Bink pursued it. "Turn about and fight like a monster!" he cried, unwilling to cut it down from behind.
Instead the creature broke into a run. But Bink's momentum carried him forward faster, and he caught the minotaur before it reached the exit. He hauled on its tail, causing the thing to crash into a wall. Bink put his sword to its throat. "Yield!" he cried.
The minotaur shivered--and became a monster bug, with tremendous pincers, stinger, and mandibles. Bink, startled, stepped back. He was fighting a magic monster--one that could change its form at will! This was going to be a much more formidable challenge than he had, in his naivete, supposed.
What a fool he had been to hold back his sword, expecting this thing to yield! Surely its life, like his own, would be forfeit if it lost. He had to kill it in a hurry, before it killed him--or got away, which amounted to the same thing.
Even while he realized this, the bug was skittering toward the exit. Bink leaped after it, his sword swinging. But the bug had eye-stalks that looked back at him--in fact, it was now a giant slug, sliding along on a trail of slime. Bink's sword swished over its head harmlessly.
He could, however, move faster than a slug, even a large one. Bink jumped over it and reached the exit first, barring the way. He took careful aim and made a two-handed strike at the slug's head, to slice it lengthwise. But his blade clanged off the shell of a snail. The monster had changed again, to the nearest variant that would protect it. Either it was hard-pressed, or it lacked imagination.
Bink gave it no chance to think. He thrust directly into the opening of the shell. This time he scored--on the substance of a big green jellyfish. His blade sliced through it and emerged from the far side, dripping, without really hurting the blob. He carried his stroke on up and out and shook the blade off, disgusted. How could he kill a mass of jelly that sealed up after his cut?
He sniffed. Now he recognized the odor of the thing: lime. Lime-flavored jelly. Was it edible? Could he destroy the monster by eating it?
But as he pondered, the monster changed into a purple vulture the size of a man, Bink leaped for it, trying to slay it before it flew up beyond his reach--and skidded on the remaining patch of lime goo. What a disastrous coincidence!
Coincidence? No--this was his talent operating--in reverse. The Demon had negligently switched it. Now seeming coincidence would always work against Bink, instead of for him. He was his own worst enemy.
Still, he had done all right for himself when his talent had been largely canceled out by the brain coral's magic. What be needed to do now was to minimize the element coincidence played in this battle. His talent never revealed itself openly, so was restricted, awaiting its chance to operate. Everything he did should be so carefully planned that it left virtually nothing to chance. That way, chance could not operate against him.
The bird did not fly. It ran toward the center of the arena. Bink scrambled to his feet and pursued, watching his step. Here was a pebble that he might have tripped over; there was another spot of grease. His prior slip in the jelly had been mainly carelessness. He could minimize that. But why didn't the bird simply fly, while Bink was being so careful of his motions? Probably because the monster was not a Magician. Each form it assumed was about the same mass, and landbound. A good talent, but not an extraordinary one. There were definite limits. King Trent could change a fly into a hephalumph, or a worm into a flying dragon; size and function were of no account. But this monster only changed its form, not its abilities. Good!
Bink stalked the vulture, alert for any move it might make toward the exit. To flee him it would have to turn its back, and then he would strike it down. No element of chance involved there, so no way for his reversed talent to intercede. Bink's early life, when he had not known about his talent, had prepared him for operating without it. His recent adventures, when it had been either neutralized or eliminated entirely, had served as a refresher course. The monster would have to stand and fight, rather than depending on Bink to foul up.
Suddenly it was a man--a burly, tousle-haired brute in tattered clothing, carrying a gleaming sword. The man looked as if he knew his business; in fact he looked familiar.
In fact--it was a replica of Bink himself! The monster was getting smart, fighting sword with sword. "Fair enough!" Bink said, and launched his attack.
As he had guessed, the monster was no swordsman. He might look like Bink, but he couldn't fight the way Bink could! This battle would soon be over!
