Jewel peeked back around the corner. "If you'd just go away and let me catch up-"
"Not until I've finished cleaning up this overflow," Bink said. "As you pointed out, it is my fault" He placed a huge egg-shaped opal on top of his mound-and watched the whole thing subside, squirting out diamonds and things. He was getting nowhere.
She edged in closer. "No, you're right I spilled it. I'll catch up somehow. You just-just leave. Please." The sneezy tang of dust tickled his nose, as if a herd of centaurs had just charged along a dry road in midsummer.
"Your magic talent!" Bink exclaimed. "Smells!"
"Well, I never," she said, modestly affronted. Now the dust-odor was tinged by the fumes of burning oil.
"I mean you can make-you smell like what you feel."
"Oh, that." The oil merged into perfume. "Yes.
What's your talent?"
"I can't tell you."
"But I just told you mine! It's only fair-" She edged within range. Bink grabbed her. She screamed again most fetchingly, and struggled without much strength. That, too, was the way nymphs were: delightfully and ineffectively difficult. He drew her in for a firm kiss on the lips. She was a most pleasant armful, and her lips tasted like honey. At least they smelled like it.
"That wasn't very nice," she rebuked him when he ended the kiss, but she didn't seem very angry. Her odor was of freshly overturned earth.
"I love you," Bink said. "Come with me-"
"I can't go with you," she said, smelling of freshly cut grass. "I have my job to do."
"And I have mine," Bink said.
"What's your job?"
"I'm on a quest for the source of magic."
"But that's way down in the center of the world, or somewhere," she said. "You can't travel that way. There are dragons and goblins and rats-"
"We're used to them," Bink said.
"I'm not used to them! I'm afraid of the dark! I couldn't go there, even if-"
Even if she wanted to. Because of course she did not love him. She had not drunk the love-water.
Bink had a naughty idea. "Come and take a drink with me! Then we can-"
She struggled to disengage, and he let her go. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her! "No, I couldn't afford love. I must plant all these jewels."
"But what am I to do? From the moment I saw you-"
"You'll just have to take the antidote," she said, smelling of a newly lit candle. Bink recognized the connection: the candle symbolized her bright idea.
"There is an antidote?" He hadn't thought of that
There must be. For every spell there's an equal and opposite counterspell somewhere. All you have to do is find it"
I know who can find it," Bink said. "My friend Crombie."
"You have friends?" she asked, surprised, smelling of startled birds.
"Of course I have friends!"
"Down here, I meant I thought you were alone."
"No. I was looking for water for me and Chester. We-"
"Chester? I thought your friend was Crombie."
"Chester Centaur. Crombie is a griffin. And there's Magician Humfrey, and-"
"A Magician!" she exclaimed, impressed. "All to look for the source of magic?"
"Yes. The King wants to know."
"There's a King along too?"
"No," Bink said, momentarily exasperated. "The King assigned me to make the quest. But we had some trouble, and got separated, and-"
"I suppose I'd better show you where there's water," she decided. "And food-you must be hungry too."
"Yes," he said, reaching for her. "We'll be glad to do some service in return-"
"Oh, no!" she cried, skipping away with an enticing bounce of anatomy and the scent of hickory smoke. "Not until you drink the antidote!"
Just so. "I really must get back to Chester," Bink said. "He'll be worried."
She considered for a moment. "Bink, I'm sorry about what happened. Fetch your friends, and I'll see they get fed. Then you really must go."
"Yes." Bink walked slowly to the hole in the wall.
"Not that way!" she cried. "Go round by the regular passages!"
"But I don't know the way! I have no light. I have to follow the rope back."
"Definitely not!" She took her own magic lantern, a twin of the one Bink had found before, from the wall and grasped Bink's arm firmly. "I know all the halls around here. I'll find him for you."
Bink willingly suffered himself to be led. Even apart from the potion, he was discerning commendable traits in her. She was not one of the empty-headed nymphs like those associated with ocean foam or wild oats; she had a sense of purpose and fitness and decency. No doubt her responsible job of jewel-placing had matured her. Still, potion or not, he had no business with this creature! Once his friends were fed, he would have to leave her. He wondered how long it would take the potion to wear oft. Some spells were temporary, but others were lifelong.
They circled through intersecting passages. In a moment they came upon Chester, still waiting by the hole. "Here we are!" Bink called.
Chester jumped so that all four hooves were off the floor. "Bink!" he exclaimed as he landed. "What happened? Who is that nymph?"
"Chester, this is Jewel. Jewel-Chester," Bink introduced. "I-" He hesitated.
"He drank a love potion," Jewel said brightly.
The centaur made a motion as of tearing out two fistfuls of mane. "The secret enemy strikes again!"
Bink hadn't thought of that. Of course that was the most reasonable explanation! His talent hadn't betrayed him, but it hadn't protected him from this non-physical threat either. Thus his enemy had scored.
How could he pursue the source of magic, when his heart was tied up here?
But his heart was also tied up back home, with Chameleon. That was part of the reason he was on this quest So-he had better just get on with it. "If we can get back together with Crombie and the Magician, maybe Crombie can point out the location of the antidote," Bink said.
"Where are your friends?" Jewel asked.
"They're in a bottle," Bink explained. "But we can communicate with them through a fragment of magic mirror. Here, I'll introduce you to them." He fumbled in his pocket for the bit of glass.
His fingers found nothing. "Oh, no-I've lost the fragment!" He turned the pocket inside out. There was a hole in it, where the sharp edge of glass had sawed its way out
"Well, we'll find them somehow," Bink said numbly. "We won't give up until we do."
"That would seem best," Chester agreed gravely. However, we'll have to take the nymph along with us."
"Why?" Bink had mixed emotions.
"The object of the counterspell has to be present; that's the way these things work. You loved the first female you encountered after imbibing the potion; you must unlove her in the same fashion."
"I can't come with you!" Jewel protested, though she looked at Chester as if wishing for a ride on his back. "I have a lot of work to do!"
"How much will you get done if Bink stays here?" Chester inquired.
She threw up her hands in feminine exasperation.