She looked away, not answering. He glanced at her, peering through the smoke of the smoldering weed rope she held, concerned. "Did I say something wrong?"
She looked back at him with sudden decision. "Bink, you remember when we first met?"
He laughed. "How could I forget! You were so beautiful, and I was so grimy--almost as grimy as we both are now! And I had just taken the--" He shrugged, not wanting to get into the embarrassing matter of the love potion again. "You know, I'm almost sad that's over. You're an awfully nice nymph, and without your help--"
"You loved me then, and I didn't love you," she said. "You were devious, and I was simple. You lured me in close, then grabbed me and kissed me."
Bink fidgeted. "I'm sorry, Jewel. I--it won't happen again."
"That's what you think," she said, and flung her arms about him and planted a passionate kiss on his half-open mouth. Dirty as she was, it was still a remarkable experience; almost he felt the tug of the love potion again. He had loved her before without knowing her; now he knew her and understood her nymphly limitations and respected her for trying so hard to overcome them, and he liked her more than was entirely proper. A genuine affection had been developing beneath the artificial love, and that affection remained. What would Chameleon think, if she saw this embrace?
Jewel released him. "Turnabout's fair play," she said. "I am more complex than I was a few hours ago, and you are simpler. Now get on up your rope."
What did she mean by that? Bemused, Bink weighted the rope with a solid rock and lofted it up toward the root-trunk. It fell short, because of the weight of the rope. He tried again, harder, but the rope was still too heavy. It dragged steadily, its weight becoming greater as the rock got higher. Finally he made a wad out of the rope and hurled the mass of it up; this time it got there--and fell back, having failed to pass over the root. But he was making progress, and after several more tries he got it over. The rock fell down, hauling the rope after it. It snagged before the rock came down within reach, but several jerks on the other end of the rope freed it. Bink knotted the ends together, forming a complete loop of rope that could not come loose.
"I can climb this first, then you can sit in the loop and I'll haul you up," he said. He knew there was no chance of her climbing by herself; her arms were too delicate. "Blow the torch up high, so the goblins won't come too close."
She nodded. Bink took a few deep breaths, feeling his worn system revving up in anticipation of this final effort. Then he took hold and began to climb the rope.
It started out better than he had feared, but soon got worse. His arms tired quickly, since they had been none too fresh to begin with. He clamped his legs about the rope, hanging on, to give his arms a rest, but they recovered reluctantly. Oh for some healing elixir! Still, Jewel was waiting, and so were the rats and goblins; he could not afford to delay too long. Excruciatingly he dragged himself up with smaller and smaller wrenches. His breath rasped, his head felt light, and his arms seemed to turn into waterlogged wood just beyond the elbows, but he kept moving.
So suddenly it seemed a miracle, he was at the top. Maybe his mind had simply gone a bit dead too, cutting out the agony of the continuing effort, and revived when he arrived. He clung to the big root, which was somewhat furry: the better to grip its prey, perhaps, He had never, before this adventure, anticipated gladly embracing a tangle tree!
He swung a leg over, missed, and felt himself falling. It was almost a relief, this relaxation! But the rope was still there, and he wrapped himself about it and hung, panting. So little to go, so hard to do!
There was a knot up near the apex. Bink braced his feet against it and used his relatively fresh leg muscles to push him up, and somehow scrambled around the root. Now he perceived that rough bark underlay the fur on top, making it good for clinging to, good for scrambling. He clung and scrambled, and finally inched over to the top of it and lay there, panting weakly, too worn out even to feel proper relief.
"Bink!" Jewel cried from below. "Are you all right?"
That roused him. His labor was far from over! "I should be asking you that! Are the rats staying back? Can you get in the seat, to come up?" He didn't know how he would pull up her weight in his present state, but he couldn't tell her that.
"I'm not all right. I'm not coming up."
"Jewel! Get up the rope! The rats can't reach you there, if you pull the end up after you!"
