By Piers Anthony

Published by Ballantine Books

THE MAGIC OF XANTH

A Spell for Chameleon

The Source of Magic

Castle Roogna

Centaur Aisle

Ogre, Ogre

Night Mare

Dragon on a Pedestal

Crewel Lye: A Caustic Yarn

Golem in the Gears

Xanth: The Quest for Magic

THE APPRENTIC ADEPT

Book One: Split Infinity

Book Two: Blue Adept

Book Three: Juxtaposition

INCARNATIONS OF IMMORTALITY

Book One: On a Pale Horse

Book Two: Bearing an Hourglass

Book Three: With a Tangled Skein

Book Four: Wielding a Red Sword

Book Five: Being a Green Mother

A Spell for Chameleon: The Parallel Edition … Simplified is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

2012 Del Rey eBook Edition

Copyright © 2012 by Piers Anthony Jacob. & ® or ™ where indicated.

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

The eBook edition of A Spell for Chameleon: The Parallel Edition … Simplified is adapted from A Spell for Chameleon, originally published by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 1977.

All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization.

eISBN: 978-0-345-53644-0

www.delreybooks.com

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Contents

Cover

Other Books by This Author

Title Page

Copyright

Map

Introduction

Chapter 1: Xanth

Chapter 2: Centaur

Chapter 3: Chasm

Chapter 4: Illusion

Chapter 5: Spring

Chapter 6: Magician

Chapter 7: Exile

Chapter 8: Trent

Chapter 9: Transformer

Chapter 10: Chase

Chapter 11: Wilderness

Chapter 12: Chameleon

Chapter 13: Rationale

Chapter 14: Wiggle

Chapter 15: Duel

Chapter 16: King

About the Author

Introduction

In 1975, we were preparing to move from big city Florida to the backwoods of Florida. I grew up in the Green Mountains of Vermont, and while I was glad to be well away from the freezing winters, I missed the forested mountain slopes. So we bought acreage in the closest region that had a few forested hills and slopes. They did not come close to what Vermont has, but imagination made them steeper. When my two grade-school daughters and I explored the area, we discovered to our surprise a deep chasm to our immediate east. It was an old railroad cut, nothing special but quite impressive for us.

Meanwhile, I was in dialogue with Lester and Judy-Lynn del Rey at Ballantine Books. My relations with that publisher had been mixed, to put it politely, but the administration had changed, and they invited me to try them with a novel. I wanted to work with Lester, whose editing I had admired in the magazines, but he was now the fantasy editor at what would soon become Del Rey Books. I was not into fantasy at the time, as the market for it had languished, but Lester and Judy believed they could make something of that genre. So I decided to write a fantasy novel. I thought it would be a one-shot effort—a nice sale, not much more. I don’t think any of us saw the future coming as forcefully as it soon did.

The fantasy genre was about to take off into the stratosphere—thanks to the efforts of Lester and Judy-Lynn del Rey—and the Xanth series was destined to become one of the most successful in fantasy, making the New York Times bestseller lists with eleven novels. The series did not do it instantly—though A Spell for Chameleon did win the British Fantasy Award—but each novel did better. The fifth one, Ogre, Ogre, became perhaps one of the first original paperback fantasy novels ever to make that list. That one had its own special story: folks in fandom (that is, the loose group of devoted science fiction and fantasy readers who publish amateur magazines called fanzines and hold annual fantasy conventions and now have fantasy Web sites on the Internet) were accusing me of being an ogre at conventions when I had never even attended one. False stories are part of the business, it seems, but that annoyed me. So I made an ogre the hero of the next Xanth novel, and that was the one that cracked the bestseller lists. Now I’m proud to be called the ogre, however mistakenly. After all, ogres are justifiably proud of their stupidity.

How did I create Xanth? I started with the name. I had liked the name Xanthe, which means “yellow.” Coincidentally, the year (and almost the month) that Spell was published, our blond daughter, Penny, was born. She became Princess Ivy in Xanth. At any rate, I dropped the terminal “e” in Xanthe, and Xanth became the fantasyland. I converted the peninsula of Florida into the Land of Xanth simply by adding a little magic to the features of the state. Thus the Kissimmee River became the very affectionate Kiss Mee, and the Withlacoochee River, near where we lived, became With A Cookee, with cookies growing by its banks. Lake Tsala Apopka, where we live now on our tree farm, became Lake Tsoda Popka, with endless flavors of popka. The fact was, at that time I was unable to take fantasy seriously, so the humor came with parody and puns. For example, the Demon Corps of Engineers took hold of the two s’s in Kiss Mee and pulled them straight, thus converting the sweet curves of Kiss Mee to a nasty straightjacket called Kill Mee. You know you’d never see any disaster like that in dreary Mundania, would you? Of course I moved mountains into Xanth, including a volcano. Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines became the irascible Mount Pinatuba, which when annoyed went Oooom-pah! and blew out so much ash that all Xanth was cooled by one degree. Completely unbelievable fantasy, you will surely agree. And yes, across the center of the peninsula was a deep chasm, much bigger than the one we lived beside, along which ran a dangerous steaming dragon inspired by the old steam locomotives of bygone Mundania. Coincidentally—if you believe it—there is an ancient buried geologic fault below the same region of Florida. Later I was able to take fantasy more seriously, as shown by novels including On a Pale Horse, with Death as its protagonist. But Xanth remains Xanth, where the moon really is made of green cheese, and the stork really does deliver babies to folks who duly order them. Exactly how the stork is signaled is part of the nefarious Adult Conspiracy to Keep Interesting Things from Children. All children hate that, and swear they will overturn it, yet when they grow up, they inevitably betray their kind and join it. Life isn’t always fair, even in fantasy.

