The Source of Magic

"What's your job?"

  "I'm on a quest for the source of magic."

  "But that's way down in the center of the world, or somewhere," she said. "You can't travel that way. There are dragons and goblins and rats--"

  "We're used to them," Bink said.

  "I'm not used to them! I'm afraid of the dark! I couldn't go there, even if--"

  Even if she wanted to. Because of course she did not love him. She had not drunk the love-water.

  Bink had a naughty idea. "Come and take a drink with me! Then we can--"

  She struggled to disengage, and he let her go. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her! "No, I couldn't afford love. I must plant all these jewels."

  "But what am I to do? From the moment I saw you--"

  "You'll just have to take the antidote," she said, smelling of a newly lit candle. Bink recognized the connection: the candle symbolized her bright idea.

  "There is an antidote?" He hadn't thought of that

  There must be. For every spell there's an equal and opposite counterspell somewhere. All you have to do is find it"

  I know who can find it," Bink said. "My friend Crombie."

  "You have friends?" she asked, surprised, smelling of startled birds.

  "Of course I have friends!"

  "Down here, I meant I thought you were alone."

  "No. I was looking for water for me and Chester. We-"

  "Chester? I thought your friend was Crombie."

  "Chester Centaur. Crombie is a griffin. And there's Magician Humfrey, and--"

  "A Magician!" she exclaimed, impressed. "All to look for the source of magic?"

  "Yes. The King wants to know."

  "There's a King along too?"

  "No," Bink said, momentarily exasperated. "The King assigned me to make the quest. But we had some trouble, and got separated, and--"

  "I suppose I'd better show you where there's water," she decided. "And food--you must be hungry too."

  "Yes," he said, reaching for her. "We'll be glad to do some service in return--"

  "Oh, no!" she cried, skipping away with an enticing bounce of anatomy and the scent of hickory smoke. "Not until you drink the antidote!"

  Just so. "I really must get back to Chester," Bink said. "He'll be worried."

  She considered for a moment. "Bink, I'm sorry about what happened. Fetch your friends, and I'll see they get fed. Then you really must go."

  "Yes." Bink walked slowly to the hole in the wall.

  "Not that way!" she cried. "Go round by the regular passages!"

  "But I don't know the way! I have no light. I have to follow the rope back."

  "Definitely not!" She took her own magic lantern, a twin of the one Bink had found before, from the wall and grasped Bink's arm firmly. "I know all the halls around here. I'll find him for you."

  Bink willingly suffered himself to be led. Even apart from the potion, he was discerning commendable traits in her. She was not one of the empty-headed nymphs like those associated with ocean foam or wild oats; she had a sense of purpose and fitness and decency. No doubt her responsible job of jewel-placing had matured her. Still, potion or not, he had no business with this creature! Once his friends were fed, he would have to leave her. He wondered how long it would take the potion to wear oft. Some spells were temporary, but others were lifelong.

  They circled through intersecting passages. In a moment they came upon Chester, still waiting by the hole. "Here we are!" Bink called.

  Chester jumped so that all four hooves were off the floor. "Bink!" he exclaimed as he landed. "What happened? Who is that nymph?"

  "Chester, this is Jewel. Jewel--Chester," Bink introduced. "I--" He hesitated.

  "He drank a love potion," Jewel said brightly.

  The centaur made a motion as of tearing out two fistfuls of mane. "The secret enemy strikes again!"

  Bink hadn't thought of that. Of course that was the most reasonable explanation! His talent hadn't betrayed him, but it hadn't protected him from this non-physical threat either. Thus his enemy had scored.

  How could he pursue the source of magic, when his heart was tied up here?

  But his heart was also tied up back home, with Chameleon. That was part of the reason he was on this quest So--he had better just get on with it. "If we can get back together with Crombie and the Magician, maybe Crombie can point out the location of the antidote," Bink said.

  "Where are your friends?" Jewel asked.

  "They're in a bottle," Bink explained. "But we can communicate with them through a fragment of magic mirror. Here, I'll introduce you to them." He fumbled in his pocket for the bit of glass.

