The sneezy tang of dust tickled his nose, as if a herd of centaurs had just charged along a dry road in midsummer.
'Your magic talent!' Bink exclaimed. 'Smells!'
'Well, I never,' she said, modestly affronted. Now the dust-odor was tinged by the fumes of burning oil.
'I mean you can make-you smell like what you feel.'
'Oh, that.' The oil merged into perfume. 'Yes.
What's your talent?'
'I can't tell you.'
'But I just told you mine! It's only fair-' She edged within range. Bink grabbed her. She screamed again most fetchingly, and struggled without much strength. That, too, was the way nymphs were: delightfully and ineffectively difficult. He drew her in for a firm kiss on the lips. She was a most pleasant armful, and her lips tasted like honey. At least they smelled like it.
'That wasn't very nice,' she rebuked him when he ended the kiss, but she didn't seem very angry. Her odor was of freshly overturned earth.
'I love you,' Bink said. 'Come with me-'
'I can't go with you,' she said, smelling of freshly cut grass. 'I have my job to do.'
'And I have mine,' Bink said.
'What's your job?'
'I'm on a quest for the source of magic.'
'But that's way down in the center of the world, or somewhere,' she said. 'You can't travel that way. There are dragons and goblins and rats-'
'We're used to them,' Bink said.
'I'm not used to them! I'm afraid of the dark! I couldn't go there, even if-'
Even if she wanted to. Because of course she did not love him. She had not drunk the love- water.
Bink had a naughty idea. 'Come and take a drink with me! Then we can-'
She struggled to disengage, and he let her go. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her! 'No, I couldn't afford love. I must plant all these jewels.'
'But what am I to do? From the moment I saw you-'
'You'll just have to take the antidote,' she said, smelling of a newly lit candle. Bink recognized the connection: the candle symbolized her bright idea.
'There is an antidote?' He hadn't thought of that
There must be. For every spell there's an equal and opposite counterspell somewhere. All you have to do is find it'
I know who can find it,' Bink said. 'My friend Crombie.'
'You have friends?' she asked, surprised, smelling of startled birds.
'Of course I have friends!'
'Down here, I meant I thought you were alone.'
'No. I was looking for water for me and Chester. We-'
'Chester? I thought your friend was Crombie.'
'Chester Centaur. Crombie is a griffin. And there's Magician Humfrey, and-'
'A Magician!' she exclaimed, impressed. 'All to look for the source of magic?'
'Yes. The King wants to know.'
'There's a King along too?'
'No,' Bink said, momentarily exasperated. 'The King assigned me to make the quest. But we had some trouble, and got separated, and-'
'I suppose I'd better show you where there's water,' she decided. 'And food-you must be hungry too.'
'Yes,' he said, reaching for her. 'We'll be glad to do some service in return-'
'Oh, no!' she cried, skipping away with an enticing bounce of anatomy and the scent of hickory smoke. 'Not until you drink the antidote!'
Just so. 'I really must get back to Chester,' Bink said. 'He'll be worried.'
She considered for a moment. 'Bink, I'm sorry about what happened. Fetch your friends, and I'll see they get fed. Then you really must go.'
'Yes.' Bink walked slowly to the hole in the wall.
'Not that way!' she cried. 'Go round by the regular passages!'
