Oops! Bink had put the wrong hand down, and shoved the fungus under Humfrey's nose. 'Sorry. I meant to show you this wood, not the-' He paused. 'The fungus is poisonous?'
'Its magic will turn your whole body blue, just before you melt into a blue puddle that kills all the vegetation in the ground where it soaks in,' Humfrey assured him.
'But Crombie pointed it out as safe to eat!'
'Ridiculous! It's safe to touch, but the unsafest thing anyone could eat. They used to use it for executions, back in the bad old early Waves.'
Bink dropped the fungus. 'Crombie, didn't you-' He broke off, reconsidering. 'Crombie, would you point out the worst thing we could eat?'
The griffin shrugged and pointed. Right toward the fungus.
'You absolute idiot!' Chester exclaimed to the griffin. 'Have the feathers in your brains rotted? You just a moment ago pointed it out as safe!'
Crombie squawked angrily. 'Bink must have picked up the wrong item. My talent is never wrong.'
Humfrey was now examining the piece of wood. 'Crombie's talent is always wrong,' he remarked absently. 'That's why I never rely on it.'
Even Chester was surprised at this. 'Magician, the soldier is no prize-even I am willing to concede that-but usually his talent is sound.'
Crombie squawked, outraged at this qualified endorsement
'Maybe so. I wouldn't know.' The Magician squinted at a passing sweat gnat. 'What is that creature?'
'You don't recognize a common sweat gnat?' Bink asked, amazed. 'A moment ago you were classifying the most obscure bugs, discovering new species!'
Humfrey's brow furrowed. 'Why should I do that? I know nothing about bugs.'
Man, griffin, and centaur exchanged glances. 'First Crombie, then the Magician,' Chester murmured. 'It must be the madness.'
'But wouldn't that affect all of us?' Bink asked, worried. 'This is more like a misfire of talents. Crombie pointed out the worst food instead of the best, and Humfrey switched from knowledge to ignorance-'
'Right when the chunk of wood switched hands!' Chester finished.
'We'd better get him away from that wood.'
'Yes,' Chester agreed, and stepped toward Humfrey.
'No, please-let me do it,' Bink said quickly, confident that his talent could handle the situation best. He approached Humfrey. 'Excuse me, sir.' He lifted the chunk gently from the Magician's grasp.
'Why doesn't it affect you?' Chester asked. 'Or me?'
'It affects you, centaur,' Humfrey said. 'But since you don't know your talent, you don't see how it is reversed. As for Bink-he is a special case.'
So the Good Magician was back in form. 'Then this wood?reverses spells?' Bink asked.
'More or less. At least it changes the thrust of active magic. I doubt it would restore the griffin cow or the stone men, if that's what you're contemplating. Those spells are now passive. Only a complete interruption of magic itself would nullify them.'
'Uh, yes,' Bink said uncertainly.
'What kind of a special case are you?' Chester demanded of Bink. 'You don't do any magic.'
'You might say I'm immune,' Bink said cautiously, wondering why his talent was no longer protecting itself from discovery. Then he looked down at the wood in his hand. Was he immune?
He dropped the wood. 'Squawk!' Crombie said. 'So that's why my talent missed! That wood made me?pumf squawk screech-'
The golem had wandered near the wood, and his translation had disintegrated. Bink gently lifted Grundy away from it
'?of what I meant to,' the golem continued, blithely unaware of the change. 'It's dangerous!'
'It certainly is,' Bink agreed. He kicked the wood away.
Chester was not reassured. 'That means this was an incidental foul-up. We have yet to face the madness.'
Crombie located the nearest safe food, successfully this time. It was a lovely cookie bush growing from the rich soil beside the bones. They feasted on chocolate-chip cookies. A handy water-chestnut tree provided ample drink: all they had to do was pluck the fresh chestnuts and puncture them to extract the water.
As Bink chewed and drank, his eye fell on another earth mound. This time he scraped it away carefully with a stick, but could find nothing except loose earth. 'I think these things are following me,' he said. 'But what is the point? They don't do anything, they just sit there.'
'I'll take a look at one in the morning,' the Magician said, his curiosity moderately aroused.
They set up house within the gaunt cage of bones as darkness closed in. Bink lay back on the cushion of sponge moss beneath the skeleton-he had checked this out carefully to make sure it was harmless-and watched the stars emerge. Camping out was not so terrible!
