with a huge number 1, crowned with a magically lifelike bust of King Trent. The Queen always promoted the King's glory, because her own glory was a reflection of it. Some poor chef had spent a lot of effort organizing the magic for this ornate pastry!

"Picklepuss, stand guard over that cake, and pickle anybody who durst touch it," the Queen said, fastening the end of the puss's leash to the leg of the cake's table. "Now, men-on with the treasure hunt!"

Roland shook his head. "Skeletons in closets are best left undisturbed," he remarked. "I believe I will go congratulate your mother." He glanced at Bink. "You will have to represent our family in the treasure hunt. You don't have to search too hard." He made a little gesture of parting and moved off through the glowing currents of the sea.

Bink stood in place a moment, reflecting. It was evident his father knew there was something wrong, but was not commenting directly.

And what was wrong? Bink knew he had a good life, now, with a fine if variable wife and the favor of the King. Why did he dream of adventures in far places, of using the sword whose art he had been studying, of danger and even death, though he knew his talent would protect him from all genuine threats? What was the matter with him? It somehow seemed he had been happier when his future was in doubt-and that was ridiculous.

Why wasn't Chameleon here? She was near term, but she could have attended the Ball if she had wanted to. There was a magic midwife on the palace staff.

He decided. On with the treasure hunt! Maybe he could prove himself by locating that skeleton in the closet!

Chapter 2

Treasure Hunt

Now he had a challenge, however superficial. He had to start with his brain. Millie was not necessarily in a closet per se. Her bones had to be somewhere in the palace demesnes, because her ghost was here-but that could be anywhere within the castle, the moat or even the garden. Away from the regularly traveled sections. Unless the bones were buried under a floor or between walls. That seemed unlikely; the structure of the palace was quite solid, buttressed by durability spells; it would be a major undertaking to breach any floor or wall. Presuming that Millie had died suddenly, under suspicious circumstances (otherwise she would not have become a ghost), the murderer would have had to hide her body quickly, surreptitiously. No rebuilding of walls to conceal it! Old King Roogna would not have tolerated such a thing.

Where could a body have been hidden in minutes-so well as to withstand the scrutiny of centuries? The King's renovations had covered every part of Castle Roogna, converting it to the royal palace of the present kingdom; the restorative artisans could not have missed anything like this. So the feat seemed mechanically impossible. There could be no skeletons in these closets.

Bink saw that other men were already busy rummaging in all the closets. No use to compete directly with them, even if the skeleton were there.

Mechanically impossible-ah, there was the due! Not magically impossible! The bones must have been transformed to something else, something innocuous, misleading. The question was, what? There were a thousand artifacts in the palace, and any one could be it. Yet transformation was major magic, and what Magician would be fooling around with a mere chambermaid? So her bones might after all remain in their natural state, or perhaps dissolved in solvent or ground up into powder. Regardless, there should be some clue to their identity, if only it could be correctly fathomed. Yes, a most intriguing puzzle!

Bink walked up to the refreshment table. There were tarts and donuts and cookies and cakes and pies and assorted beverages. Chester was stuffing himself. Bink circled the table, searching for something interesting. As he neared the Anniversary cake, the picklepuss hissed at him warningly. It was cat-bodied, with a snout that was green and prickly like a pickle, and its eyes were moist with brine. For a moment he was tempted to advance on it, to try his magic against its magic. He could not be harmed by magic, yet surely the feline would try to pickle him. What would happen?

No-he was not a juvenile daredevil compelled to prove himself by foolish exploits. Why force his talent to labor unnecessarily?

He spotted a smiling-face cookie and picked it up. As he brought it to his mouth, the smile became an O of horror. Bink hesitated, knowing this was merely another of the Queen's illusions, but loath to bite anyway. The cookie screwed its face in anticipation of the awful end; then when the bite did not come, slowly reopened one icing-dab eye.

"Here, puss-you take it," Bink said, extending the cookie to the leashed creature. There was a faint zoop! and the cookie was pickled, one of its eyes opened, the other closed. Now it reeked of brine. He set it down on the floor, and the picklepuss slunk forward and took the pickle-cookie in its mouth. Bink no longer felt hungry.

"Your spell is ailing," said a woman beside him. It was the old spell doctor, enjoying her unexpected participation in the proceedings. The party was theoretically open to all, but few garden-variety citizens had the nerve to attend. "But it is too potent for me to fix. Are you a Magician?"

"No, just a strongly talented nonentity," Bink said, wishing that were as facetious as it was intended to sound.

She concentrated. "No, I am mistaken. Your spell is not sick, just balked. I think it suffers from lack of exercise. Have you used it in the last year?"

"Some," Bink said, thinking of his recent escape from the moat-monsters. "Not much."

"You have to use magic, or you lose it," she said wisely.

"But what if there is no occasion to use it?"

"There is always an occasion for magic-in Xanth."

That hardly seemed true, for him, here in the palace. His talent protected him from most harm-but so did the favor of the King. So his talent got little exercise, and might indeed be getting flabby. His fight with the animated sword had been the first real occasion for his talent to manifest in some time, and he had sought to avoid invoking his magic there. So his moat dunking was about it. He remained a little wet, but the undersea decor concealed that. Would he have to seek danger, to keep his talent healthy? That would be ironic.

The woman shrugged and moved on, sampling other delicacies. Bink looked about-and caught the ghostly eye of Millie.

He went to her. "How is it proceeding?" he inquired politely.

At close range, the ghost was audible. Perhaps the movement of her white lips helped. "It is so exciting!" she exclaimed faintly. "To be whole again!"

"Are you sure being mortal is worth it?" he asked. "Sometimes when a person achieves his dream, it sours." Was he really addressing her-or himself?

She gazed at him with sympathy. He could see the other guests milling about beyond her, for she was translucent. Milling through Millie! It was slightly hard to focus on her. Yet she was beautiful in a special way: not merely her face and figure, but her sheer niceness and concern for others. Millie had helped Chameleon a lot, showing her where things were, what fruits were edible and what were dangerous, explaining castle protocol. It was Millie who had inadvertently shown Bink himself another facet of the Magician Trent, back when Bink had believed the man to be evil. "It would be so nice if you found my bones," Millie said. Bink laughed, embarrassed. "Millie, I'm a married

"Yes," she agreed. "Married men are best. They are-broken in, experienced, gentle, durable, and they do not talk gratuitously. For my return to life, for the first experience, it would be so nice-"

"You don't understand," Bink said. "I love my wife, Chameleon."

"Yes, of course you are loyal," Millie replied. "But right now she is in her ugly phase, and in her ninth month with child, and her tongue is as sharp as the manticora's stinger. Right now is when you need relief, and if I recover my life-"

"Please, no more!" Bink exclaimed. The ghost was striking right on target.

"I love you too, you know," she continued. "You remind me of-of the one I really loved, when I lived. But he is eight hundred years dead and gone." She gazed pensively at her misty fingers. "I could not many you, Bink, when I first met you. I could only look and long. Do you know what it is like, seeing everything and never participating? I could have been so good for you, if only-" She broke down, hiding her face, her whole head hazing before his eyes.

Bink was embarrassed and touched. "I'm sorry, Millie, I didn't know." He put his hand on her shaking shoulder, but of course passed right through it. "It never occurred to me that your life could be restored. If I had-"

"Yes, of course," she sobbed.

"But you will be a very pretty girl. I'm sure there are many other young men who-"

"True, true," she agreed, shaking harder. Now her whole body was fogging out. The other guests were beginning to stare. This was about to get awkward.

"If there is anything I can do-" Bink said. Millie brightened instantly, and her image sharpened correspondingly. "Find my bones!"

Fortunately that was not easily accomplished. "I'll look," Bink agreed. "But I have no better chance than anyone else."

"Yes, you do. You know how to do it, if only you put your marvelous mind to it. I can't tell you where they are, but if you really try-" She looked at him with ardent urgency. "It's been so many centuries. Promise me you'll try."

"But I-what would Chameleon think if-"

Millie put her face in her hands. The stares of the other guests hardened as the ghost's outline softened. "All right, I'll try," Bink promised. Why hadn't his talent protected him from this? But he knew the answer: his magic protected him from physical, magical harm. Millie was magical but not physical-and what she intended for him when she became physical would not ordinarily be construed as harm. His talent had never concerned itself with emotional complications. Bink would have to solve this triangle by himself.

The ghost smiled. "Don't be long," she said, and drifted off, her feet not touching the floor.

Bink spotted Crombie and joined him. "I begin to comprehend your view," he said.

"Yes, I noticed her working you over," Crombie agreed. "She's had her secret eye on you for sometime. A man hardly has a chance when one of those vixens starts in on him."

"She believes I can locate her bones first-and now I have to try. Really try, not just dawdle."

"Child's play," Crombie remarked. "They're that way." He closed his eyes and pointed upward at an angle.

"I didn't ask for your help!" Bink snapped.

"Oops, sorry. Forget where I pointed."

"I can't! Now I'll have to look there, and sure as hell her bones will be there. Millie must have known I'd consult you. Maybe that's her talent: knowing things ahead of time."

"Why didn't she skip out before she was murdered, then?"

Good question. "Maybe she was asleep, when-"

"Well, you're not asleep. You could skip out. Someone else will find her, especially if I give him the hint"

"Why don't you find the bones?" Bink demanded. "You could follow your finger and do it in an instant."

"Can't. I'm on duty." Crombie smiled smugly. "I have woman problems enough already, thanks to you."

Oh. Bink had introduced the woman-hater to his former fiancée, Sabrina, a talented and beautiful girl Bink had discovered he didn't love. Apparently that introduction had led to an involvement Now Crombie was having his revenge.

Bink set his shoulders and followed the direction indicated. The bones had to be somewhere upstairs. But maybe they still would not be obvious. If he did his honest best but could not locate them-

Yet would it be so bad, that date with Millie? All that she had said was true; this was a very bad time for Chameleon, and she seemed fit only to be left alone. Until she phased into her beautiful, sweet aspect, and had the baby.

No, there lay ruin. He had known what Chameleon was when he married her, and that there would be good times and bad. He had only to tide through the bad time, knowing it would pass. He had done it before. When there was some difficult chore or problem, her smart phase was an invaluable asset; sometimes they saved up problems for her to work on in that phase. He could not afford to dally with Millie or any other female.

He oriented on the room that lay on the line Crombie had pointed. It was the Royal Library, where the lore of centuries was stored. The ghostly skeleton was there?

Bink entered-and there sat the King. "Oh, sorry, Your Majesty. I didn't realize-"

"Come in, Bink," King Trent said, fashioning a warm smile. He looked every bit the monarch, even when half slumped over the table, as now. "I was meditating on a personal problem, and perhaps you have been sent to provide the answer."

"I lack the answer to my own dilemma," Bink said, somewhat diffidently. "I am ill-equipped to comment on yours,"

"Your problem?"

"Chameleon is difficult, and I am restless, and someone is trying to kill me, and Millie the ghost wishes to make love to me."

King Trent laughed-then stopped. "Suddenly I perceive that was not a joke," he said. "Chameleon will improve and your restlessness should abate. But the others-who seeks your life? I assure you there is no royal sanction for that!"

Bink described the episode with the sword. Now the King was thoughtful, "You and I know that only a Magician could actually harm you by such means, Bink-and there are only three people of that class in Xanth, none of whom wishes you ill and none of whom possesses the talent of animating swords. So you are not really in danger. But I agree, this could be very annoying. I shall investigate. Since you made the sword captive, we should be able to trace down the root of its imperative. If someone has co-opted one of the weapons of my arsenal-"

"Uh, I think that is where it came from," Bink said. "But Chester Centaur spotted it and took it-"

"Oh. Well, let's let that aspect drop, then; the alliance of the centaurs is important to me, as it has been to every King of Xanth throughout history. Chester can keep the sword, though I believe we shall turn off its self-motivating property. But it occurs to me that there is a certain similarity here to your own magic: whatever opposes you is hidden, using other magic than its own to attack you. The sword is not your enemy; it was merely the instrument of the hostile power."

"Magic like my own…" Bink repeated. "I suppose that could be. It would not be identical, since magic never repeats in Xanth, but similar-" He looked at the King, alarmed. "That means I can expect trouble anywhere, from anything, all seeming coincidental!"