But because of all this silliness, editor Lester was afraid the story would be taken for a juvenile novel. So at his request I upgraded the language. For example, instead of mentioning a “high place,” I substituted a “lofty promontory.” It didn’t work; children flocked to Xanth anyway. In fact, when I pondered ending the series as a trilogy, I heard from young-at-heart readers suggesting that I use puns. So the series continued, and I let the language sink back into easy reading. But that left the first novel difficult for young readers to assimilate. So in time a reader, Nadine Anderson, offered to simplify the language. She did, and I went over it, and there came to be the simplified edition. It’s the same novel in story and detail, just easier to read. Hence the present volume, which does not replace the original but merely parallels it—like a 2D version of a 3D movie. You can read either one without missing anything.

Of course you know by now that when you open a Xanth novel, the magic dust between the pages wafts out and instantly addicts you to fantasy. You may get pundigestion and start emitting puns so that no one cares to be near you. Harpy reading!

Piers Anthony, NoRemember 2011

Chapter 1

Xanth

A small lizard sat on a brown stone. Scared by humans coming up the path, it changed into a stingray beetle, then into a stench-puffer, then into a flaming salamander.

Bink smiled. These changes weren’t real. It could not sting, stink, or burn. It was a chameleon using its magic to copy dangerous animals.

Yet as it changed into a basilisk, it glared at Bink so hard that he stopped smiling. If its threat could hit him, he would be horribly dead.

Then suddenly a silent moth hawk swooped down from the sky and caught the chameleon in its beak. There was a thin scream of pain as the lizard struggled; then it hung limply as the hawk rose. The chameleon was dead. Even while trying to scare Bink, it had been caught.

Bink thought more about this. The chameleon was harmless, but most of wild Xanth was not. Was this an omen, a sign of an ugly fate waiting for him? Omens were serious business; they always came true, but usually they were not understood until too late. Was Bink to die, or was that the fate of some enemy of his? He had, as far as he knew, no enemies.

The golden sun of Xanth shone through the Magic Shield, striking sparkles from the trees. All plants had their spells, but nothing could end the need for light, water, and good dirt. Magic made it easier to get these things, and it helped protect the plants.

Bink looked at the girl beside him as she stepped through a sunbeam. He was no plant, but he, too, had needs, and even a quick look at her made him aware of this. Sabrina was beautiful, and her beauty was all natural. Other girls used makeup, or padding, or spells, but beside Sabrina all other females looked fake.

They were at Lookout Rock. This was not a very high place, but its magic made it seem higher than it was, so that they could look down on a fourth of Xanth. This was a land of many-colored plant life, small pretty lakes, and quiet-looking fields. Even as Bink watched, one of the lakes swelled a little, making itself seem cooler and deeper, a better place for a swim.

Bink wondered about this. He had a willful mind that pestered him with questions. As a child he had driven his parents and friends almost wild with his “Why is the sun yellow?” “Why do ogres crunch bones?” “Why can’t sea monsters cast spells?” and other childish babble. No wonder he had been hurried away to centaur school. By now he had learned to control his mouth but not his brain, and so he let it run on.

Spells for living things he could understand; they helped with comfort, survival, or appearance. But why should a non-living thing have magic? Did a lake care who swam in it? Well, maybe so; a lake was a group of living things who might care. Or a water dragon might be doing it. Dragons, the most dangerous life form in Xanth, came in many types; there were kinds for air, earth, and water, and many breathed fire. One thing they all had in common was a big stomach. Chance might not bring in enough food when it was needed.

But what about Lookout Rock? Why should it want company, and, if it did, why make itself more handsome instead of staying gray and dull? People did not come here to look at the rock but to look out at the rest of Xanth.

Then Bink stubbed his toe on a sharp stone. He was standing on a cracked-rock path, made long ago by the breaking up of a pretty-colored stone and—

There it was! That other stone! It had been broken up to make this path. Lookout Rock had survived. Nobody would break up Lookout Rock because it would make an ugly path, and its magic made it useful as it stood. One small mystery solved.

Still, there were other questions. How could a non-living thing think or have feelings? What was survival to a rock? A boulder was just a big rock; why should it have a personal identity? The same question could be asked of a man; he had been made from the things he ate, yet he had a separate—

“What did you wish to talk to me about, Bink?” Sabrina asked.

As if she didn’t know. But as his mind formed the words, his mouth refused to open. He knew what her answer had to be. No one could stay in Xanth after his twenty-fifth birthday unless he showed magic. Bink’s own important birthday was only a month away. How could Sabrina marry a man who was to be cast out?

Why hadn’t he thought of that before bringing her out here? He would only embarrass himself! Now he had to say something or make it hard for her as well. “I just wanted to see your—your—”

“See my what?” she asked with a lift of her eyebrow.

He felt the heat starting up his neck. “Your talent,” he blurted. There was so much more of her he longed to see, and to touch, but that could come only after marriage. She was that sort of girl, and it was part of her charm. The girl who had it didn’t need to put it on display. Well, not quite true. He thought of Aurora, who surely had it, yet who—

“Bink, there is a way,” Sabrina said.

He looked at her, then quickly looked away, confused. She couldn’t be saying—

“The Good Magician.”

“What?” His thoughts had been different, no credit to him.

“Humfrey knows a hundred spells. Maybe one of them—I’m sure he could find out what your talent is. Then everything would be all right.”

“But he charges a year’s service for a single spell,” Bink said. “I have only a month.” But that was not quite true; if the Magician found a talent for Bink, then he would not be cast out, and he would have to stay a year longer. He was deeply touched by Sabrina’s faith in him. She did not say what others said—that he had no magic. She was kind enough to believe that his magic was just hidden.

Maybe it was Sabrina’s faith in him that had first attracted him to her. Certainly she was beautiful and smart and talented, a prize in all ways. But she could have been much less, and still been his—

“A year is not so long,” Sabrina said softly. “I would wait.”

