"Let me consult," Humfrey said. There was a rustle as he rummaged through his magic props. Then: "This is not ideal, but it will do. Hold this vial before your face and open it."
More rustling as she accepted the vial that he held out over his shoulder. There was a pop as the cork came out, the hiss of escaping vapor, a gasp, then silence. Had the Magician executed her after all, giving her poison vapor to sniff?
"Companions, you may now remove your blindfolds and turn about," Humfrey said. "The gorgon has been nullified."
Bink ripped off the cloth. "Magician! You didn't--?"
"No, I did her no harm. Observe."
Bink observed, as did the others. Before them stood a breathtakingly lovely young woman with hair formed of many small thin snakes. But her face was--absent. There simply wasn't anything there.
"I applied a spell of invisibility to her face," Humfrey explained. "She can see out well enough, but I regret that no man can look upon her face, since it is the loveliest part of her. But this way it is impossible to meet her gaze. She is safe--as are we."
It was too bad, really, Bink had to agree. She seemed like such a nice girl, burdened with such a terrible curse. Magic was not always kind! The Magician had nullified the curse, but it was disconcerting to look into that vacuum in lieu of her face.
Crombie walked around the island, studying the statues. Some were of centaurs, and some of griffins. "Squawk!"
"Look at the damage the bitch has done! She must have petrified hundreds of innocent males. What good is it to nullify her now? It is like closing the house door after the man has escaped." He was evidently thinking more like a griffin, now. That was a danger of prolonged transformation.
"Yes, we shall have to do something about the statues," Humfrey agreed. "But I have expended enough of my valuable magic. Too much, in fact Crombie, point out where the solution to this problem lies."
The griffin whirled and pointed. Down.
"Hm. Now point out the source of magic, again."
Crombie did. The result was the same. "So I supposed," Humfrey said. "Our quest has more than informational significance."
Another factor fell into place for Bink. This whole escapade with the tangle tree and the devastating sisters had seemed like a diversion from the quest and a serious threat to Bink's welfare, yet his talent had permitted it. Now he saw that his experience related to the quest. Still, it should not have been necessary to expose himself to these dangers in order to reach the source of magic. Something other than his talent must be operating.
He remembered the mound of earth, last night. Did that relate? He really could not fathom how, yet he distrusted coincidental occurrences unless they derived from his talent If an enemy were--The Good Magician brought out his mirror again. "Get me the Queen," he said into it.
"The Queen?" Bink asked, surprised.
The mirror fogged, then showed the face of Queen Iris. "About time you called in, Humfrey," she said. "How come you're dawdling there on the gorgon's isle, instead of pursuing your fool quest?"
Crombie squawked angrily. "Don't translate that!" Humfrey snapped at the golem. Then, to the Sorceress: "It is Bink's quest, not mine. We have nullified siren and gorgon, and are proceeding toward the source of magic. Notify the King."
Iris made a minor gesture of unconcern. "When I get around to it, midget" she said.
The visage of King Trent appeared in the mirror behind her. Abruptly she assumed the aspect of a Sweet Young Thing, complete with long braids. "Which will be very soon, Good Magician," she amended hastily. Trent waved jovially and tugged on a braid as the mirror went blank.
"How can she talk on the mirror?" Bink inquired. "It shows silent pictures for everyone else."
"She is mistress of illusion," Humfrey explained.
"Mistress of the King, you mean," Crombie squawked.
"We only think we're hearing her," Humfrey continued. He put away the mirror. "And the King only thinks he can yank at an illusory braid. But illusion has its uses, in whatever capacity."
"I'd like the illusion of reality," the golem said wistfully.
Humfrey returned his attention to the gorgon. "We shall return in due course. I suggest you go comfort your sister, meanwhile. She has lost her dulcimer."
"I will, I will!" the gorgon cried. "Farewell, handsome Sorcerer!" She flung her arms around Humfrey and planted an invisible kiss on his mouth while the snakes snapped at his ears and hissed up a storm. "Hurry back! I have so much love stored up--"
"Um. Just so," the Magician agreed, embarrassed. He brought up a finger to snap away one serpent-hair that was gnawing too vigorously on his earlobe.