  His fingers found nothing. "Oh, no--I've lost the fragment!" He turned the pocket inside out. There was a hole in it, where the sharp edge of glass had sawed its way out

  "Well, we'll find them somehow," Bink said numbly. "We won't give up until we do."

  "That would seem best," Chester agreed gravely. However, we'll have to take the nymph along with us."

  "Why?" Bink had mixed emotions.

  "The object of the counterspell has to be present; that's the way these things work. You loved the first female you encountered after imbibing the potion; you must unlove her in the same fashion."

  "I can't come with you!" Jewel protested, though she looked at Chester as if wishing for a ride on his back. "I have a lot of work to do!"

  "How much will you get done if Bink stays here?" Chester inquired.

  She threw up her hands in feminine exasperation.

  "Come to my apartment, both of you. We'll discuss it later."

  Jewel's apartment was as attractive as herself. She had a cluster of caves completely carpeted; the carpet-moss ran across the floor, up over the walls, and across the ceiling without a break except for the round doors. It was extremely cozy. She had no chairs, table, or bed; it seemed she sat or lay down anywhere, anytime, in perfect comfort.

  "We'll have to do something about those clothes," she said to Bink.

  Bink looked down at himself. His clothing had more or less dried on him, after its soaking in the vortex and lake; it glowed in uneven patches. "But these are all I have," he said regretfully.

  "You can dry-clean them," she said. "Go into the lavatory and put them in the cleaner. It only takes a moment."

  Bink entered the room she indicated and closed the curtain. He located the cleaner: an ovenlike alcove through which a warm current of air passed over his tunic and shorts. He set them within this, then moved over to the basin where a rivulet of water ran through. Above it was a polished rock surface: a mirror. The vanity of the distaff always required a mirror!

  Seeing himself reflected was a shock: he was more bedraggled than his clothes. His hair was tangled and plastered over his forehead, and he had a beard just at the ugly starting stage. Cave-dirt was smeared over portions of his face and body, from his crawl through the wall. He looked like a juvenile ogre. No wonder the nymph had been afraid of him at first!

  He used the keen blade of his sword to shave his face, since there was no magic shaving brush here to brush his whiskers away conveniently. Then he rinsed and combed his hair. He found his clothing dry and clean and pressed: obviously more than hot air was at work. His torn sleeve had been neatly hemmed so that the absence of cloth looked intentional. He wondered if some magic dust circulated in these caves, augmenting the function of such things as dry cleaners. The nymph seemed to have many magical conveniences, and quite a comfortable life-style. It would not be hard to adapt to such a style--

  He shook his head. That was the love potion speaking, not his common sense! He had to be on guard against rationalization. He did not belong down here, and he would have to leave when his mission was done, though he leave part of his heart behind.

  Nevertheless, he dressed himself neatly, even giving his boots a turn at the cleaner. Too bad the Magician's bottle couldn't have washed ashore instead of his footwear!

  When he emerged from the lavatory, Jewel looked him over w
ith surprised admiration. "You are a handsome man!"

  Chester smiled wryly. "I suppose it was hard to tell, before. Would that I could wash my face and suffer a similar transformation!" They all laughed, somewhat ill at ease.

  "We must pay for your hospitality--and for your help," Chester said when the laugh subsided fitfully.

  "My hospitality I give freely; pay would demean it," Jewel said. "My help you seem to be co-opting. There is no pay for slave labor."

  "No, Jewel!" Bink cried, cut to the heart of his emotion. "I would not force anything on you, or cause you grief!"

  She softened. "I know it, Bink. You drank of the love-water; you would not hurt me. Yet since I must help you find your friends, so they can find the counterspell, and this takes me away from my work--"

  "Then we must help you do your work!" Bink said.

  "You can't. You don't know the first thing about sorting precious stones, or where they should be set. And if you did, the borer would not work for you."

  "The borer?"

  "My steed beast. He phases through the rock to reach where I must set the stones. I alone can control him--and then only when I sing. He works for a song, nothing else."