"It's not the rats, Bink. I've lived down here all my life; I can handle the rats and even the goblins, as long as I have my light It's you. You are a handsome man."
"Me? I don't understand!" But he was beginning to. She was not referring to his present appearance, which was homelier than Chester's face. (Oh, noble centaur--in what state was be now?) The signs had been there; he had merely refused to interpret them.
"When you took the potion, you remained an honest person," Jewel called. "You were strong, stronger than any nymph could be. You never used the potion as an excuse to betray your quest or your friends. I respected and envied that quality in you, and tried to use it as a model. The only exception was that one kiss you stole, so I stole it back. I love you, Bink, and now--"
"But you never drank that potion!" he protested. "And even if you had, now that the magic is gone--"
"I never drank that potion," she agreed. "Therefore the loss of magic could not take my love away. Growth was forced upon me, driving out my nymphly innocence. Now I can perceive reality, and I know there can be no antidote but time, for me. I can not go with you."
"But you have no life down there!" Bink cried, appalled. His love for her had been magic; hers for him was real. She loved better than he had. Her nymph-hood was, indeed, behind her. "There must be some way to work it out--"
"There is, and I am utilizing it. When I saw how you sacrificed me when the spell was on you, I knew there could be no hope at all when it was off. It is ironic that my love bloomed only when you gave me up, because you gave me up. Because you were true to your principles and your prior commitment. Now I shall be true to mine. Farewell, Bink!"
"No!" he cried. "Come out of there! There has to be some better way--"
But the rope was sliding and bumping over the root. She had untied it at the bottom part of the loop and was drawing it free. He grabbed for it, too late. The end passed over the root and dropped into the darkness.
"Jewel!" he cried. "Don't do this! I don't love you, but I do like you. I--" But that was a dead end. She was right: even when he had loved her, he had known he could not have her. That was unchanged.
There was no answer from below. The nymph had done the honorable thing, and gone her way alone, freeing him. Exactly as he would have done, in that circumstance.
There was nothing he could do now but go home. "Farewell, Jewel!" he called, hoping she would hear. "You may not have my love, but you do have my respect. You are a woman now."
He rested, listening, but heard nothing more from her. Finally he got off the root and looked about. He was in a deep cleft that he now recognized as a section of the Gap, the great chasm that cleft the Land of Xanth in twain. The tree was anchored in the bottom, but reached up toward the top, and a branch extended over the rim. In the absence of magic, the tree was safe to climb. In fact, the terrain would hold few direct threats for him now. He could proceed directly to the King's palace, arriving there within a day.
He spied some inert bugs. They were lying in a patch of sunlight, their pincers twitching. Bink felt compassion, and nudged them gently toward the nearest shadow with one foot. Poor little things!
Then he recognized them. These were nickelpedes, shorn of their magic! What a fall they had taken!
But when he swung himself from the last tentacle of the tangler and reached the surface, he discovered it to be unfamiliar. This crevice ran north-south, not east-west, unless the loss of magic had somehow turned the sun around. It had to be a different chasm, not the Gap. He was lost after all.
Now that he thought about it, he doubte
d he could have come as far north as the Gap. So he was probably somewhere south of it, and south of the palace. His best bet was to travel north until he encountered the Gap, or some other familiar landmark.
The trek was more difficult than he had anticipated. There was no hostile magic, true--but there was also no beneficial magic. The nature of the landscape had changed fundamentally, becoming mundane. There were no flying fruits, no shoe-trees or jean-bushes to replace his ragged apparel, no watermelons to drink from. He had to find ordinary food and water, and hardly knew what to look for. The animals, stunned by their loss of magic, avoided him; they weren't smart enough to realize that he, too, had been shorn of magic. That was a blessing.
It was late afternoon. How many hours or days he had spent below he could not be sure, but here in the sight of the sun he would be able to keep track again. He would have to spend the night in the forest. It seemed safe enough; he could climb a tree.
