"____________________ť" she said, formulating a concept so vastly spacious as to fail to register upon Bink's comprehension. Yet her portent was so significant it moved him profoundly. He felt a sudden compelling urgency to-but such a thing would have been inexpressibly obscene in human terms, had it been possible or even conceivable. She was not, after all, closest in category to female.
Bink emerged from the thought eddy and saw Jewel standing transfixed, meshed in a different current. Her lips were parted, her bosom heaving. What was she experiencing? Bink suffered a quadruple-level reaction: horror that she should be subjected to any thought as crudely and sophisticatedly compelling as the one he had just experienced, for she was an innocent nymph; jealousy that she should react so raptly to something other than himself, especially if it were as suggestive a notion as the one he had absorbed; guilt about feeling that way about a nymph he could not really have, though he would not have wished the concept on the one he did have; and intense curiosity. Suppose an itmale made an offer-oh, horrible! Yet so tempting, too.
But Humfrey was moving, and Bink had to move too. He stepped into an eternal memory, so long that it resembled a magic highway extending into infinity both ways. The line-of-sight-though sight was not precisely the sense employed-to the past disappeared into a far-far distant flash. The Demon universe had begun in an explosion, and ended in another, and the whole of time and matter was the mere hiatus between these bangs-which two bangs were in turn only aspects of the same one. Obviously this was a completely alien universe from Bink's own! Yet, in the throes of this flux of relevant meaninglessness, it became believable. A super-magic framework for the super-magical Demons!
Bink emerged from the Thought "But what do the Demons have to do with the source of the magic of Xanth?" he demanded plaintively.
Then he entered a new flux-a complex one. If we cooperate, we can enlarge our A's, the pseudo-female Demon communicated seductively. At least, this was as much as Bink could grasp of her import, that had levels and resonances and symbolisms as myriad as the stars, and as intense and diffuse and confusing. My formula is E(A/R}th, yours X(A/N)th. Our A's match.
Ah, yes. It was a good offer, considering the situation, since their remaining elements differed, making them noncompetitive.
Not on your existence, another protested. Enlarge our E, not our A. It was D(E/A)th, who stood to be diminished by the enlarging A.
Enlarge both D and E, another suggested. It was D(E/P)th. D(E/A)th agreed instantly, and so did E(A/R)th, for she would benefit to a certain degree too. But this left X(A/N)th out.
Reduce our N, T(E/N)th recommended, and this appealed to X(A/N)th. But T(E/N)th was also dealing with the E-raisers, and that gave T(E/N)th disproportionate gain for the contract. All deals fell through for no benefit.
Bink emerged, his comprehension struggling. The names were formulae? The letters were values? What was going on?
"Ah, you have seen it," Humfrey said. "The Demons have no names, only point-scores. Variable inputs are substituted, affecting the numeric values-though they are not really numbers, but degrees of concept, with gravity and charm and luminosity and other dimensions we can hardly grasp. The running score is paramount."
That explanation only furthered the mystery. "The Demon Xanth is only a score in a game?"
"The Demon whose scoring formula is X(A/N)th-three variables and a class-exponent, as nearly as we can understand it," the Magician said. "The rules of the game are beyond our comprehension, but we do see their scores changing."
"I don't care about a score!" Bink cried. "What's the point?"
"What's the point in life?" Humfrey asked in return.
"To-to grow, to improve, to do something useful," Bink said. "Not to play games with concepts."
"You see it that way because you are a man, not a Demon. These entities are incapable of growth or improvement."
"But what about all their numbers, their enlargements of velocity, of viscosity-"
"Oh, I thought you understood," the Magician said. "Those are not expansions of Demon intellect or power, but of status. Demons don't grow; they are already all-powerful. There is nothing that any of them could conceive of, that each could not possess. Nothing any one of them could not accomplish. So they can't improve or do anything useful by our definition, for they are already absolute. Thus there is no inherent denial, no challenge."
"No challenge? Doesn't that get boring?"
"In a billion years it gets a billion times more boring," the Magician agreed.
"So the Demons play games?" Bink asked incredulously.
"What better way to pass time and recover interest in existence? Since they have no actual limitations, they accept voluntary ones. The excitement of the artificial challenge replaces the boredom of reality."
"Well, maybe," Bink said doubtfully. "But what has this to do with us?"
"The Demon X(A/N)th is paying a game penalty for failing to complete a formula-application within the round," Humfrey said. "He has to remain in inertia in isolation until released."
Bink stood still, so as not to intercept any more thoughts. "I don't see any chains to hold him. As for being alone-there are lots of creatures here."
"No chains could hold him, since he is omnipotent. He plays the game by its rules. And of course we don't count as company. Nothing in all the Land of Xanth does. We're vermin, not Demons."
"But-but-" Bink grabbed for meaning, and could not hold it. "You said this Demon was the source of magic!"
"I did indeed. The Demon X(A/N)th has been confined here over a thousand years. From his body has leaked a trace amount of magic, infusing the surrounding material. Hardly enough for him to notice-just a natural emanation of his presence, much as our own bodies give off heat."
Bink found this as fantastic as the Demon's vortex-Thoughts. "A thousand years? Leakage of magic?"
"In that time even a small leak can amount to a fair amount-at least it might seem so to vermin," the Magician assured him. "All the magic of the Land of Xanth derives from this effect-and all of it together would not make up a single letter of the Demon's formula."
"But even if all this is so-why did the brain coral try to prevent me from learning this?"
"The coral has nothing against you personally, Bink. I think it rather respects your determination. It is against anybody learning the truth. Because anyone who encounters the Demon X(A/N)th might be tempted to release him."
"How could a mere vermin-I mean, person release such an entity? You said the Demon only remains by choice."
Humfrey shook his head. "What is choice, to an omnipotent? He remains here at the dictate of the game. That is quite a different matter."
"But he only plays the game for entertainment! He can quit anytime!"
"The game is valid only so long as its rules are honored. After investing over a thousand years in this aspect of it, and being so close to success within the rules, why should he abridge it now?"
Bink shook his head. "This makes little sense to me! I would not torture myself in such fashion!" Yet a thread of doubt tugged at the corner of his mind. He was torturing himself about the nymph Jewel, honoring the human convention of his marriage to Chameleon. That, to a Demon, might seem nonsensical.
Humfrey merely looked at him, understanding some of what was passing through his mind.