Question Quest

by Piers Anthony

  Bink saw me in the shard. He waved. I waved back. We had established contact.

  But already our bottle was being carried along in the current, and the lake was becoming a river. We had not been all that close to Bink and Chester to begin with, and now we were moving away from them.

  "Well, we don't need to hide anymore," Grundy said. "Let's pop the cork and come out into the real world, before we get worse lost."

  "Not applicable," I said, now tuning the fragment to the water around us.

  "Why not?" he demanded in that obnoxious way of his.

  "Several reasons. One is that I can't, as you so quaintly put it, pop the cork from inside. This bottle is designed to contain what is in it, whether it be hate elixir or a demon. The spell on the cork makes it impervious to pressure from inside. Another is that if we did get out, we would abruptly resume our full size, and quite possibly be stuck in a channel that is less than that size." I showed him a flash of the outside, where the river boundaries had constricted considerably. "A third is that the water may be poisonous. A fourth—"

  The griffin squawked. "I agree," Grundy said dourly. "Three's enough."

  There was nothing to do but ride along, hoping that Bink would in due course find us. Since he had the other shard from the magic mirror, this was possible. Then he could open the battle, and we would be reunited.

  "What's the idiot doing now?" Grundy asked, evidently suffering a similar thought.

  I reoriented the shard. Bink was now scrambling through a hole in the cavern wall. He came to a streamlet, and was about to wangle a drink from it.

  "The fool!" I exclaimed.

  "Aw, he must be thirsty," Grundy said.

  "That's the flow from a love spring," I said. I recognized the glint of the water, from long practice.

  Helplessly we watched Bink drink, then encounter a nymph who was typical of her species: long of leg, pert of bottom, slender of waist, full of bosom, and large-eyed of face. She was sorting through a keg of jewels which represented enormous wealth, for those who cared for that sort of thing. There were diamonds, pearls, emeralds, rubies, opals, and other precious stones of many colors and sizes.

  "Hoo!" Grundy exclaimed. "What I wouldn't give for that nymph and that tub of gems!"

  Precisely. And Bink had just taken a love potion. His talent protected him from magic harm, but didn't define love as harm. It didn't care that he was married. His talent was happy to let him have a little un-innocent fun with an innocent nymph.

  I checked a reference, for I had reduced my collection of tomes and had them with me in miniaturized bottles. This was Jewel the Nymph, perhaps the most important rock nymph in Xanth, for she it was who placed the precious stones for others to find. Her barrel was never ending; no matter how many she removed, it remained full. She probably had a soul, unlike the useless nymphs whose sole purpose was to run around barelegged and tease men. Jewel even had a talent: she smelled the way she felt, whether this was of fresh pine needles or burning garbage. Many women did smell, but they had to apply perfume; Jewel did it naturally. Of all the folk for Bink to encounter, she was perhaps the worst, because she was a nice person with a necessary job who should be neither hurt nor distracted. She was bound to suffer both fates, now.

  Jewel helped Bink and Chester travel. She summoned a giant of the vole family of creatures, a diggle, who worked for a song. Chester's magic talent had manifested by this time: he could conjure a silver flute, which played beautiful music by itself. This flute now charmed the diggle, so that it was happy to carry them through the solid stone.

  Then they encountered the demons. There was Beauregard! Suddenly I knew what I was in for. Sure enough, he just couldn't resist conjuring me out of the bottle. Fortunately he didn't make me do anything bad; we had Crombie point out the direction of our bottle from where Bink was, so he could find it.

  Meanwhile the bottle was floating down to the deepest subterranean lake. My references could not get a line on where it was going; there was powerful evil magic here. I did not like this at all.

  "You know, something's been spying on us as we travel," Grundy remarked. "I've got the feeling we're floating into its clutches."

  That was my own impression. I had not discussed it because it seemed pointless to alarm the others.

  "But maybe I could get out of the bottle, and then pull it to safety and wedge the cork off,” Grundy continued.

