"It's a long story," Bink said. "And a painful one. I don't expect others to accept it as well as you will."
"Get on my back," she said. "You travel too slow. I'll take you in to the palace, and you can tell me the whole story. I'm dying to know!"
She might be dying literally, when she learned the truth about Chester. But he had to tell her. Bink mounted and hung on as she broke into a trot. He had anticipated a daylong march, but now this would be unnecessary; she would get them to the palace before dark.
He told her the story. He found himself going into more detail than strictly necessary, and realized this was because he dreaded the denouncement-where Chester had fought his dreadful battle and lost. True, he might have won, had the evil eye intended for Bink not stunned him-but that would be scant comfort to her. Cherie was a widow-and he had to be the one to tell her.
His narrative was interrupted by a bellow. A dragon hove into view-but it was a miserable monster. The once-bright scales had faded into mottled gray. When it snorted fire, only dust emerged. The thing was already looking gaunt and ill; it depended on magic for its hunting.
Nevertheless, the dragon charged, intent on consuming centaur, rider, and colt. Bink drew his sword, and Cherie skittered lightly on her feet, ready to kick. Even a bedraggled dragon of this size was a terror.
Then Bink saw a scar on the dragon's neck. "Say-don't I know you?" he exclaimed.
The dragon paused. Then it lifted its head in a signal of recognition.
"Chester and Crombie and I met this dragon and made a truce," Bink said. "We fought the nickelpedes together."
"The nickelpedes are harmless now," Cherie said. "Their pincers have lost their-" She pursed her lips distastefully. "Their magic. I trotted right down inside the Gap and stepped on them and they couldn't hurt me."
Bink knew. "Dragon, magic is gone from Xanth," Bink told it. "You'll have to learn to hunt and fight without your fire. In time you will change into your dominant mundane component, or your offspring will. I think that would be a large snake. I'm sorry."
The dragon stared at him in horror. Then it whipped about and half-galloped, half-slithered off.
"I'm sorry too," Cherie said. "I realize now that Xanth isn't really Xanth, without magic. Spells do have their place. Creatures like that-magic is natural to them." This was a considerable concession, for her.
Bink resumed his narrative. He could stall no longer, so nerved himself and said what he had to. "So I have Crombie here in the bottle," he concluded. And waited, aware of the awful tenseness in her body.
"But Chester and Humfrey-"
"Remain below," he said. "Because I freed the Demon."
"But you don't know they are dead," she said, her body still so tense that riding her was uncomfortable. "They can be found, brought back-"
"I don't know how," Bink said glumly. He didn't like this at all.
"Humfrey's probably just lost; that's why you couldn't find his body. Dazed by the collapse. Without his informational magic he could be confused for a goblin. And Chester-he's too ornery to-to-he's not dead, he's just pickled. You said that was a preservative lake-"
"So I did," Bink agreed. "I-but it was drained, so that I could see the convolutions of the brain coral."
"It wasn't drained all the way! He's down there, deep below, I know it, like the griffin in the bottle. We can find him, revive him-"
Bink shook his head. "Not without magic."
She bucked him off. Bink flew through the air, saw the ground coming at his head, knew that his talent would do nothing-and landed in Cherie's arms. She had leaped to catch him at the last moment "Sorry, Bink. It's just that obscenity bothers me. Centaurs don't " She righted him and set him on his feet, never completing her statement. She might not be beautiful now, but she had the centaur strength.
Strength, not beauty. She had been a magnificently breasted creature, in the time of magic; now she remained ample, but she sagged somewhat, as most human or humanoid females of similar measurement did. Her face had been delightfully pert; now it was plain. What could account for the sudden change-except the loss of magic?
"Let me get this straight," Bink said. "You feel all magic is obscene-"
"Not all magic, Bink. For some of you it seems to be natural-but you're only human. For a centaur it is a different matter. We're civilized."
"Suppose centaurs had magic too?"
Her face shaped into controlled disgust. "We had better be on our way before it gets too late. There is a fair distance yet to cover."
"Like Herman the hermit, Chester's uncle," Bink persisted. "He could summon will-o'-the-wisps."
"He was exiled from our society," she said. Her expression had a surly quality that reminded him of Chester.
"Suppose other centaurs had magic-?"
"Bink, why are you being so offensive? Do you want me to have to leave you here in the wilderness?" She beckoned to her colt, who came quickly to her side.
"Suppose you yourself had a magic talent?" Bink asked. "Would you still consider it obscene?"
"That does it!" she snorted. "I will not endure such obnoxious behavior, even from a human. Come, Chet." And she started off.
"Damn it, filly, listen to me!" Bink cried. "You know why Chester came on my quest? Because he wanted to discover his own magic talent. If you deny magic in centaurs, you deny him-because he does have magic, good magic, that-"
She spun about, raising her forehooves to strike him down. A filly she might be, but she could kill him with a single blow.
Bink danced back. "Good magic," he repeated. "Not anything stupid, like turning green leaves purple, or negative, like giving people hotfeet. He plays a magic flute, a silver flute, the most lovely music I ever heard. Deep inside he's an awfully pretty person, but he's suppressed it because-"
"I'm going to stomp you absolutely flat!" she neighed, smashing at him with both forefeet "You have no right even to suggest-"
But he was cool, now, while she was half-blinded by rage. He avoided her strikes as he would those of a savage unicorn, without ever turning his back or retreating more than he had to. He could have stabbed her six times with his sword, but never drew it This debate was all academic now, since magic was gone from Xanth, but he was perversely determined that she should admit the truth. "And you, Cherie-you have magic too. You make yourself look the way you want to look, you enhance yourself. It's a type of illusion, restricted to-"
She struck at him with both forefeet at once, in a perfect fury. He was affronting her deepest sensitivities, telling her that she herself was obscene. But he was ready, anticipating her reactions, avoiding them. His voice was his sword, and he intended to score with it. He had had too much of delusion, his own especially; he would wipe the whole slate clean. In a way, it was himself he was attacking: his shame at what he had done to Xanth when he freed the Demon. "I challenge you," he cried. "Look at yourself in a lake. See the difference. Your magic is gone!"
Even in her fury, she realized she was not getting anywhere. "All right I'll look!" she cried. "Then I'll kick you to the moon!"
As it happened, they had passed a small pond recently. They returned to it in silence, Bink already starting to be sorry for what he was doing to her, and the lady centaur looked at herself. She was certain what she would find, yet honest enough to have her certainty disrupted by the fact. "Oh, no!" she cried, shocked. "I'm homely, I'm hideous, I'm uglier than Chester!"