"Is it safe to swim in this lake?" Bink asked, wary of the glow. It might keep the goblins away, but that didn't make it safe for people.
"No," Jewel said. "The water is slowly poisonous to most forms of life. One drink won't hurt much, if you get out of it soon, up at the headwaters where it is diluted by the fresh flow from the surface. But down here, where it has absorbed much more horrible magic--"
"Right. No swimming," Bink said. "Chester, can you lasso it?"
"Out of range," the centaur said. "If the eddy currents carry it closer to shore I can snag it readily enough."
"Better hurry," Grundy called. "There's something under the lake, and it--"
"The fiends lived under a lake," Chester said. "Do you think the enemy--?"
Bink started stripping of! his clothing. "I think I'd better swim out and get that bottle right now. If the lake harms me, the Magician can give me a drop of his healing elixir. That should be more potent, too, here."
"Don't do that!" Jewel cried. "That lake--I don't think you'd ever reach the bottle. Here, I'll have the diggle phase through the water. Nothing hurts him when he's in phase."
At her direction, and hoarse singing, the worm slid into the water, erecting its circular flange to form a temporary tunnel through the liquid, as through rock. He moved very slowly, until Chester's flute appeared and played a brisk, beautiful marching tune. The flute seemed larger and brighter than it had before, and its sound was louder: more magical enhancement. The diggle speeded up, expanding and contracting in time to the music. He advanced purposefully toward the bottle. "Oh, thank you, centaur," Jewel whispered.
"Hurry! Hurry!" the golem called. "The coral is aware of the--is trying to--is--HELP! IT'S COMING UP TO GET ME!"
Then Grundy screamed horribly, as if in human pain. "I'm not real enough, yet," he gasped after the scream had torn its way out of his system. "I'm still just a golem, just a thing, string and gum. I can be controlled. I--"
He broke off, then screamed again, then resumed more quietly. "I'm gone."
Bink understood none of this, yet had the sinking feeling that he should somehow have tried to help the golem to fight off--what? Some encouragement, some reminder of the feelings Grundy evidently did have. Maybe the golem could have fought off his private personal horror, if--
Now the worm was almost at the bottle. Quickly Grundy wrapped his string-arms about the cork, braced his feet against the neck of the bottle, and heaved. "By the power of the brain coral, emerge!" he gasped.
The cork flew out. Smoke poured from the bottle, swirled into a whirlwind, ballooned, then coalesced into the figures of the Good Magician and the griffin. "Grundy rescued them!" Chester exclaimed as his flute faded out.
"Fly to shore!" Bink cried. "Don't touch the water!"
Humfrey caught hold of Crombie, who spread his wings and bore them both up. For a moment they tilted unsteadily, then righted and moved smoothly forward.
Bink ran up as they landed at the shore. "We were so worried about you, afraid the enemy would get you first!"
"The enemy did," Humfrey said, reaching for a vial as he let go of the griffin. "Turn about, Bink; desist your quest, and you will not be harmed."
"Desist my quest!" Bink cried, amazed. "Right when I'm so close to accomplishing it? You know I won't do that!"
"I serve a new master, but my scruples remain," Humfrey said. There was something sinister about him now; he remained a small, gnomish man, but now there was no humor in that characterization. His gaze was more like that of a basilisk than that of a man: a cold, deadly stare. "It is necessary that you understand. The bottle was opened by the agency of the entity that lies beneath this lake, a creature of tremendous intelligence and magic and conscience, but lacking the ability to move. This is the brain coral, who has to operate through other agencies to accomplish its noble purpose."
"The--enemy?" Bink asked, dismayed. "The one who sent the magic sword, and the dragon, and the squiggle--"
"And countless other obstructions, most of which your own magic foiled before they manifested. The coral can not control a conscious, intelligent, living entity; it must operate through thought suggestions that seem like the creature's own notions. That was why the dragon chased you, and the squiggle spied on you, and why the other seemingly coincidental complications occurred. But your talent brought you through almost unscathed. The siren lured you, but the gorgon did not enchant you into stone; the midas fly was diverted to another target, the curse of the fiends missed you. Now, at the heart of the coral's magic, you are finally balked. You must turn back, because--"
"But it can not control you!" Bink protested. "You are a man, an intelligent man, a Magician!"