Bink stared down at his hands, thinking. His right hand was normal, but he had lost the middle finger of his left hand in a childhood accident. It had not even been because of magic; he had been playing with a knife, holding on to a bunch of coilgrass while he chopped, pretending it was the tail of a dragon. The grass had jumped out of his hold as he struck, and he had grabbed for it, and the knife had come down hard on his finger.

It had hurt, but the worst of it was that, because he was not supposed to play with the knife, he had not dared scream or tell anyone. He had suffered in silence. He had buried the finger, and was able to hide his wound by keeping his hand closed for days. When the truth finally came out, it was too late for a repairing spell; the finger could not be put back on.

He had not been punished. His mother, Bianca, believed he had learned his lesson—and he had, he had! Next time he played with a knife, he would watch where his fingers were. His father seemed pleased that his son had been so brave. “The lad’s got nerve,” Roland had said. “Now if only he had magic.”

Bink jerked his eyes away from his hand. That had been fifteen years ago. Suddenly a year seemed a short time. One year of service in trade for a lifetime with Sabrina. It was a bargain.

Yet suppose he had no magic. Was he to serve a year and still be thrust into the gloomy country of the non-talented? Or would it be better to go now, keeping the hope that he did have a hidden magic talent?

Sabrina, respecting his thoughts, began her magic. A mist of blue appeared before her. It grew, getting thin at the edges, until it was two hand spans wide. It looked like a thick smoke, but it did not drift.

Now she began to hum. At the sound, the blue cloud shook and turned solid, becoming a rough circle. She changed her tone, and the outside of the cloud turned yellow. She opened her mouth, singing the word “girl,” and the colors took on the shape of a young lass in a blue dress with yellow lace.

It was a fine talent. Sabrina could shape anything. But the images faded when her attention stopped, and they never were real. So this was, strictly speaking, a useless magic. It did not help her life much.

Yet how many talents really helped their owners? One person could make a leaf die as he looked at it. Another could generate the smell of sour milk. Another could make crazy laughter come from the ground. These were all magic, but of what use were they? Why could these people stay in Xanth while Bink, who was smart, strong, and handsome, could not? Yet the rule was that no non-magical person could stay after his twenty-fifth birthday.

Sabrina was right; Bink had to find his talent. He had never been able to find it on his own, so he should pay the Good Magician’s price. Not only would this keep him from being cast out—which might be worse than death since what was the point of life without magic?—he would win Sabrina. Finding his talent would restore his self-respect. He had no choice but to visit the Good Magician.

***

“Oh!” Sabrina cried, clapping her hands to her pert bottom. “I’m on fire!”

Bink stepped toward her, alarmed. But even as he moved, there was loud laughter. Sabrina turned angrily, “Numbo, you stop that!” she cried. “It’s not funny.”

It was Numbo who had given her a magical hot seat. Talk about a useless talent! Bink, his fists clenched so tightly that his thumb jammed into the stub of his missing finger, marched toward the grinning youth standing behind Lookout Rock. Numbo was fifteen, cocky and annoying; he needed a lesson.

But Bink’s foot struck a loose rock, which turned his ankle and made him lose his balance. It didn’t hurt, but it slowed him. His hand swung forward, and his fingers touched an unseen wall.

There was another shout of laughter. Bink hadn’t crashed into the wall, thanks to the stone under his foot, but someone thought he had.

“You stop it, too, Chilk,” Sabrina said. The imaginary wall was Chilk’s talent. It was only two paces square—and, like so many talents, it was short-lived—but it felt as hard as steel in the first few moments.

Bink could slip around it and run the kid down, but he was sure to get caught by that wall again. It wasn’t worth it. If only he had a talent of his own, he could make the joker sorry in spite of the wall. But he didn’t have a talent, and Chilk knew it. Everyone knew it. That was Bink’s big problem. He was fair game for all the jokers because he couldn’t strike back—not magically at any rate, and it was crude to do it any other way. But right now he was quite ready to be crude.

“Let’s get out of here, Bink,” Sabrina said. There was disgust in her voice, directed mostly at the others, but Bink thought that part of it was for him. A useless kind of anger began building up—one he had felt many times before. He could not marry her because he lacked a talent, and he could not stay here for the same reason. Not here at Lookout Rock or here in Xanth. Because he didn’t fit.

They walked back down the path, and the jokers went looking for other sport. The landscape no longer seemed so lovely. Maybe he’d be better off away from here. Maybe he should take off now. If Sabrina really loved him, she’d come with him—even Outside, into Mundania.

No, he knew better than that. Sabrina loved him, but she loved Xanth, too. She had such a sweet shape, such kissable lips, that she could find another man much more easily than she could live among the unmagical. For that matter, he could find another girl more easily than dealing with what he faced. So he’d be better off going alone.

So, why didn’t his heart agree?

They passed the brown stone where the chameleon had sat, and Bink shuddered.

***

“Why don’t you ask Justin Tree?” Sabrina said as they neared the village. It was getting dark, faster here than up at Lookout Rock. The village lamps were coming on.

Bink looked at the special tree. There were many kinds of trees in Xanth, some of them important to the village. Beerbarrel trees were tapped for drink, and oilbarrel trees for fuel, and Bink’s shoes came from a shoe tree east of the village. But the Justin Tree was special, a kind not grown from seed. Its leaves were shaped like flat hands, and its trunk was the color of tanned human skin. This was not surprising since it had once been human.

That story flashed across Bink’s mind. It was part of the lively past of Xanth. Twenty years ago there had been one of the greatest of Evil Magicians—a young man named Trent. He had had the power of transformation; he could change any living thing into any other living thing, instantly. Not happy with his rank of Magician, given to him because of the great power of his magic, Trent had tried to take over the throne of Xanth. His plan had been simple and most direct: he transformed anyone who got in his way into something that could not stop him. The worst threats he changed to fish and put them on dry land, letting them flop until they died. The others he changed to animals or plants. Because of this, there were many thinking animals. Though they were dragons, two-headed wolves, and land-octopi, they had humanlike minds.