He looked for a good one. Many of the trees of this forest seemed dead; perhaps they were merely dormant, in this new winter of the absence of magic. It might take months or years for the full ravages of that winter to become known. Some trees flourished; they must be the mundane varieties, freed from the competition of magic. Would he be better off in a healthy mundane tree, or a defunct magical one?
Bink shivered. It was getting chill, and he could find no blanket bushes. However, it was not merely temperature that affected him. He was tired and lonely and full of remorse for what he had done. Tomorrow he would have to face his friends at the palace and tell them--
But surely they would already have guessed his guilt. It was not confession that bothered him, but punishment. Jewel had been wise to avoid him; he had no future at home.
There seemed to be a certain vague familiarity about this region. There were trails through the brush like those of ant lions, and brambles, and regions of odoriferous plants--
"That's it!" he exclaimed. "Where we intersected the magic highway to the magic-dust village!"
He peered up through the languishing foliage. There it was--a walkway fashioned from logs and vines, suspended from the stoutest trees. It made no loops in air, but of course it wasn't magic now.
He climbed aboard the lowest loop and walked along it. The thing seemed dangerously insecure, sagging beneath his weight and swinging sidewise alarmingly, but it held. In due course it brought him to the village.
He had feared a scene of gloom. Instead, the entire village seemed to be celebrating. Another great bonfire was blazing, and men and women of all types were dancing around it.
Men? How had they gotten here? This was a village of women! Could it be another Wave of conquest from Mundania, with the brutish men reveling in this village of helpless women?
Yet there seemed to be no threat. The men were happy, of course--but so were the women. Bink walked on into the village, looking for Trolla, its leader.
A man spied him as he stepped off the hanging walk. "Hello, friend!" the man called. "Welcome home! Who's your widow?"
"Widow?" Bink asked blankly.
"Your woman--before the gorgon got you. She'll be overjoyed to have you back."
The gorgon! Suddenly Bink understood. "You're the stone men! Freed by the loss of magic!"
"And you weren't?" The man laughed. "You'd better come see the head man, then."
"Trolla," Bink said. "If she's still here--"
"Who's looking for Trolla?" someone demanded. It was a huge, ugly troll. Well, an average troll; they were all huge and ugly.
Bink's hand hovered near the hilt of his sword. "I only want to talk with her."
"'Sokay," the troll said genially. He cupped his mouth with his hands. "Bitch, get over here!"
A dozen young women glanced his way, startled, thinking he meant them. Bink covered a smile. "Uh, the gorgon," he said. "What happened to her?"
"Oh, we were going to string her up, after we, you know..." the troll said. "She was a good-looking slut, except for those snaky tangles in her hair. But she jumped into the lake, and before we realized there weren't any more monsters in it, she was too far off to catch. Last we saw she was headed north."
North. Toward Magician Humfrey's castle. Bink was glad she had escaped, but knew she would not find Humfrey at home. That was another aspect of the tragedy Bink had wrought.
Trolla, responsive to the summons, was arriving. "Bink!" she exclaimed. "You made it!"
"I made it," he agreed gravely. "I abolished magic from the Land of Xanth. I converted it to Mundania. Now I return home to pay the penalty."
"The penalty!" the troll cried. "You freed us all! You're a hero!"
This was an aspect Bink hadn't considered. "Then you aren't angry at the loss of magic?"
"Angry?" Trolla cried. "Angry that my husband is back, good enough to eat?" She hugged the troll to her in an embrace that would have cracked normal ribs. He was well able to sustain this, though he seemed momentarily uneasy about something.
A female griffin glided up. "Awk?" she inquired. "And here's the one who guided you, released from the midas-spell," Trolla said. "Where is your handsome griffin?"
Bink thought it best not to tell about the bottle. "He is...confined. He was actually a transformed man. He spoke well of the lady griffin, but he...sends his regrets."