  Bink exchanged glances with Chester. "After we eat, we will show you our music," Chester said.

  Jewel's meal was strange but excellent. She served an assortment of mushrooms and fungus--things that grew magically, she explained, without the need of light. Some tasted like dragon steak, and some like potato chips chipped from a hot potato tree, and dessert was very like chocolate pie fresh from the brown cow, so round and soft and pungent it practically flowed off the plate. She also had a kind of chalky powder she mixed with the water to produce excellent milk.

  "You know," Chester murmured aside to Bink, "you could have found a worse nymph to encounter after your draught."

  Bink didn't answer. After the magic drink, he would have loved a harpy; it wouldn't have mattered how foul she was. The love potion was absolutely heedless of its consequence. Magic without conscience. Indeed, as he had learned to his horror, the history of Xanth had been influenced by just such love springs. The original, mundane species had intermated, producing crossbreeds like the chimeras, harpies, griffins--and centaurs. Who was to say this was wrong? Where would the Land of Xanth be now, without the noble centaurs? Yet Bink's own drink of this water was supremely inconvenient in a personal way. Rationally, he had to stay with his wife, Chameleon; but emotionally--

  Chester finished his repast. He concentrated, and the silver flute appeared. It played rapturously. Jewel sat frozen, listening to the silvery melody. Then she began to sing in harmony with it. Her voice could not approach the purity of the flute, but it complemented the instrument nicely. Bink was entranced--and would have been, he told himself, regardless of the potion.

  Something grotesque poked into the room. Chester's flute cut off in midnote, and his sword appeared in his hand.

  "Stay your hand, centaur!" Jewel cried. "That is my borer!"

  Chester did not attack, but his sword remained ready. "It looks like a giant worm!"

  "Yes," she agreed. "He's related to the wiggles and squiggles, but he's much larger and slower. He's a diggle--not very bright, but invaluable for my work."

  Chester decided it was all right. "I thought I had seen everything in the lexicon, but I missed this one. Let's see whether we can help you work. If he likes my music, and you have any stones to place near the river--"

  "Are you kidding?" Jewel asked in her nymphly idiom. "With half the keg spilled, I have dozens of stones for the river. Might as well start there."

  Under her direction, they boarded the diggle. Jewel bestrode the monster worm near its front end, a basket of precious stones held before her. Bink sat next, and Chester last, his four feet somewhat awkward in this situation. He was used to being ridden, not to riding, though he had done it before with the dragon.

  "Now we make music," Jewel said. "He will work as long as he likes the sound, and he doesn't require much variation. After a few hours I get tired and nave to stop, but if the centaur's flute--"

  The flute appeared. It played. The great worm crawled forward, carrying them along as if they were mere files. It did not scramble or flex, as the dragon did; it elongated and contracted its body in stages, so that the sections they rode were constantly changing in diameter. It was a strange mode of travel, but an effective one. This was a very large worm, and it traveled swiftly.

  A flange flexed out from the diggle's front segment, and as he tunneled into the rock, the flange extended the diameter of the phase-tunnel so that the riders could fit through also. It occurred to Bink that this was a variant of the type of magic in the Good Magician's water-breathing pills. The rock, like the water, was not being tunneled through so much as it was being temporarily changed so that they could pass through it without making a hole. Chester had to duck his head to stay within the phase, and his flute was crowded, but it kept playing its captivating melodies. Bink was sure Chester was more than happy to have this pretext to practice his newly discovered talent, after a lifetime of suppression.

  "I have to admit, this is a worthwhile service," the nymph said. "I always thought centaurs had no magic.,"

  "The centaurs thought so too," Bink said, covertly admiring her form from behind. To hell with the love potion; she had a shape to conjure with. Then the worm lurched, striking a different type of rock, and Bink was thrown forward against the nymph. "Uh, sorry," he said, righting himself, though indeed he was not very sorry. "I, uh--"

  "Yes, I know," Jewel said. "Maybe you'd better put your arms about my waist, to steady yourself. It does get bumpy on occasion."

  "I...think I'd better not," Bink said.