Bink made a feint, then engaged the other's sword and knocked it out of the monster's hand. He backed the monster up against the wall, ready for the finish. "Bink!" a woman cried in despair. Bink recognized that voice. It was Jewel! Drawn by the spell the Demon had made, she had arrived just at the wrong moment. It had to be the machination of his reversed talent, interfering just in time to save his enemy from destruction. Unless he acted immediately--
"Bink!" she cried again, jumping down into the arena and throwing herself between him and the monster. She smelled of a summer storm. "Why didn't you stay out of the caverns, where you would be safe?" Then she stopped, amazed. "You're both Bink!"
"No, he's the monster," the monster said before Bink spoke. "He's trying to kill an unarmed man!"
"For shame!" Jewel flashed, facing Bink. The storm had become a hurricane, with the odors of sleet and dust and crushed brick, windborne. "Begone, monster!"
"Let's get out of here," the monster said to her, taking her by the arm and walking toward an exit.
"Of all the nerve!" Cherie cried from above. "Get that fool nymph out of there!"
But Jewel stayed with the cunning monster, escorting him toward safety--and a disaster she could not imagine. Bink stood frozen, unable to bring himself to act against Jewel.
"Bink, she'll die too, if you let him go!" Cherie screamed.
That nerved him. Bink launched himself at the pair, catching them each about the waist and hauling them down. He intended to separate them, stab the monster, and explain to Jewel later.
But when he righted himself, he discovered that he had a nymph on each arm. The monster now resembled Jewel--and Bink couldn't tell them apart.
He jumped to his feet, sword ready. "Jewel, identify yourself!" he shouted. The monster could hardly have been smart enough to think of this on its own; Bink's talent had probably decreed such a fortuitous choice of appearances. Bink had not given it any opportunity to catch him in an accident, so it had acted on the monster instead. Coincidence took many forms.
"Me!" the two nymphs cried together, getting to their feet.
Oh, no! They sounded alike, too. "Jewel, I'm fighting a change-shape monster," he cried to them both. "If I don't kill him, he'll kill me. One way or another. I've got to know which one he is." Assuming the monster was male. Bink had to assume that, because he didn't want to kill a female.
"Him!" both nymphs cried, pointing at each other. The scent of skunk cabbage filled the air. Both backed away from each other, and from him.
Worse and worse! Now his talent had the bit in its teeth, determined not to let him prevail. Yet he had to kill the monster, and to spare Jewel. He could not afford to choose randomly.
The nymphs were heading for different exits. Already it was too late to catch both. Upon his choice rested the fate of himself and all his friends--and his infernal talent would surely make him choose wrongly. No matter which one he chose, it would be the wrong one. Somehow. Yet to make no choice would also spell doom.
Bink realized that the only way he could be sure of salvaging anything was to kill them both. The monster, and the nymph-woman who loved him. Appalling decision!
Unless he could somehow trick the monster into revealing itself. (Call it IT: that would be easy to kill!)
"You are the monster!" he cried, and charged the nymph on the right, swinging his sword.
She flicked a glance over her shoulder, saw him, and screamed in mortal terror. And the smell of dragon's breath, the essence of terror, was strong.
B
ink completed his swing, avoiding her as she cowered, and hurled his sword at the second nymph, who was almost at the other exit. The one he had decided was really the monster.
But the near-nymph, in her terror, threw up her hands defensively. One hand brushed Bink's sword arm, just as he threw the weapon, fouling his aim. His talent again, using his friend to balk his attack on his enemy!
Yet it was not over. The monster, seeing the approaching blade, leaped to the side--right into the miss thrown sword. The blade struck the chest and plunged through, such was the force of Bink's throw and the charm of the weapon. Transfixed, the monster fell. Two bad lucks had canceled each other out!
Bink, meanwhile, crashed into Jewel, bearing her to the floor. "Sorry," he said. "I had to do it, to make sure--"
"That's quite all right," she said, struggling to get up. Bink got to his own feet and took her by the elbow, helping her. But his eyes were on the dead or dying monster. What was its natural form?
The monster didn't change. It still looked exactly like Jewel, with full bosom, slender waist, healthy hips, ideal legs, and sparkling hair--and blood washing out around the embedded sword. Strange. If the monster was mortally injured, why didn't it revert to form? If it were not, why didn't it scramble up and out the exit?