The magic path ended at the gorgon's isle, so it was necessary to swim back. They used Crombie's talent to locate a safe route across, avoiding lake monsters; then Bink mounted Chester and Humfrey rode the griffin. It was now midmorning, and the return to the magic-dust village was easy and swift. Hostile magic had not yet had time to move in to replace the prior charm of the path.
The tangle tree was a charred stump. The villagers had really done the job, destroying a long-term enemy. But the village itself was now quiet, with black drapes in the windows; it was in mourning for the last party of males to be lost to the siren.
How suddenly that changed, as those males marched in! "You survived!" Trolla cried, tears of untrollish joy streaming down her horrible face. "We tried to follow you, but could not hear the siren and could not trace the path in the dark. In the morning we knew it was too late, and we had wounded to attend to--"
"We have nullified the siren--and her sister, the gorgon," Bink said. "No more men will go that way. But the men who went before--"
"They are all dead; we know."
"No. They are stone. There may be a way to reverse the spell and restore them. If we are successful in our quest--"
"Come, we must celebrate!" Trolla cried. "We shall give you such a party--"
Bink knew the answer to that. "Uh, no thanks. You are very kind, but all we want to do now is get on with our quest. We seek the ultimate source of magic--the source of your magic dust, underground."
"There is no way down there," Trolla said. "It wells up in a solid shaft--"
"Yes. So we will seek elsewhere. If any avenue of access exists, from another direction--"
Disappointed, Trolla accepted the situation with grace. "Which way do you go?"
"That way," Bink said, indicating the direction Crombie had pointed for the resumption of their quest.
"But that's into the heart of the Region of Madness!"
Bink smiled. "Perhaps our access is through madness, then."
"The route past the tangle tree is open now. You could go out that way, and loop about to avoid the madness--"
Bink shook his head in negation, knowing that had that been the best way, Crombie would have indicated it.
"You males are so unreasonable! At least wait a few days. We will stop lofting the magic dust into the air, and the effect will diminish. Then you may traverse the region less hazardously."
"No. We have decided to push on." Bink feared that a few days' relaxation in this village of eager females would be as ruinous as continued dalliance with the siren and gorgon. They had to move on.
"Then we shall provide a guide. She can warn you of the immediate traps, and it is barely possible you will survive until clear of the worst of it. You are already half mad, after all."
"Yes," Bink agreed with a wry smile. "We are males." Neither sex understood the other; that was yet another aspect of the magic of Xanth. He rather liked this tame female troll; apparently almost any monster could be worthwhile once it was possible to know it personally.
The guide turned out to be a very pretty female griffin. "Squawk!" Crombie protested. "Awk! Awk!" she replied archly. "Don't saddle us with a chick like that!" Grundy translated happily. "Who are you calling a chick? I'm a lioness!"
"You're a nuisance!"
"And you're a bore!"
"Female!"
"Male!"
"Uh, that's enough translation, Grundy," Bink said. "They're down to ultimate insults." He turned to Trolla. 'Thank you for the guide. We'll be on our way now."
All the females of the village lined up to wave goodbye. It was a sad but necessary parting.
The wilderness of Xanth soon abolished sentimentality. The trees were extremely large here, closing in to form a dense jungle. This was the downwind region of the magic dust, as Trolla had warned; magic flourished here. Monstrous pincushions grew at the lowest level, stabbing anyone who passed too near, living stalagmites projected between the cushions, their stony points glistening with moisture that fell on them from above. Oil slicks twined wherever suitable depressions were available. The oil was more slippery than anything else, and at the same time more tenacious. "Those tanker trees shouldn't flush their wastes on the surface," Chester muttered. "They should bury it, the way civilized creatures do."
Yet the higher growths were no more promising; the huge metal trunks of ironwood trees crowded against the burned-out boles of ash. Rust and ashes coated the ground around them. Here and there bull spruces snorted and flexed their branch-horns menacingly. Above, it was worse yet; caterpillar nettles crawled along, peering down with prickly anticipation, and vomit-fungus dangled in greasy festoons. Where was there safe passage?