"It assumed control of the golem, possible only because Grundy's reality was not complete and this is the region of the coral's greatest power. It caused the golem to open the bottle. Crombie and I are subject to the holder of the bottle. It does not matter that the bottle is now floating on the surface of the coral lake; the conjuration was done in the name of the brain coral, and it is binding."
"But--" Bink protested, unable to continue because he could not formulate his thought.
"That was the most savage engagement of this campaign," Humfrey continued. 'The struggle for possession of the bottle. The coral managed to dislodge it from your clothing, but your magic caused the cork to work loose, and we started to emerge. That was the impact of the fiends curse, aiding you by what seemed like an incredible coincidence. It shook the bottle within the vortex. But the coral used a strong eddy current to jam the stopper back, trapping Grundy outside. But your magic made the magic mirror get caught halfway, shattering it, with fragments inside and out, enabling us to establish communication of a sort. Then the coral's magic caused you to lose your fragment of glass. But your magic guided you to Beauregard, who re-established communication. You nearly reached the bottle in time, by turning the liability of your infatuation for the nymph into an asset--your talent outmaneuvered the coral neatly there!--but here the coral's magic is stronger than yours, and so it got the bottle first. Barely. In effect, your two talents have canceled out. But now the coral, through the power of the bottle, controls Crombie and me. All our powers are at its service, and you have lost"
Chester stood beside Bink. "So you have become the enemy," he said slowly.
"Not really. Now that we have access to the coral's perspective, we know that it is on the side of reason. Bink, your quest is dangerous, not merely for you, but for all the land of Xanth. You must desist, believe me!"
"I do not believe you," Bink said grimly. "Not now. Not now that you've changed sides."
"Same here," Chester said. "Conjure yourself back into the bottle, and let us rescue the bottle and release you in our power. Then if you can repeat that statement, I'll listen."
"No."
"That is what I thought," Chester said. "I undertook this mission as a service to you, Magician, but I have never collected my Answer from you. I can quit your service anytime I want. But I shall not renounce this quest merely because some hidden monster has scared you into changing your mind."
"Your position is comprehensible," Humfrey said with surprising mildness. "I do not, as you point out, have any present call on your service. But I am obliged to advise you both that if we can not prevail upon your reason, we must oppose you materially."
"You mean you would actually fight us?" Bink asked incredulously.
"We do not wish to resort to force," Humfrey said. "But it is imperative that you desist. Go now, give up your quest, and all will be well"
"And if we don't quit?" Chester demanded belligerently, eyeing Crombie. Obviously the centaur would not be entirely loath to match his prowess against that of the griffin. There had been a kind of rivalry between them all along.
"In that case we should have to nullify you," Humfrey said gravely. Small he was, but he remained a Magician, and his statement sent an ugly chill through Bink. Nobody could afford to take lightly the threat of a Ma
gician.
Bink was torn between unkind alternatives. How could he fight his friends, the very ones he had struggled so hard to rescue? Yet if they were under the spell of the enemy, how could he afford to yield to their demand? If only he could get at the brain coral, the enemy, and destroy it, then his friends would be freed from its baleful influence. But the coral was deep under the poison water, unreachable. Unless--
"Jewel!" he cried. "Send the diggle down to make holes through the coral!"
"I can't, Bink," she said sadly. "The diggle never came back after we sent it after the bottle. I'm stuck here with my bucket of gems." She flipped a diamond angrily into the water. "I can't even plant them properly, now."
"The worm has been sent away," Humfrey said. "Only the completion of your quest can destroy the coral--along with all the Land of Xanth. Depart now, or suffer the consequence."
Bink glanced at Chester. "I don't want to hurt him. Maybe if I can knock him out, get him out of range of the coral--"
"While I take care of birdbeak," Chester said, nominally regretful.
"I don't want bloodshed!" Bink cried. "These are our friends, whom we must rescue."
"I suppose so," Chester agreed reluctantly, "I'll try to immobilize the griffin without hurting him too much. Maybe I'll just pull out a few of his feathers."