Trent was gone now but his works stayed, for there was no other transformer to change them back. Magic pictures, hot seats, and unseen walls were good talents, but transformation was different. Only once in a generation did someone have such power, and it did not appear twice in the same form. Justin had annoyed Magician Trent—although no one remembered what he had done—so Justin was a tree. No one had the skill to change him back into a man.

Justin’s own talent had been voice throwing—not a parlor trick but real speech without the use of vocal cords—which could be understood at a distance. He had kept this talent as a tree, and because he had a great deal of time for thought, people often came to this tree for help. Often the Justin Tree gave good advice. Justin was no genius, but a tree was less emotional about human problems, so its advice could be impartial.

Bink thought that Justin might really be better off as a tree than he had been as a man. He liked people, but it was said that as a human he had not been handsome. As a tree he was quite handsome. Bink and Sabrina turned to walk toward Justin. Suddenly a voice spoke in front of them: “Do not come near, friends; bullies are hiding nearby.”

Bink and Sabrina drew up short. “Is that you, Justin?” she asked. “Who is hiding?”

But the tree could not hear as well as it could speak, and did not answer. Wood did not seem to have the best ears.

Bink, angry, took a step toward the tree. “Justin is a public tree,” he muttered. “Nobody has a right to—”

“Please, Bink!” Sabrina said, pulling on his arm. “We don’t want any trouble.”

No, she never wanted any trouble. Bink would not go so far as to call this a fault in her, but at times it became annoying. Bink himself never let trouble keep him from doing what was right. Still, Sabrina was beautiful, and he had made enough trouble tonight. He turned to walk with her away from the tree.

“Hey, no fair!” a voice called out. “They’re going away.”

“Justin must have tattled,” another voice cried.

“Then let’s chop down Justin.”

Bink stopped again. “They wouldn’t!” he said.

“Of course they wouldn’t,” Sabrina agreed. “Justin is a village landmark. Ignore them.”

But the voice of the tree came again, off to the side this time, showing that Justin could not concentrate. “Friends, please bring the King quickly. These thugs have an axe or something, and they’ve been eating loco-berries.”

“An axe!” Sabrina cried in horror.

“The King is out of town,” Bink muttered. “Anyway, he’s getting old.”

“And he hasn’t called up more than a summer shower in years,” Sabrina agreed. “Kids didn’t dare make so much trouble when he had his full magic.”

“We certainly didn’t,” Bink said. “Remember the hurricane and six tornadoes he used in order to put down the last wiggle swarming? He was a real Storm King then. He—”

There was the ringing sound of metal biting into wood. A scream of pain burst from the air as the blade struck the tree. Bink and Sabrina jumped.

“That’s Justin,” she said. “They’re doing it.”

“No time for the King anyway,” Bink said. He ran toward the tree.

“Bink, you can’t!” Sabrina cried after him. “You don’t have any magic.”

So the truth came out. She didn’t really believe he had a talent. “I’ve got muscle, though!” he yelled back. “You go for help.”

Justin screamed again as the blade struck a second time. It was an eerie metal-on-wood noise. And there was laughter—the cheer of kids on a lark, not caring what results their actions might have. Loco? This was heartless.

Then Bink was there. He was in the mood for a good fight, but he was alone. The cruel jokers had run.

He could guess who they were, but he didn’t have to. “Jama, Zink, and Potipher,” Justin Tree said. “Oooh, my foot!”

Bink bent to look at the cut. The white-colored wound could be seen clearly against the dark leatherlike bark of the tree trunk. Driblets of reddish sap were forming; it looked very much like blood. The cut didn’t look too serious for a tree this size, but surely it hurt.

“I’ll get some bandages for that,” Bink said. “There are some coral sponges in the forest near here. Yell if anyone bothers you while I’m gone.”

“I will,” Justin said. “Hurry.” Then, as an afterthought: “You’re a great guy, Bink. Much better than some who—uh—”

“Than some who have magic.” Bink finished for him. “Thanks for trying to spare my feelings.” Justin meant well, but sometimes he spoke before he thought. It came from having a wooden brain.

“It isn’t fair that louts like Jama are called citizens, while you—”

“Thanks,” Bink said gruffly. He agreed, but what was the use of talking about it? He watched out for anyone hiding in the bushes and waiting to bother Justin when the tree was alone, but he saw nobody.

Jama, Zink, and Potipher, he thought darkly, were the village troublemakers. Jama’s talent was making a sword appear, and that was what they used to chop Justin’s trunk. Anyone who could think that such harm was funny—

Bink remembered one of his own run-ins with that bunch not so many years ago. Made drunk by loco-berries, the three had hidden along one of the paths beyond the village just looking for trouble. Bink and a friend had walked into that trap. They had been backed up against the cloud of poison gas that was Potipher’s magic talent while Zink made false holes near their feet and Jama made flying swords for them to duck. Some fun!

Bink’s friend had used his magic to escape, making a figure from a stick of wood that took his place. The golem had looked enough like him to fool the jokers. Bink had known the difference, of course, but he had covered for his friend. Although the golem could not be hurt by poison gas, Bink could. He had inhaled some of it and fainted even as help came. His friend had brought Bink’s mother and father.

Bink had found himself holding his breath again as the cloud covered him. He saw his mother tugging at his father’s arm, pointing Bink’s way. Bianca’s talent was replaying a scene; she could jump time back five seconds in a small area. This was strong magic, for with it she could correct a justmade mistake such as Bink’s breath of poison gas.

But then Bink’s breath had whooshed out again, making Bianca’s magic useless. She could keep replaying the scene, but everything was replayed, even his breath. Then Roland looked at him, and Bink had frozen.

Roland’s talent was the stun gaze: one special look and what he looked at was frozen in place, alive but held still until freed. In this way, Bink had been kept from breathing the gas a second time until his stiff body had been carried out.

As the stun wore off, Bink had found himself in his mother’s arms. “Oh, my baby!” she cried, holding his head against her bosom. “Did they hurt you?”