  "No living thing or inanimate thing can pass the cork from inside," I reminded him grimly.

  "Yes, but that shard of glass got out, maybe because it's a nonliving yet animate thing: it animates whatever picture you want to see. I'm not exactly living or dead; I might be able to get out too."

  I was amazed. He could be right! "See if you can pass," I agreed.

  He went to the neck of the bottle and pushed against the cork. It didn't budge, but he went on through it. In a moment he was out. He resumed his normal size, which wasn't much larger than the bottle.

  But the bottle was floating in the dark pool, and the golem could not get to solid land. His body was made of bits of wood and cloth and string; he would not be able to swim well enough. So we would still have to wait for the bottle to get close enough to land for Grundy to do anything.

  Bink and Chester and Jewel the Nymph arrived, riding the diggle. They spied the bottle and headed for it. We were about to be rescued!

  Then the trap sprang. Grundy's little mind was taken over by a hostile power. Now he wrapped his string arms around the cork, braced his feet against the neck of the battle, and hauled out the cork. "By the power of the Brain Coral, emerge!" he gasped.

  Oh, no! He was Summoning me and Crombie—in the name of the enemy. For suddenly that hostile force overwhelmed my mind, and I knew that this was the thing that had opposed us and spied on us. It was the Brain Coral, a creature that could not move, because it was locked in its subterranean pool, but had tremendous magic and intelligence. It correctly regarded Bink's magic as a threat to its interests, so had done everything it could to eliminate him as a threat. It had to act through other agencies, but was quite facile in that respect. It had sent a magic sword to kill Bink, and the dragon, and had caused the Siren to lure him to the Gorgon, but Bink's talent had foiled all these threats, seemingly coincidentally. The midas fly had been intended for him, and the great curse of the curse fiends, but only with the spell of the love potion had it been able to compromise him at all. That he had actually turned to his advantage, because instead of dissipating his energy chasing the nymph, he had enlisted her help.

  But now it had found a way to accomplish its purpose. It had taken over the golem, and caused the golem to invoke Crombie and me from the bottle. We now had to serve the Brain Coral. That meant that all my magic and knowledge and intelligence were ranged against Bink, and that was the most formidable challenge he had faced since his duel with Magician Trent.

  Other facts came into my mind as I assimilated the tremendous information of the Brain Coral. The cork had been partly dislodged from our bottle before, a seeming coincidence that would have enabled me to rejoin Bink, but the Coral's magic had arranged to have it jammed back. Grundy had escaped then, and clung to the bottle, but the Coral had made it seem that he remained inside. I should have realized that if one shard of glass could get out, so could other things. The real battle had been over control of this bottle, and Bink had almost recovered it, but the Coral had just managed to take it as it floated into the center of the Coral's region of power.

  Now my resources were at the disposal of the Brain Coral. I had to try my best to make Bink give up his quest for the source of magic and go away. For that was the Coral's objective: to prevent Bink from accomplishing his mission. This I told Bink, urging him to depart immediately.

  I had to admire his stubbornness. He refused to quit, though it meant open combat between us. I opposed him directly, while Crombie-Griffin would nullify Chester Centaur.

  It did come to combat, unfortunately. After a horrendous
fight, Crombie succeeded in knocking Chester into the pool, where the Coral quickly took him under and in. Meanwhile Bink had been able to nullify or avoid my myriad spells; that talent of his was truly amazing! Perhaps it was the strongest talent in Xanth, for all its subtlety.

  But now it was two against one, and the griffin could attack him physically. Still he did not yield. He had once been relatively clumsy with the sword, but Crombie himself, in human form, had trained him, and now that sword was deadly. Bink managed to injure the griffin and hurl him into a crevice where he could fight no more. This, despite the distraction of the spells I was hurling against him. That was too impressive for comfort.