"From a zombie, or a sword, or moat-monsters, or a ghost," the King agreed. "There may be a pattern here." He paused, considering. "Yet how could a ghost-?"

"She is to be restored, once I find her skeleton-and that may be in this room. What bothers me most is that I find myself tempted."

"Millie is a very fetching figure of a slip of a woman," King Trent said. "I can well understand the temptation. I suffer temptation myself; that is the subject of my present meditation."

"Surely the Queen can fulfill any, uh, temptation," Bink said cautiously, unwilling to betray how freely palace speculation had dwelt on this very subject. The King's private life should be private. "She can make herself resemble any-"

"Precisely, I have not touched the Queen or any other woman, since my wife died." To King Trent, the word "wife" meant only the woman he had married in Mundania. "Yet there is pressure on me to provide an heir to the throne of Xanth, by birth or adoption, in case there should be no suitable Magician available when that time comes. I sincerely hope there is a Magician! I feel obliged to make the attempt, nevertheless, since this was one of the implied stipulations I agreed to when assuming the crown. Ethically this must involve the Queen. So I shall do it, though I do not love her and never shall. The question is, what form shall I have her assume for the occasion?"

This was a more personal problem than Bink felt prepared to cope with. "Any form that pleases you, I should think." One big advantage the Queen had was the ability to assume a new form instantly. If Chameleon had been able to do that-

"But I do not wish to be pleased. I want to accomplish only what is necessary."

"Why not combine them? Let the Queen assume her most provocative illusion-form, or transform her to it yourself. When there is a heir-, change her back. There is no wrong in enjoying your duty, is there?"

The King shook his head, "Ordinarily, this would be true. But mine is a special case. I am not sure I would be potent with a beautiful woman, or any woman-other than one who closely resembled my wife."

"Then let the Queen resemble your wife," Bink said without thinking.

"My concern is that this would degrade the memory I cherish."

"Oh, I see. You mean if she was too much like your wife, she might seem to replace her, and-"

"Exactly"

That was an impasse. If the King could only be potent with his dead wife, and could not abide any other woman resembling her physically, what could he do? This was the hidden aspect of the King that Millie had shown Bink, way back when: his continuing devotion to his prior family. It had been hard, after that, to think of such a man as evil; and indeed, King Trent was not evil. He was the finest Magician and perhaps the finest man in Xanth. Bink would be the last to wish to disrupt that aspect of King Trent's being.

Yet the problem of an heir was a real one. No one wanted a repetition of the shambles resulting from lack of a well-defined royal line. There had to be an heir to serve until a suitable Magician appeared, lending continuity to the government.

"We seem to have a similar dilemma, Your Majesty," Bink said. He tried to maintain the proper attitude of respect, because of the way he had known Trent before he was King. He had to set a good example. "We each prefer to remain loyal to our original wives, yet find it difficult. My problem will pass, but yours-" He paused, struck by dubious inspiration. "Millie is to be restored by having her skeleton dipped in healing water. Suppose you were to recover your wife's bones, bring them to Xanth-"

"If that worked, I would be a bigamist," King Trent pointed out. But he looked shaken. "Still, if my wife could live again-"

"You could check how well the procedure works, as they try it on Millie," Bink said.

"Millie is a ghost-not quite dead. A special case, like that of a shade. It happens when there is pressing unfinished business for that spirit to attend to. My wife is no ghost; she never left anything unfinished, except her life. To reanimate her body without her soul-"

Bink was beginning to be sorry he had thought of the notion. What horrors might be loosed on Xanth if all bones were renovated indiscriminately? "She might be a zombie," he said.

"There are serious risks," the King decided. "Still, you have provided me food for thought. Perhaps there is hope for me yet! Meanwhile, I certainly shall not have the Queen assume the likeness of my wife. Perhaps I shall only embarrass myself by trying and failing, but-"

"Too bad you can't transform yourself," Bink said. Then you could test your potency without anyone knowing."

"The Queen would know. And to fail with her would be to show weakness that I can hardly afford. She would feel superior to me, knowing that what she has taken to be iron control is in fact impotence. There would be much mischief in that knowledge."

Bink, knowing the Queen, could well appreciate that. Only her respect for, and fear of, the King's personality and magic power held her in check. His transforming talent would remain-but the respect she held for his personality would inevitably erode. She could become extremely difficult to manage, and that would not be good for the Land of Xanth: "Could you, er, experiment with some other woman first? That way, if you failed-"

"No," the King said firmly. "The Queen is not my love, but she is my legal spouse. I will not cheat her-or any other member of my kingdom, in this or any other respect."

And there was the essence of his nobility! Yet the Queen might cheat him, if she saw her opportunity, and knew him to be impotent. Bink didn't like that notion. He had seen King Trent's reign as the onset of a Golden Age; how fraught it was with liabilities, from this vantage!

Then Bink had another inspiration. "Your memory of your wife-it isn't just your memory of her you are preserving, it is your memory of yourself. Yourself when you were happy. You can't make love to another woman, or let another woman look like her. But if two other people made love-I mean, the Queen and a man who did not resemble you-no memories would be defiled. So if the Queen changed your appearance-"

"Ridiculous!" the King snapped.

"I suppose so," Bink said. "I shouldn't have mentioned it."

"I'll try it."

"Sorry I bothered you. I-" Bink broke off. "You will?"

"Objectively I know that my continuing attachment to my dead wife and son is not reasonable," the King said. "It is hampering me in the performance of my office. Perhaps an unreasonable subterfuge will compensate. I will have Iris make me into the likeness of another man, and herself another woman, and as strangers we shall make the attempt. Do you just indulge in the courtesy of maintaining the secret, Bink."

"Yes, of course, by all means," Bink said, feeling awkward. He would have preferred to have the King devoid of human fallibility's, while paradoxically respecting him for those weaknesses. But he knew this was a side of the King no other person saw. Bink was a confidant, uncomfortable as the position might be at times.

"I-uh, I'm supposed to locate Millie's bones. They should be somewhere in this library."

"By all means. Continue your pursuit; I shall seek out the Queen." And the King rose abruptly and departed.

Just like that! Bink was amazed again at the alacrity with which the man acted, once he had come to a decision. But that was one of the qualities that made him fit to rule, in contrast to Bink himself.

Bink looked at the books. And suddenly realized: Millie's skeleton could have been transformed into a book; that would account for its neglect over the centuries, and for Millie's frequent presence here. She hovered often by the south wall. The question was-which book?

He walked along the packed shelves, reading titles from the spines of the tomes. This was an excellent library, with hundreds of texts; how could he choose among them? And if he found the proper one, somehow, how could it be restored? It would have to be transformed first back into the skeleton-and that was Magician-class magic. He kept running into this: too much magic was involved here! No inanimate transformer was alive today, as far as he knew. So Millie's quest looked hopeless after all. Yet why, then, had the Good Magician told her to use mere healing elixir? It made no sense!

Still, he had promised to try, though it complicated his personal situation. First he had to find the book; then he could worry about the next step.

The search took some time. Some texts he could eliminate immediately, such as The Anatomy of Purple Dragons or Hailstones: Magic vs. Mundane. But others were problematical, like The Status of Spirits in Royal Abodes or Tales for Ghosts. He had to take these out and turn over the pages, looking for he knew not what.

More time passed. He was not getting anywhere. No one else came here; apparently he was the only one following this particular lead. His guess about the books must have been wrong. There was another room above this one, in a turret, and Crombie's line intersected it too. Maybe there-

Then he spotted it. The Skeleton in the Closet. That had to be it!

He took down the book. It was strangely heavy. The cover was of variegated leather, subtly horrible. He opened it, and a strange, unpleasant odor wafted up, as of the flesh of a zombie too long in the sun. There was no print on the first page, only a melange of color and wash suggestive of the remains of a flattened bug.

Quickly he closed the book. He no longer had any doubt.

The bucket of elixir was downstairs in the ballroom. Bink clasped the book in both arms-it was too heavy to hold in one arm for any length of time-and started down.

He met another zombie, or perhaps the same one as before. It was hard to tell them apart! It was coming up the stairs. This one he knew was real, because the Queen had not extended the masquerade illusion inside the palace, and no illusion at all upstairs. Now Bink suspected the one in the garden had been real too. What were the zombies doing out of their earthy resting places?

"Back off!" Bink cried, protecting the book. "Get out of the palace! Return to your grave!" He advanced menacingly on the zombie, and it retreated. A healthy man could readily dismember a zombie, if he cared to make the attempt. The zombie stumbled on the stair and fell, toppling with grisly abandon down the flight. Bits of bone and goo were scattered on the steps, and dark fluid soaked into the fine old wood. The smell was such as to make Bink's stomach struggle for sudden relief, and his eyes smarted. Zombies did not have much cohesion.

Bink followed it down, pursing his lips with distaste. A number of zombies were associated with Castle Roogna, and they had been instrumental in making it the palace of the King. But now they were supposed to lie safely in their graves. What ghastly urgency brought them into the party?

Well, he would notify the King in due course. First he had to see to Millie's skeleton. He entered the ballroom-and found that the subaquatic motif was gone. The normal pillars and walls had returned. Had the Queen lost interest in her decorations?

"I've got it!" he cried, and the guests collected immediately. "What happened to the water?"

"The Queen left suddenly, and her illusion stopped," Chester said, wiping crumbs of green cake from his face. It seemed refreshments had been real enough, anyway. "Here, let me help you with that book." The centaur reached down with one hand and took it easily from Bink's tiring grasp. Oh for the power of a centaur!

"I meant the healing water, the elixir," Bink said. He knew what had happened to the Queen, now that he thought about it! The King had summoned her.

"Right here," Crombie said, bringing it out from under a table. "Didn't want crumbs to fall in it" The bucket was now on the floor beside the Anniversary Cake.

"That doesn't look like a skeleton," the manticora said.

"Transformed-or something," Bink explained. He opened the book while Chester supported it. There was a general murmur of awe. Some magic!

The spell doctor peered at it "That's not a transformation. That's topology magic. I never saw such an extreme case before."

Neither had the others. "What is topology magic?" Crombie asked.

"Changing the form without changing it," she said.

"Old crone, you're talking nonsense," Crombie said with his customary diplomacy around the female sex.

"I'm talking magic, young squirt," she retorted. "Take an object. Stretch it out. Squish it flat Fold it. You have changed its shape but not its nature. It remains topologically similar. This book is a person."

"With the spirit squished out," Bink said. "Where's Millie?"

The ghost appeared, silent. She remained under the geas, unable to comment on her body. What a terrible fate she had suffered, all these centuries! Flattened and folded into a book, and prevented from telling anyone. Until the Queen's charade-contest prize had coincidentally opened the way.

Coincidentally? Bink suspected his talent was at work.

"Should the Queen supervise the restoration?" the manticora asked.

"The Queen is otherwise occupied, and must not be disturbed," Bink said. Actually it was the King he was protecting. "We'd better proceed without her."

"Right," Chester said, and dumped the book into the bucket

"Wait!" Bink cried, knowing it was already too late. He had contemplated a gentle immersion. But perhaps this was best.

The dunked book shimmered. Millie the Ghost made an almost soundless shriek as she was drawn toward the bucket. Then the book inflated, absorbing elixir rapidly, opening and unfolding as its tissues filled out. The pages became human limbs and the heavy jacket a human head and torso, flattened horrendously but already bulging into doll-like features. Grotesquely it convulsed into a misshapen manikin figure, swelling and finning into the semblance of a woman. Millie the ghost, still trying to scream, floated into the mass, her outline merging with that of the forming body. Suddenly the two phased completely. She stood knee deep in the bucket, as lovely a nymph as could be desired, and an astonishing contrast to what they had just seen. "I'm whole!" she exclaimed in wonder.

"You certainly are," Chester agreed. "Someone fetch her some clothing."

There was a scramble. A form came forward bearing a decayed robe. It was a zombie. Women shrieked. Everyone scrambled to avoid it.

Crombie charged forward, scowling. "You rotters can't come in here! Out, out!"

The zombie retreated, backing toward the Anniversary Cake. "Not that way!" Bink cried, again too late. The zombie came within range of the picklepuss, who snarled.

There was a zoopf and the zombie was pickled. Squirting putrid juices, it fell into the cake. The pickle-puss struck again, pickling the entire cake as the zombie disappeared into it. Pickled icing flew outward explosively, spattering the guests. The picklepuss broke free of its leash and bounded onto the refreshment table, pickling everything it passed. Women screamed again. It was one of the foolish, enchanting mannerisms they had.