Jewel drew away from him. "Let me go clean up, Bink," she said. At the moment she smelled of nothing.
Of nothing? "Make a smell," Bink said, grabbing her arm again.
"Bink, let me go!" she cried, pulling toward the exit.
"Make a smell!" he growled, twisting her arm behind her back.
Suddenly he held a tangle tree. Its vines twisted to grab him, but they lacked the strength of a real tangler, even a dwarf species. Bink clamped both his arms about the tree, squeezing the tentacles in against the trunk, hard.
The tree became a squat sea serpent. Bink hunched his head down and continued squeezing. The serpent became a two-headed wolf whose jaws snapped at Bink's ears. He squeezed harder; he could afford to lose an ear in order to win the battle. The wolf became a giant tiger lily, snarling horrendously, but Bink was crushing its stem.
Finally it got smart. It changed into a needle cactus. The needles stabbed into Bink's arms and face--but he did not let go. The pain was terrible, but he knew that if he gave the monster any leeway at all it would change into something he couldn't catch, or his talent would arrange some coincidental break for it. Also, he was angry: because of this creature, he had cut down an innocent nymph, whose only fault was loving him. He had assumed that jinxes had canceled out when his mis-thrown sword cut her down, but that had not been the case. What an awful force his talent could be! His hands and face were bleeding, and a needle was poking into one eye, but Bink squeezed that cactus-torso with the passion of sheer hate until it squirted white fluid.
The thing dissolved into foul-smelling goo. Bink could no longer hold on; there was nothing to grasp. But he tore at the stuff with his hands, flinging gobs of it across the arena, and stomped the main mass flat. Could the monster survive dismemberment, even in this stage?
"Enough," the Demon said, "You have beaten it." He gestured negligently, and abruptly Bink was fit and clean again, without injury--and somehow he knew his talent was back to normal. The Demon had been testing him, not his talent. He had won--but at what cost?
He ran to Jewel--the real Jewel--reminded of the time Chameleon had been similarly wounded. But the Evil Magician had done that, while this time Bink himself had done it. "You desire her?" the Demon asked. "Take her along." And Jewel was whole and lovely, smelling of gardenias, just as if she had been dunked in healing elixir. "Oh, Bink!" she said--and fled the arena.
"Let her go," Cherie said wisely. "Only time can heal the wound that doesn't show."
"But I can't let her think I meant to--"
"She knows you didn't mean to hurt her, Bink. Or she will know, when she thinks it out at leisure. But she also knows that she has no future with you. She is a creature of the caverns; the openness of the surface world would terrify her. Even if you weren't married, she could not leave her home for you. Now that you're safe, she has to go."
Bink stared the way Jewel had gone. "I wish there were something I could do."
"You can leave her alone," Cherie said firmly. "She must make her own life."
"Good horse sense," Grundy the golem agreed.
"I will permit you to perform the agreed task in your fashion," the Demon said to Bink. "I hold no regard for you or your welfare, but I do honor the conditions of a wager. All I want from your society is that it not intrude on my private demesnes. If it does, I might be moved to do something you would be sorry for--such as cauterizing the entire surface of the planet with a single sheet of fire. Now have I conveyed my directive in a form your puny intellect can comprehend?"
Bink did not regard his intellect as puny, compared to that of the Demon. The creature was omnipotent, not omniscient: all-powerful, not all-knowing. But it would not be politic to remark on that at the moment. Bink had no doubt that the Demon could and would obliterate all life in the Land of Xanth, if irritated. Thus it was in Bink's personal interest to keep the Demon happy, and to see that no other idiots like him intruded. So his talent would extend itself toward that end--as X(A/N)th surely was aware. "Yes."
Then Bink had a bright flash. "But it would be easier to ensure your privacy if there were no loose ends, like lost Magicians or pickled centaurs--"
Cherie perked up alertly. "Bink, you're a genius!"
