"Trent was everywhere," she said. "He wanted us centaurs to support him, and when we balked-because of the Covenant, you know, not to interfere in human business-he showed us his power by changing every fish in this river into a lightning bug. Then he departed. I think he figured that those shocking buggers would force us to change our minds."
"Why didn't he change the fish into a human army, and try to conquer you that way?"
"No good, Bink. They might have had the bodies of men, but their minds would have remained fish. They would have made very wishy-washy soldiers, and even if they had been good soldiers, they would hardly have served the man who had put them under that enchantment. They would have attacked Trent."
"Urn, yes. I wasn't thinking. So he transformed them into lightning bugs and got well away from there so they couldn't shock him. So they went for the next best thing."
"Yes. It was a bad time for us. Oh, those bugs were a pain! They pestered us in clouds, scorching us with their little lightning bolts. I've still got scars on my--" She paused, grimacing. "On my tail." It was obviously a euphemism.
"What did you do?" Bink inquired, fascinated, glancing back to see whether he could locate the scars. What he could see seemed flawless.
"Trent was exiled soon after that, and we got Humfrey to abate the spell."
"But the Good Magician isn't a transformer."
''No, but he told us where to find repellent magic to drive off the flies. Denied our electrocooked flesh, the scourge soon died out. Good information is as good as good action, and the Good Magician certainly had the information."
"That's why I'm going to him?" Bink agreed. "But he charges a year's service for a spell."
"You're telling us? Three hundred head of centaur- one year each. What a job!"
"All of you had to pay? What did you have to do?"
"We are not permitted to tell," she said diffidently.
Now Bink was doubly curious, but he knew better than to ask again. A centaur's given word was inviolate. But what could Humfrey have needed done that he could not do himself via one of his hundred spells? Or at least by means of his good information? Humfrey was basically a divinator; anything he didn't know, he could find out, and that gave him enormous power. Probably the reason the village Elders had not asked the Good Magician what to do about their senile King was that they knew what he would answer: depose the King and install a new, young, fresh Magician instead. That they obviously weren't ready to do. Even if they could find such a young Magician to serve.
Well, there were many mysteries and many problems in Xanth, and it was hardly given to Bink to know of them all or to solve any. He had learned long ago to bow, however ungraciously, to the inevitable.
They were past the river now, and climbing. The trees were closing in more thickly, their great round roots ridging across the path. No hostile magic threatened; either the centaurs had cleaned out the area, the way the villagers had cleaned out Bink's home region, or Cherie knew this path so well that she avoided spells automatically, without seeming to. Probably some of both.
Life itself, he thought, involved many alternate explanations for perplexing questions, and was generally "some of both." Few things were hard and fast in Xanth.
"What was that history you know that I don't?" Bink inquired, becoming bored by the trail.
"About the Waves of human colonization? We have records of them all. Since the Shield and the Covenant, things have quieted down; the Waves were terrors."
"Not the Firstwavers!" Bink said loyally. "We were peaceful."
"That's what I mean. You are peaceful now, except for a few of your young hoodlums, so you assume your ancestors were peaceful then. But my ancestors found it otherwise. They would have been happier had man never discovered Xanth."
"My teacher was a centaur," Bink said. "He never said anything about-"
"He'd have been fired if he had told you the truth."
Bink felt uneasy. "You're not teasing me, are you? I'm not looking for any trouble. I have a very curious mind, but I've already had more trouble than I care for."
She turned her head around to fix him with a gentle stare. Her torso twisted from the human waist to facilitate the motion. The torque was impressive; her midsection was more limber than that of a human girl, perhaps because it was harder for a centaur to turn her whole body around. But if she had a human lower section to match the upper section, what a creature she would be!
"Your teacher didn't lie to you. A centaur never lies. He merely edited his information, on orders from the King, so as not to force on the impressionable minds of children things their parents did not want them to hear. Education has ever been thus."
"Oh, I wasn't implying any slight on his integrity," Bink said quickly. "I liked him, as a matter of fact; he was the only one who didn't get fed up with all my questions. I learned a lot from him. But I guess I didn't ask about history much. I was more preoccupied with something he couldn't tell me-but at least he did tell me about the Magician Humfrey."
"What is your question for Humfrey, if I may ask?"
What difference did it make? "I have no magic," he confessed. "At least, I seem to have none. All through my childhood I was at a disadvantage because I couldn't use magic to compete. I could run faster than anybody else, but the kid who could levitate still won the race. Stuff like that."
"Centaurs get along perfectly well without magic," she pointed out. "We wouldn't take magic if it were offered."
Bink did not believe that, but did not make an issue of it. "Humans have a different attitude, I guess. When I got older, it got worse. Now I will be exiled if I don't show some magic talent. I'm hoping Magician Humfrey can-well, if I do have magic, it means I can stay and marry my girl and have some pride. Finally."
Cherie nodded. "I suspected it was something like that. I suppose if I were in your situation I could choke down the necessity of having magic, though I really think your culture's values are distorted. You should base your citizenship on superior qualities of personality and achievement, not on-"
"Exactly," Bink agreed fervently.
She smiled. "You really should have been a centaur." She shook her head so that her hair flung out prettily. "You have undertaken a hazardous journey."
"Not more hazardous than the one to the Mundane world that will otherwise be forced on me."
She nodded again. "Very well. You have satisfied my curiosity; I'll satisfy yours. I'll tell you the whole truth about the human intrusion into Xanth. But I don't expect you to like it much."
"I don't expect to like the truth about myself much," Bink said ruefully. "I might as well know whatever there is to know."
"For thousands of years Xanth was a comparatively peaceful land," she said, assuming the somewhat pedantic tone he remembered from his school days. Probably every centaur was at heart a teacher. "There was magic, very strong magic--but no unnecessary viciousness. We centaurs were the dominant species, but, as you know, we have absolutely no magic. We are magic. I suppose we migrated here from Mundania originally-but that was so long ago it is lost even to our records."
Something tripped over in Bink's mind. "I wonder if that really is true-about magic creatures not being able to work spells? I saw a chipmouse conjure a crumb of bread-"
"Oh? Are you sure it wasn't a chipmunk? That is a natural creature, according to our taxonomy, so it might work magic."
"You tax animals?" Bink asked, amazed.
"Taxonomy," she repeated with an indulgent smile. "The classification of living things, another centaur specialty.''
Oh. Bink considered, embarrassed. "I thought it was a chipmouse, but I'm not quite certain now."