"We're going the wrong way," Cherie exclaimed.
Oh, no! "You strayed from the path? We're lost?"
"We're on the path. But we should not be going toward Castle Roogna. Nobody there can help."
"But the King-"
"The King is just an ordinary man, now. What can he do?"
Bink sighed. He had just assumed King Trent would have some sort of answer, but Cherie was right "What can anyone do without-" He was trying to spare her the use of the obscene word, though he knew this was foolish.
"Nursing Chet started me thinking," she said, giving the foal a loving pat on the head. "Here is my foal, Chester's colt, a representative of the dominant species of Xanth. What am I doing running away from Chester? Chet needs a real stud to teach him the facts of life. I could never forgive myself, if-"
"But you're not running away!" Bink protested. "We're going to the King, to find out what to do in the absence of-how we can-"
"Oh, go ahead, say it!" she exclaimed angrily. "Magic! You have shown me in your blundering human way that it is necessary and integral to our way of life, including my own private personal life, damn you. Now I'm taking the rationale further. We can't just go home and commiserate with former Magicians; we have to do something. Now, Immediately, before it's too late."
"It's already too late," Bink said. "The Demon is gone."
"But maybe he hasn't gone far. Maybe he forgot something, and will return to fetch it, and we can trap him-"
"No, that wouldn't be right. I meant it when I freed him, even though I don't like the result of that freedom."
"You have integrity, Bink, inconvenient as it sometimes is. Maybe we can call him back, talk to him, persuade him to give us back a few spells-"
Bink shook his head. "No, nothing we can do will influence the Demon Xanth. He doesn't care at all about our welfare. If you had met him, you'd know."
She turned her head to face him. "Maybe I'd better meet him, then."
"How can I get it through your equine brain!" Bink cried, exasperated. "I told you he's gone!"
"All the same, I want to see where he was. There might be something left. Something you missed. No offense, Bink, but you are only human. If there were some way we could-"
"There is no way!" Bink cried. Chester had been stubborn enough, but this filly-!
"Listen, Bink. You rubbed my nose in the fact of my need of magic. Now I'm rubbing yours in the fact of your need to do something, instead of just giving in. You may tell yourself you're going to fetch help, but actually you're just running away. The solution to our problem is at the prison of the Demon, not at the King's palace. Maybe we'll fail-but we do have to go back there and try." And she started back the way they had come. "You've been there; show me the way."
Involuntarily, he ran along beside her, very much like the foal. "To the cave of the Demon?" he asked incredulously. "There are goblins and demagicked dragons and-"
"To hell with all that obscenity!" she neighed. "Who knows what is happening to Chester now?"
There it was: her ultimate loyalty to her mate. Now that he thought of it that way, his own attitude seemed inferior. Maybe his humanity did make him imperfect. Why hadn't he stayed at least long enough to locate his friend? Because he had been afraid of what he might find. He had, indeed, been running away!
Maybe Chester could be hauled out of the brine and saved without the aid of magic. Maybe Good Magician Humfrey yet survived. A small chance, certainly-but so long as there was any chance at all, Bink was derelict in his duty to his friends by not making every possible effort to find them. He had the sick certainty that they were dead, but even that confirmation would be better than his hiding from the truth.
He climbed back aboard Cherie, and she launched herself onward. They made amazingly good progress. Soon they had passed the place where they had encountered each other, and were galloping across the terrain in the direction Bink indicated. A centaur could really move-but even so, it was almost as if there were some magic enchantment facilitating their progress. That was an illusion, of course, and not a magical one. It was just that Cherie was now goaded by her eagerness to rescue her stallion, foolish as that ambition might be. Bink directed her to the tangle-tree cleft, bypassing the magic-dust village.
As they galloped up, it seemed to Bink that the tangler quivered. That had to be a trick of the fading light, since without magic the monster was impotent.
Cherie drew up to the branch that overlapped the rim of the chasm. "Climbing down a tangle tree-I find that hard to-" She broke off. "Bink, it moved! I saw it!"
"The wind," Bink cried with abrupt illumination. "It rustles the tendrils!"
"Of course!" she agreed, relieved. "For a moment I almost thought-but I knew it wasn't so."
Bink peered down into the crevasse, and spied the crack in its base where the tree's big root crossed. He really did not want to go down there again, but didn't want to admit it. "I-uh-I can swing down on a vine. But you-"
"I can swing down too," she said. "That's why centaurs have strong arms and good chest muscles; we have greater weight to support. Come, Chet." She grasped a large tentacle and stepped off the brink.
Sure enough, she was able to let herself down, hand under hand, with her front legs acting as brakes. Her posterior swung grandly around in a descending spiral until she reached the base. The colt followed her example, though with such difficulty that she hastened to catch him at the base. Embarrassed by their examples, Bink swung down himself. He should have led the way, instead of letting fillies and foals do it!
At the base of the tree, gazing down into the looming black hole that was the aperture to the underworld, Bink had further misgivings. "This descent is worse; I don't think Chet can make it. And how could you climb up again? It nearly killed me getting to the top, and your weight-no offense-"
"Chester could climb it," Cherie said confidently. "Then he could haul the rest of us up."
Bink visualized the muscles of Chester's human torso, and remembered the colossal power of the centaur. Only a monster like the ogre had more strength of arm. Maybe, just maybe, it was possible, especially if they set up a double rope so the rest of them could haul on the other end and help Chester lift himself. But that presumed they would actually find and rescue Chester. If they failed, Cherie herself would be lost, for Bink could never haul her up. He might handle the foal, but that was the limit
Cherie was already testing tangler tentacles for strength. She had faith that banished doubt, and Bink envied her that. He had always thought of Chester as the ornery one, but now he understood that the true strength of the family lay in Cherie. Chester was mere magic putty in her hands-oops, obscene concept!-and so also, it seemed, was Bink. He did not want to return to the horrors of the depths, to battle uselessly against the half-goblins and snake-dragons in the dark. But he knew he would do it, because Cherie was going to rescue her poor dead stallion, or else.