***

Bink came to a stop by the bed of coral sponges, his face still flushed. Did his mother have to do that? She had saved him from an early death, but he had been the joke of the village for a long time after. Everywhere he went, kids sniggered and called “My baby!” in high voices. He had lived, but without his pride. Yet he knew he could not blame his parents. He had blamed Jama and Zink and Potipher instead.

Bink had no magic, but, maybe because of that, he was the strongest boy in the village. For as long as he could remember, he had had to fight. He was not very graceful, but he had a lot of raw power. He had gone after Jama and shown that the fist was faster than the magic sword. Then he took on Zink. Finally he grabbed Potipher and threw him into his own gas cloud, forcing him to suddenly stop producing it. Since then, those three had not sniggered at Bink; in fact, they tended to stay away from him, which was why they had run when he charged Justin Tree.

Bink smiled, his embarrassment replaced by grim pleasure. Perhaps his manner of dealing with the problem had been childish, but there had been a lot of satisfaction in it. Underneath he knew that his anger at his mother had moved him to take it out on people like Jama. But he did not regret it. He did love his mother after all.

But in the end his only chance to recover his pride would be to find his own magic talent so that no one would tease him or laugh at him or baby him ever again, and so that shame would not drive him from Xanth. But that had never happened. He was still known as the “Spell-less Wonder.”

***

Bink stooped to pick several good, strong sponges. These would end Justin Tree’s pain, for that was their magic: they soaked up pain. A number of plants and animals—he was not sure in which class the sponges fit—had the same general kind of talent. The good thing about the sponges was that picking them would not kill them. They were tough; they had moved from the water when the sea corals did, and they now lived well on land. Maybe their magic healing had helped them adapt to their new environment. Or maybe they had magic healing before they moved, since coral was cutting stuff.

Talents tended to overlap, and each type of magic showed up in different ways in the plant and animal kingdoms. In people, personality seemed to have more to do with magic than did family, though some families tended to have stronger magic than others, as if strength of magic was inherited. But the type of magic was not inherited.

Bink could fit a lot of thinking into a passing moment. If thinking were magic, he’d be a Magician. But right now he’d better think about what he was doing or he’d be in trouble.

It was getting much darker. Black shapes were rising out of the forest, hovering as if seeking prey. Eyeless and formless, they still acted as if they were aware of Bink. A will-o’-the-wisp caught Bink’s eye. He started to follow the half-seen light, but then he stopped himself. The lure of the elusive wisp was trouble. It would lead him into the wilderness and leave him there, prey to unknown magic. One of Bink’s childhood friends had followed the wisp and never returned. Warning enough!

Night changed Xanth. Areas that were safe by day became horrors as the sun set. Specters and shades came out, hunting for their ghastly satisfactions, and sometimes a zombie ripped free of its grave and marched clumsily about. No one with sense slept outdoors, and every house in the village had spells against the supernatural. Bink did not dare use the shortcut back to Justin Tree; he would go the long way, following the magically protected trails.

He ran, although not from fear, for there was no real danger on this charmed route, and he knew the paths too well to stray from them. He ran in order to reach Justin faster with the healing coral sponge. Justin’s flesh was wood, but it hurt every bit as much as normal flesh.

Bink passed a field of sea oats, hearing the pleasant swish and gurgle of the tides among their stalks. When picked they made a good foamy soup except that it was rather salty. The bowls could be filled only halfway; otherwise, the soup’s sea waves slopped over.

Bink remembered the wild oats that he had planted as a teen. Sea oats were restless, but their cousins the wild oats were really active. They had fought him, their stems slashing across his wrists as he tried to pick a ripe seed head. He had gotten it, but he had been scratched badly before getting clear of the patch.

He had planted those few wild seeds in a secret plot behind his house, and he watered them every day, the natural way—with his own urine. He had guarded the bad-tempered shoots from all harm. What an adventure for a teenage male—until his mother, Bianca, had found the plot. Alas, she had known what the plants were right away.

There had been a family hassle. “How could you?” Bianca cried, her face flaming. But Roland had worked to hide his smile. “Sowing wild oats!” he murmured. “The lad’s growing up.”

“Now, Roland, you know that—”

“Dear, it isn’t as if there’s any real harm in it.”

“No harm!” she cried angrily.

“It is perfectly natural for a young man—” But her angry face had stopped Bink’s father, who feared nothing in Xanth but was a peaceable man. Roland sighed and turned to Bink. “I gather you do know what you were doing, son?”

Bink felt very defensive. “Well—yes. The nymph of the oats—”

“Bink!” Bianca snapped. He had never seen her so angry before.

Roland held up his hands, making peace. “Dear, why don’t you let us work this out man-to-man? The boy’s got a right.”

And so Roland had shown his own prejudice: when his “man-to-man” chat was with Bink, it was with a boy.

Without another word, Bianca had stalked out of the house.

Roland turned to Bink, shaking his head in a way that was only a little negative. Roland was a powerful, handsome man, and he had a special way of shaking his head. “True wild oats taken thrashing from the stem, sown by the full moon, watered with your own urine?” he asked frankly, and Bink nodded, his face at half heat. “So that when the plants grow and the oat nymph appears, she will be bound to you?”

Bink nodded grimly.

“Son, believe me, I understand; I sowed wild oats myself when I was your age. Got me a nymph, too, with flowing green hair and a body like the great outdoors. But I had forgotten about the special watering, and so she got away. I never saw anything so lovely in my life—except your mother, of course.”

Roland had sown wild oats? Bink had never thought such a thing. He remained silent, afraid of what was coming.

“I made the mistake of telling Bianca about the oats,” Roland went on. “I fear she became touchy about the subject, and you caught the brunt. These things happen.”

So his mother was jealous of something that had happened in his father’s life before he married her. What a pit full of ideas Bink had stumbled into.