"What is going on here?" a strange young man demanded from the main doorway.

"Stand back!" Bink snapped. "The damn Queen's damn pickler is on the loose!" Now he saw a comely young woman behind the stranger. They were evidently gate-crashers.

Crombie was dashing up. "I'll get those idiots out of the way!" he cried, drawing his sword.

The picklepuss preferred to introduce itself, and to clear its own way. It bounded directly at the strangers. There was a zap-but this time it was the puss who was pickled, in a fashion. It landed on the floor, surprised, then flapped its wings and took off. It had become a deerfly, a delicately winged miniature deer.

"My cake!" the strange young woman cried.

Then Bink caught on. "The Queen!"

"And King!" Crombie agreed, appalled. "In illusion-costume."

What had Bink called the Queen, in his distraction? And Crombie had drawn his sword against the King.

But Queen Iris was already at the cake. "Pickled-with a zombie in it! Who did this thing?" In her outrage she let her illusion slip. She appeared before the crowd in her natural form, and revealed the King in his. Both were in dishabille.

Crombie the woman-hater nevertheless suffered a seizure of gallantry. He sheathed his sword, whipped off his jacket, and put it about the Queen's shoulders, concealing her middle-aged torso. "It is cool here, Highness."

Bink hastily proffered his own jacket to the King, who accepted as if this were a quite ordinary occasion. "Thanks, Bink," he muttered.

Millie stepped out of the bucket, gloriously naked and not cold at all. "I fear I did it, Your Majesties. The zombie came to help me, and the picklepuss got loose-"

The Queen gazed for a long moment on Millie's splendor. Then she glanced down at herself. Abruptly King and Queen were clothed royally again, she rather resembling Millie, he in his natural likeness, which was handsome enough. Bink knew, as did everyone present, that both were in borrowed jackets, with embarrassing portions of their anatomy uncovered, but now there was no sign of this. And, in another moment, Millie was also clothed in illusion, garbed like the chambermaid she was, yet still very pretty.

Bink nodded to himself. It seemed his suggestion about the King changing his own image for lovemaking had been effective. Except that the commotion surrounding Millie's restoration had interrupted it.

The Queen surveyed the ruin of the refreshments. Then she glanced obliquely at the King. She decided to be gracious. "So it worked! You are no longer a ghost!" She studied Millie again, appraisingly. "But you should be dressed for the occasion; this is not a workday for you." And Millie appeared in a fetching evening gown, glassy slippers, and a sparkling tiara. "Who found your skeleton?" Millie smiled radiantly. "Bink rescued me."

The Queen looked at Bink. "Your nose seems to be in everything," she murmured. Then, more loudly: "Bink gets the prize. The first date with-"

She broke off, as well she might. Behind her, the pickled zombie had risen out of the cake. Even pickling could not kill a zombie; they were half pickled by nature. Clots of briny flesh dropped along with the pickled cake. One amorphous glob had dropped on the Queen's shoulder, passing right through the illusion-dress and lodging who-knew-where. This was the cause of the interruption in her speech.

Furious, the Queen whirled on the zombie. "Get out of the palace, you hunk of decay!" She shot a look at the King. 'Trent, transform this monster! It ruined my cake!"

But King Trent was thoughtful. "I think the zombie will depart of its own volition, Iris. Procure another date for Millie; I have need of Bink's services in another capacity."

"But Your Majesty-" Millie protested.

"Make the substitute look like Bink," the King murmured to the Queen. "Bink, come to the library."

In the library, King Trent spoke his mind. "Here in Xanth we have a hierarchy of magic. As the most powerful Magician, I am King, and the most powerful Sorceress is my consort The Good Magician Humfrey is our eldest statesman. But you, Bink-you are anonymous. You have equivalent magic, but it is secret. This means you don't have the status your talent deserves. Perhaps this constitutes a threat to your welfare."

"But there is no danger-"

"Not true, Bink. Whoever sent that sword constitutes a threat to you, though probably not a great one. However, your talent is powerful, not smart It protects you from hostile magic, but has a problem with intangible menaces. As we know, your situation at home is not ideal at the moment, and-"

Bink nodded. "But as we both also know, that will pass, Your Majesty."

"Agreed. But your talent is not so rational, perhaps. So it procured for you what it deemed to be a better woman-and I fault its ethics, not its taste. Then it balked when you realized the mischief this would cause. So it stopped you from having your date with Millie. The reanimation of the zombie was part of this.

Probably the zombie was supposed to help you locate the skeleton, but then it had to reverse its initiative. There is no knowing what mischief might have resulted if Millie and the Queen had insisted on completing your date; but we do know the havoc would have seemed to be coincidental, because that is the way your talent operates. We might have had the whole palace collapse on our heads, or some unfortunate accident might have rendered Millie into a ghost again."

"No!" Bink cried, horrified.

"I know you would not wish that on so nice a creature. Neither would I. This is the reason I interceded. We must simply accept the fact that you can not date Millie, though your talent brought her back to life. I believe I have solved that problem for the nonce. It is obvious that Millie's talent is sex appeal; that accounts for her original untimely demise in ghost-generating circumstances. She shall not lack for male company-other than yours."

"Sex appeal!" Bink exclaimed. "That was why the spell doctor was so amused! She knew what sort of trouble there would be when she restored the spell! And that's why I was so tempted by her offer, despite-"

"Precisely. I felt it too-and I had just completed my liaison with the Queen, thanks to your suggestion. Here, your jacket." And the King gravely handed it back.

"It's my fault all the palace will know-"

"That I am virile as well as Kingly," Trent finished. "This is no shame. Now Iris will never know the weakness I might otherwise have shown. Obviously at such a moment, I should not have felt any attraction to another woman. I did feel it near Millie. So I knew magic was involved. But you, with a difficult home situation, and Millie's evident desire for you-Bink, I think we need to get you out of this region for the duration, at least until we get Millie settled."

"But Chameleon-I can't leave her alone-"

"Have no concern. I shall invite her to the palace, and she will be attended by my own staff. In fact I think Millie herself would be an excellent maid for her, until we find a better situation. All we need to do is remove you from the stress and temptation that necessarily attend your presence here. Because your talent is powerful but disruptive to palace life, I am providing it guidance. Bink, I am directing you to commence your royal mission: to locate the source of the magic of Xanth."

King Trent paused, and Bink waited. Nothing happened. "I think my talent concurs," Bink said at last.

"Good," the King said, relaxing visibly. Only he knew the peril in trying to go against Bink's talent. "I shall assign you any facilities you require. Someone to protect you, since you may have to intrude on hazardous territory and face unmagical threats, and someone to guide you-" He snapped his fingers. "Chester the Centaur! His situation is very like yours, and you are friends. You can ride him, and you could not have a finer ally in danger."

"But the centaurs are not men; he may not choose to go."

"It is true that my power becomes nominal, in the case of the centaurs, I can not order him to accompany you. But I think he will go as far as Good Magician Humfrey's castle."

"Why?" Bink asked, perplexed.

"Because only Humfrey can tell him what his magic talent may be."

The King certainly kept up on things! "But that Answer would cost him a year's service!"

The King shrugged. "No harm in talking with Humfrey, though. Chester may go along with you, just to keep you company, and incidentally chat with the Good Magician while you are there."

Slowly Bink smiled. "And Cherie Centaur would never need to know!"

"You might discuss that aspect with Chester, at any rate." The King pondered momentarily. "And Crombie-he can point the way for you."

"I don't think Crombie could keep up with Chester," Bink said, "No man can match a centaur's steady speed over ground. And Chester would not want to carry two people-"

"Easily solved! I shall transform Crombie into a form that can keep up. A dragon-"

"That would frighten people and attract attention-"

"So it would. Very well, a griffin. There are a few tame ones, so people would not be too curious. That will deprive him of speech, but give him the power of flight: a fair exchange. And there is hardly a better fighting animal than a griffin, weight for weight. With a centaur and a griffin accompanying you, there should be no mundane threat you need fear." He paused again. "Even so, I think you had better consult Humfrey for specific advice. There might be more here than we have bargained on."

Bink found himself filling with excitement. Adventure, again! "Your Majesty, I'll find the source of magic for you; when can I start?"

"Tomorrow morning," King Trent said, smiling. "Now go home and tell your wife about your preemptive mission. But don't mention Millie the ex-ghost."

"I won't!" Bink agreed, smiling too. About to go, he thought of something else. "Do you know there is a magic mole hanging around the grounds?"

The King accepted this communication gracefully. "I had not been made aware of that. I have no objection, so long as it does not disturb the zombies' graves." Then he did a double take. "That zombie-"

"There was another in the gardens, where the pile of dirt was. Maybe the same one."

"I will institute an investigation in due course." He fixed Bink with a tolerant stare. "Any other important intelligence to impart?"

"Uh, no," Bink said, abruptly embarrassed. What was he doing, telling the King of such a minor matter? He had lost all sense of proportion!

Chapter 3

Nickelpede Chase

In the morning they commenced the mission: three males with woman-problems. All professed to be glad to get away from their situations and into adventure. Crombie especially liked his new form; he spread his wings frequently and took little practice flights.

Indeed, the soldier had much to be pleased about. His lion's legs were powerfully muscled, and his eagle's head was handsome with penetrating eyes, and the feathers of his wings were glorious. The plumage of his neck was blue, and on his back it was black, and on the front red, and the wings were white. A prettier monster could hardly be found in Xanth.

But this was the wilderness: no playground. The moment they departed Castle Roogna, the hostile magic closed in. Most of the paths in this vicinity had been charmed by order of the King, so there was little danger to travelers who did not stray from them. But Good Magician Humfrey was never keen on company, so there was no direct path to his castle. All roads led away from it, magically. That meant no safe passage.

Fortunately Crombie's talent of location could keep them going the right way. Periodically the soldier-griffin paused, closed his eyes, extended one wing or forepaw, spun about, and came to rest pointing. Crombie's directional sense was never wrong. Unfortunately it did not take note of the inconveniences of straight-line travel.

The first thing they ran into was a clump of hell's bells. The vines of the plants reared up, their bells ringing stridently. The tintinnabulation became deafening-and disconcerting. "We have to get out of here!" Bink cried, but knew he could not be heard above the noise. Chester had his hands to his ears and he bucked about, kicking at individual bells-but for every one he smashed, a dozen clanged louder.

Crombie spread his wings and flapped violently. Bink thought he was taking off, but instead the griffin dug all four clawed feet into the massed vines and hauled them violently upward. The vines stretched and the clangor of the bells became shrill, then muted. The tension prevented them from swinging properly, so they could not ring.

Bink and Chester took the opportunity to scramble out of the clump. Then Crombie let go and flew up, out of range of the bells. They were free of the hazard, but it was a warning. They could not simply barge ahead as if treading the King's highway.

They continued on, carefully skirting the tangle trees and noose loops. Now Crombie checked often for the nearest dangers as well as for the proper direction. In some cases they had to turn aside from seemingly innocuous places, ripping through itch-weeds and sliding turf. But they trusted Crombie's talent; better itching and sliding, than some ignominious death.

Adventure did not seem quite as exciting, now that they were back in the thick of it. Or the thicket of it, Bink thought. There were many grimy little details and inconveniences that one tended to forget in the comfort of home or palace. Bink's thighs were getting sore from bouncing on the centaur's back, and he was uncomfortably sweaty.

When they got hungry, Crombie pointed out a soda tree growing in a patch of sugar sand. Chester took a sharp stone and poked a spigot-hole in the tree's trunk so that they all could drink from the spouting soda. It looked like blood, a shock at first; but it was actually strawberry-flavored. The sugar sand was too sweet, so it was possible to eat only a little. Crombie pointed out a breadfruit tree, and that was much better. The loaves were just ripe, so that they steamed warmly when opened, and were delicious.

Just when the three were feeling confident again, danger came questing for them. Crombie's talent operated only when invoked; it was not an automatic alert. In this case the threat was a hungry dragon of medium size, land-bound and fire-breathing: about the worst enemy in Xanth except for a large dragon. Such monsters were the lords of the wilderness, and were the standard against which all other viciousness was measured. Had this been the largest variety, they would have been lost. As it was, against this middle range, a man and a griffin and a centaur had a fighting chance.

