The Source of Magic (20 page)

As well he might, Bink thought. Why hadn’t the ornery
creature accepted a drop of elixir for his head as well as for his tail?

“If you were really sorry, you’d show it,” she said.

Crombie squawked. “She’s setting her hooks into you already, ass,” the golem said.

Doubly annoyed, Chester glowered at the siren. “How?”

“By giving me a ride on your back.”

Bink almost laughed. Nymphs of any type loved to ride!

“Ride, then,” Chester said, disconcerted.

She walked to his side, but was unable to mount. “You’re too tall,” she complained.

Chester turned his front portion, wrapped one arm about her slender waist, and hauled her up easily. “Eeek!” she screamed, delighted, as her feet swished through the air. “You’re so strong!”

Crombie squawked again, and his remark needed no interpretation. She was, indeed, working her wiles on the centaur, needing no siren song.

Chester, not in the best of moods after his encounter with the pineapple, was visibly mollified. “All centaurs are strong.” He set her neatly on his back, and walked forward.

The siren grabbed two handfuls of his mane. “My, your shoulders are so broad! And what sleek fur you have. You must be the handsomest centaur of all!”

“From the rear, maybe,” he agreed. He began to trot.

“Oooh, that’s fun!” she cried, letting go just long enough to clap her hands together girlishly. “You must be the smartest centaur, and the fastest—” She paused. “Could you, maybe, make a little jump?”

Chester, now quite puffed up by her praise, made a tremendous leap. The siren screamed and flew off his back. They were at the edge of the water, since this was a small island, and she plunked into the lake.

“Uh, sorry,” Chester said, mortified. “Guess I overdid it.” He reached down to fish her out.

Fish her out he did: her legs had changed back into a tail. “No harm done,” the mermaid said. “I am quite at home in the
water.” And she wriggled within his grasp, bringing her face to his and planting a wet kiss on him.

Crombie squawked. “There’s no fool like a horse-reared fool,” the golem said.

“That’s for sure,” Chester agreed, now in a good mood. “Just don’t tell Cherie.”

“Cherie?” the siren asked, frowning.

“My filly. The prettiest thing in Xanth. She’s back home, tending our foal. His name is Chet.”

She assimilated that. “How nice,” she said, disgruntled. “I’d better see to your fodder now, and stall space.”

Bink smiled privately. Chester wasn’t such a fool after all!

They had a modest repast of fish and sea cucumber, and bedded down in a pile of soft dry sponges. Bink stretched out his feet—and banged into another pile of dirt. This time he was too tired to stomp it flat, so he ignored it.

The siren, having given up on the centaur, nestled down in the dark beside Bink. “Say,” he said, remembering. “We have to give service for hospitality!”

Crombie squawked. “
You
give service, noodle-brain,” Grundy said. “You’re closest to her.”

“Service?” the siren inquired, nudging him.

Bink found himself blushing furiously in the dark.
Damn
Crombie’s innuendo! “Uh, nothing,” he said, and pretended to fall suddenly asleep. Very soon it was no pretense.

In the morning they bade farewell to the siren after taking the time to break up some wood for her cooking fire—a service she appreciated, as she was not much for that sort of thing. They set about braving her sister. “The rest of you must be blindfolded,” Humfrey decided. “I will use the mirror.”

So he could view the gorgon indirectly, of course. That was the only way to look at such creatures; everyone knew that. Yet why did a mirror work? The image in the glass should be as horrendous as the original.

“Polarization,” the Magician explained without being asked. “The magic of partial images.”

That didn’t clarify things much. But a more important
question remained. “What do we do, to stop the—” Bink did not want to use the word “kill” in the presence of the innocent siren. Getting close to the gorgon was one thing; dispatching her while blindfolded was another.

“We shall see,” Humfrey said.

They submitted to blindfolding, including the golem. Then they formed a chain to follow the Good Magician, who walked backward on the path between the islands, using the mirror to see ahead. In this case he was not utilizing its magic, but merely the ordinary reflection: the natural magic all mirrors possessed.

It was strange and uncomfortable, crossing the water sightlessly. How awful it would be, to lose forever the power of seeing! What magic was better than the natural senses of life?

