The mirror clouded, then cleared. A gross fat warty toad peered out. Bink jumped. Then he realized: this was a magic mirror; it had shown him the fairest one of all-the fairest toad.
"I mean, the fairest female human being," he clarified.
Now-Sabrina looked out at him. Bink had been joking at first, but he should have realized that the mirror would take him seriously. Was Sabrina really the fairest girl of all? Probably not, objectively. The mirror showed her because, to Bink's prejudiced eye, she was the one. To some other man-The picture changed. Now the girl Wynne looked out. Yes, she was pretty too, though too stupid to be worthwhile. Some men would like that very well, however. On the other hand-Now the Sorceress Iris looked out, in her most beguiling illusion. "Well, it's about time you got around to me, Bink," she said. "I can still enable you to--"
"No!" Bink cried. And the mirror went blank.
He calmed himself, then faced the mirror again. "Can you answer informational questions too?" Of course it could; otherwise it wouldn't be here.
The mirror clouded and cleared. A picture of the cherub appeared, meaning yes.
"Why are we having so much trouble discovering my talent?"
The picture that formed this time was that of a foot, a paw-a monkey's paw.
Bink looked at it for some time, trying to figure out its meaning, but it eluded him. The mirror must have gotten confused and thrown in an irrelevant image. "What is my talent?" he asked at last. And the mirror cracked.
"What are you doing?" Humfrey demanded behind him.
Bink jumped guiltily. "I-seem to have broken your mirror," he said. "I was just--"
"You were just asking stupidly direct questions of an instrument designed for subtlety," Humfrey said angrily. "Did you actually think the mirror could reveal what the demon Beauregard balked at?"
"I'm sorry," Bink said lamely.
"You're a lot more trouble than you're worth. But you are also a challenge. Let's get on with it." The Magician made his gesture and incantation again, restoring the truth spell "What is your--"
There was a crash. The glass had fallen out of the cracked mirror. "I wasn't asking you!" Humfrey yelled at it. He returned to Bink. "What--"
There was a shudder. The castle shook "Earthquake!" the Magician exclaimed. "Everything happens at once."
He crossed the room and peered out an embrasure. "No, it's only the invisible giant passing by."
Humfrey returned once more to Bink. This time he squinted at him, hard. "It's not coincidence. Something is preventing you-or anything else-from giving that answer. Some very powerful, unidentified magic. Magician-caliber enchantment. I had thought there were only three persons of that rank alive today, but it seems there is a fourth."
"Three?"
"Humfrey, Iris, Trent. But none of these have magic of this type."
"Trent! The Evil Magician?"
"Perhaps you call him evil. I never found him so. We were friends, in our fashion. There is a kind of camaraderie at our level--"
"But he was exiled twenty years ago."
Humfrey looked slantwise at Bink. "You equate exile with death? He resides in Mundania. My information does not extend beyond the Shield, but I am sure he survives. He is an exceptional man. But without magic now."
"Oh." Bink had equated exile with death, emotionally. This was a good reminder; there was life beyond the Shield. He still did not want to go there, but at least it diminished the specter.
"Though it galls me exceedingly, I dare not push the question further. I am not properly protected against interference magic."
"But why would anyone try to prevent me from knowing my own talent?" Bink asked, bewildered.
"Oh, you know it. You just can't tell it-even to yourself. The knowledge is buried deep inside you. And there, it seems, it is going to remain. I simply am not prepared to take the risk involved for a mere one-year service; I'd almost certainly take a loss on that contract."
"But why would a Magician-I mean, I'm nobody! How could it benefit anybody else to stop me from-"
"It might not be a person at all, but a thing placing a geis on you. A geis of ignorance."
"But why?"
Humfrey grimaced. "Lad, you grow repetitive. Your talent could represent some threat to some powerful special interest. As a silver sword is a threat to a dragon, even though it may not be near that dragon. So that entity protects itself by blocking off your knowledge of your talent."
"But-"
"If we knew that, we'd know your talent," Humfrey snapped, answering the unformed question.
Still Bink persisted. "How can I demonstrate my talent, then, so I can stay in Xanth?"
