'Yes!' Humfrey cried. 'I must record it! What a fantastic discovery!' Bink had never seen the man so excited. Suddenly he realized something important: this was what the Good Magician lived for. Humfrey's talent was information, and the discovery and classification of living things was right in line with this. To him there was nothing more important than the acquisition of facts, and he had naturally been resentful about being distracted from this. Now chance had returned him to his type of discovery. For the first time, Bink was seeing the Magician in his animation. Humfrey was not a cold or grasping individual; he was as dynamic and feeling as anyone-when it showed.
Bink felt a tug at his sword. He clapped his hand to the hilt-and two robber flies buzzed up. They had been trying to steal his sword! Then Chester jumped, almost dislodging him. 'Almost stepped on a blister beetle,' the centaur explained. 'I wouldn't want to pull up with a blistered hoof at this stage!'
The lady griffin glanced back, rotating her head without turning her body, in the way griffins had. 'Awk!' she exclaimed impatiently. 'Hurry up, shrimp,' the golem translated. 'We're getting near the madness zone.'
'Squawk!' Crombie replied irritably. 'We're doing the best we can. Why don't you show us a better path, birdbrain?'
'Listen, cattail!' she awked back. 'I'm only doing this as a favor to you! If you numbskulls had stayed at the village where you belonged-'
'Stay in a village of females? You're mad already!'
Then they had to stop squawking and awking to dodge a snake-fly that wriggled through, fangs gaping. This time Chester did step on a bug-a stink bug. A horrible odor wafted up, sending them all leaping forward to escape it. The lady griffin's passage stirred up a motley swarm of deerflies, tree hoppers, tiger moths, and a fat butterfly that splattered the Magician with butter.
One lovely gold bug fluttered up under Bink's nose. 'Maybe this is another new one!' he cried, getting caught up in the Magician's enthusiasm. He grabbed for it, but Chester stumbled just then so that Bink missed it. 'It's headed toward you, Magician!' he cried. 'Catch it!'
But Humfrey shied away. 'That's a midas fly!' he exclaimed in horror. 'Don't touch it!'
'A midas fly?'
'Everything it touches turns to gold.' The fly was now circling the Magician, looking for a place to land.
'But that's wonderful!' Bink said. 'We must capture it. We can use gold!'
'Not if we become gold ourselves!' Humfrey snapped. He ducked so low that he fell of! the griffin. The midas fly settled down to land in his place.
'Crombie!' Bink screamed. 'Watch out!'
Then the lady griffin crashed into Crombie, knocking him out of the way with her leonine shoulder. He escaped-but the midas fly landed instead on her.
Just like that, she was a gold statue. The fly buzzed up and away, no longer a threat-but its damage had been done.
'They're extremely rare, and they don't land often,' Humfrey said from the bush he had landed in. 'I'm amazed we encountered one. Perhaps it was maddened by the dust.' He picked himself up.
'It may have been sent,' Bink said. 'It appeared near me first.'
Crombie rolled to his feet with the litheness of his kind. 'Squawk!'
'She did it for me-to save my life,' Grundy translated. 'Why?'
'It must indeed be madness,' Chester said dryly.
Bink contemplated the statue. 'Like the handiwork of the gorgon,' he murmured. 'Gold instead of stone. Is it possible she can be restored?'
Crombie whirled and pointed. 'Squawk!'
'The answer lies in the same direction as the quest,' Grundy said. 'Now birdbeak has personal reason to complete it'
'First we must pass through the madness-without a guide,' Chester pointed out
Bink looked ahead, dismayed. Things had abruptly taken a more serious turn-and they had not been unserious before. 'How can we find our way safely through this jungle, even without madness?'
'Crombie will have to point out our best route-one step at a time,' Humfrey said. 'Look-there is a walking stick.' He indicated the stick, ambling along on two tiny feet at the base, its hooked top wobbling erratically. The huge text was gone; he must have conjured it back into its bottle while Bink had been distracted. He hardly needed it 'Mahogany-handled-a very fine specimen.'
Crombie pointed the way, and they went slowly on, leaving the gold lady griffin where she stood. There was nothing they could do for her-except complete their quest, hoping to find the magic that would restore her.
Crombie looked back twice, not squawking; he seemed to be having serious private thoughts. For him, the woman-hater, the female's sacrifice had to be an awful enigma, of more significance than his own near-miss with the golden doom. As a soldier he was used to danger, but not to self-sacrifice.
All too soon, dusk loomed. Glowworms appeared from their tunnels in the ground, and bedbugs were already snoring in their bunks. A confused cockroach crowed, mistaking dusk for dawn. Swallowtails consumed their hind parts and disappeared for the night. A group of sawflies sawed boards for their own nocturnal roosts.
Bink looked about 'Right now, I wouldn't mind being a bug,' he said. 'They're at home here.'
Chester agreed soberly. 'I have spent the evening in the open before, but never in the deep wilderness. We will not enjoy this night'