"Awk!" the guide said, showing the way. She glided past an outcropping of hissing serpentine, between two sharp blades of slash pine, and on over the rungs of a fallen ladder-bush. The others followed, wary but swift.
It was gloomy here, almost dark, though the day was rising onto noon. The canopy overhead, not satisfied with shutting out the sun, now constricted like an elastic band until it seemed to enclose them in one tight bubble. Like elastic? Now Bink saw it was elastic, from a huge elastic vine that stretched between and around the other foliage. Elastic was not a serious threat to people carrying swords or knives, but it could be a considerable inconvenience.
There seemed to be few large creatures here; but many small ones. Bugs were all over. Some Bink recognized: lightning bugs zapping their charges (this must have been where the demonstration bug had come from, the one that had burned up in the village), soldier beetles marching in precise formations to their bivouac, ladybugs and damselflies hovering near in the immemorial fashion of easy virtue females near armies. Almost under Chester's hooves a tiger beetle pounced on a stag beetle, making its kill with merciless efficiency. Bink averted his gaze, knowing that such activity was natural, but still not liking it.
Then he noticed Humfrey. The man was staring as if enchanted: a worrisome sign, here. "Are you all right, Magician?" Bink asked.
"Marvelous!" the man murmured raptly. "A treasure trove of nature!"
"You mean the bugs?"
"There's a feather-winged beetle," Humfrey said. Sure enough, a bug with two bright feathers for wings flew by. "And an owl-fly. And two net-wings!"
Bink saw the large-eyed, tufted bug sitting on a branch, watching the two nets hover. How a net-wing flew was unclear, as the nets obviously could not hold air. But with magic, what did it matter?
"And a picture-winged fly!" the Magician exclaimed, really excited. "That's a new species, I believe; it must have mutated. Let me get my text." He eagerly fumbled open a vial. The vapor came forth and formed a huge tome that the Magician balanced precariously on the back of the griffin, between the folded wings, as he turned over the pages. "PICTURE-WING," he read. "Pastoral, Still-life, Naturalistic, Surrealistic, Cubist, Watercolor, Oil, Pastel Chalk, Pen-and-ink, Charcoal--I was right! This is a Crayon-Drawing species, unlisted! Bink, verify this for the record!"
Bink leaned over to look. The bug was sitting on the griffin's right ear, its wings outspread, covered by waxy illustrations. "Looks like crayon to me," he agreed.
"Yes!" Humfrey cried. "I must record it! What a fantastic discovery!" Bink had never seen the man so excited. Suddenly he realized something important: this was what the Good Magician lived for. Humfrey's talent was information, and the discovery and classification of living things was right in line with this. To him there was nothing more important than the acquisition of facts, and he had naturally been resentful about being distracted from this. Now chance had returned him to his type of discovery. For the first time, Bink was seeing the Magician in his animation. Humfrey was not a cold or grasping individual; he was as dynamic and feeling as anyone--when it showed.
Bink felt a tug at his sword. He clapped his hand to the hilt--and two robber flies buzzed up. They had been trying to steal his sword! Then Chester jumped, almost dislodging him. "Almost stepped on a blister beetle," the centaur explained. "I wouldn't want to pull up with a blistered hoof at this stage!"
The lady griffin glanced back, rotating her head without turning her body, in the way griffins had. "Awk!" she exclaimed impatiently. "Hurry up, shrimp," the golem translated. "We're getting near the madness zone."
"Squawk!" Crombie replied irritably. "We're doing the best we can. Why don't you show us a better path, birdbrain?"
"Listen, cattail!" she awked back. "I'm only doing this as a favor to you! If you numbskulls had stayed at the village where you belonged--"
"Stay in a village of females? You're mad already!"
Then they had to stop squawking and awking to dodge a snake-fly that wriggled through, fangs gaping. This time Chester did step on a bug--a stink bug. A horrible odor wafted up, sending them all leaping forward to escape it. The lady griffin's passage stirred up a motley swarm of deerflies, tree hoppers, tiger moths, and a fat butterfly that splattered the Magician with butter.