Bink realized that this was as much of a compromise as Chester was prepared to make. "Very well. But stop the moment he yields."
Now he faced Humfrey again. "I intend to pursue my quest. I ask you to depart, and to refrain from trying to interfere. It grieves me even to contemplate strife between us, but--"
Humfrey rummaged in his belt of vials. He brought one out. "Huh-uh!" Bink cried, striding across. Yet his out right horror at practicing any kind of violence against his friends held him back, and he got there too late. The cork came out and the vapor issued. It formed into...a green poncho, which flapped about in the air before settling to the floor.
"Wrong bottle," the Magician muttered, and uncorked another.
Bink, momentarily frozen, realized that he could not subdue the Magician until he separated the man from his arsenal of vials. Bink's talent might have helped Humfrey to confuse the bottles, but that sort of error could not be counted on after the first time. Bink drew his sword, intending to slice the belt from the Good Magician's waist--but realized that this seemed like a murderous attack. Again he hesitated--and was brought up short by the coalescing vapor. Suddenly thirteen black cats faced him, spitting viciously.
Bink had never seen a pure cat before, in the flesh. He regarded the cat as an extinct species. He just stood there and stared at this abrupt de-extinction, unable to formulate a durable opinion. If he killed these animals, would he be re-extincting the species?
Meanwhile, the centaur joined battle with the griffin. Their encounter was savage from the outset, despite Chester's promises. His bow was in his hands, and an arrow sizzled through the air. But Crombie, an experienced soldier, did not wait for it to arrive. He leaped and spread his wings, then closed them with a great backblast of air. He shot upward at an angle, the arrow passing beneath his tail feathers. Then he banked near the cavern ceiling and plummeted toward the centaur, screaming, claws outstretched.
Chester's bow was instantly replaced by his rope. He swung up a loop that closed about the griffin's torso, drawing the wings closed. He jerked, and Crombie was swung about in a quarter-circle. The centaur was about three times as massive as his opponent, so was able to control him this way.
A black cat leaped at Bink's face, forcing him to pay attention to his own battle. Reflexively he brought his sword around--and sliced the animal cleanly in half.
Bink froze again in horror. He had not meant to kill it! A rare creature like this--maybe these cats were all that remained in the whole Land of Xanth, being preserved only by the Magician's magic.
Then two things changed his attitude. First, the severed halves of the cat he had struck did not die; they metamorphosed into smaller cats. This was not a real cat, but a pseudo-cat, shaped from life-clay and given a feline imperative. Any part of it became another cat. Had a dog been shaped from the same material, it would have fractured into more dogs. So Bink hardly needed to worry about preservation of that species. Second, another cat was biting him on the ankle.
In a sudden fury of relief and ire, Bink laid about him with his blade. He sliced cats in halves, quarters, and eighths--and every segment became a smaller feline, attacking him with renewed ferocity. This was like fighting the hydra--only this time he had no spell-reversal wood to feed it, and there was no thread to make it drop. Soon he had a hundred tiny cats pouncing on him like rats, and then a thousand attacking like nickelpedes. The more he fought, the worse it got.
Was this magic related to that of the hydra? That monster had been typified by seven, while the cats were thirteen, but each doubled with each strike against a member. If there were some key, some counterspell to abolish doubling magic--
"Get smart, Bink!" Chester called, stomping on several cats that had wandered into his territory. "Sweep them all into the drink."
Of course! Bink stooped low and swung the flat of his sword sidewise, sweeping dozens of thumbnail-sized cats into the lake. They hissed as they splashed, like so many hot pebbles, and then thrashed to the bottom. Whether they were drowning or being poisoned he could not tell, but none emerged.
While he swept his way to victory, Bink absorbed the continuing centaur-griffin engagement. He could not observe everything, but was able to bridge the gaps well enough. He had to keep track, because if anything happened to Chester, Bink would have another enemy to face.
Crombie, initially incapacitated by the rope, bent his head down and sheared his bond cleanly with one crunch of his sharp beak. He spread his wings explosively, made a defiant squawk, and launched a three-point charge at Chester's head: beak, claw, and talon.