Roland’s face became serious. “To a young man, the thought of a lovely nude nymph may be very tempting,” he went on. “All the physical features of a woman, and none of the mental ones. But, son, this is a childish dream, like finding a candy tree. The real thing will not be all you hope for. One quickly becomes tired of unlimited candy, and so it also is with a mindless female body. A man can’t love a nymph. His eagerness quickly becomes boredom, and then disgust.”

Still Bink dared not say anything. He would not have become bored, he was sure.

Roland understood him, too well. “Son, what you need is a real live girl,” he said. “A figure with a personality who will talk back to you. It is more of a challenge to get to know a complete woman, and often very frustrating.” He looked meaningfully at the door where Bianca had gone out. “But in the long run, it is also far more rewarding. What you looked for in the wild oats was a shortcut, but in life there are no shortcuts.” He smiled. “Though if it had been up to me, I’d have let you try the shortcut. But your mother—well, we are old-fashioned here, and the ladies tend to be the worst, especially the pretty ones. It is a small village—smaller than it used to be—so everybody knows his neighbor’s business. Know what I mean?”

Bink nodded uncertainly. However, when his father laid down the law, that was final. “No more oats.”

“Your mother—well, she was surprised by your growing up. So I guess that sowing oats is out; in fact, she’s probably pulling them up right now. But you still have a lot of good things ahead of you. Bianca might like to think of you as a little boy forever, but even she can’t stop nature. Not for more than five seconds!”

Roland paused, but Bink was silent again, unsure of what his father was leading up to.

“There’s a girl moving here from one of the smaller villages,” Roland went on. “This is supposed to be for school, since we have the best centaur teacher. But I think the real reason is that there aren’t many boys in her village. I understand she has not yet found her magic talent, and she’s about your age.” He looked meaningfully at Bink. “I think she could use a handsome, healthy young man to show her around and warn her of local dangers.”

Then Bink began to understand. A girl—a real girl—for him to get to know. One who would not be put off by his lack of magic. His father had given him a workable choice. Suddenly he knew he could do without wild oats.

“Her name is Sabrina,” Roland said.

***

A light ahead brought Bink back to the present. Someone was standing by Justin Tree and holding a magic lamp. “It’s all right, Bink,” Justin’s voice said in the air beside him. “Sabrina brought help, but it wasn’t needed. Did you get the sponge?”

“I got it,” Bink said.

So his little adventure had been no adventure at all, just like his life. As Sabrina helped him pack the sponge around Justin’s wound, Bink realized that he could not go on this way as a nobody; he would go to see the Good Magician Humfrey and learn what his own magic talent was.

He glanced up. His eyes caught Sabrina’s, which were glowing by the light of the lamp. She smiled. She was even more lovely now than when he first met her, when they had both been teens and she had always been true to him. There was no question; Bink’s father had been right about knowing a real live girl. Now it was up to Bink to become a real live man.

Chapter 2

Centaur

Bink set off on foot with a stuffed knapsack, a good hunting knife, and a hand-cut staff. His mother had wanted to get a guide for him, but Bink said no; the “guide” would really be a guard to keep him safe. How would he ever live that down? Yet the wilderness had its dangers; few people hiked it alone. He realized that he would have been better off with a guide.

He could have had a ride on a griffin, but that would have been costly and risky in its own way. Griffins were bad-tempered. He wanted to make his own way on the ground, if only to prove that he could, in spite of the snickers of the village youths—although Jama wasn’t snickering much now. He was under a punishment spell that the village Elders had put on him.

Roland had understood. “One day you’ll find that what worthless people think is worthless,” he had murmured to Bink. “You have to do it your own way. I know that, and I wish you well on your own.”

Bink had a map, and he knew which path led to the castle of the Good Magician Humfrey. Or at least which path had led there. The truth was that Humfrey was a grumpy old man who liked to be alone. Once in a while he changed the paths to his castle by magic, so that one never could be sure of finding it. Still, Bink planned to track down the Magician.

The first part of his trip was easy. He had spent his whole life in the North Village and knew most of its bypaths. Hardly any dangerous plants or animals were still in the area.

He stopped to drink at a water hole near a large needle cactus. As he came near, the plant shook, ready to fire on him. “Hold, friend,” Bink commanded. “I am of the North Village.” The cactus, stilled by the password, held back its deadly shower. The key word was “friend”; the thing was not a friend, but it had to obey the spell. No real stranger would know this. And most creatures needed to drink water sooner or later.

Another hour’s swift march brought Bink to an unknown area that was less safe. What did the people of this area use to guard their water holes? Unicorns trained to stab strangers? Well, he would find out soon enough.

The rolling hills and small lakes gave way to rougher ground with strange plants. Some had tall antennas that turned to point at him; others made pleasant noises but had branches with powerful claws. Bink walked around them, taking no risks. Once he thought he saw an animal about the size of a man, but it had eight legs. He moved on quickly and silently.

He saw a number of birds, but these did not worry him either. Since they could fly, they had little need for magic against man, so he had no reason to be careful—unless he saw any big birds, which might think he was food. Once he saw the giant form of a roc, and he dropped down, letting it wing on. As long as the birds were small, he liked their company, for they ate bugs, which were bad at times.

In fact, a cloud of gnats formed around his head, casting a sweat spell that made him uncomfortable. Insects had a strange skill of finding those with no magic. Maybe they just used trial and error, getting away with whatever they could. Bink looked about for repellent weeds, but he found none. His temper was getting short as the sweat streamed into his eyes and mouth. Then two little sucker-saps swooped in, sucking up the gnats and giving him relief. Yes, he liked little birds!

He was tiring after making a half day’s distance in three hours. He was in good shape but was not used to long marches with a heavy pack. Every so often he got a twinge from the ankle he had turned at Lookout Rock. Not a bad twinge, for it turned out to be a small hurt. But it was enough to keep him careful.