Still, why had the dragon come after them? Normally dragons did not attack men or centaurs. Dragons fought them, but only when they had to. Because though the dragon was lord of the wilderness, the numbers and organization and weapons of men and centaurs made them more formidable than most dragons preferred. Some men, like the King, had magic that could finish any dragon. Normally people and dragons left each other alone.

That anonymous enemy-could he have sent the dragon? Just a little nudge in the dragon's small, hot brain-and the result would seem like a normal wilderness accident. Bink remembered the King's analysis: that his enemy's magic was very like his own. Not identical, of course. But similar. Therefore insidious.

Then his eyes spotted a little mound of dirt, seemingly freshly deposited. The magic mole here? All Xanth must be infested with the creatures!

Both Crombie and Chester had fighting hearts. But Bink ultimately depended on his secret talent. The trouble was, that protection did not necessarily extend to his two friends. Only by joining the fray directly could Bink hope to help them, for then his talent might have to save them all to save him. He felt guilty about this, knowing that his courage was false; they could die while he was charmed. Yet he could not even tell them about this. There was a lot of this kind of magic in Xanth; it was as if magic liked to clothe itself in superfluous mystery, by that means enhancing itself in the manner of a pretty woman.

At any rate, they were caught in a level clearing: the dragon's ideal hunting ground. There were no large trees to provide either shelter or escape, and no local magic they could draw on fast enough. The dragon was charging, a shaft of fire jetting from its mouth. One good scorch from that flame would be enough to roast a man entire. Dragons found roasted man very tasty, it was widely rumored.

Chester's bow was in his hands, an arrow nocked. He was well provisioned with bow, arrows, sword, and a length of pliant rope, and knew how to use them all. "Keep clear of the flame!" he yelled. "He's got to build up a bellyful between shots. When you see him start to heave, dodge sidewise!"

Good advice! Any creature the size of a dragon was likely to be a trifle slow maneuvering, and that jet of fire needed careful aiming. In fact they might be safest close to the monster, so that they could dodge around it too quickly for it to orient. Not too close, for the dragon's teeth and claws were devastating.

Crombie, however, also possessed claws, and his beak was as good in its fashion as teeth. He had the advantage of flight. He could maneuver faster than the dragon despite his mass, though of course his weight was only a fraction of that of the dragon. But he was not a natural griffin, so would not be able to react with the same speed and precision as a true one.

Bink himself was the weak link in the defense-or so it would naturally seem to the others. "Bink, stand back!" Chester cried as Bink charged forward. Bink had no way to explain to the centaur his seeming foolishness.

The dragon slowed as it came within a dragon's-length, its eye on its most formidable opponent: the griffin. Crombie emitted a shriek of challenge and looped toward the dragon's tail. As the monster's head turned to follow him, Chester fired an arrow into its neck. The shaft was driven with the power only a centaur could muster, but it merely bounced off the dragon's metallic scales. "Have to get a shot into its mouth-when there's no fire," Chester muttered.

Bink knew how dangerous that was. A clear shot into the mouth could be had only by standing more or less in front of the dragon while it opened its orifice-and normally it only did that to bite or fire. "Don't risk it!" he cried. "Let Crombie find us an escape!"

But Crombie was out of hearing, and busy, and in any event the ornery centaur was not in a mood to retreat. If they did not attack the dragon at their convenience, the dragon would demolish them at its convenience.

Bink moved in with his sword, seeking a vulnerable spot. The closer he got, the larger the dragon seemed. Its scales overlapped; they might be proof against most arrows, but maybe not against a blade angled up between them. If he could penetrate the armor in the vicinity of a vital organ-

Crombie dived at the dragon, screaming shrilly. The dive-bombing of a griffin was a thing not even a dragon could afford to ignore. The dragon whipped about,, its whole body coiling smoothly, its head striking upward in a circle to intercept the griffin. The huge jaws gaped, but it was not quite set for fire; it intended to bite off a wing or head if it could. Its neck was bowed toward Bink, who was not regarded as a threat. Chester shot an arrow into that mouth, but his angle was bad and the missile ricocheted from a tooth. Crombie came close, talons extended, banking to avoid those gaping jaws and score on an eye. Bink ran in close, and rammed his charmed point into the splayed scales beneath the neck.

The dragon's body was about as thick as Bink was tall, and each scale was the diameter of a spread-fingered hand, glossy blue and fringed with iridescence. Each edge was sharp as a knife. As Bink's blade sank in, those beautiful, deadly scales slid closer to his hand. Abruptly he realized that his hand could be sliced apart before his sword did critical damage to the monster. It was indeed a futile thing for a man to attempt to slay a dragon!

Bink's thrust, however, hurt, as the prick of a thorn could hurt a man. The dragon whipped about to focus on the annoyance. Its neck bent in an S-curve to bring the snout to bear on Bink. That snout seemed twice as large from this vantage. It was the height of his waist, and coppery, with two nostril-valves that hinged inward to prevent air from being expelled. The dragon breathed in through its nose and out through its mouth; probably a snootful of flames would destroy the delicate nasal passages, so the system had to be fail-safe. Below, the lips were burnished and lighter in color, as if alloyed with some sterner metal, able to tolerate the furnace heat of the dragon's breath. The teeth were stained scorch-brown, with black soot in the crevices.

The eyes were situated on the sides of the dragon's cranium, but the muzzle was channeled so that the creature could look directly forward to see where its fire struck. At the moment those eyes were on Bink, who stood there with one hand on the hilt of his sword embedded in the lower curve of the S-bend of the neck. Dragons varied in intelligence, like all creatures, but even a stupid dragon would be quick enough to connect Bink with the injury in such a circumstance. The nostril-valves closed with little pings. The mouth cracked open. Bink was about to be thoroughly scorched.

He froze. All he could think of was his sword: it was a good weapon, charmed to be always sharp and tight in his hand, a gift from the King's arsenal. If he dodged out of the way, he would have to leave that faithful blade embedded in the dragon's neck, for there was not time to lever it loose. He did not want to lose it, so he hung on-and was unable to move out of the projected path of flame.

A roaring developed in the belly of the dragon. The throat opened into a round tube, ready to eject the column of fire. Bink was a standing target.

Then an arrow swished over Bink's still shoulder and down that open throat A perfect shot by the centaur!

Too perfect. Instead of penetrating the softer lining of the deep gullet and punctuating a vital organ, the arrow disappeared into the stirring flame. Now that flame came out, a deadly shaft of golden light, destroying the arrow, hurtling toward Bink's head.

And the griffin crashed into the dragon's snout, bearing it down just as the fire emerged. The snout met the ground at Bink's feet There was something like explosion. The dragon's head was bathed in the blast, and a small crater was gouged out of the earth. The griffin just missed having a wing scorched. Bink was left standing there, sword in hand, at the smoking rim, unscathed.

The griffin snatched Bink in his claws as the dragon reoriented. They were momentarily airborne as a second blast of fire passed beneath Bink's dangling feet

Crombie could not support Bink's weight long on the ground, let alone airborne. "Find an escape!" Bink cried. "Use your talent!"

Surprised, the griffin dropped Bink in a pillow bush and performed his direction-pointing routine in midair. Meanwhile the dragon coughed out several dusty fireballs, sprayed particles of soot, cleared its pipe, and charged after them. Chester galloped beside it, trying to get in another good shot. It was evident that this dragon was too tough for the three of them together.

Crombie's right wing pointed to the side. "Squawk!" he cried.

Chester looped back and cruised by. "On my back!" he cried.

Bink leaped, and sprawled across the centaur's rump. He started to slide off, grabbed wildly, caught a handful of mane, and righted himself while the centaur galloped on, head held low. Bink almost tumbled forward, but clasped his knees tightly and held on.

He looked up-and saw the dragon charging headlong at them. The monster must have looped back tool "Chester!" Bink screamed in panic. "It's in front of us!"

"Front, hell!" the centaur yelled from behind him. "You're facing backward, dodo."

Oops. So he was. The dragon was following them, trying to catch up. Bink was holding onto Chester's handsome tail. No wonder the head had seemed low!

Well, it was a good way to watch the dragon. "The monster's gaining," Bink reported. "Where's Crombie pointing?"

"That's where I'm going!" Chester called back. "But I don't know how far it is!" His evident ire was understandable; he did not like fleeing an enemy, even so formidable a one as a dragon. If it weren't for Bink, the centaur would not have retreated at all.

Crombie had indicated the direction, but could not know whether they would be able to reach the place of safety in time. Suppose the dragon caught them first? Bink feared his talent would have to come into operation again.

"That was the bravest thing I ever saw in a man," Chester called. Obviously he felt centaurs had elevated standards of bravery. "You stood right in front of the dragon's mouth, attracting his attention, and you kept absolutely still so I could get a clear shot around you. You could have been fried."

Or skewered by the centaur's arrow. But centaurs seldom missed their targets. "That wasn't bravery," Bink replied. "I was too terrified to move a muscle."

"So? And what about when you spiked your sword into old firesnoot's neck?"

That had resembled bravery. How could Bink explain that the protection provided by his devious talent made such acts easier? Had he really believed he might get killed, he might never have had the nerve. "I only did what you two were doing: attacking. To save my hide."

Chester snorted derisively and charged on. The dragon continued to gain. Had it been a flying one, they would have been lost-except that the flying dragons were smaller, and consequently less powerful. But any dragon was real trouble, unless the one being attacked had nullifying magic.

Now the dragon was coming within torching range. There was dirt on its nose, but its fires remained stoked. It opened its mouth-

Chester dropped into a hole. "Hang on!" the centaur cried belatedly. "It's a crevice too broad to leap!"

Evidently so. Bink narrowly avoided doing a somersault over Chester's tail, hung on, and landed with gut-jarring impact The walls rose up rapidly on either side. They must have approached this chasm obliquely, so that it was easy to rush down inside it. This must be the escape Crombie had indicated. Indeed, the griffin was angling down to join them.

But the dragon followed them into the crack. Its long, sinuous body was well adapted to this type of structure. There was no crevice a centaur could hide in that would be too narrow for the dragon. That made Bink uncertain; could this be a diversion, and not the escape route?

Suddenly Chester skidded to a halt. "Don't stop!" Bink cried. "The monster's right behind us!"

"Some escape route that featherbrain picked for us," Chester muttered with disgust. "We'd better fight the dragon."

"We'll have to," Bink said, turning around to face the centaur's head. "We can't outrun it-"

Then he saw what had stopped Chester. "Nickelpedes!" he cried with new horror.

The dragon saw the nickelpedes too. It skidded to a halt and tried to turn about-but the crevice was too narrow for effective circling. It might have looped up and over its own body, but that would have meant exposing its neck again, where it had already been stung.

Crombie came to land between them. "This was your way out, birdbrain?" Chester demanded as the nickelpedes scuttled close, forming living barricades wherever there were shadows, cutting off any likely escape.

"Squawk!" the griffin replied angrily. He understood both the language and the insult perfectly, though he could not reply in kind. He stood up, wings furled so they would not bang against the close walls and get smudged. He closed his eyes, whirled awkwardly, and pointed with a forepaw. But the paw was not firm; it wavered across half a circle.

A few bold nickelpedes attacked. Each was girt with about five hundred legs and a single set of pincers, and each had a taste for fresh meat. A single nickelpede could be killed, with a certain amount of effort and unpleasantness; a hundred were insurmountable without extraordinary armor or magic. But the attempt had to be made, for if there was one thing worse than being roasted by a dragon, it was being gouged by nickelpedes.

The dragon youped. A nickelpede had clamped on its smallest front claw and was gouging out a disk of substance nearly an inch across. The dragon's claws were iron, but the nickelpede's pincers were nickel hardened by magic; they could gouge from almost anything. Chester chuckled grimly.

Then the centaur leaped high, emitting a cry like a neigh. Another nickelpede had scooped out a piece of one hoof. Chester came down, stomping the little monster hard. But the nickelpede scuttled to the side, avoiding the blow-while others attacked Chester's remaining hooves. And the dragon chuckled.

But their predicament was not funny. The crevice was deep, with a level footing below sheer vertical stone walls. It was too deep for Bink to jump out of. He might have made it by standing on Chester's back-but how would the centaur himself get out? The dragon could lift its head that high-but not its forefeet. Only the griffin might escape-except that the narrowness of the cleft prevented him from spreading his wings far enough. He had glided into a landing, but taking off required more vigorous action and lift. With Chester's help he might get high enough-but again, what about Chester? They were trapped as much by the situation as by the walls.

