Well, he had the detail on it! He was glad that at least one person liked the change. "I'm afraid I'm responsible."
"You abolished magic?" she asked, startled.
"It's a long story," Bink said. "And a painful one. I don't expect others to accept it as well as you will."
"Get on my back," she said. "You travel too slow. I'll take you in to the palace, and you can tell me the whole story. I'm dying to know!"
She might be dying literally, when she learned the truth about Chester. But he had to tell her. Bink mounted and hung on as she broke into a trot. He had anticipated a daylong march, but now this would be unnecessary; she would get them to the palace before dark.
He told her the story. He found himself going into more detail than strictly necessary, and realized this was because he dreaded the denouncement--where Chester had fought his dreadful battle and lost. True, he might have won, had the evil eye intended for Bink not stunned him--but that would be scant comfort to her. Cherie was a widow--and he had to be the one to tell her.
His narrative was interrupted by a bellow. A dragon hove into view--but it was a miserable monster. The once-bright scales had faded into mottled gray. When it snorted fire, only dust emerged. The thing was already looking gaunt and ill; it depended on magic for its hunting.
Nevertheless, the dragon charged, intent on consuming centaur, rider, and colt. Bink drew his sword, and Cherie skittered lightly on her feet, ready to kick. Even a bedraggled dragon of this size was a terror.
Then Bink saw a scar on the dragon's neck. "Say--don't I know you?" he exclaimed.
The dragon paused. Then it lifted its head in a signal of recognition.
"Chester and Crombie and I met this dragon and made a truce," Bink said. "We fought the nickelpedes together."
"The nickelpedes are harmless now," Cherie said. "Their pincers have lost their--" She pursed her lips distastefully. "Their magic. I trotted right down inside the Gap and stepped on them and they couldn't hurt me."
Bink knew. "Dragon, magic is gone from Xanth," Bink told it. "You'll have to learn to hunt and fight without your fire. In time you will change into your dominant mundane component, or your offspring will. I think that would be a large snake. I'm sorry."
The dragon stared at him in horror. Then it whipped about and half-galloped, half-slithered off.
"I'm sorry too," Cherie said. "I realize now that Xanth isn't really Xanth, without magic. Spells do have their place. Creatures like that--magic is natural to them." This was a considerable concession, for her.
Bink resumed his narrative. He could stall no longer, so nerved himself and said what he had to. "So I have Crombie here in the bottle," he concluded. And waited, aware of the awful tenseness in her body.
"But Chester and Humfrey--"
"Remain below," he said. "Because I freed the Demon."
"But you don't know they are dead," she said, her body still so tense that riding her was uncomfortable. "They can be found, brought back--"
"I don't know how," Bink said glumly. He didn't like this at all.
"Humfrey's probably just lost; that's why you couldn't find his body. Dazed by the collapse. Without his informational magic he could be confused for a goblin. And Chester--he's too ornery to--to--he's not dead, he's just pickled. You said that was a preservative lake--"
"So I did," Bink agreed. "I--but it was drained, so that I could see the convolutions of the brain coral."
"It wasn't drained all the way! He's down there, deep below, I know it, like the griffin in the bottle. We can find him, revive him--"
Bink shook his head. "Not without magic."
She bucked him off. Bink flew through the air, saw the ground coming at his head, knew that his talent would do nothing--and landed in Cherie's arms. She had leaped to catch him at the last moment "Sorry, Bink. It's just that obscenity bothers me. Centaurs don't..." She righted him and set him on his feet, never completing her statement. She might not be beautiful now, but she had the centaur strength.
Strength, not beauty. She had been a magnificently breasted creature, in the time of magic; now she remained ample, but she sagged somewhat, as most human or humanoid females of similar measurement did. Her face had been delightfully pert; now it was plain. What could account for the sudden change--except the loss of magic?
"Let me get this straight," Bink said. "You feel all magic is obscene--"
"Not all magic, Bink. For some of you it seems to be natural--but you're only human. For a centaur it is a different matter. We're civilized."
"Suppose centaurs had magic too?"