He sat on a small hill, first making sure it had no itch ants, though it did have a needle cactus. He walked up to this very carefully, not sure if it had been tamed by the spell. “I’m a friend,” he said, and just to make sure he spilled a few drops of water from his canteen onto the roots. It seemed to appreciate this and did not let fly at him.

He took out the lunch his mother had packed. He had food for two days—enough to get him to the Magician’s castle. But he would need food for the return trip, too. He hoped to stretch his food by staying overnight with some friendly farmer, which would also solve his other problem: he did not like sleeping outdoors. Night brought out special magic, and it could be ugly. He did not want to find himself arguing with a ghost or an ogre about the best use of his bones—should they be eaten live, while fresh and sweet, or crunched after being left to age for a week after death. Different animals had different preferences.

He bit into a cress-mato sandwich. Something crunched, startling him, but it was not a bone, just a flavor stem. Bianca really knew how to make a good sandwich. Roland always teased her about that, saying that she had learned the art from an old sand witch. Yet it was unfunny to Bink, for it meant he still depended on her. He wouldn’t let that bother him though, at least until he finished what she had packed.

A crumb dropped—and vanished. Bink looked around and saw a chipmouse chewing busily. It had used magic to move the crumb into its grasp without having to get close. Bink smiled. “I wouldn’t hurt you, chip.”

Then he heard a loud noise; it sounded like the pounding of hooves. Some big animal or a mounted man was coming toward him. Both could mean trouble. Bink stuffed a chunk of wing-cow cheese into his mouth, having a brief vision of the cow flying up to the treetops. He closed up his pack and shrugged his arms into the straps. Then he grasped his long staff with both hands. He might have to fight, or run.

The creature came into sight. It was a centaur, with the body of a horse and the upper section of a man, which was holding a bow and arrow. He was naked, in the way of his kind, with strong sides, broad shoulders, and a mean-looking face.

Bink held his staff before him, ready to fight if he had to. He did not think he could beat the large creature, and he knew he had no hope of outrunning him. But maybe the centaur was friendly, or wouldn’t know that Bink had no magic.

The centaur pulled up close. He held his bow ready, an arrow nocked. He looked very tough. Bink had learned a lot of respect for centaurs in school. This was clearly no Elder, however, but a young brute. “You are trespassing,” the centaur said. “Move off this range.”

“Now wait,” Bink said. “I’m a traveler, following the public path.”

“Move off,” the centaur said angrily, his bow swinging around.

Bink was a good-natured fellow, but he had a stubborn streak that popped up in times of stress. This trip was very important to him. This was a public path, and he had had his fill of magical dangers. The centaur was a magical creature. They gathered in Xanth, there being none in the Mundane world, by all reports. Bink’s grudge against magic was stirred up again, and he did something foolish.

“Go soak your tail!” he snapped.

The centaur blinked. Now he looked even larger, his shoulders broader, his chest deeper, and his horse body even stronger than before. Clearly he was not used to such talk, and it startled him. In time he recovered with an awesome knotting of oversized muscles. A deep red, almost purple, wash of color rose from the hairy horse base up through the bare stomach and chest, moving faster and getting brighter as it moved into the narrower neck and finally dyeing the head and ugly face in a burst. As that tide of red rage bit his ears and reached his brain, the centaur acted.

His bow swung around, the nocked arrow drawing back. He aimed at Bink and let the arrow fly.

Naturally, Bink wasn’t there. He had had enough time to read the storm signals. As the bow moved, he had ducked. Then he stood up right under the centaur’s nose and brought his staff around in a hard swing. It hit the creature with a smart rap on the shoulder, doing no real harm, but it had to sting badly.

The centaur let out a bellow. He whipped his bow around again with his left hand while his right hand dived for the quiver of arrows hanging on his shoulder. But now Bink’s staff was tangled with his bow.

The creature threw down the bow. The action ripped the staff out of Bink’s hands. The centaur made a fist. Bink ran around to the rear as the fist swung at him. But the rear of the centaur was no safer than the front; one leg kicked back. Through a freak of timing, it missed Bink and clubbed the trunk of the needle cactus.

The cactus sent back a shower of flying needles. But as the centaur’s hoof struck, Bink threw himself flat on the ground. The needles shot over him and plunked into the rear end of the centaur. Once more Bink had lucked out; he was untouched by either hoof or needles.

The centaur neighed with amazing volume. Those needles hurt; each one was a finger-length long, and barbed, and a hundred of them were stuck in the centaur. Had the creature been facing the cactus, he could have been blinded or killed as the barbs hit his face and neck. So he was lucky, too, though he hardly seemed pleased with his luck at the moment.

Now there were no bounds to the centaur’s anger. His ugly face twisted in rage. He did a great prance, his hindquarters rising and falling in a circle, bringing his front part close to Bink. Two powerful arms shot out, and two horny hands closed about Bink’s neck. Slowly they tightened, pinching like clamps. Bink, lifted off the ground, was helpless. He knew he was about to be strangled; he could not even beg for mercy, for his air and much of his blood were cut off.

“Chester!” a female voice cried.

The centaur stiffened. This did Bink no good.

“Chester, you put that man down this instant!” the voice commanded. “Do you want an inter-species war?”

“But Cherie,” Chester protested, his color fading. “He’s an intruder, and he asked for it.”

“He’s on the King’s path,” Cherie said. “Travelers are not to be bothered; you know that. Now let him go!”

The lady centaur hardly seemed able to make him obey, but Chester slowly followed her orders. “Can’t I just squeeze him a little?” he begged, squeezing a little. Bink’s eyeballs almost popped out.

“If you do, I’ll never run with you again. Down!”

“Aaaww …” Chester eased off. Bink slid to the ground, reeling. What a fool he had been to tangle with this brute!

The female centaur caught Bink as he swayed. “Poor thing!” she cried, holding his head against a soft pillow. “Are you all right?”