Very soon they would all be food for the swarm, if they didn't get out of here. Yet the back of the dragon blocked the exit. At this stage the dragon was fidgeting about, trying to hoist its body off the ground so that it would not get gouged in a tender place, while the nickelpedes went gleefully for its feet. Chester was performing similarly. So was Crombie, who could not fly at the moment. And Bink himself, whose extremities were the most tender of all. Where was his talent now?

"It's only the sunlight that holds them back," Chester said. "When the sun moves over, they'll all be on us."

Bink looked at the line of shadow. At the moment the sun was high, and there was only a small shadowed area. But that area was packed with the pinching monsters. Only one nickelpede in a hundred ventured forth into the light, scuttling across to the shadow of someone's body-but even so, there were a dozen or more coming.

Then Bink had an inspiration. "We must cooperate!" he cried. "All together-before we all get eaten together!"

"Of course," Chester said. "But how do we get rid the dragon?"

"I mean cooperate with the dragon!" Chester, Crombie, and the dragon looked at him, mutually startled. All of them were still dancing in place. "A dragon's too dumb to cooperate, even if it wanted to," Chester objected. "Even if there were any point. There's just a pilot light in the monster's brain. Why help it eat us?"

"There would have to be a truce," Bink said. "We help it, it doesn't eat us. The dragon can't turn about, it can't lift its body off the ground for any length of time. So it is vulnerable, just as we are. But it can fight the nickelpedes much better than we can. So if we protect its flank-"

"Flame!" Chester exclaimed. "Nickelpedes hate light-and flame has lots of light!"

"Right," Bink said. "So if we protect its dark side, and its feet-"

"And its back," Chester added, glancing at Crombie. "If it will trust us-"

"It has no choice," Bink said, moving toward the dragon.

"It doesn't know that! Watch out-it'll scorch you!"

But Bink, protected by his magic, knew he would not get scorched. He walked up to the nose of the dragon and stood before the copper nostrils. Wisps of smoke drifted up from them; there was a little leakage when the system was idle. "Dragon," he said, "you understand me, don't you? You can't talk, but you know we're all in trouble now, and we'll all get gouged to pieces and consumed by the nickelpedes unless we help each other fight them off?" And he jumped to avoid the onslaught of another nickelpede.

The dragon did not respond. It just looked at him. Bink hoped that was a good sign. He drew his sword, sighted at the nickelpede between his feet, and impaled it neatly on the point. The thing clicked its pincers as Bink lifted it, undead, and it strove to get at anything gougeable. From this vantage the pincers were circular; a nickelpede normally clamped onto its target with a few hundred legs and scooped inward to cut away a shallow disk of flesh. Horrible!

"I can nullify one nickelpede at a time," Bink continued, showing his captive to the dragon's right eye.

"I could sit on one of your feet and protect it. My friend the centaur could defend your tail. The griffin is actually a transformed soldier, another friend; he could watch for enemies dropping on your back, and crunch them in his beak. We can help you-if you trust us."

"How can we trust it?" Chester demanded.

Still the dragon did not react. Was it stupid, or comprehending? As long as it listened, Bink had to assume that all was reasonably well. "Here's what we have to do," he continued hurriedly, as the shadow advanced and the nickelpedes grew bolder. Three were coming at Bink's own feet now; it would be hard to spear them all in time. "The three of us must climb over you to get to your tail and back feet. Crombie will perch on your back. So you will have to let us pass, and tolerate our weight on your body. We'll do what we can to keep your scales intact. But the main job is yours. Once we get clear, you scorch the whole mass of nickelpedes in the crevice before you. Fry them all! They don't like light, and will clear out. Then we can all back out of here. Agreed?"

The dragon merely stared at him. Had it really comprehended? Chester took a hand. "Dragon, you know centaurs are creatures of honor. Everyone knows that! I give my word: I will not attack you if you let me past. I know Bink; even though he is a man, he is also a creature of honor. And the griffin-" He hesitated.

"Squawk!" Crombie said angrily.

"Crombie is also a creature of honor," Bink said quickly. "And we assume you are too, dragon."

Yet the dragon still stared at him. Bink realized he would have to gamble. The dragon might be too stupid to comprehend the nature of their offer, or it still might not trust them. It was possible it had no way to respond. They would have to gamble on the last alternative.

"I am going to climb over your back," Bink said. "My friends will follow me. The truce will hold until we all get out of this crevice."

Truce. He had learned to appreciate this mode of compromise over a year ago, when he and Chameleon had made a truce with the Evil Magician. That arrangement had saved them all from disaster in the wilderness. It seemed no enemy was too awful to deal with in time of sufficient peril.

He addressed the silent dragon again. "If you don't believe me, scorch us now, and face the nickelpedes alone."

Bink walked boldly around the dragon's head to the base of the neck where the front legs projected. The dragon did not scorch him. He saw the wound he had made in the neck, dripping ichor that a nickelpede was greedily eating as it landed. The little monster was gouging disks out of the stone floor to get every last bit of the delicacy puddling there. The nickelpedes had to be the most rapacious monsters for their size in all the Land of Xanth!

Bink sheathed his sword after wiping off the impaled nickelpede, then stretched up his hands and jumped. His head and chest cleared the top of the leg, and he was able to scramble over the scales. Because they were lying flat, they did not cut him-so long as he did not rub them the wrong way. The dragon did not move. "Come on, Chester, Crombie!" he called back.

Prompted by his call and the encroaching nickelpedes, the two creatures followed. The dragon eyed them warily, but held its flame. Soon the three assumed their battle stations. Just in time; the nickelpedes had massed so thickly that the shadowed walls were bright with their highlights. The shadow was advancing inexorably.

"Blast out the passage ahead!" Bink yelled to the dragon. "We're protecting your flank!" And he drew his sword and speared another nickelpede on the point.

The dragon responded by belching out a tremendous wash of fire. It scorched the whole crevice, obscuring everything in flame and smoke. It was as if a bolt of lightning had struck. Nickelpedes screeched thinly as they fell from the walls, burning, some even exploding. Success!

"Very good," Bink said to the dragon, wiping his tearing eyes. There had been a fair backlash of hot gas. "Now back out" But the creature did not move.

"It can't back," Chester said, catching on. "Its legs don't work that way. A dragon never retreats."

Bink realized it was true. The dragon was limber, and normally it twined about to reverse course. Its legs and feet were structured for forward only. No wonder it had not expressed agreement to Bink's proposal; it could not perform. Without words, it could not explain; any negation would have seemed to be a refusal of the truce. Even a really intelligent creature would have been in a dilemma there, and the dragon was less than that. So it had shut up.

"But that means we can only advance deeper into the crevice!" Bink said, appalled. "Or wait until dark." Hither course was disaster; in complete darkness the nickelpedes would be upon them in a mass, and gobble every part of their bodies in disk-chunks called nickels. What a horrible fate, to be nickeled to death!

The dragon's flame would not last forever; the creature had to refuel. Which was what it had been trying to do at the outset, chasing them. The moment its fires gave out, the nickelpedes would swarm back in.

"The dragon can't be saved," Chester said. "Get on my back, Bink; I'll gallop out of here, now that we're past the obstruction. Crombie can leap from its back and fly."

"No," Bink said firmly. "That would violate our trace. We agreed to see the whole party safe outside."

"We did not," the centaur said, nettled. "We agreed not to attack it We shall not attack it. We shall merely leave it"

"And let the nickelpedes attack it instead?" Bink finished. "That was not my understanding. You go if you choose; I'm finishing my commitment, implied as well as literal."

Chester shook his head. "You're not only the bravest man I've seen, you're the man-headedest."

I.e., brave and stubborn. Bink wished it were true. Buoyed by his talent, he could take risks and honor pledges he might otherwise have reneged on. Crombie and Chester had genuine courage; they knew they could die. He felt guilty, again, knowing that he would get out of this somehow, while his friends had no such assurance. Yet he knew they would not desert him. So he was stuck: he had to place them in terrible peril-to honor his truce with an enemy who had tried to kill them all. Where was the ethical course?

"OK we can't go back, well just have to go forward," Chester decided. "Tell your friend to get up steam."

The irony was unsubtle-but Chester was not a subtle centaur. In fact, he was an argumentative brawler. But a loyal friend. Bink's guilt remained. His only hope was that as long as they were all in this fix together, his talent might extricate them together.

"Dragon, if you would-" Bink called. "Maybe there's an exit ahead."

"Maybe the moon isn't made of green cheese," Chester murmured. It was sarcasm, but it reminded Bink poignantly of the time in his childhood when there had been what the centaurs called an eclipse: the sun had banged into the moon and knocked a big chunk out of it, and a great wad of the cheese had fallen to the ground. The whole North Village had gorged on it before it spoiled. Green cheese was the best-but it only grew well in the sky. The best pies were in the sky, too.

The dragon lurched forward. Bink threw his arms about its ankle to keep from being dislodged; this was worse than riding a centaur! Crombie spread his wings partially for balance, and Chester, facing the rear, trotted backward, startled. What was a cautious pace for the dragon was a healthy clip for the others.

Bink was afraid the crevice would narrow, making progress impossible. Then he would really have a crisis of conscience! But it stabilized, extending interminably forward, curving back and forth so that no exit was visible. Periodically the dragon blasted out the path with a snort of flame. But Bink noticed the blasts were getting weaker. It took a lot of energy to shoot out fire, and the dragon was hungry and tiring. Before long it would no longer be able to brush back the nickelpedes. Did dragons like green cheese? Irrelevant thought! Even if cheese would restore the fire, there was no moon available right now, and if the moon were in the sky, how could they reach it?

Then the crevice branched. The dragon paused, perplexed. Which was the most promising route?

Crombie closed his griffin eyes and spun as well as he could on the dragon's back. But again his wing pointed erratically, sweeping past both choices and finally falling, defeated. Crombie's spell was evidently in need of the spell doctor-at a most inopportune time.

"Trust the bird-head to foul it up," Chester muttered.

Crombie, whose bird hearing evidently remained in good order, reacted angrily. He squawked and walked along the dragon toward the centaur, the feathers of his neck lifting like the hackles of a werewolf.

"Stop!" Bink cried. "We'll never get out if we quarrel among ourselves!"

Reluctantly, Crombie moved back to his station. It seemed to be up to Bink to decide on the route.

Was there a chance the two branches looped around and met each other? If so, this was a handy way to get the dragon turned about, so they all could get out of here. But that seemed unlikely. At any rate, if it were this way, either path would do. "Bear left"

The dragon marched into the left one. The nickelpedes followed. It was getting harder to drive them off; not only was the shadow advancing, the oblique angle of the new passage made a narrower shaft for the sunlight

Bink looked up into the sky-and discovered that things were even worse than they had seemed. Clouds were forming. Soon there would be no sunlight at all. Then the nickelpedes would be bold indeed.

The passage divided again. Oh, no! This was becoming a maze-a deadly serious one. If they got lost in it-

"Left again," Bink said. This was awful; he was guessing, and it was getting them all deeper into trouble. If only Crombie's talent were operative here! Strange how it had failed. It had seemed to be in good order until they entered the crevice. In fact, it had pointed them here. Why had it sent them into a region that blanked it out? And why had Bink's own talent permitted this? Had it failed too?

Suddenly he was afraid. He had not realized how much he had come to depend on his talent. Without it he was vulnerable! He could be hurt or killed by magic.

No! He could not believe that. His magic had to remain-and Crombie's too. He just had to figure out why they were malfunctioning at the moment.

Malfunctioning? How did he know they were? Maybe those talents were trying to do their jobs, but weren't being interpreted correctly. Like the dragon, they were powerful but silent. Crombie merely had to ask the right question. If he asked "Which road leads out of the maze?" it was possible that any of them did-or none. What would his talent do then? If he demanded the specific direction of out, and the escape route curved, wouldn't his pointing appendage have to curve about, too? There was no single direction, no single choice; escape was a labyrinth. So Crombie was baffled, thinking his talent had failed, when perhaps it had only quit in disgust

Suppose Bink's talent was aware of this. It would not worry; it would show him a way to make Crombie's talent operate, in due course. But it would be better if Bink figured that way out himself, because then he could be sure that all of them escaped. That way, both friendship and honor would be preserved.

