Piers Anthony - The Source of Magic

Chester rose up, one talon slash down the side of his face where the griffin's strike had missed his eye. But his two great hands now grasped the griffin's two front legs. "Got you now, birdie!" he cried. But in this position he could not use his sword, so he tried to bash the griffin against the broken base of the stalagmite.

Crombie squawked and brought his hind legs up for a double slash that would have disemboweled the centaur's human portion had it scored. Chester hastily let go, throwing Crombie violently away from him. Then he grabbed for his bow and arrow again. The griffin, however, spread his wings to brake his flight, looped about, and closed in again before the arrow could be brought to bear. Now it was hand-to-claw.

Bink had cleared his area of little cats-but the Good Magician had had time to organize his vials and open the next. This coalesced into a mound of bright-red cherry bombs. Oh, no! Bink had had experience with these violent little fruits before, as there was a tree of them on the palace grounds. In fact, these were probably from that same tree. If any of them scored on him-

He dived for Humfrey, catching the Magician's arm before he could throw. Humfrey struggled desperately against Bink's superior strength. Bink still held back, hating this violence though he saw no alternative to it. Both of them fell to the floor. The Magician's belt tore loose, and a collection of vials tumbled across the stone. Some of their corks popped out. The cherry bombs were dislodged; they rolled away and dunked into the lake, where they detonated with harmless thuds and clouds of steam. One rolled into Jewel's bucket of gems.

The explosion sent precious stones flying all over the cavern. Diamonds shot by Bink's ears; a huge pearl thunked into the Magician's chest; opals got under Chester's hooves. "Oh, no!" Jewel cried, horrified. "That's not the way it's supposed to be done! Each has to be planted in exactly the right place!"

Bink was sorry about the gems, but he had more pressing problems. The new bottles were spewing forth a bewildering variety of things.

The first was a pair of winged shoes. "So that's where I left them!" Humfrey exclaimed. But they flew out of reach before he could grab them. The second vial loosed a giant hour-glass whose sands were running out-also harmless in this instance. The next was a collection of exotic-looking seeds, some like huge flat fish eyes, others like salt-and-pepper mix, others like one-winged flies. They fluttered out and littered a wide patch, crunching underfoot, rolling like marbles, squishing and adhering like burrs. But they did not seem to be any direct threat.

Unfortunately, the other vials were also pouring out vapors. These produced a bucket of garbage (so that was how the Magician cleaned his castle: he swept it all into a vial!), a bag of supergrow fertilizer, a miniature thunderstorm, and a small nova star. Now the seeds had food, water, and light. Suddenly they were sprouting. Tendrils poked out, bodies swelled, pods popped, leaves burst forth. Roots gripped the rock and clasped items of garbage; stems shot up to form a dense and variegated carpet. Diverse species fought their own miniature battles over the best fertilizer territory. In moments Bink and the Magician were surrounded by an expanding little jungle. Vines clung to feet, branches poked at bodies, and leaves obscured vision. Soon the plants were flowering. Now their species were identifiable. Lady slippers produced footwear of a most delicate nature, causing Jewel to exclaim in delight and snatch off a pair for herself. Knotweeds formed the most intricate specialized knots: bow, granny, lanyard, clinch, hangman, and half-hitch. Bink had to step quickly to avoid getting tied up. That would cost him the victory right there!

Meanwhile, the Magician was trying to avoid the snapping jaws of dog-tooth violets and dandelions, while a hawkweed made little swoops at his head. Bink would have laughed-but had too many problems of his own. A goldenrod was trying to impale him on its metallic spire, and a sunflower was blinding him with its effulgence. The nova star was no longer needed; the cave was now as bright as day, and would remain so until the sunflower went to seed.

Bink ducked just in time to avoid a flight of glinting arrowheads-but his foot slipped on a buttercup, squirting butter out and making him sit down hard-ooomph-on the squishy head of a skunk cabbage. Suddenly he was steamed in the nauseating fragrance.

Well, what had he expected? He had very little protective talent now; the enemy brain coral had canceled out his magic. Bink was on his own, and had to make his own breaks. At least Humfrey was no better off; at the moment he was being given a hotfoot by a patch of fireweed. He snatched up a flower from a water lily and poured its water out to douse the fire. Meanwhile, several paintbrushes were decorating him with stripes of red, green, and blue. Stray diamonds from the nymph's collection were sticking to his clothes.

This was getting nowhere! Bink tore his way out of the miniature jungle, holding his breath and closing his eyes as a parcel of poppies popped loudly about his head. He felt something enclosing his hands, and had to look: it was a pair of foxgloves. A bluebell rang in his ear; then he was out of it. And there was the Magician's belt with its remaining vials. Suddenly he realized: if he controlled this, Humfrey would be helpless. All his magic was contained in these vials!

Bink stepped toward it-but at that moment the Magician emerged from the foliage, plastered with crowfeet. Humfrey brushed them off, and the feet scampered away. A lone primrose turned its flower away from this gaucherie. Humfrey dived for his magic belt, arriving just as Bink did.

Bink laid his hands on it. There was a tug-of-war. More vials spilled out. One puffed into a kettle of barley soup that spilled across the floor and was eagerly lapped up by the questing rootlets of the jungle. Another developed into a package of mixed nuts and bolts. Then Bink found a steaming rice pudding and heaved it at the Magician-but Humfrey scored first with a big mince pie. Minces flew out explosively, twenty-four of them, littering a yet wider area. Bink caught the brunt of it in his face. Minces were wriggling in his hair and down his neck and partially obscuring his vision. Bink fanned the air with his sword, trying to keep the Magician back while he cleared his vision. Oddly, he could perceive the neighboring battle of centaur and griffin better than his own, at this moment.

Chester's human torso was now streaked with blood from the vicious raking of the griffin's talons. But one of Crombie's forelegs was broken, and one of his wings half-stripped of feathers. That hand-to-claw combat had been savage!

Now the centaur was stalking his opponent with sword in hand, and the griffin was flying in ragged circles just out of reach, seeking an opening. Despite Bink's cautions, these two were deadly serious; they were out to kill each other. Yet how could Bink stop them?

The Magician found a vial and opened it. Bink advanced alertly-but it was another miscue. A huge bowl of yogurt manifested. It had, by the look and smell of it, been in the bottle too long; it had spoiled. It floated gently toward the lake; let the brain coral try a taste of that! But Humfrey already had another vial. These mistakes were not the result of Bink's talent so much as sheer, honest chance; Humfrey seemed to have a hundred things in his vials (he was reputed to have a hundred spells, after all), and few were readily adaptable to combat, and now they were all mixed up. The odds were against anything really dangerous appearing from any randomly chosen vial.

Yet the odds could be beaten. The vial produced a writhing vine from a kraken, which undulated aggressively toward Bink. But he sliced it into fragments with his sword, and advanced on the Magician again. Bink knew he could control the situation now; nothing in Humfrey's bottles could match the devastating presence of a capable sword.