Bink’s feet felt hard land. “You stand here, facing out,” Humfrey told them. “Just in case. I will deal with the gorgon.”

Still nervous, Bink obeyed. He felt tempted to rip off the blindfold, turn about, and look at the gorgon—but not strongly tempted. Once he had stood atop a tall mountain and suffered an urge to throw himself off it, similarly; it was as if there were a death urge in him along with the life urge. Perhaps the urge to adventure was drawn from the same wellspring.

“Gorgon,” Humfrey said.

Right behind Bink, she answered. “I am she. Welcome to my isle.” Her voice was dulcet; she sounded even more attractive than her sister. “Why do you not look at me?”

“Your glance would turn me into stone,” Humfrey said bluntly.

“Am I not beautiful? Who else has locks as serpentine as mine?” she asked plaintively, and Bink heard the faint hissing of the snakes. He wondered what it would be like to kiss the gorgon, with those snake-hairs twining around their two faces. The notion was both alarming and tempting. Yet what was the gorgon except the literal personification of the promise and threat embodied in every woman?

“You are beautiful,” Humfrey agreed gravely. She must be beautiful indeed, Bink thought, for the Good Magician did not
waste compliments. Oh, for a single look! “Where are the other men who came to you?”

“They went away,” she said sadly.

“Where did they go?”

“There,” she said, and Bink assumed she was pointing. “Beyond those rocks.”

Humfrey moved over to investigate. “These are statues,” he said, unsurprised. “Statues of men, exquisitely realistic. Carved, as it were, from life.”

From life …

“Yes,” she agreed brightly. “They look just like the men who came to me.”

“Does that not suggest anything to you?”

“The men left the gifts behind, pictures of themselves, sculptures. But I would rather have had the men stay with me. I have no use for stones.”

She didn’t realize what she had done! She thought these were mere images offered as remembrances. Maybe she refused to realize the truth, blocking it out from her consciousness, pretending she was an ordinary girl. She refused to believe in her own magic. What a fateful delusion!

Yet, Bink thought, wasn’t this too typical of the thought processes of females? What one among them chose to recognize the mischief her sex worked among men!

But that was Crombie’s contention, therefore probably an exaggeration. There might be a little siren and a little gorgon in every girl, but not a lot. There was hardly any in Chameleon.

“If more men come,” Humfrey continued with unusual gentleness, “they will only leave more statues. This is not good.”

“Yes, there are already too many statues,” she agreed naively. “My island is getting crowded.”

“The men must not come any more,” Humfrey said. “They must stay at their homes, with their families.”

“Couldn’t just one man come—and stay a while?” she asked plaintively.

“I’m afraid not. Men just aren’t, er, right for you.”

“But I have so much love to give—if only a man would stay!
Even a little one. I would cherish him forever and ever, and make him so happy—”

Bink, listening, was beginning to appreciate the depth of the gorgon’s tragedy. All she wanted was to love and be loved, and instead she sowed a harvest of horrible mischief. How many families had been destroyed by her magic? What could be done with her—except execution?

“You must go into exile,” Humfrey said. “The magic shield has been lowered by order of the King; you can pass freely out of Xanth. In Mundania your magic will dissipate, and you will be able to interact freely with the man or men of your choice.”

“Leave Xanth?” she cried, alarmed. “Oh, no, I would rather die! I can not leave my home!”

Bink experienced a pang of sympathy. Once he himself had faced exile.…

“But in Mundania you would be an ordinary girl, under no curse. You are extremely lovely, and your personality is sweet. You could have your pick of men there.”

“I love men,” she said slowly. “But I love my home more. I can not depart. If this is my only choice, I beg of you to slay me now and end my misery.”

For once the Good Magician seemed shaken. “Slay you? I would not do that! You are the most attractive creature I have ever seen, even through a mirror! In my youth I would have—”

Now a little ordinary feminine artifice manifested. “Why, you are not old, sir. You are a handsome man.”

Crombie stifled a squawk, Chester coughed, and Bink choked. She had made a gross exaggeration, if not an outright distortion! Humfrey was a good man, and a talented one, but hardly a handsome one. “You flatter me,” the Magician said seriously. “But I have other business.”

