"I wonder if I have a magic talent?" Chester mused, sounding a trifle guilty. The transition from obscenity to pride was indeed a difficult one!
"If you won the prize, you could find out," Bink pointed out.
The cactus brightened. "That's right!" This was evidently the unanswerable question Chester had had in mind, unvoiced. Then the cactus dulled. "But Cherie would never let me have a talent, not even a little one. She's awfully prudish about that sort of thing"
Bink remembered the filly's prim attitude, and nodded. Cherie Centaur was one fine figure of a filly, and well able to handle the general magic of Xanth, but she could not abide it in any centaur. It reminded Bink of his own mother's attitude about sex in young humans. For animals it was natural, but when something like a wild-oats nymph was involved-well, Chester did have a problem.
They turned another corner-corners abounded in this infernal maze-and there was the palace gate, shining beyond the drawbridge over the moat. "Let's get over there before the maze changes!" Bink exclaimed.
They ran toward it-but even as they did, the hedge-pattern shimmered and fogged. The awful thing about this puzzle-pattern was its instability; at irregular intervals it shifted into new configurations, so that it was Impossible to solve it methodically. They were going to be too late to break out.
"I'm not stopping now!" Chester cried. The sound of cactus-galloping became louder. "Get on my back!"
Bink didn't argue. He made a leap for the prickliest portion of the cactus, grimacing in half-expectation of a crotchful of needles. He landed neatly on Chester's back, which felt quite equine. Phew!
At the feel of that impact, Chester accelerated. Bink had ridden a centaur before, when Cherie had kindly given him a lift-but never a powerhouse like this! Chester was husky even by centaur standards, and now he was in a hurry. The huge muscles pulsed along his body, launching him forward with such ferocity that Bink was afraid he would be hurled off as fast as he had landed. But he clutched two handfuls of mane and hung on, confident that his talent would protect him even from this.
Few residents of Xanth were aware of Bink's talent, and he himself had been ignorant of it the first twenty-five years of his life. This was because of the way the talent clouded itself, hiding from publicity. It prevented him from being harmed by magic-but anyone who knew this could then harm him by mundane means. So Bink's talent shrouded itself in seeming coincidence. Only King Trent, besides Bink himself, knew the truth. Good Magician Humfrey probably suspected, and Chameleon had to have an idea.
A new hedge formed between them and the gate. It was probably illusion, since they had just seen the gate. Chester plunged through it-and sent branches flying. No illusion; this time it must have been the gate that was the illusion. The Sorceress Queen could make things disappear, by creating the illusion of open space; he should have remembered that before.
What drive this creature had! Invisible foliage tore at Bink like the winds of a tempest, but he clung tight. Another barrier appeared; Chester veered to follow a new channel that went his way, then smashed past another cross-hedge. Once this centaur got moving, pity the man, beast, or plant that got in his way!
Suddenly they were out of the maze and at the moat But Chester's veer had brought him to it twenty paces to the side of the drawbridge, and there was no room to make a course correction. "Hang on!" Chester cried, and leaped.
This time the thrust was so great that Bink ripped a double handful of mane out of the centaur's hide and still slid off the rear. He tumbled end over end and splashed into the moat.
Immediately the moat-monsters converged, jaws gaping eagerly. They were ever alert; they would have been fired, otherwise. A huge serpent looped down, each glistening tooth as long as one of Bink's fingers. From the other side a purple croc opened its gnarly proboscis, showing off teeth that were even longer. And directly under Bink, rising from the swirling moat-mud, came a behemoth, its back so broad it seemed to fill the entire moat.
Bink thrashed madly in the water, trying to swim to safety, knowing that no man could escape any one of these monsters, let alone all three. The behemoth came up, lifting him half out of the water; the croc came across, its jaws parting cavernously; the serpent struck with lightning velocity from above.
And croc and serpent collided, their teeth throwing off sparks as they clashed. Both monsters were shunted aside by the mass of the rising behemoth-and Bink slid down that lifting slope as on a greased skid, away from the teeth and safely to the stone-lined inner wall of the moat. An amazing coincidence-
That was his talent operating, saving him once again from his own folly. Trying to ride a galloping centaur that looked like a cactus-he should have picked his way out of the maze the way the others were doing. He was just lucky that both centaurs and moat-monsters were magical, so that his talent could function.
Chester had landed safely, and was on hand to haul him out of the moat. With one hand the centaur lifted Bink clear, hardly seeming to exert himself. But his voice shook. "I thought-when you fell among those monsters-I never saw anything like-"
"They weren't really hungry," Bink said, preferring to disparage the significance of the event. "They were just playing with their food, and overdid it. Let's go on inside. They must be serving the refreshments by now."
"Hey, yes!" Chester agreed. Like all powerful creatures, he had a chronic appetite.
"Hay, yes," Bink muttered, centaurs did not eat hay, despite what detractors it may imply.
They moved to the castle-and the illusions faded, the spell was off, here they were themselves again, Bink and the centaur. "You know, I never realized how homely my face was, until I saw it on you," Chester laid musingly.
"But you have an exceedingly handsome posterior," Bink pointed out
"True, true," the centaur agreed, mollified. "I always said Cherie didn't become my mate for my face."
Bink started to laugh, but realized his friend was serious. Also, they were at the entry now, and others were within earshot.
The guard at the palace gate frowned. "How many you guess, Bink?" he inquired, pad poised for an answer.
"One, Crombie," Bink said, indicating Chester. Then be remembered the manticora. "Two, rather."
"You're out of the running, then," Crombie said. "The leading contestant has twelve." He glanced at Chester. "You?"
"I didn't want the prize anyway," the centaur said
"You folk haven't been trying," Crombie said. "If I'd been out there, instead of stuck here running errands for the Queen-"
"I thought you liked this palace job," Bink said. He had first encountered Crombie when the man soldiered for the prior King.
"I like it-but I like adventure better. The King's okay, but-" Crombie scowled. "Well, you know the Queen."
"All fillies are difficult," Chester said. "It's their nature; they can't help it, even if they wanted to."
"Right you are!" Crombie agreed heartily. He was original woman-hater. "And the ones with the biggest magic-who else would have dreamed up idiocy of a masquerade? She just wants to show off her sorcery."
"She hasn't got much else to show off," Chester said. " The King pays no attention to her."
"The King's one smart Magician!" Crombie agreed. "When she's not making mischief like this, this palace guard duty is dull as hell. I wish I were out on a man's mission, like the time when Bink and I-"