The griffiness turned away, disappointed. Apparently she did not have a male of her own. Perhaps she would find a male of her kind soon--though with the alteration of form that was slowly taking place in such magical creatures, Bink wondered whether that male would be more like an eagle or more like a lion. Or would the present griffins retain their shapes, while their offspring would be eagles and lions? Suppose Crombie emerged from the bottle, but retained his griffin form; would he then find this griffiness worthwhile? If so, what would their offspring be? The loss of magic posed as many questions as the presence of magic!
"Come, we shall feed you royally tonight, and you shall tell us the whole story!" Trolla said.
"I, uh, I'm pretty tired," Bink demurred. "I'd rather not tell the story. My friend the Good Magician--is missing, and so is the centaur, and the memories--"
"Yes, you need distraction," Trolla agreed. "We do have a few leftover females, daughters of older villagers. They are very lonely at the moment, and--"
"Uh, no thanks, please," Bink said quickly. He had broken too many hearts already! "Just some food, and a place to spend the night, if there's room--"
"We're short of room; our population has just doubled. But the girls will tend to you. It will give them something to do. They'll be glad to share their rooms." Bink was too tired to protest further. But as it turned out, the "girls" were an assortment of fairies and lady elves who paid him flattering attention, but were not really interested in him as a man. They made a game out of feeding him odds and ends, each one putting her morsel in his mouth with her own little hands, twittering merrily. They wouldn't let him have a plate; everything had to be trotted in from another room, piecemeal. Then he lay in a bed made out of thirty small colored pillows, while the fairies flitted around, the breeze from their gossamer wings fanning him. They could no longer fly, of course, and soon their wings would fall off as they reverted to mundane forms, but at the moment they were cute. He went to sleep counting the creatures that leaped merrily over him in the course of their game of follow-the-leader.
But in the morning he had to face reality again: the bleak journey home. He was glad his quest had done at least this little bit of good; perhaps his talent had planned it this way, before being nullified by the loss of magic, so as to provide him with a good, safe place for this night. But as for the rest of Xanth--what hope remained for it?
The griffiness accompanied him for a distance, guiding him again, and in a surprisingly brief time he was up to the dead forest: halfway familiar territory. It was no longer so different from the rest of the wilderness. He thanked her, wished her well, and continued on alone, northward.
The loneliness closed in about him. Th
e lack of magic was so pervasive and depressing! All the little amenities he was accustomed to were gone. There were no blue toads sitting on their squat vegetable stools, no Indian pipes wafting their sweet smoke aloft. No trees moved their branches out of his way, or cast avoidance-spells on him. Everything was hopelessly Mundane. He felt tired again, and not merely from the march. Was life really worthwhile, without magic?
Well, Chameleon would be locked in her "normal" phase, the one he liked best: neither pretty nor smart, but rather nice overall. Yes, he could live with that for some time before it got dull, assuming that he was allowed to--
He paused. He heard a clip-clop, as of hooves on a beaten path. An enemy? He hardly cared; it was company.
"Hallooo!" he cried.
"Yes?" It was a woman's voice. He charged toward it
There, standing on a beaten path, was a lady centaur. She was not especially pretty; her flanks were dull, her tail tangled with burrs (naturally a lady would not be able to curse them off), and her human torso and face, though obviously feminine, were not well proportioned. A colt followed her, and he was not only unhandsome, he was downright homely, except for his sleek hindquarters. In fact he resembled--"Chester!" Bink exclaimed. "That's Chester's colt!"
"Why, you're Bink," the filly said. Now he recognized her: Cherie, Chester's mate. Yet she was in no way the beauty he had ridden before. What had happened?
But he had enough sense to express himself obliquely. "What are you doing here? I thought you were staying in the centaur village until--" But that was a trap, too, for Chester would never return.
"I'm trotting to the palace to find out what is responsible for the miracle," she said. "Do you realize that obscenity has been banished from Xanth?"
Bink remembered: Cherie considered magic obscene, at least when it manifested in centaurs. She tolerated it as a necessary evil in others, for she regarded herself as a liberal-minded filly, but preferred to discuss it only clinically.