So now the test of his mettle was upon him. How could he solve the riddle of the balked talent? Obviously straight direction was not the answer to the question of out. Yet Crombie's talent was directional. He asked where something was, and it snowed the direction. If direction were not the answer in this case, what was-and how could Crombie identify it?

Maybe he could use Crombie's talent to find out "Crombie," he called around the dragon's body. "Where is something that will get us out of here?"

The griffin obligingly went through his routine, to no avail.

"It's no good," Chester grumbled. "His talent's soured. Not that it ever was much good. Now if I had a talent-"

Crombie squawked, and the tone was such that it was obvious that the centaur had been treated to a rich discourse on prospective orifices available for shoving such a talent. Chester's ears reddened.

"That's what you're along to find out," Bink reminded him. "Right now, Crombie's all we have. I think there's a key, if I can only find it in time." He paused to skewer another nickelpede. The things died slowly, but they didn't attack after skewering. They couldn't; their companions gobbled them up immediately. Soon it would not be possible to concentrate on anything but nickelpedes! "Crombie, where is something that will show us how to get out of here?"

"You just asked that," Chester grumbled.

"No, I modified the language slightly. Showing is not the same as-" He stopped to watch the griffin. For a moment it seemed Crombie's talent was working, but then his wing wavered back and forth and gave up.

"Still, we must be getting warm," Bink said with false hope. "Crombie, where is there something that will stop the nickelpedes?"

Crombie's wing pointed straight up.

"Sure," Chester said, disgusted. "The sun. But it's going behind a cloud."

"At least it proves his talent is working."

They came to another fork. "Crombie, which fork will bring us fastest to something that will help us?" Bink asked.

The wing pointed firmly to the right "Hey, it actually worked!" Chester exclaimed mockingly. "Unless he's faking it."

Crombie let out another vile-sounding squawk, almost enough in itself to scorch a few nickelpedes.

But now the cloud covered the sun, sinking the entire cleft in awful shadow. The nickelpedes moved in with a multiple clicking of satisfaction and anticipation and garden-variety greed. "Dragon, take the right fork!" Bink cried. "Blast it out ahead of you, and run. Use up your last reserves of fire if you have to. We're on to something good." He hoped.

The dragon responded by shooting out a searing bolt of flame that illuminated the passage far ahead. Again the nickelpedes squeaked as they died. The dragon galloped over their smoking corpses, carrying Bink and Chester and Crombie along. But it was tiring.

Something sparkled in the dim passage ahead. Bink inhaled hope-but quickly realized it was only a will-o'-the-wisp. No help there!

No help? Suddenly Bink remembered something. "That's it!" he cried. "Dragon, follow that wisp!"

The dragon obeyed, despite Chester's incredulous neigh. It snorted no more flame, for its furnace was almost exhausted, but it could still run at a respectable pace. The wisp dodged about, as wisps had always done, always just at the verge of perception. Wisps were born teases. The dragon lumbered through fork after fork, quite lost-and suddenly emerged into a dry riverbed.

"We're out!" Bink cried, hardly believing it himself. But not yet safe; the nickelpedes were boiling out of the chasm.

Bink and Chester scrambled away from the dragon and up and out of the gully, and found themselves in the ashes of an old burn. Crombie spread his wings and launched into the sky with a squawk of pure relief. The nickelpedes did not follow even the dragon; they could not scuttle well through ashes, and might get caught by returning sunlight The party was safe.

The dragon collapsed, panting, in a cloud of ashes. Bink walked around to its snout "Dragon, we had a good fight, and you were winning. We fled, and you pursued, and we all got caught in the cleft. We made a truce to escape, and you honored it well and so did we. By working together we saved all our lives. Now I would rather have you as a friend than an enemy. Will you accept friendship with the three of us before we part?"

The dragon looked at him. Finally, slowly, it inclined its nose slightly forward in an affirmative nod.

"Until we meet again-good hunting," Bink said. "Here, we can help you a little. Crombie, where is the nearest good dragon-prey-something even a tired dragon can nab?"

Crombie spun in the air and flung out a wing as he fell. It pointed north-and now they heard the thrashing of something large, probably caught in a noose-loop bush. Something fat and foolish, who would die a slow death in the loops if not dispatched more mercifully by the scorch of a dragon.

"Good hunting," Bink repeated, patting the dragon on its lukewarm copper nose and turning away. The dragon started north.

"What was the point in that?" Chester asked in a low tone. "We have no need of a dragon's friendship."

"I wanted it amicable, here," Bink said. "This is a very special place, where peace should exist among all creatures of Xanth."

"Are you crazy? This is a burnout!"

"I'll show you," Bink said. "We'll follow that wisp."

The will-o'-the wisp was still present, hovering not quite close enough to overtake. "Look, Bink," Chester protested. "We lucked out on that wisp-but we dare not follow it any farther. It'll lead us into destruction."

"Not this one," Bink said, following it After a moment Chester shrugged, gave a what-can-you-do? kick with his hind hooves, and followed. Crombie glided down to join them.

Soon the wisp stopped at a glowstone marking a grave. As they approached, the stone lit up with the words HERMAN THE HERMIT.

"Uncle Herman!" Chester exclaimed. "You mean this is the place he-?"

"The place he saved Xanth from the wiggles," Bink said. "By summoning many creatures with his wisps, then setting a salamander-fire to burn the wiggles out. He gave his noble life in that effort, and died a hero. I knew the wisp would lead us here, once I recognized the burnout, because you are his kind and kin and the wisps honor his memory. Crombie's talent located the wisp, and the wisp-"

"Uncle Herman, hero," Chester said, his face twisting into an unfamiliar expression. The belligerent centaur was unused to the gentle emotions of reverence and respect. Almost, it seemed there was a forlorn melody played by a flute, enhancing the mood.

Bink and Crombie withdrew, leaving Chester to his contemplation in privacy. Bink tripped over a pile of dirt that hadn't been there a moment ago and almost fell headlong; that was the only sour note.

Chapter 4

Magician's Castle

Magician Humfrey's castle was the same as ever. It stood tall and slender, with stout outer ramparts and a high inner tower topped by embrasures and parapets and similar accouterments normal to castles. It was smaller than Bink remembered, but he knew it had not changed. Perhaps the problem was that his memory of the interior made it larger than his memory of the exterior. With magic, it was possible that the inside really was larger than the outside.

The magic access routes had been changed, however, and the hippocampus or water-horse was gone from the moat, its time of service expired. There was surely another creature standing guard inside, in lieu of the manticora Bink had known: the one at the Anniversary party. Even monsters had to give a year of their lives as fee for the Good Magician's Answers, and they normally performed as guardians of the castle. Humfrey did not appreciate casual intrusions.

As they came to the moat, the nature of the new guardian became apparent Monster? Monsters! The water teemed with serpentine loops, some white, some black, sliding past each other interminably.

"But where are the heads, the tails?" Chester inquired, perplexed. "All I see are coils."

The three of them stood by the moat, pondering. What could a whole fleet of sea serpents have wanted to ask the Good Magician, needing his Answer so badly that all were willing to pay the fee? How had they gotten here? It seemed it was not for Bink and his friends to know.

Fortunately, this was not a hazard he had to brave.

Bink was on the King's business, and would be admitted to the castle as soon as he made his presence known. "Magician Humfrey!" he called.

There was no response from the castle. Doubtless the Good Magician was buried in a good book of magic, oblivious to outside proceedings. "Magician, it is Bink, on a mission for the King!" he called again.

Still no response. "The old gnome must be hard of hearing," Chester muttered. "Let me try." He cupped his hands before his mouth and bellowed: "MAGICIAN: COMPANY!"

The bellow echoed and re-echoed from the battlements, but the castle was silent "He should be at home," Bink said. "He never goes anywhere. Still, we can check. Crombie, where is the Good Magician?"

The griffin went through his act and pointed-directly toward the castle. "Must be beyond it," Chester said. "If your talent's not on the blink again."

Crombie squawked, his fine hackle-feathers rising again. He stood on his hind feet and made boxing motions with his front feet, challenging the centaur to fight Chester seemed quite ready to oblige.

"No, no!" Bink cried, diving between them. "We don't want to make a bad impression!"

"Hell, I wanted to make a good impression-on his feathery face," Chester grumbled.

Bink knew he had to separate the two combative creatures. "Go around to the other side of the castle and get another fix on the Magician," he told Crombie.

"Triangulate," Chester said.

Triangulate? Bink, accustomed to his friend's surly manner, had forgotten how educated centaurs were. Triangulation was a magical means of locating something without going there directly. Chester had a good mind and a lot of background information, when he cared to let it show.

The griffin decided that the word was not, after all, a scatological insult, and flew to one side of the castle and pointed again. Toward the castle. No question about it: the Magician was home.

"Better fly in and notify him we're here," Bink said. "We don't want to mess with those moat-monsters."

Crombie took off again. There was a small landing area between the moat and the castle, but no opening in the wall, so the griffin mounted to the high turrets. But there seemed to be no entry there for a creature of that size, so after circling the tower twice the griffin flew back.

"I remember now," Bink said. "The windows are barred. A small bird can get through, but not a griffin. We'll just have to brave the moat after all."

"We're here on the King's business!" Chester exclaimed angrily. His unhandsome face was excellent for scowling. "We don't have to run the gauntlet!"

Bink was piqued himself. But he knew he could make it through, because of his talent. "It is my responsibility. I'll see if I can navigate the castle obstacles and get his attention, then he'll let you in."

"We won't let you brave that moat alone!" Chester protested, and Crombie squawked agreement. These two might have their rivalry, but they knew their ultimate loyalty.

This was awkward. They had no magical protection. "I'd really rather do it alone," Bink said. "I am smaller than you, and more likely to slip through. If I fall in the moat, you can lasso me and haul me out, quickly. But I could never haul you out, if-"

"Got a point," Chester admitted grudgingly. "Crombie can fly across the water, but we already know he can't get in. Too bad he's not strong enough to fly with you,"

Crombie started to bridle again, but Bink cut in quickly. "He could carry your rope to me, in an emergency. I really think it is best this way. You can help me most by figuring out what type of monsters are in that moat. Is there anything in the centaur's lexicon about headless serpents?"

"Some-but the coils don't match the pattern. They look more like pieces of a-" Chester broke off, staring. "It is! It's an ouroboros!"

"An ouroboros?" Bink repeated blankly. "What's that-a fleet of sea monsters?"

"It is all one monster, a water dragon, clutching its own tail between its teeth. Half of it white, half black. The symbolism is-"

"But there are a score or more segments, all over the moat! Some are in toward the castle, and some out near the edge. Look-there's three lined up parallel. They can't be pieces of the same monster!"

"Yes they can," Chester said wisely. "The ouroboros loops entirely around the castle-"

"But that would account for only a single-file line of-"

"Loops several times, and its head plunges below its own coils to catch the tail, A little like a mobius strip. So-"

"A what?"

"Never mind. That's specialized magic. Take my word: that thing in the moat is all one monster-and it can't bite because it won't let go of its tail. So if you're good at balancing, you can walk along it to the castle."

"But no segment shows above the water more than five feet! I'd fall in, if I tried to jump from segment to segment!"

"Don't jump," Chester said with unusual patience, for him. "Walk. Even coiled several times around the loop, the thing is too long for the moat, so it has to make vertical convolutions. These can never straighten out; as soon as one subsides, another must rise, and this happens in a progressive undulation. That's how the ouroboros moves, in this restricted locale. So you need never get wet; just follow one stage of the thing to the end."

"This makes no sense to me!" Bink said. "You're speaking in Centaurese. Can't you simplify?"

"Just jump aboard the nearest loop and stay there," Chester advised. "You'll understand it once you do it."

"You have more confidence in me than I do," Bink said dubiously. "I hope you know what I'm doing."

"I trusted you to get us out of the nickelpede crevice Crombie got us into," Chester said. "Now you trust me to get you across that moat. It isn't as if you've never ridden a monster before."

"Squawk!" Crombie cried, pointing a wing at the centaur. Bink smiled; he had been riding the centaur. Score one for the soldier.

"Just don't fall off," Chester continued evenly. "You'd get crushed by the coils."