Her face shaped into controlled disgust. "We had better be on our way before it gets too late. There is a fair distance yet to cover."
"Like Herman the hermit, Chester's uncle," Bink persisted. "He could summon will-o'-the-wisps."
"He was exiled from our society," she said. Her expression had a surly quality that reminded him of Chester.
"Suppose other centaurs had magic--?"
"Bink, why are you being so offensive? Do you want me to have to leave you here in the wilderness?" She beckoned to her colt, who came quickly to her side.
"Suppose you yourself had a magic talent?" Bink asked. "Would you still consider it obscene?"
"That does it!" she snorted. "I will not endure such obnoxious behavior, even from a human. Come, Chet." And she started off.
"Damn it, filly, listen to me!" Bink cried. "You know why Chester came on my quest? Because he wanted to discover his own magic talent. If you deny magic in centaurs, you deny him--because he does have magic, good magic, that--"
She spun about, raising her forehooves to strike him down. A filly she might be, but she could kill him with a single blow.
Bink danced back. "Good magic," he repeated. "Not anything stupid, like turning green leaves purple, or negative, like giving people hotfeet. He plays a magic flute, a silver flute, the most lovely music I ever heard. Deep inside he's an awfully pretty person, but he's suppressed it because-"
"I'm going to stomp you absolutely flat!" she neighed, smashing at him with both forefeet "You have no right even to suggest--"
But he was cool, now, while she was half-blinded by rage. He avoided her strikes as he would those of a savage unicorn, without ever turning his back or retreating more than he had to. He could have stabbed her six times with his sword, but never drew it This debate was all academic now, since magic was gone from Xanth, but he was perversely determined that she should admit the truth. "And you, Cherie--you have magic too. You make yourself look the way you want to look, you enhance yourself. It's a type of illusion, restricted to--"
She struck at him with both forefeet at once, in a perfect fury. He was affronting her deepest sensitivities, telling her that she herself was obscene. But he was ready, anticipating her reactions, avoiding them. His voice was his sword, and he intended to score with it. He had had too much of delusion, his own especially; he would wipe the whole slate clean. In a way, it was himself he was attacking: his shame at what he had done to Xanth when he freed the Demon. "I challenge you," he cried. "Look at yourself in a lake. See the difference. Your magic is gone!"
Even in her fury, she realized she was not getting anywhere. "All right I'll look!" she cried. "Then I'll kick you to the moon!"
As it happened, they had passed a small pond recently. They returned to it in silence, Bink already starting to be sorry for what he was doing to her, and the lady centaur looked at herself. She was certain what she would find, yet honest enough to have her certainty disrupted by the fact. "Oh, no!" she cried, shocked. "I'm homely, I'm hideous, I'm uglier than Chester!"
"No, you're beautiful--with magic," Bink insisted, wanting to make up for the revelation he had forced on her. "Because magic is natural to you, as it is to me. You have no more reason to oppose it than you do any other natural function, like eating or breeding or--"
"Get away from me!" she screamed. "You monster, you--" In another fit of fury she stamped her hoof in the po
nd, making a splash. But the water only settled back, as water did, and the ripples quieted, and the image returned with devastating import.
"Listen, Cherie!" Bink cried. "You pointed out that Chester can be rescued. I'm just building on that. I don't dare open Crombie's bottle because the process requires magic, and there is none. Chester must stay in the lake for the same reason, in suspended animation. We need magic. It doesn't matter whether we like it. Without it, Chester is dead. We can't get anywhere as long as you--"
With extreme reluctance, she nodded agreement. "I thought nothing would make me tolerate obscenity. But for Chester I would do anything. Even--" She gulped, and twitched her tail. "Even magic. But--"
"We need a new quest!" Bink said with sudden inspiration as he washed himself in the pond. "A quest to restore magic to the Land of Xanth! Maybe if we all work together, humans and centaurs and all Xanth's creatures, we can find another Demon--" But he petered out, realizing the futility of the notion. How could they summon X(A/N)th or E(A/R)th or any other super-magical entity? The Demons had no interest in this realm.