The centaur, thrown off balance by the abrupt slackening of the rope, staggered. He had better stability than a man, but he had been hauling hard. His equine shoulder thudded against a stalagmite and broke it off as the griffin made contact. Bink winced--but as it turned out, the stalagmite was more of a problem to Crombie than to Chester. The pointed top fell across the griffin's left wing, weighing it down, forcing Crombie to flap his other wing vigorously to right himself.
Chester rose up, one talon slash down the side of his face where the griffin's strike had missed his eye. But his two great hands now grasped the griffin's two front legs. "Got you now, birdie!" he cried. But in this position he could not use his sword, so he tried to bash the griffin against the broken base of the stalagmite.
Crombie squawked and brought his hind legs up for a double slash that would have disemboweled the centaur's human portion had it scored. Chester hastily let go, throwing Crombie violently away from him. Then he grabbed for his bow and arrow again. The griffin, however, spread his wings to brake his flight, looped about, and closed in again before the arrow could be brought to bear. Now it was hand-to-claw.
Bink had cleared his area of little cats--but the Good Magician had had time to organize his vials and open the next. This coalesced into a mound of bright-red cherry bombs. Oh, no! Bink had had experience with these violent little fruits before, as there was a tree of them on the palace grounds. In fact, these were probably from that same tree. If any of them scored on him--
He dived for Humfrey, catching the Magician's arm before he could throw. Humfrey struggled desperately against Bink's superior strength. Bink still held back, hating this violence though he saw no alternative to it. Both of them fell to the floor. The Magician's belt tore loose, and a collection of vials tumbled across the stone. Some of their corks popped out. The cherry bombs were dislodged; they rolled away and dunked into the lake, where they detonated with harmless thuds and clouds of steam. One rolled into Jewel's bucket of gems.
The explosion sent precious stones flying all over the cavern. Diamonds shot by Bink's ears; a huge pearl thun
ked into the Magician's chest; opals got under Chester's hooves. "Oh, no!" Jewel cried, horrified. "That's not the way it's supposed to be done! Each has to be planted in exactly the right place!"
Bink was sorry about the gems, but he had more pressing problems. The new bottles were spewing forth a bewildering variety of things.
The first was a pair of winged shoes. "So that's where I left them!" Humfrey exclaimed. But they flew out of reach before he could grab them. The second vial loosed a giant hour-glass whose sands were running out--also harmless in this instance. The next was a collection of exotic-looking seeds, some like huge flat fish eyes, others like salt-and-pepper mix, others like one-winged flies. They fluttered out and littered a wide patch, crunching underfoot, rolling like marbles, squishing and adhering like burrs. But they did not seem to be any direct threat.
Unfortunately, the other vials were also pouring out vapors. These produced a bucket of garbage (so that was how the Magician cleaned his castle: he swept it all into a vial!), a bag of supergrow fertilizer, a miniature thunderstorm, and a small nova star. Now the seeds had food, water, and light. Suddenly they were sprouting. Tendrils poked out, bodies swelled, pods popped, leaves burst forth. Roots gripped the rock and clasped items of garbage; stems shot up to form a dense and variegated carpet. Diverse species fought their own miniature battles over the best fertilizer territory. In moments Bink and the Magician were surrounded by an expanding little jungle. Vines clung to feet, branches poked at bodies, and leaves obscured vision. Soon the plants were flowering. Now their species were identifiable. Lady slippers produced footwear of a most delicate nature, causing Jewel to exclaim in delight and snatch off a pair for herself. Knotweeds formed the most intricate specialized knots: bow, granny, lanyard, clinch, hangman, and half-hitch. Bink had to step quickly to avoid getting tied up. That would cost him the victory right there!
Meanwhile, the Magician was trying to avoid the snapping jaws of dog-tooth violets and dandelions, while a hawkweed made little swoops at his head. Bink would have laughed--but had too many problems of his own. A goldenrod was trying to impale him on its metallic spire, and a sunflower was blinding him with its effulgence. The nova star was no longer needed; the cave was now as bright as day, and would remain so until the sunflower went to seed.