"Um," Bink agreed, sobering. Even with his talent backing him up, he didn't like this. Walking the back of a moving sea monster? Why not walk the wings of a flying roc, while he was at it!

He cast his gaze about, as he tended to do when he sought some escape from what he knew he could not escape-and spotted another mound of earth. Angrily he marched a few paces and stepped on it, pressing it down.

But when a convenient loop offered, Bink jumped across to it, windmilling his arms in the fashion of a mill-tree to regain his balance. The segment of monster sank somewhat beneath his weight, then stabilized pneumatically. Though glistening with moisture, the white skin was not slippery. Good; maybe this walk was possible after all!

The flesh rippled. The section in front of him subsided into the water. "Turn about!" Chester called from the bank. "Stay with it!"

Bink turned, windmilling again. There, behind/before him, the loop was extending. He stepped along it, hurrying as the water lapped at his heels. This was like a magic highway, opening out ahead of him, closing behind him. Maybe that was the basic principle of such one-way paths; they were really the backs of monsters! Yet though the serpent seemed to be moving toward Bink's rear, the loop stayed in place, or drifted slightly forward. So he was walking fairly swiftly, to make rather slow progress. "I'll never get across this way," he complained. "I'm not even walking toward the castle."

"You'll get there," Chester called. "Keep your feet going."

Bink kept walking, and the centaur and griffin moved slowly around the moat to keep pace. Suddenly a loop developed between him and his friends. "Hey, I've crossed to an inner loop-and I never left this one!" Bink exclaimed.

"You are spiraling inward," Chester explained. "There is no other way to go. When you get to the inner bank, jump off."

Bink continued, rather enjoying it now that he had his sea legs and understood the mechanism. There was no way he could avoid reaching the other shore, so long as he kept his place here. Yet what an ingenious puzzle it was; could he have solved it without Chester's help?

Abruptly the segment narrowed. He was coming to the end of the tail! Then the head of the ouroboros came in sight, its teeth firmly clamped to the tail. Suddenly nervous again, Bink had no alternative but to tread on that head. Suppose it decided to let go the tail, just this once, and take him in instead? The big dragon eyes stared briefly at him, sending a chill through his body.

Then the head was past, continuing its undulation into the water, and Bink was treading the massive neck, broad as a highway after the slender tail. Apparently this dragon, serpent, or whatever was independent of air; it could keep its head submerged indefinitely. Yet how did it eat, if it never let go of its tail? It couldn't be eating itself, could it? Maybe that had been its Question for the Magician: how could it let go of its tail, so it could consume the idiots who walked along its length? No, if it had the answer to that, it would have gobbled up Bink as he passed. "Jump, Bink!" Chester called. Oops-had the serpent changed its mind, let go, and come to gobble? Bink looked back, but saw nothing special. Then he looked ahead-and discovered that the body was twisting down and under the adjacent leg of the spiral. No more highway! He leaped to shore as his footing ended.

Now he was at the outer rampart of the castle. He looked for the great doorway he had encountered on his first approach to this castle, back before Trent was King-and found a waterfall.

A waterfall? How had that gotten here? He traced It upward and saw a ledge; the water issued from somewhere out of sight, to course down over the frame of the door.

Was there an aperture behind the sheet of water? Bink did not relish getting wet here, after traversing the whole moat dry, but he would have to look. He removed his clothing and set it aside, so that it would not get soaked, then nudged cautiously into the waterfall.

The water was cool but not chill. There was a small air space behind it. Then the wood facing of the door. He explored the surface with his hands, pushing here and there, but found no looseness anywhere. There was no entrance here.

He backed out of the fall, shaking his head to clear it of drips. Where could he go from here? The ledge circled the castle, but he knew the wall was solid stone throughout. There would be no access to the interior.

Nevertheless, Bink made the circuit, verifying his suspicion. No access. What now?

He suffered a surge of anger. Here he was on the King's business; why should he have to go through all this nonsense? The old gnome-Magician thought he was so clever, putting a maze around himself! Bink had just about had it with mazes. First the Queen's, then the nickelpede crevice, now this.

But at heart Bink was a practical man. In due course the pressure of his anger ceased, like the steam of a relaxing dragon. He came to look at the waterfall again. This was no mountain, with natural drainage. The water had to be raised by mundane or magical means to an upper level, then poured out. Surely it was a circulatory system, drawn from the moat and returning to it. Could he swim in where the water was sucked up?

No. Water could go where he could not. Such as through a sieve. He could drown, if his body got stuck in the water channel. Not worth the risk.

The only other direction was up. Could he climb?

Yes he could. He now noted little handholds in the wood at the edge of the waterfall. "Here I come," he muttered.

He climbed. As his head poked over the sill, he froze. There on the roof squatted a gargoyle. The water issued from its grotesque mouth.

Then he realized that this monster, like the ouroboros, should not be dangerous if he handled it properly. The gargoyle, assigned to water-spouting duty, would be unlikely to chase him.

Bink clambered to the surface of the small roof. He surveyed the situation from this firmer footing. The gargoyle was about his own height, but it was mostly face. The body was so foreshortened as to represent no more than a pedestal. The head was so distorted that Bink could not tell whether it was man, animal, or other. Huge eyes bulged, the nose was like that of a horse, the ears flared out enormously, and the mouth took up fully a third of the face. With the water pouring out like a prolonged regurgitation.

Behind the monster the wall of the castle resumed. There were no handholds, and even if he could scale it, he saw only barred apertures above. No particular hope there.

Bink contemplated the gargoyle. How had it gotten up here? It had no real hands or feet to use to climb the way Bink had. Was there a door behind it? That seemed reasonable.

He would have to move the monster away from that door. But how? The thing had not attacked him, but its attitude might change if he molested it. The gargoyle was more massive than he; it might shove him right of the roof. Too bad he didn't have his sword to defend himself; that was with his clothing, back beside the moat

Should he climb back down to get it? No, he was sure that would not be wise; it would give away his intent. The gargoyle could move over and crunch his fingers as he ascended with the weapon.

Maybe he could bluff it. "Move over, foulface; I am on a mission for the King."

The gargoyle ignored him. That was another thing that was getting to Bink: being ignored. "Move, or I'll move you myself!" He stepped toward the monster.

No reaction. How could he back down now? Trusting his talent to protect him, Bink moved in beside the gargoyle, staying clear of the river of water spouting from its mouth, and applied his hands to its surface. The grotesque face felt like stone, completely hard. It was heavy, too; shove as he might he could not budge it

This monster was defeating him-and it hadn't even noticed him!

Then Bink had a bright idea. Sometimes creatures were vulnerable to their own specialties. The gargoyle's specialty was ugliness.

Bink stood before it, straddling the river. "Hey, homely-here's what you look like!" He put his fingers in the corners of his mouth to stretch it wide while he bugged his eyes.

The gargoyle reacted. It pursed its lips to funnel the water toward Bink. Bink jumped nimbly aside. "Nyaat" he yelled, puffing out his cheeks to make another ludicrous face.

The monster shuddered with rage. It shot another blast of water at him. Bink was tagged by the fringe of it, and almost washed off the ledge. This was, after all, a chancy business!

He opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue. "Haa!" he cried, unable to form anything much better while holding the expression.

The gargoyle was infuriated. Its mouth opened until it took up half the face. But with the opening that large, the water emerged at low pressure, dribbling down the ugly chin.

Bink dived forward-directly into that mouth. He scrambled upstream against the slowly moving water-and emerged into a reservoir tank within the castle. In a moment he had stroked to the surface and climbed out He was inside!

But not yet safe. A cactus cat perched at the edge of the reservoir. It was about half Bink's height, with a normal feline face, but its fur was composed of thorns. On the ears the thorns were very large and stiff, like slender spikes. But the cat's real weapons were on its front legs: knifelike blades of bone projecting from the front, scintillatingly sharp. These obviously could not be wielded endwise like daggers, but would be devastating as slicers.

The thorn-fur was horizontally striped, green and brown, and this pattern carried over into the three tails. A pretty but dangerous creature; one that no cognizant person would pat casually on the head saying "Nice kitty."

Was this another guardian of the castle, or merely a houseguest? Cactus cats normally ran wild, slicing up cactus with their blades and feeding on the fermenting sap. Needle cactuses fought back, however, shooting their needles into anything that annoyed them, so they were natural enemies to the cactus cats. Encounters between the two were said to be quite something! But there was no cactus of any kind here. Maybe this was an animal soliciting an Answer from the Good Magician.

Bink tried to skirt it, but the cat moved lithely to the only apparent exit and settled there. So it seemed he would have to force the issue, regardless.

Suddenly Bink got mad. He had had enough of these obstructions. He was no mere supplicant, he was here on the King's business! "Cat, get out of my way!" he said loudly.

The animal began to snore. But Bink knew it would come awake instantly and violently if he tried to sneak past it. Cats were ornery that way. This creature was playing cat and mouse with him-and that made him madder yet.

But what could he do? He was no needle cactus, with hundreds of sliver-thorns to launch. How could he strike at this insufferable cat?

Needles. There were other missiles than needles.

"Then pay the consequence!" Bink snapped. He leaned over the reservoir and sliced his hand across its surface, scooping out a fierce splash of water. The droplets arched across the room and splatted against the wall beside the sleeping cat.

The creature rose up with a screech of sheerest feline fury. Sparks radiated from its ears. Most cats hated water, other than small tame amounts for drinking, and desert cats were enraged by it. The thing charged Bink, its forelimb blades gleaming.

Bink scooped another volley of liquid at it. The cat leaped straight up in horror, letting the splash pass under. Oh, it was ecstatically angry now!

"We can handle this two ways, Cactus," Bink said calmly, his hand ready by the water. "Either I can soak you down thoroughly-or you can stand and let me pass. Or any combination of the two."

The cat snarled. It looked at Bink, then at the water. Finally it affected loss of interest, in the manner of balked felines, and stalked to the side, all three tails standing stiffly.

"Very good, Cactus," Bink said. "But a word to the cunning: if I were to be attacked on the way, I should simply have to grab my antagonist and plunge into the pool and drown him, whatever the mutual cost. That would be inconvenient, and I hope it does not become necessary."

The cat pretended not to hear. It settled down again to sleep.

Bink walked toward the door, affecting a nonchalance similar to that of the cactus cat, but was wary. Fortunately he had bluffed it out; the cat did not move.

Now he was past the hurdles. He explored the castle until he located the Good Magician Humfrey. The man was gnomelike, perched on top of three huge tomes so as to gain the elevation he needed to pore over a fourth. He was old, perhaps the oldest man in the Land of Xanth, with skin wrinkled and mottled. But he was a fine and honest Magician, and Bink knew him to be a kindly individual under all his gruff-ness.

"Magician!" Bink exclaimed, still irked by the challenge of entry. "Why don't you pay attention to who's visiting] I had to run your infernal gauntlet-and I'm not even coming as a supplicant. I'm on the King's business."

Humfrey looked up, rubbing one reddish eye with a gnarled little hand. "Oh, hello, Bink. Why haven't you visited me before this?"

"We were yelling across the moat! You never answered!"

Humfrey frowned. "Why should I answer a transformed griffin who squawks in a manner that would make a real griffin blush? Why should I acknowledge the bellow of an ornery centaur? The one has no Question, and the other doesn't want to pay for his. Both are wasting my time."

"So you were aware of us all the time!" Bink exclaimed, half-angry, half-admiring, with a little indefinable emotion left over. What a personality this was! "You let me struggle through the whole needless gauntlet!"

"Needless, Bink? You come on a mission that will cost me an inordinate amount of time, and will threaten the welfare of Xanth itself. Why should I encourage you in such folly?"

"I don't need encouragement!" Bink cried hotly. "All I need is advice-because the King thought that was best"

The Good Magician shook his head. "The King is a remarkably savvy customer. You need more than advice, Bink."

"Well, all I need from you is advice!"

"You shall have it, and without charge: forget this mission."

"I can't forget this mission! I'm on assignment for the-"

"So you said. I did tell you that you needed more than advice. You're as ornery as your friends. Why didn't you leave that poor dragon alone?"

"Leave the poor-" Bink started indignantly. Then he laughed. "You're some character, Magician! Now stop teasing me and tell me why, since you obviously have been well aware of my progress, you did not let us into the castle the easy way."