“Of all the men who have come here, you alone have stayed to talk with me,” the gorgon continued. “I am so lonely! I beg of you, stay with me, and let me serve you always.”

Now Crombie squawked aloud. “Don’t turn about, fool!” the golem cried. “Keep using the mirror!”

“Um, yes,” Humfrey agreed. The griffin’s hearing must be
acute, Bink thought, to detect the sound of the Magician’s incipient turning! “Gorgon, if I were to look at you directly—”

“You would feel obliged to go away, leaving only a stone memento in your likeness,” she finished. “I do not understand why men are like this! But come, close your eyes if you must, kiss me, let me show you how much love I have for you. Your least word is my command, if you will only stay!”

The Magician sighed. Was the old gnome tempted? It occurred to Bink that it might not have been disinterest in women that kept Humfrey single, but lack of a suitable partner. The average woman was not interested in a wizened, dwarfish old man—or if she expressed interest, it was likely to be only because she wanted a piece of his formidable magic. Here was a woman who knew nothing of him but his appearance, and was eager to love him, asking only his presence.

“My dear, I think not,” Humfrey said at last. “Such a course would have its rewards—I hardly deny it!—and I would normally be inclined to dally with you a day or three, though love be blindfolded. But it would require the resources of a Magician to associate safely with you, and I am on a quest that takes precedence, and may not—”

“Then dally a day or three!” she exclaimed. “Be blindfolded! I know no Magician would have interest in me, but even a Magician could not be more wonderful than you, sir!”

Did she suspect the magnitude of Humfrey’s talent? Did it matter? The Magician sighed again. “Perhaps, after my present quest is over, if you would care to visit at my castle—”

“Yes, yes!” she cried. “Where is your castle?”

“Just ask for Humfrey. Someone will direct you. Even so, you can not show your face to man. You would have to wear a veil—no, even that would not suffice, for it is your eyes that—”

“Do not cover my eyes! I must see!”

Bink felt another surge of sympathy, for at the moment he could not see.

“Let me consult,” Humfrey said. There was a rustle as
he rummaged through his magic props. Then: “This is not ideal, but it will do. Hold this vial before your face and open it.”

More rustling as she accepted the vial that he held out over his shoulder. There was a pop as the cork came out, the hiss of escaping vapor, a gasp, then silence. Had the Magician executed her after all, giving her poison vapor to sniff?

“Companions, you may now remove your blindfolds and turn about,” Humfrey said. “The gorgon has been nullified.”

Bink ripped off the cloth. “Magician! You didn’t—?”

“No, I did her no harm. Observe.”

Bink observed, as did the others. Before them stood a breathtakingly lovely young woman with hair formed of many small thin snakes. But her face was—absent. There simply wasn’t anything there.

“I applied a spell of invisibility to her face,” Humfrey explained. “She can see out well enough, but I regret that no man can look upon her face, since it is the loveliest part of her. But this way it is impossible to meet her gaze. She is safe—as are we.”

It was too bad, really, Bink had to agree. She seemed like such a nice girl, burdened with such a terrible curse. Magic was not always kind! The Magician had nullified the curse, but it was disconcerting to look into that vacuum in lieu of her face.

Crombie walked around the island, studying the statues. Some were of centaurs, and some of griffins. “Squawk!” “Look at the damage the bitch has done! She must have petrified hundreds of innocent males. What good is it to nullify her now? It is like closing the house door after the man has escaped.” He was evidently thinking more like a griffin, now. That was a danger of prolonged transformation.

“Yes, we shall have to do something about the statues,” Humfrey agreed. “But I have expended enough of my valuable magic. Too much, in fact. Crombie, point out where the solution to this problem lies.”

The griffin whirled and pointed. Down.

“Hm. Now point out the source of magic, again.”

Crombie did. The result was the same. “So I supposed,”
Humfrey said. “Our quest has more than informational significance.”

Another factor fell into place for Bink. This whole escapade with the tangle tree and the devastating sisters had seemed like a diversion from the quest and a serious threat to Bink’s welfare, yet his talent had permitted it. Now he saw that his experience related to the quest. Still, it should not have been necessary to expose himself to these dangers in order to reach the source of magic. Something other than his talent must be operating.