  And, in the end, Bink actually won. I think the Brain Coral was as surprised as I was. I had to yield to him. He had the nymph sprinkle healing elixir on the sadly wounded griffin, who jumped up as if to attack Bink again. The nymph jumped between the two. "Don't you dare!" she cried with the odor of burning paper. That was an extraordinary act for a nymph, as the breed is generally pretty empty-headed. It was, in retrospect, a significant event, yet another aspect of Bink's extremely powerful and subtle talent.

  The Brain Coral reconsidered. It agreed to show Bink the source of magic, now believing that if he knew the truth, he would come to agree with the Coral's position.

  The source of magic was the Demon X(A/N)th, who resided in the nethermost cave and whose thoughts were in the form of fluxes through the cave. He was one of a number of such extremely powerful entities. The very rock near him was charged with magic, because of the trace leakage of it from his body. When this rock welled out to the surface it became the magic dust, which spread the magic to the rest of Xanth. He did not like to be disturbed.

  The Demon was playing a game with others of his kind, which was the only way to alleviate the boredom that came to otherwise omnipotent creatures. Its rules were obscure to those of us with merely mortal comprehension. One aspect of this game was that a mortal such as Bink could by a single word free the Demon from his self-imposed captivity.

  Now it was clear why the Brain Coral, one of the most powerful entities of Xanth because it was closest to the source of magic, had labored to keep Bink away. Coral was afraid Bink would do something unutterably stupid, such as releasing the Demon X(A/N)th, who would then depart, leaving Xanth without magic. That would be disaster.

  Sure enough, Bink wrestled with his concept of honor, and did the most stupid imaginable thing: he freed the Demon.

  Instantly X(A/N)th was gone, and with him the magic of Xanth. There followed the most unpleasant few hours in the history of Xanth, for it was a sorry place without magic.

  Yet, somehow, it all worked out, for the Demon returned. After certain incidental complications, he made Grundy Golem fully real and gave Bink a special gift: all his descendants would have Magician-class magic. In return, it was agreed that the ordinary creatures of Xanth, including man, would be barred from access to the Demon, so as not to bother him further.

  So Bink had come out ahead after all, just as if his talent had planned it that way. Which was impossible— yet maybe not.

  And my son Crombie, as a result of his experience with Jewel the Nymph, who had sprinkled the healing elixir on him and stood up to him when he threatened to attack Bink again, because she loved Bink—he had realized that if only such a creature were to love him, Crombie, she would be worth marrying. So he set aside his hatred of women and took a love potion to use on her, and they were in due course married. Thus my most significant failure was abated; my son had become a family man. All because of Bink.

  I shook my head, reflecting on that. How phenomenally I had misjudged that young man, the first time I encountered him! He had enabled Magician Trent to return and become king, and he had discovered the true source of the magic of Xanth, and he had restored my son to a proper life. And, as it turned out, he had virtually single-handedly ended the dearth of Magicians and Sorceresses in Xanth, thus helping to usher in what might prove to be the Bright Age, so soon after the Dark Age.

  Yet even then I had underestimated Bink's impact, for he had also affected my own life most significantly. It merely took another sixteen years for that to become fully apparent.

  Chapter 14

  Gorgon

  I returned to my comparatively dull existence at the castle. Somehow it no longer satisfied me as it had before. Something was missing from my life, but I wasn't sure what.

  Meanwhile the chain of supplicants continued, at the rate of about one a month. Most were routine; I solved their problems, made them serve their year, and sent them on their way. But one nymph surprised me. She had come to ask me for a spell to turn off a faun who was pursuing her. She lived outside the main encampment of her kind and did not forget each day as it passed, though most nymphs did. Every day this faun came after her, remembering nothing, and she was tired of it. So I dug in my collection of spells and found a faun repellent. She could use this on him early in the day, each day, and be free for the rest of it. That was ideal, she said; she was quite satisfied with this remedy.

