"Agreed?"
"We trust you, Bink."
"I don't trust you. But all right-I'll make the deal. I hope I'm not making a fatal mistake. Show me the source of magic-and not with any one-word riddle I can't understand-then tell me why the brain coral has tried so hard to stop me from getting there."
"First, I suggest you imbibe a drop of the healing elixir yourself," the Magician said.
Startled, Jewel turned. "Oh, Bink-you should have been the first to have it!"
"No," Bink said. "It might have been the sleeping potion."
Humfrey nodded. "Had I attempted to betray you, it would have shown when the griffin was treated," he said. "You maneuvered to guard against betrayal most efficiently. I must say, even with your talent canceled out, you have managed very well. You are far removed from the stripling you once were."
"Aren't we all," Bink growled, hand still on sword.
Jewel sprinkled a drop of elixir on him. Instantly his wounds healed, and he was strong again. But his suspicion of the Good Magician did not ease.
Chapter 12
Demon Xanth
"On his way," Humfrey said. Bink kept his sword drawn as he followed the Magician. Jewel walked silently behind him, carrying the golem.
"Incidentally," Humfrey said. "Crombie was not deceiving you. The antidote you seek does lie in the direction of the lake-but beyond it The coral could enable you to obtain it-if things work out."
"I have no interest in bribes from the enemy," Bink said curtly.
"You don't?" Jewel asked. "You don't want the antidote?"
"Sorry-I didn't mean I intended to renege," Bink told her. "It's a matter of principle. I can't let the enemy subvert me, even though I do not wish to burden you with my love any longer than-"
"It's no burden, Bink," she said. "I never saw anything so brave as-"
"But since the antidote is evidently out of reach, there is no point in keeping you. I'm sorry I inconvenienced you for nothing. You are free to go, now."
She caught at his arm. Bink automatically moved his sword out of the way. "Bink, I-"
Bink yielded to his desire at last and kissed her. To his surprise, she returned the kiss emphatically. The scent of yellow roses surrounded them. Then he pushed her gently away. "Take good care of yourself, nymph. This sort of adventure is not for you. I would like to believe that you are safe and happy with your gems and your job, always."
"Bink, I can't go."
"You have to go! Here there is only horror and danger, and I have no right to subject you to it. You must depart without discovering the source of magic, so that you will have no enemy."
Now she smelled of pine trees on a hot day, all pungent and fresh and mildly intoxicating. The elixir had cured her hoarseness, too, and had erased the no-sleep shadows under her eyes. She was as lovely as she had been the moment he first saw her. "You have no right to send me away, either," she said.
Humfrey moved. Bink's sword leaped up warningly. Jewel backed off, frightened again.
"Have no concern," the Magician said. "We approach the source of magic."
Bink, wary, hardly dared believe it. "I see nothing special."
"See this rock?" Humfrey asked, pointing. "It is the magic rock, slowly moving up, leaking through to the surface after hundreds of years, squeezing through a fault in the regular strata. Above, it becomes magic dust. Part of the natural or magical conversion of the land's crust." He pointed down. "Below-is where it becomes charged. The source of magic."
"Yes-but how is it charged with magic?" Bink demanded. "Why has the coral so adamantly opposed my approach?"
"You will soon know." The Magician showed the way to a natural, curving tunnel-ramp that led down. "Feel the intensifying strength of magic, here? The most minor talent looms like that of a Magician-but all talents are largely nullified by the ambience. It is as if magic does not exist, paradoxically, because it can not be differentiated properly."
Bink could not make much sense of that. He continued on down, alert for further betrayal, conscious of the pressure of magic all about him. If a lightning bug made its little spark here, there would be a blast sufficient to blow the top off a mountain! They were certainly approaching the source-but was this also a trap?
The ramp debouched into an enormous cave, whose far wall was carved into the shape of a giant demon face. "The Demon Xanth, the source of magic," Humfrey said simply.
"This statue, this mere mask?" Bink asked incredulously. "What joke is this?"
"Hardly a joke, Bink. Without this Demon, our land would be just like Mundania. A land without magic."
"And this is all you have to show me? How do you expect me to believe it?"
"I don't expect that You have to listen to the rationale. Only then can you grasp the immense significance of what you see-and appreciate the incalculable peril your presence here means to our society."
Bink shook his head with resignation. "I said I'd listen. I'll listen. But I don't guarantee to believe your story."
"You can not fail to believe," Humfrey said. "But whether you accept-that is the gamble. The information comes in this manner: we shall walk about this chamber, intercepting a few of the magic vortexes of the Demon's thoughts. Then we will understand."
"I don't want any more magic experience!" Bink protested. "All I want to know is the nature of the source."
"You shall, you shall!" Humfrey said. "Just walk with me, that is all. There is no other way." He stepped forward.
Still suspicious, Bink paced him, for he did not want to let the Magician get beyond the immediate reach of his sword.
Suddenly he felt giddy; it was as if he were falling, but his feet were firm. He paused, bracing himself against he knew not what. Another siege of madness? If that were the trap-
He saw stars. Not the paltry motes of the normal night sky, but monstrous and monstrously strange balls of flaming yet unburning substance, of gas more dense than rock, and tides without water. They were so far apart that a dragon could not have flown from one to another in its lifetime, and so numerous that a man could not count them all in his lifetime, yet all were visible at once. Between these magically huge-small, distant-close unbelievable certainties flew the omnipotent Demons, touching a small (enormous) star here to make it flicker, a large (tiny) one there to make it glow red, and upon occasion puffing one into the blinding flash of a nova. The realm of the stars was the Demons' playground.
The vision faded. Bink looked dazedly around at the cave, and the tremendous, still face of the Demon. "You stepped out of that particular thought-vortex," Humfrey explained. "Each one is extremely narrow, though deep."
"Uh, yes," Bink agreed. He took another step-and faced a lovely she-Demon, with eyes as deep as the vortex of the fiends and hair that spread out like the tail of a comet. She was not precisely female, for the Demons had no reproduction and therefore no sex unless they wanted it for entertainment; they were eternal. They had always existed, and always would exist, as long as there was any point in existence. But for variety at times they played with variations of sex and assumed the aspect of male, female, itmale, hemale, shemale, neutermale and anonymale. At the moment she was close enough to a category to be viewed as such, and it was not a he category.