  "You're sort of noble, in your fashion," she observed. "A girl could get to like you."

  "I--I'm married," Bink said miserably. "I--I need that antidote."

  "Yes, of course," she agreed.

  Suddenly the diggle emerged through a wall into a large chamber. "The river," Chester observed. When he spoke, his flute ceased its playing. The worm turned, his snout questing for the vanished music.

  "Don't stop!" Jewel cried. "He quits when--"

  The flute resumed. "We want to follow the river down," Bink said. "If we see a bottle floating in it--"

  "First, I have to place some stones," he said firmly.

  She guided the worm to a projecting formation, halted him, and held out a fat diamond. "Right inside there," she said. "It'll take a million years for the water to wash that into sight."

  The diggle took the stone in his orifice and carried it into the rock. His head tapered into a virtual point, with a mouth smaller than a man's, so holding the jewel was no problem. When his snout emerged, the diamond was gone and the formation was whole. Bink was startled, then realized he shouldn't be; they had not left any tunnel behind them, either.

  "One down," Jewel said briskly. "Nine hundred and ninety-nine to go."

  But Bink's eyes were on the glowing river, looking for the bottle. Such as the power of the potion, he half-hoped he wouldn't find it. Once they found the magician, and then located the antidote, he would be out of love with Jewel--and that was difficult to contemplate. He knew what was right, but his heart wasn't in it.

  Time passed. Jewel placed diamonds, opals, emeralds, sapphires, amethysts, jades, and many garnets in the rocks along the river, and sprinkled pearls in the water for the oysters to find. "Oysters just love pearls," she explained. "They just gobble them up." She sang as she worked, alternating with Chester's flute, while Bink's attention roved from her to the water and back again. He could, indeed, have encountered a worse subject for the potion to fix on!

  Then the river opened out into another lake. "This is the abode of the demons, who are able to drink and use the tainted water," Jewel cautioned them. "The demons know me, but the two of you will have to obtain a permit to pass through their territory. They don't like trespassers."

  Bink felt Chester's motion b
ehind him, as of hand touching bow and sword. They had had trouble with fiends; they didn't need trouble with demons!

  The cavern walls became carved to resemble stone buildings, with squared-off corners and alleys between: very like a city. Bink had never actually seen a city, except in pictures; the early settlers of Xanth had made cities, but with the decline in population these had disappeared.

  Bink and Chester dismounted and walked beside the worm, here on the street. Soon a magic wagon rolled up. It resembled a monster-drawn coach, but lacked the monster. The wheels were fat bouncy donuts of rubber, and the body seemed to be metal. A purring emanated from the interior. There was probably a little monster inside, pedaling the wheels.

  "Where's the fire?" the demon demanded from the coach. He was blue, and the top of his head was round and flat like a saucer.

  "Right here, Blue Steel," Jewel said, clapping one hand to her bosom. "Will you issue a ticket for my friends? They're looking for the source of magic."

  "The source of magic!" another voice exclaimed. There were, Bink now saw, two demons in the vehicle; the second was of coppery hue. "That's a matter for the Chief!"

  "All right, Copper," Jewel agreed. She evidently knew these demons well enough to banter with them. Bink suffered a sharp green pang of jealousy.

  Jewel guided them to a building marked PRECINCT STATION and parked the worm. "I must remain with the diggle to sing him a song," she said. "You go in and see the Chief; I will wait."

  Now Bink was afraid she would not wait, that she would take this opportunity to leave them, to betray them to the demons. That way she would be safe from pursuit, either vengeful or romantic. But he had to trust her. After all, he loved her.

  The demon inside sat at a broad desk, poring over a book. He glanced up as they entered. "Ah, yes--we were fated to meet again," he said.

  "Beauregard!" Bink exclaimed, amazed. "I'll issue the permits, of course," the demon said. "You were the specific instrument of my release, according to the rules of the game, and I feel an undemonly obligation. But allow me to entertain you properly, as you entertained me at the ogre's domicile. There is much you must be advised of before you pursue your quest further."