The unseen thing snorted and leaped, passing right over Bink's body with amazing agility. Now he saw it: body and tail of a large fish, four stout short legs terminating in flippers, tusked head of a boar, no neck. Three eyes were set along its torso, the middle one set lower than the others. Bink had never seen a monster quite like this before--a land-walking fish.
The harpy flew up out of the way just in time, narrowly missing being gored by the thing's semicircular horns. Another stinking feather fell. She screeched some really disgusting insults in her ire, and let fly with a gooey dropping, but the monster ignored her and turned to concentrate on Bink. It opened its mouth, and Bink made a fist to punch it in the snout-for what little good that might do-when abruptly it paused, gazing balefully over Bink's shoulder.
"Now you'll get it, argus," the harpy screeched gleefully. "Even a fishy lout like you can't ignore catoblepas."
Bink had never heard of either argus or catoblepas, but another quake of deep misgiving went through him. He felt the muzzle of the hidden monster nudge him. It was oddly soft-but such was its power that it ripped him half out of the grass.
Then the pig-snouted argus charged, furious that its meal should be taken away. Bink dropped flat again, letting the slimy flippers pass over him--and their impact dislodged more of his body. He was getting free!
The two brutes collided. "Sic 'em, monsters!" the harpy screeched, hovering overhead. In her excitement over this mischief she let fall another large squishy dropping, which just missed Bink's head. If only he had a rock to throw at her!
He sat up. One leg remained anchored-but now he had anchorage to rip out of the clutch of the demon weed. It didn't even hurt this time. He looked at the battling monsters-and saw the snakelike hair of the catoblepas twined around the head of the argus, gripping it by horns, ears, scales, and eyeballs-anything available. The body of the catoblepas was covered with reptilian scales, from its gorgon head to its cloven hooves, invulnerable to the attack of the argus. In overall shape it was like any quadruped, not all that remarkable; but that deadly writhing prehensile head hair-what a horror!
Had he really wanted to return to magic Xanth? He had so conveniently forgotten its uglier aspect. Magic had as much evil as good. Maybe Mundania would really have been better.
"Fools!" the harpy cried, seeing Bink loose. "He's getting away." But the monsters were now enmeshed in their own struggle, and paid her no attention. No doubt the winner would feast on the loser, and Bink would be superfluous.
She darted down at Bink, forgetting all caution. But he was on his feet now, and able to fight. He reached up and caught her by one wing, trying to get his hands around her scrawny throat. He would gladly have strangled her, in a sense strangling all the meanness of Xanth. But she squawked and fluttered so violently that all he got was a handful of gummy feathers.
Bink took advantage of his luck and ran away from the fray. The harpy fluttered after him for a moment, screeching such hideously foul insults that his ears burned, but soon gave up. She had no chance of overcoming him by herself. Harpies were basically carrion feeders and thieves, not hunters. It was their fashion to snatch food from the mouths of others. There was now no sign of the other creatures that had rustled and scraped toward him; they too were predators only of the helpless.
Where was Fanchon? Why hadn't she come to help him? She surely must have heard his cries for help--if she still lived. There was no way she could have been unaware of the recent fracas. So this must mean-No! She had to be somewhere. Maybe down by the sea, catching fish, out of hearing. She had been invaluable during the past two days, and unswervingly loyal to the welfare of Xanth. Without her he could never have escaped the power of the Evil Magician. For intelligence and personality she had it all over the other girls he had met. Too bad she wasn't-He saw her, resting against a tree. "Fanchon?" he cried gladly.
"Hello, Bink," she said.
Now his worry and speculation translated into ire. "Didn't you see me being attacked by those monsters? Didn't you hear?"
"I saw, I heard," she said quietly.
Bink was baffled and resentful. "Why didn't you help me? You could at least have grabbed a stick or thrown rocks. I was almost eaten alive!"
"I'm sorry," she said.
He took another step toward her. "You're sorry! You just rested here doing nothing and--" He cut off, losing the words to continue.
"Maybe if you moved me from the tree," she said.
"I'll dump you in the sea!" he cried. He strode up to her, leaned over to grab her roughly by the arm, and felt a sudden wash of weakness.