  But as it happened, there was no useful service she could do for me for a day, let alone a year. I had someone to fix my meals, and someone else to sort my socks, and someone else to figure out a suitable set of challenges for the next person who came with a Question. I didn't want to let the nymph go without service, because that would set a bad precedent, but neither did I want her hanging around the castle doing nothing. What was I to do?

  I asked the magic mirror. I now had several of these, having long since gotten rid of the one that became unreliable with time. This one merely showed a cherub falling over with laughter. No help there. The problem with competent mirrors was that they also tended to be too bright, and found ways to express themselves that I did not necessarily appreciate. But even so, a bright mirror was better than a dull one.

  So I did what I didn't like: I told the nymph that I had no use for her, and she was free to depart. I asked her not to bruit the news about, lest others be dissatisfied by unequal treatment. But to my surprise she refused; she had her Answer, and she intended to pay for it. She wouldn't leave until her year was done.

  That was exactly what I didn't want. But there wasn't much I could do about it. So I assigned her a room, and hoped something would turn up.

  That night, when I finished my researches and went to my hard cold lonely pallet to sleep, I discovered it occupied. The nymph was there. "I think I have found something I can do for you, Good Magician," she said. Then she clasped me and kissed me and lay down with me. And somehow my pallet was no longer hard, cold, or lonely.

  I had forgotten what nymphs were for, but in the course of that year I remembered. A man could not summon the stork with an ordinary nymph, for they were not subject to that call, but he could do a heroic job of imitation. Jewel the Nymph had not been ordinary; she had a soul, and could do anything a normal woman could. But regular nymphs were made for pleasure without responsibility, so the storks ignored them. How could a person take proper care of a baby, if she did not remember her activity from one day to the next? This one wasn't interested in marriage, just in completing her service. I had to agree that I was satisfied.

  In fact, when her year was done, I was sorry to see her go.

  After that, when a similar creature elected to serve in that manner, I did not protest. I now knew what was missing from my life. It was a woman. But who would want to marry a century-plus old gnome of a man?

  Then in 1054, eleven years after our meeting, the Gorgon came with a Question. She was now a marvelously developed woman of twenty-nine, and to my eye the most ravishing creature imaginable. But of course I couldn't tell her that; this was business.

  We had set challenges, of course. When I can, I tune them to the individual person, but sometimes they are all-purpose for whoever comes. We had a foghorn guarding the moat, and it was lovely to see it operate. When the Gorgon tried to cross in the boat provided, the horn blasted out such columns of fog that s
he couldn't see or hear anything. In that obscurity her boat turned around and came back to the outer shore. That was the boat's magic; it had to be steered, or it returned to its dock. One of my prior querents had built it for me during his service. When the fog cleared, the Gorgon was a sight; her snake-hair was hissing with frustration, and her dress was plastered to her body. I had thought that body to be voluptuous; now I knew I had underestimated its case. I remembered our dialogue and how she had seemed to dote on me in the brief time of our encounter. Naturally she would have forgotten that, but it was a fond reminiscence. If only—but why be foolish?

  The Gorgon was no dummy. She pondered a moment, then set out again. This time she steered the boat directly toward the foghorn, the one thing she could hear. Since it was inside the moat, she soon completed the crossing. I think I would have been disappointed had she not figured this out.

  She navigated the other two challenges successfully and entered the castle. I braced myself and met her. She was even more impressive from aclose than she had been from afar. Her face was heavily veiled, including her deadly eyes, but the rest of her was nevertheless stunning. I was now a hundred and twenty-one years old, but in her presence I felt more like eighty-one. I remembered the surprising delight of our first encounter, when I had made her face invisible so that she would no longer stone any man who met her gaze. That spell would have been aborted at the Tune of No Magic, of course; all the men she had stoned had returned to life then, and of course she had let them go.

  I knew I should tackle her Question and give her an Answer, but I was reluctant to terminate our second contact quickly. So I dallied somewhat. "What have you been up to, Gorgon?" I inquired in as close an approximation to sociability as I could manage. It was an effort, but less of one for her than for others, because I didn't care about others.