"This Magician?" Xanth inquired. He reached up through the ceiling and brought down a gruesome skeleton. "I can reanimate him for you--"
Bink, after his initial shock, saw that this skeleton was much larger than any Humfrey could have worn. "Uh, not that one," he said, relieved. "Smaller, like a--a gnome. And alive."
"Oh, that one," X(A/N)th said. He reached through a wall and brought back Good Magician Humfrey, disheveled but intact.
"About time you got to me," Humfrey grumped. "I was running out of air, under that rubble."
Now the Demon reached down through the floor. He brought back Chester, encased in a glistening envelope of lake water. As he set the centaur down, the envelope burst; the water evaporated, and Chester looked around.
"So you went swimming without me!" Cherie said severely. "Here I stay home tending your colt while you gad about--"
Chester scowled. "I gad about because you spend all your time with the colt!"
"Uh, there's no need--" Bink interposed.
"Stay out of this," she murmured to him with a wink. Then, to Chester, she flared: "Because he is just like you! I can't keep you from risking your fool tail on stupid, dangerous adventures, you big dumb oaf, but at least I have him to remind me of--"
"If you paid more attention to me, I'd stay home more!" he retorted.
"Well, I'll pay more attention to you now, horse-head," she said, kissing him as the arena dissolved and a more cozy room formed about them. "I need you."
"You do?" he asked, gratified. "What for?"
"For making another foal, you ass! One that looks just like me, that you can take out for runs--"
"Yeah," he agreed with sudden illumination. "How about getting started right now!" Then he looked about, remembering where he was, and actually blushed. The golem smirked. "Uh, in due course."
"And you can run some with Chet, too," she continued. "So you can help him find his talent." There was no hint of the discomfort she must have suffered getting the word out.
Chester stared at her. "His--you mean you-"
"Oh, come on, Chester," she snapped. "You're wrong ten times a day. Can't I be wrong once in my life? I can't say I like it, but since magic seems to be part of the centaur's heritage, I'll simply have to live with it. Magic does have its uses; after all, it brought you back." She paused, glancing at him sidelong. "In fact, I might even be amenable to a little flute music,"
Startled, Chester looked at her, then at Bink, realizing that someone had blabbed. "Perhap
s that can be arranged--in decent privacy. After all, we are centaurs."
"You're such a beast," she said, flicking her tail at him. Bink covered a smile. When Cherie learned a lesson, she learned it well!
"Which seems to cover that situation sufficiently, tedious as it has been," the Demon said. "Now if you are all quite ready to depart, never to return--"
Yet Bink was not quite satisfied. He did not trust this sudden generosity on the part of the Demon. "You're really satisfied to be forever walled off from our society?"
"You can not wall me off," the Demon pointed out. "I am the source of magic. You will only wall you off. I will watch and participate anytime I choose--which will probably be never, as your society is of little interest to me. Once you depart, I forget you."
"You ought at least to thank Bink for freeing you," Cherie said.
"I thank him by sparing his ridiculous life," X(A/N)th said, and if Bink hadn't known better he might have thought the Demon was nettled.
"He earned his life!" she retorted. "You owe him more than that!"
Bink tried to caution her. "Don't aggravate him," he murmured. "He can blink us all into nothingness--"
"Without even blinking," the Demon agreed. One eyelid twitched as if about to blink.
"Well, Bink could have left you to rot for another thousand years, without blinking himself," she cried heedlessly. "But he didn't Because he has what you will never understand: humanity!"
"Filly, you intrigue me," X(A/N)th murmured. "It is true I am omnipotent, not omniscient--but I believe I could comprehend human motive if I concentrated on it."
"I dare you!" she cried.
Even Chester grew nervous at this. "What are you trying to do, Cherie?" he asked her. "Do you want us all extinguished?"
The Demon glanced at Grundy. "Half-thing, is there substance to her challenge?"
"What's in it for me?" the golem demanded.
The Demon lifted one finger. Light coalesced about Grundy. "That."
The light seemed to draw into the golem--and lo, Grundy was no longer a thing of clay and string. He stood on living legs, and had a living face. He was now an elf.