never make it.'
Suddenly Bink caught on. Dragons did not speak like that. Not flying fire-breathers, anyway; they lacked both the cranial capacity and the coolness of brain to talk at all. They were simply too light and hot to be smart. This was no dragon-it was an illusion spawned by the Sorceress. She was still trying to stop him, hoping that if he disappeared and Chameleon died, Trent would resume his march on the throne. Trent would have done his best, and failed; realistically, he would continue toward his goal. Thus Iris could still achieve her dream of power through him. Naturally, she would never confess her own part in this mischief.
Bink would rather have dealt with a real dragon. The Sorceress's evil plot might work. Because he was a phoenix instead of a talking bird, he could not tell anyone other than the Good Magician what was happening; others would not have the capacity to understand. If he returned to Trent now, too much time would be lost-and in any event, Iris could stop him there, too. This was his own private battle, his duel with the Sorceress; he had to win it himself.
He changed course abruptly and angled directly into the dragon. If he had guessed wrong, he would light a fire in the belly of the fire-breather and lose all. But he passed right through it without resistance. Victory!
Iris shouted something most unladylike at him. What a fishwife she was when balked. But Bink ignored her and winged on.
A cloud formed before him. Uh-oh-a storm? He had to hurry.
But the cloud loomed rapidly larger. Blisters of black vapor boiled out of it, swirling funnels forming below. In moments the sheer mass of it blotted out the castle. Ugly dark satellite clouds scudded about it, menacing as the heads of goblins. A larger rotary pattern developed. The whole thing looked disconcertingly formidable.
There was no hope of rising above it. His injured wing was hurting, and the storm towered into the sky like a giant genie. Bolts of jagged lightning danced about, crackling loudly. There was the odor of metal burning. Deep in the roiling bowels of it were tangled colors and vague shapes of demonic visages. A magic tempest, obviously, girt with colored hail: the most devastating kind.
Bink dropped lower-and the cloud circulation tightened into a single descending gray tube. A super- tornado that would destroy him!
Then Bink almost fell out of the air with the shock of his realization, He could not be harmed by magic! This was a magic storm-therefore it could not touch him. He was being balked by a false threat.
Furthermore, there was no actual wind. This was another illusion. Ail he had to do was fly directly toward the castle, unswayed by optical effects. He shot straight into the cloud.
He was right again. The optical effects had been spectacular, but there was no actual storm, merely opacity and the suggestion of wetness on his feathers. Soon he would be through it, having called its bluff; then nothing could stop him from reaching the castle of the Good Magician.
But the grayness continued. How could he go to the castle when he couldn't see it? Iris couldn't fool him, but she could effectively blind him. Maybe he, personally, could not be harmed by magic-either real or illusory magic-but his talent did not seem to be concerned with the welfare of other people, no matter how Bink himself might feel about them. He would survive if Chameleon died. He might not enjoy that survival, but the technicality would have been honored.
Damn it, talent, he thought fiercely. You'd better stop being concerned with technicalities and start being concerned with my larger welfare. I'll kill myself, physically, by Mundane means, if I find my life not worth living. I need Chameleon. So you can't save me at all if you let this hostile magic stop me from saving Chameleon. Then where will you be?
The opacity continued. Apparently his talent was an unreasoning thing. And so, in the end, it was useless. Like a colored spot on a wall, it was magic without purpose.
He peered about, determined to fight it through himself. He had made it this far through life without any talent he had known about; he would have to make it similarly in the future. Somehow.
Had he been headed directly toward the castle? He thought so-but he could not be sure. He had been distracted by the developing cloud, trying to avoid it, and could have lost his bearings. Trent might better have transformed him into an unerring carrier pigeon. But that bird would not have been distinct enough to attract the attention of the Good Magician. Anyway, speculations on what he might have been were useless. He was what he was, and would have to prevail as he was. If he were now aimed wrong, he might never reach the castle-but he would keep trying.
He dropped down, seeking some landmark. But the cloud remained about him. He could not see a thing. If he went too low, he might crash into a tree. Had Iris won after all?
Then he emerged from the cloud floor. There was the castle. He zoomed toward it-and paused, dismayed again. This wasn't the residence of the Good Magician-this was Castle Roogna! He had become completely reversed, and flown across the wilderness to the west instead of eastward to the Good Magician. The Sorceress had surely known this, and kept up the blinding fog so that he would not discover his error until too late. How much precious time had he wasted? If he reversed course and flew straight to the proper castle now- assuming he could find it in the fog-could he possibly get help for Chameleon within the hour? Or would she be dead by the time help arrived, thanks to this delay?
He heard a faint snort. Immediately it was echoed by snorts all around him, coming from every direction. The base of the cloud dropped down to obscure his view again.
Something was funny here! He might not have paid any attention to the sound if there had not been such an obvious effort to mask its direction. Why should the Sorceress try to prevent him from landing at Castle Roogna? Was there healing water there, used to patch up zombies? Doubtful.
So the snort was important in some way. But what had caused it? There was no moat dragon at Roogna; zombies didn't snort very well anyway. Yet obviously something had made that sound-probably something all the way alive. Like a winged horse, or-
He caught on: this was not Castle Roogna but the castle of the Good Magician after all! The Sorceress had only made it look like Roogna, to turn him back. She was mistress of illusion-and he kept being deceived by the ramifications of her power. But the hippocampus of the moat had snorted, giving it away. He had been headed in the right direction after all, perhaps guided by his talent. His talent had always operated subtly; there was no reason for it to change now.