One lovely gold bug fluttered up under Bink's nose. "Maybe this is another new one!" he cried, getting caught up in the Magician's enthusiasm. He grabbed for it, but Chester stumbled just then so that Bink missed it. "It's headed toward you, Magician!" he cried. "Catch it!"
But Humfrey shied away. "That's a midas fly!" he exclaimed in horror. "Don't touch it!"
"A midas fly?"
"Everything it touches turns to gold." The fly was now circling the Magician, looking for a place to land.
"But that's wonderful!" Bink said. "We must capture it. We can use gold!"
"Not if we become gold ourselves!" Humfrey snapped. He ducked so low that he fell of! the griffin. The midas fly settled down to land in his place.
"Crombie!" Bink screamed. "Watch out!"
Then the lady griffin crashed into Crombie, knocking him out of the way with her leonine shoulder. He escaped--but the midas fly landed instead on her.
Just like that, she was a gold statue. The fly buzzed up and away, no longer a threat--but its damage had been done.
"They're extremely rare, and they don't land often," Humfrey said from the bush he had landed in. "I'm amazed we encountered one. Perhaps it was maddened by the dust." He picked himself up.
"It may have been sent," Bink said. "It appeared near me first."
Crombie rolled to his feet with the litheness of his kind. "Squawk!"
"She did it for me--to save my life," Grundy translated. "Why?"
"It must indeed be madness," Chester said dryly.
Bink contemplated the statue. "Like the handiwork of the gorgon," he murmured. "Gold instead of stone. Is it possible she can be restored?"
Crombie whirled and pointed. "Squawk!"
"The answer lies in the same direction as the quest," Grundy said. "Now birdbeak has personal reason to complete it"
"First we must pass through the madness--without a guide," Chester pointed out
Bink looked ahead, dismayed. Things had abruptly taken a more serious turn--and they had not been unserious before. "How can we find our way safely through this jungle, even without madness?"
"Crombie will have to point out our best route--one step at a time," Humfrey said. "Look--there is a walking stick." He indicated the stick, ambling along on two tiny feet at the base, its hooked top wobbling erratically. The huge text was gone; he must have conjured it back into it
s bottle while Bink had been distracted. He hardly needed it "Mahogany-handled--a very fine specimen."
Crombie pointed the way, and they went slowly on, leaving the gold lady griffin where she stood. There was nothing they could do for her--except complete their quest, hoping to find the magic that would restore her.
Crombie looked back twice, not squawking; he seemed to be having serious private thoughts. For him, the woman-hater, the female's sacrifice had to be an awful enigma, of more significance than his own near-miss with the golden doom. As a soldier he was used to danger, but not to self-sacrifice.
All too soon, dusk loomed. Glowworms appeared from their tunnels in the ground, and bedbugs were already snoring in their bunks. A confused cockroach crowed, mistaking dusk for dawn. Swallowtails consumed their hind parts and disappeared for the night. A group of sawflies sawed boards for their own nocturnal roosts.
Bink looked about "Right now, I wouldn't mind being a bug," he said. "They're at home here."
Chester agreed soberly. "I have spent the evening in the open before, but never in the deep wilderness. We will not enjoy this night"
Bink looked at Humfrey. The Magician was still absorbed in his taxonomy. "There's a rhinoceros beetle, trying to bull-doze down houses," Humfrey said. "Those houseflies aren't going to like that!"
"Sir, it will be dangerous to sleep out here. If your magic can help us pick the best spot--"
"Now they're bringing in carpenter ants to shore up the timbers!"
"Maybe something from one of your bottles, some temporary shelter for the night--" Bink continued.
"But that rhino is too stupid to quit! He--"
"Magician!" Bink snapped, losing patience.
Humfrey glanced up. "Oh, hello, Bink. Haven't you set up for the night yet?" He glanced down again. "Look! They've hired an assassin bug! They're going to get rid of that--"
It was useless. The Magician cared more for information than for safety. Humfrey was no leader, which explained why he had been so ready to leave that chore to Bink. So it was up to Bink, again.
"We'll have to make some sort of shelter," he decided. "And keep watch in turns." He paused, considering the problems. How could they make shelter, when every piece of wood, stone, or foliage would be fiercely protective of its rights? This was the untamed wilderness!