master gouges the public horrendously.'
The elf considered. 'The Magician is occupied at the moment; can you comeback tomorrow?'
'Come back tomorrow!' Bink exploded, thinking of what the hippocampus and manticora would do to him if they got a second chance. 'Does the old bugger want my business or doesn't he?'
The elf frowned. 'Well, if you're going to be that way about it, come on upstairs.'
Bink followed the little man up a winding staircase. The interior of the castle lightened with elevation and became more ornate, more residential.
Finally the elf showed the way into a paper-filled study. The elf seated himself at a big wooden desk. 'Very well, Bink of the North Village. You have won your way through the defenses of this castle. What makes you think your service is worth the old gouging buggers while?'
Bink started to make an angry exclamation-but cut himself off as he realized that this was the Good Magician Humfrey. He was sunk!
All he could do now was give a straight answer before he got kicked out. 'I am strong and I can work. It is for you to decide whether that is worth your while.'
'You are oink-headed and doubtless have a grotesque appetite. You'd no doubt cost me more in board than I'd ever get from you.'
Bink shrugged, knowing it would be futile to debate such points. He could only antagonize the Magician further. He had really walked into the last trap: the trap of arrogance.
'Perhaps you could carry books and turn pages for me. Can you read?'
'Some,' Bink said. He had been a reasonably apt pupil of the centaur instructor, but that had been years ago.
'You seem to be a fair hand at insult, too; maybe you could talk intruders out of intruding with their petty problems.'
'Maybe,' Bink agreed grimly. Obviously, he had really done it this time-and after coming so close to success.
'Well, come on; we don't have all day,' Humfrey snapped, bouncing out of his chair. Bink saw now that he was not a tree elf, but a very small human being. An elf, of course, being a magical creature, could not be a Magician. That was part of what had put him off at first-though increasingly he wondered about the accuracy of that conjecture. Xanth continued to show him ramifications of magic he had not thought of before.
Apparently the Magician had accepted the case. Bink followed him to the next room. It was a laboratory, with magical devices cluttering the shelves and piled on the floor, except for one cleared area.
'Stand aside,' Humfrey said brusquely, though Bink hardly had room to move. The Magician did not have an endearing personality. It would be a real chore to work for him a year. But it just might be worth it, if Bink learned he had a magic talent, and it was a good one.
Humfrey took a tiny bottle from the shelf, shook it, and set it on the floor in the middle of a pentagram-a five-sided figure. Then he made a gesture with both hands and intoned something in an arcane tongue.
The lid of the bottle popped off. Smoke issued forth. It expanded into a sizable cloud, then coalesced into the shape of a demon. Not a particularly ferocious demon; this one's horns were vestigial, and his tail had a soft tuft instead of a cutting barb. Furthermore, he wore glasses, which must have been imported from Mundania, where such artifacts were commonly used to shore up the weak eyes of the denizens there. Or so the myths had it. Bink almost laughed. Imagine a near-sighted demon!
'0 Beauregard,' Humfrey intoned. 'I conjure thee by the authority vested in me by the Compact, tell us what magic talent this lad, Bink of the North Village of Xanth, possesses.'
So that was the Magician's secret: he was a demon-summoner. The pentagram was for containing the demons released from their magic bottles; even a studious demon was a creature of hell.
Beauregard focused his lenscovered eyes on Bink 'Step into my demesnes, that I may inspect you properly,' he said.
'Nuh-uh!' Bink exclaimed.
'You're a tough nut,' the demon said.
'I didn't ask you for his personality profile,' Humfrey snapped. 'What's his magic?'
The demon concentrated. 'He has magic-strong magic-but-'
Strong magic! Bink's hopes soared.
'But I am unable to fathom it,' Beauregard said. He grimaced at the Good Magician. 'Sorry, fathead; I'll have to renege on this one.'
'Then get ye gone, incompetent,' Humfrey snarled, clapping his hands together with a remarkably sharp report. Evidently he was used to being insulted; it was part of his life style. Maybe Bink had lucked out again.
The demon dissolved into smoke and drained back into his bottle. Bink stared at the bottle, trying to determine what was visible within it. Was there a tiny figure, hunched over a miniature book, reading?
Now the Magician contemplated Bink. 'So you have strong magic that cannot be fathomed. Were you aware of this? Did you come here to waste my time?'
'No,' Bink said. 'I never was sure I had magic at all. There's never been any evidence of it. I hoped-but I feared I had none.'
'Is there anything you know of that could account for this opacity? A counterspell, perhaps?'
Evidently Humfrey was far from omnipotent. But now that Bink knew he was a demon-conjurer, that