"Yes," Cherie agreed, finding hope as Bink lost it. "Maybe the King will know how to go about it. Get on my back; I'm going to gallop."
Bink remounted her, and she took off. She did not have the sheer power Chester had, but Bink had to cling to her slender waist to stay on as she zoomed through the forest.
"And with magic, I'll be beautiful again..." she murmured into the wind, wistfully.
Bink, tired, nodded sleepily as Cherie charged on through the desolate wilderness. Then he was almost pitched off as she braked.
They faced a huge shaggy pair of creatures. "Make way, you monsters!" Cherie cried without rancor. They were, after all, monsters. "This is a public easement; you can't block it!"
"We not block it, centaur lass," one monster said. "You give way to let we pass."
"Crunch the Ogre!" Bink exclaimed. "What are you doing so far from home?"
"You know this monster?" Cherie asked Bink.
"I certainly do! What's more, now I can understand him without translation!"
The ogre, who now resembled a brute of a man, peered at Bink from beneath his low skull. "You man we met, the one on quest? Me on gooeymoon with she loved best"
"Gooeymoon?" Cherie murmured.
"Oh, so that's Sleeping Beauty!" Bink said, contemplating the ogress. She was as ugly a creature as he cared to imagine. Yet beneath her hair, which resembled a mop just used to wipe up vomit, and her baggy coarse dress, she seemed to have rather more delicate contours than one might expect in an ogress. Then he remembered: she was no true ogress, but an actress, playing a part in one of the fiend's productions. She could probably look beautiful if she tried. Why, then, was she not trying? "Uh, one question--"
The female, no dummy, caught his gist before he got it out. "True, me once have other face," she told Bink. "Me glad get out of that rat race. Me find man better than any fiend; me like it best, by he be queened."
So the prima donna had found a husband worthy of her attention! After meeting the fiends, Bink found himself in agreement with her choice. She was maintaining the ogress guise, which was in any event merely a physical reflection of her normal personality, while teaching Crunch to speak more intelligibly. One savvy lady fiend, there! "Uh, congratulations," Bink said. Aside, he explained to Cherie. "They married on our advice. Humfrey and Crombie and Chester and the golem and I. Except that Humfrey was asleep. It was quite a story."
"I'm sure," Cherie agreed dubiously.
"Yes, me bash he good," the fair she-ogre said. "He head like wood."
"Ogres are very passionate," Bink murmured.
Cherie, after her initial surprise, was quick to catch on. "How do you keep his love?" she inquired with a certain female mischief. "Doesn't he like to go out adventuring?"
Bink realized she was thinking of Chester, perhaps unconsciously.
"Me let he go, me never say no," the ogress said, full of the wisdom of her sex. "When he come back, me give he crack." She struck the ogre with a horrendous backhand wallop by way of example. Just as well, for Bink had been about to misunderstand the reference. "Make he feel like beast, then give he feast,"
Crunch's face contorted into a smile of agreement. He was obviously well satisfied. And probably better off, Bink thought, than he might have been with a natural ogress, who would have taken his nature for granted. Whatever faults the actress might have, she certainly knew how to handle her male.
"Does the loss of magic interfere with your lifestyle?" Bink inquired. Both ogres looked at him blankly.
"They never noticed!" Cherie exclaimed. "There's true love for you!"
The ogre couple went on its way, and Cherie resumed her run. But she was thoughtful. "Bink, just as a rhetorical example--does a male really like to feel like a beast?"
"Yes, sometimes," Bink agreed, thinking of Chameleon. When she was in her stupid-beautiful phase, she seemed to live only to please him, and he felt extremely manly. But when she was in her smart-ugly phase, she turned him off with her wit as well as her appearance. In that respect she was smarter when she was stupid than when she was smart. Of course now all that was over; she would stay always in her "normal" phase, avoiding the extremes. She would never turn him off--or on.
"And a centaur--if he felt like a real stallion at home--"
"Yes. Males need to feel wanted and needed and dominant, even when they aren't. Especially at home. That ogress knows what she's doing."