"Because I hate to be disturbed for minor matters. Had you been balked by my routine defenses, you could hardly have possessed the will to pursue your mission properly. But as I feared, you persevered. What started as a minor diversion with a shapely ghost has become a serious quest-and the result is opaque even to my magic. I queried Beauregard on the matter, and he got so upset I had to rebottle him before he had a nervous breakdown."

Beauregard-that was the bespectacled demon corked in a container, highly educated. Bink began to feel uncomfortable. "What could so shake up a demon?"

"The end of Xanth," Humfrey said simply.

"But all I'm looking for is the source of magic," Bink protested. "I'm not going to do anything to harm Xanth. I love Xanth!"

"You weren't going to install the Evil Magician as King, last time you were here," Humfrey reminded him. "Your minor personal quests have a way of getting out of hand."

"You mean this present mission is going to be worse than the last one?" Bink asked, feeling both excited and appalled. He had only wanted to find his own talent, before.

The Magician nodded soberly. "So it would seem. I can not fathom in what precise manner your quest will threaten Xanth, but I am certain the risks are extraordinary."

Bink thought of giving up the quest and returning to Chameleon, ugly and sharp of tongue as she was at the moment, with Millie the nonghost hovering near. Suddenly he became much more interested in the source of the magic of Xanth. "Thanks for your advice. I'm going on."

"Less hasty, Bink! That was not my magic advice; that was just common sense, for which I make no charge. I knew you would ignore it."

Bink found it hard at times not to get impatient with the Good Magician. "Let's have your magic Answer, then."

"And what do you proffer for payment?"

"Payment!" Bink expostulated. "This is-"

"The King's business," the Magician finished. "Be realistic, Bink. The King is merely getting you out of his hair for a while until your home life sweetens up. He can't have you tearing up his palace every time he tries to make out with the Queen. That hardly warrants my waiver of fee."

Only a foolish man tried to argue with a Magician whose talent was information. Bink argued. "The King merely timed the mission conveniently. My job always has been to seek out the source of magic; it just took me a while to get around to it. It is important for the King to have this knowledge. Now that I'm actually on the quest, the authority of the King is behind it, and he can call on your resources if he chooses. You knew that when you helped make him King."

Humfrey shook his head. "Trent has become arrogant in his power. He draws ruthlessly on the talents of others to forward his purposes." Then he smiled.

"In other words, he is exactly the kind of monarch Xanth needs. He does not plead or petition, he commands. I as a loyal citizen must support that exercise of power." He glanced at Bink. "However capriciously it happens to be exercised. Thus my fee becomes forfeit to the good of Xanth, though in this case I fear it is the bad of Xanth."

This capitulation was too sudden and too amiable. There had to be a catch. "What is your Answer, then?"

"What is your Question?"

Bink choked on a mouthful of air. "What do I need for this quest?" he spluttered.

"Your quest can not be successful unless you take a Magician along."

"Take a Magician!" Bink exclaimed. "There are only three Magician-class people in Xanth, and two of them are the King and Queen! I can't-" He broke of, realizing. "You?"

"I told you this was going to cost me time!" Humfrey grumbled. "All my arcane researches interrupted, my castle mothballed-because you can't wait a few days for your wife to finish her pregnancy and get sweet and pretty again."

"You old rogue!" Bink cried. "You want to come!"

"I hardly made that claim," the Magician said sourly. "The fact is, this quest is too important to allow it to be bungled by an amateur, as well the King understood when he sent you here. Since there is no one else of suitable expertise available, I am forced to make the sacrifice. There is no necessity, however, that I be gracious about it."

"But you could have sought the source of magic anytime! You didn't have to co-opt the quest right when I-"

"I co-opt nothing. It is your quest; I merely accompany you, as an emergency resource."

"You mean you're not taking over?"

"What do I want with leadership? I shall stick to my own business, leaving the pesky details of management and routing to you, until my resources are needed-which I trust will not be soon or often."

Now Bink was uncertain how serious Humfrey was.

Surely a man who specialized in magical information would be seriously interested in the source of magic-but certainly the Good Magician liked his convenience and privacy, as his castle and mode of operation testified. Probably Humfrey was torn between desires for isolation and knowledge, so reacted negatively while doing what he deemed to be the right thing. No sense in aggravating the situation. The man would certainly be an incalculable asset on a quest of this nature. "I am sorry to be the agent of such inconvenience to you, but glad to have your help. Your expertise is vastly greater than mine."

"Umph," Humfrey agreed, trying not to seem mollified. "Let's get on with it. Go tell the troll to let down the drawbridge for your companions."

"Uh, there is one other thing," Bink said. "Someone may be trying to kill me-"

"And you want to know who."

"Yes. And why. I don't like-"

"That is not the King's business. It will have to be covered by a separate fee."

Oh. Just when Bink had begun to suspect there was a decent streak in the Good Magician, he had this confirmation of the man's mercenary nature. One year of service for the Answer? Bink preferred to locate and deal with his enemy himself. "Forget it," he said.

"It is already forgotten," Humfrey said graciously.

Bink trekked downstairs, found the troll, and gave it the instruction. The brute winched down the bridge. Where the drawbridge mechanism was Bink did not know, as it had not been apparent from the outside, and the troll stood in a chamber near the center of the castle. There had to be magical augmentation to connect what the troll did to what the bridge did. But it worked, and Chester and Crombie entered at last, emerging from a gate that opened from the center of the castle. How could there be an opening here, with no hole through the wall? The Magician was evidently squandering a lot of magic here! Maybe some clever technician had brought a Question, and constructed this mechanism in fee.

"I knew you'd come through, Bink!" the centaur said. "What did the old gnome say about your quest?"

"He's coming with me."

Chester shook his head. "You're in trouble."

The Magician came downstairs to meet them. "So you want to know your obscene talent," he said to the centaur. "What fee do you offer the old gnome?"

Chester was for once abashed. "I'm not sure I-centaurs aren't supposed to-"

"Aren't supposed to be wishy-washy?" Humfrey asked cuttingly.

"Chester just came along to give me a ride," Bink said. "And fight dragons."

"Bink will still need a ride," Humfrey said. "Since I am now associated with this quest, it behooves me to arrange for it. I proffer you this deal: in lieu of the customary year's service for the Answer, I will accept service for the duration of this quest"

Chester was startled. "You mean I do have a talent? A magic one?"

"Indubitably."

"And you know it already? What it is?"

"I do."

"Then-" But the centaur paused. "I might figure it out for myself, if it was so easy for you to do. Why should I pay you for it?"

"Why, indeed," the Magician agreed.

"But if I don't figure it out, and if Bink gets in trouble because he meets a dragon when I'm not there-"

"I would love to let you stew indefinitely in your dilemma," Humfrey said. "But I am in a hurry and Bink needs a ride, so I'll cut it short. Undertake the service I require, in advance of my Answer. If you fail to solve your talent yourself, I will tell you at the termination of the quest-or any prior time you so request If you do solve it yourself, I will provide a second Answer to whatever other question you may ask. Thus you will in effect have two Answers for the price of one."

Chester considered momentarily. "Done," he agreed. "I like adventure anyway."

The Magician turned to Crombie. "Now you are directly in the King's service, so are committed for the duration. He has given you a fine form, but it lacks intelligible speech. I believe it would be better for you to be more communicative. Accordingly, meet another of my fee-servitors: Grundy the Golem." A miniature man-figure appeared, his whole height hardly the span of an ordinary man's hand. He seemed to have been formed from bits of string and clay and wood and other refuse, but he was animate.

The griffin looked at the golem with a certain surprised contempt. One bite of that eagle's beak could sever all four appendages from the figure. "Squawk!" Crombie remarked.

"Same to you, birdbeak," the golem said without special emphasis, as if he didn't really care.

"Grundy's talent is translation," the Magician explained. "I shall assign him to render the soldier's griffin-speech into human speech, so we can better understand him. He already understands us, as so many animals do, so no reverse translation is required. The golem is small enough for any of us to carry without strain, so his transportation will be no problem. Bink will ride the centaur, and I will ride the griffin. That way we shall make expeditious progress." And so, efficiently, it was arranged. The quest for the source of the magic of Xanth had begun.

Chapter 5

Golem Heights

They stood outside the castle, across the moat, watching while the Magician mothballed his residence. The ouroboros and other creatures under fee had been granted leaves of absence and were already gone. Humfrey fumbled in his clothing, showing a large heavy belt containing many pockets, and drew from this belt a closed vial or narrow bottle. He applied his thumbs to its cork until it popped free.

Smoke swirled out, looming high into the sky. Then it coalesced into the largest moth Bink had ever imagined, with a wingspan that cast the entire castle into shadow. The creature flew up over the castle and dropped a ball. As the ball fell near the highest turret it exploded. Gray-white streamers shot out in a huge sphere, drifting down to touch every part of the castle. Then they drew in tight, and suddenly the whole edifice was sheathed in a silky net, and looked like a giant tent. A cold, bitter odor emanated from it, smelling vaguely disinfectant.

"There," Humfrey said with grudging satisfaction. 'That'll keep a hundred years, if it has to."

"A hundred years!" Chester exclaimed. "Is that how long you figure this mission will take?"

"Come on, come on, we're wasting time," the Good Magician grumped.

Bink, astride the centaur, looked across at the griffin. "What he means, Crombie, is that we need to know the direction of the source of magic. The mission should be accomplished in a few days, with your help."

The griffin squawked irately. "Well, why didn't the old fool say so?" the golem translated promptly. He shared the griffin's back with the Magician, as the two together massed barely half what Bink did.

"Well spoken, soldier," Chester muttered low.

Crombie whirled, almost throwing off his riders. "That way," Grundy said, pointing-around in a continuing circle, his tiny arm settling nowhere.

"Oh, no," Chester muttered. "His talent's on the blink again."

"It is not malfunctioning," Humfrey snapped. "You asked the wrong question."

Bink's brow furrowed. "We had some trouble that way before. What is the right question?"

"It's your job to pursue this quest," Humfrey said. "I must conserve my information for emergencies." And he settled down comfortably amid the feathers of the griffin's back and closed his eyes.

The Good Magician remained his taciturn self. He was out of the habit of helping anyone without his fee, even when he himself might benefit from such help. Now Bink was on the spot again; he had to figure out how to make Crombie's talent work-while the Magician snoozed.

Before, in the nickelpede cleft, Crombie had fouled up because there had been no single direction for escape. Was that the case now-no single source for magic? If so, that would be very hard to locate. But the cynosure of this group was on him; he had to perform, and in a hurry. It was evident that the Good Magician had done him no particular favor by leaving the leadership of the quest to Bink. "Where is the most direct route to the source of magic?"

This time the griffin's wing pointed down at an angle.

So that was why there was no horizontal direction; the source was not across, but down. Yet that was not much help. They couldn't dig down very far, very fast. They would have to get a person whose talent was magic-tunneling, and that would mean delay and awkwardness. This group was already larger than Bink had anticipated. Better to find a natural route.

"Where is there an access to this source, from the surface?" Bink asked.

The wing began to vibrate back and forth. "The nearest one!" Bink amended hastily. The wing stabilized, pointing roughly south.

"The heart of the unexplored wilderness," Chester said. "I should have known. Maybe I should take my Answer now and quit."

Crombie squawked. "Birdbeak says if you take your stupid Answer now, you can't quit, horserear."

Chester swelled up angrily. "Birdbeak said that? You tell him for me he has bird droppings for brains, and-"

"Easy," Bink cautioned the centaur. "Crombie needs no translation for your words."

"Actually he called you an ass," Grundy said helpfully. "I assume he meant your rear end, which is about as asinine as-"

The griffin squawked again. "Oops, my error," the golem said. "He referred to your front end."

"Listen, birdbrain!" Chester shouted. "I don't need your ignorant opinion! Why don't you take it and stuff it-"

But Crombie was squawking at the sametime. The two faced off aggressively. The centaur was bigger and more muscular than the griffin, but the griffin was probably the more deadly fighter, for he had the mind of a trained human soldier in the body of a natural combat creature.

"Squawk!" Bink screamed. "I mean, stop! The golem is just making trouble. Obviously the word Crombie used was 'centaur.' Isn't that so, Crombie?"

Crombie squawked affirmatively. "Spoilsport," Grundy muttered, speaking for himself. "Just when it was getting interesting."

"Never mind that," Bink said. "Do you admit I was correct, Golem?"