"So it seems," Cherie agreed. "She's a complete fake, a mere actress, yet he's so happy he'd do anything for her. But lady centaurs can act too, when they have reason..." Then she was silent as she ran.
Chapter 14
Paradox Wish
Bink, nodding again, was suddenly jolted awake. Cherie was braking so hard he was being crushed against her human back. He threw his arms about her waist, hanging on, careful not to grab too high. "What--?"
"I almost forgot. I haven't nursed Chet in hours,"
"Chet?" Bink repeated dazedly. Oh, the foal.
She signaled to her young one, who promptly came up to nurse. Bink hastily excused himself for another kind of call of nature. Centaurs were not sensitive about natural functions; in fact they could and did perform some of them on the run. Humans were more squeamish, at least in public. It made him realize one reason why Cherie did not seem as lovely now: her breasts were enlarged to the point of ponderosity, so that she could nurse her foal. Little centaurs required a great deal of milk, especially when they had to run as much as this one did.
After a decent interval Bink cautiously returned. The foal was still nursing, but Cherie spied Bink. "Oh, don't be so damned human," she snapped. "What do you think I'm doing--magic?"
Bink had to laugh, embarrassed. She had a point; he had no more occasion to let his squeamishness interfere with business than she did. His definitions of what might be obscene made no more sense than hers. He came forward, albeit diffidently. It occurred to him that centaurs were well adapted to their functions; had Cherie had an udder like a horse, the foal would have had a difficult time. He was an upright little chap, whose human section did not bend down like the neck of a horse.
"We're going the wrong way," Cherie exclaimed.
Oh, no! "You strayed from the path? We're lost?"
"We're on the path. But we should not be going toward Castle Roogna. Nobody there can help."
"But the King--"
"The King is just an ordinary man, now. What can he do?"
Bink sighed. He had just assumed King Trent would have some sort of answer, but Cherie was right "What can anyone do without--" He was trying to spare her the use of the obscene word, though he knew this was foolish.
"Nursing Chet started me thinking," she said, giving the foal a loving pat on the head. "Here is my foal, Chester's colt, a representative of the dominant species of Xanth. What am I doing running away from Chester? Chet needs a real stud to teach him the facts of life. I could nev
er forgive myself, if--"
"But you're not running away!" Bink protested. "We're going to the King, to find out what to do in the absence of--how we can--"
"Oh, go ahead, say it!" she exclaimed angrily. "Magic! You have shown me in your blundering human way that it is necessary and integral to our way of life, including my own private personal life, damn you. Now I'm taking the rationale further. We can't just go home and commiserate with former Magicians; we have to do something. Now, Immediately, before it's too late."
"It's already too late," Bink said. "The Demon is gone."
"But maybe he hasn't gone far. Maybe he forgot something, and will return to fetch it, and we can trap him--"
"No, that wouldn't be right. I meant it when I freed him, even though I don't like the result of that freedom."
"You have integrity, Bink, inconvenient as it sometimes is. Maybe we can call him back, talk to him, persuade him to give us back a few spells--"
Bink shook his head. "No, nothing we can do will influence the Demon Xanth. He doesn't care at all about our welfare. If you had met him, you'd know."
She turned her head to face him. "Maybe I'd better meet him, then."
"How can I get it through your equine brain!" Bink cried, exasperated. "I told you he's gone!"
"All the same, I want to see where he was. There might be something left. Something you missed. No offense, Bink, but you are only human. If there were some way we could--"
"There is no way!" Bink cried. Chester had been stubborn enough, but this filly--!
"Listen, Bink. You rubbed my nose in the fact of my need of magic. Now I'm rubbing yours in the fact of your need to do something, instead of just giving in. You may tell yourself you're going to fetch help, but actually you're just running away. The solution to our problem is at the prison of the Demon, not at the King's palace. Maybe we'll fail--but we do have to go back there and try." And she started back the way they had come. "You've been there; show me the way."
Involuntarily, he ran along beside her, very much like the foal. "To the cave of the Demon?" he asked incredulously. "There are goblins and demagicked dragons and--"