Bink opened his mouth, gagged, and tried again. It seemed that his crushed throat would never unkink. “Yes,” he croaked.

“Who are you? What happened to your hand? Did Chester—”

“No,” Bink said quickly. “He didn’t bite off my finger. That’s a childhood wound. See, it’s long since healed over.”

She looked at it carefully, running her fingers over it. “Yes, I see. Still …”

“I—I am Bink of the North Village,” he said. He turned his head to face her and learned what kind of pillow he had been resting against. Oh, no, not again! he thought. Would he always be babied by women? Centaur females were smaller than the males, but they still stood taller than human beings. Their human parts were somewhat larger also. He jerked his head away from her bare front. It was bad enough being babied by his mother. “I am traveling south to see the Magician Humfrey.”

Cherie nodded. She was a beautiful creature, both as horse and as woman, with smooth sides and an outstanding human figure. Her face was pretty, although a little long of nose. Her brown human hair trailed all the way down to her saddle area, in balance with her flowing tail. “And this ass stopped you?”

“Well—” Bink looked at Chester, seeing again the rippling muscles. What would happen when the filly left? “It was—it was a misunderstanding.”

“I’ll bet,” Cherie said. But Chester relaxed a little. It seemed he did not want to tangle with his girlfriend. Bink could understand why. If Cherie was not the prettiest centaur of the herd, she must be close to it.

“I’ll just be moving on now,” Bink said. He could have done this at the start, letting Chester run him off to the south. He had been as much to blame as the centaur. “Sorry about the problem.” He held out his hand to Chester.

Chester showed his teeth, which were more like a horse’s teeth than human ones. He made a big fist.

“Chester!” Cherie snapped. Then, as the centaur relaxed his fist, Cherie asked, “What happened to your tail?”

The male’s face darkened again, but not with rage this time. He trotted his wounded rear around out of the female’s sight. Bink had almost forgotten about the needles. They must still be hurting—and yanking them out would hurt more. What a pain in the tail! A most awkward spot to talk about in mixed company. He almost felt sorry for the grouchy creature.

Chester controlled himself and took Bink’s outstretched hand. “I hope everything comes out all right in the end,” Bink said, with a smile that became a bit broader than he meant. In fact, he feared it looked like a smirk. And suddenly he knew he shouldn’t have used those words or that smile at this time.

Something murderous reddened the whites of the centaur’s eyes. “Quite all right,” he gritted through clenched teeth. His hand began to squeeze Bink’s, but his eyes were not so bloodshot as to miss the filly’s glare. The fingers relaxed unwillingly. Another close call. Bink could have had his finger bones mashed in that grip.

“I’ll give you a lift,” Cherie decided. “Chester, put him on my back.”

Chester put his hands under Bink’s elbows and lifted him like a feather. For a moment Bink feared he would be thrown twenty paces, but Cherie was still looking at them, and so he was lowered gently onto the lady’s back.

“Is that your staff?” she asked, looking at the tangled staff and bow. Without being told, Chester lifted the staff and returned it to Bink, who tucked it between his back and his pack.

“Put your arm around my waist so you won’t fall off when I move,” Cherie said.

Good advice. Bink was new at riding, and there was no saddle. Very few honest horses were still in Xanth. Unicorns were very touchy about being ridden, and the winged horses were very hard to catch or tame. Once a horsefly had been burned by a dragon, losing its flight feathers, and had given the villagers short rides in trade for food and protection. The moment it had healed, it had flown away. That had been Bink’s only other riding experience.

He leaned forward. The staff got in the way, keeping him from bending his back enough. He reached back to draw it out, and it fell out of his hands to the ground. There was a snort from Chester. But the centaur picked it up and returned it to him. Bink tucked it under his arm this time, leaned forward again, and hugged Cherie’s slender waist, heedless of Chester’s renewed glare. Some things were worth the risk, such as getting out of there in a hurry.

“You go to the vet and get those needles out of your—” Cherie began, speaking over her shoulder to the male.

“Right away!” Chester broke in. He waited for her to start, then turned and ran off the way he had come, a little awkwardly. Probably each movement hurt his rear.

Cherie trotted down the path. “Chester is really a good creature at heart,” she said. “But he does tend to be a bit proud, and he gets his tail all knotted up when he’s upset. We’ve had some trouble with outlaws lately, and—”

“Human outlaws?” Bink asked.

“Yes, kids from the north gassing our livestock, shooting swords into trees, making pits seem to appear under our feet—that sort of thing. So naturally Chester thought—”

“I know the ones,” Bink said. “I had a run-in with them myself. They’ve been grounded now. If I had known they were coming down here—”

“There just doesn’t seem too much order these days,” she said. “According to the Covenant, your King is supposed to keep order. But lately—”

“The King is getting old,” Bink said. “He’s losing his power, and a lot of trouble is cropping up. He used to be a major Magician, a storm brewer.”

“We know,” she agreed. “When the fireflies overran our oat fields, he made a storm that rained five days and drowned them all. Of course, it also destroyed our crops, but the flies were doing that already. At least we were able to replant without more harm. We are not forgetting the help your King gave us. So we don’t want to make an issue of it. But I don’t know how long stallions like Chester are going to put up with these pests. That’s why I wanted to talk with you. Maybe when you go home, if you could talk to the King—”

“I don’t think that would work. I’m sure the King wants to keep order; he just doesn’t have the power anymore.”

“Then maybe it’s time for a new King.”

“He’s getting senile. That means he hasn’t got the sense to step down, and he won’t admit there’s any problem.”

“Yes, but problems don’t go away by being ignored!” She made a delicate snort. “Something has to be done.”

“Maybe I can get some help from Magician Humfrey,” Bink said. “It’s a serious business, replacing a King; I don’t think the Elders would go for it. He did do good work in his time. And there’s really nobody to replace him. You know that only a great Magician can be King.”

“Yes, of course. We centaurs are all scholars, you know.”

“Sorry, I forgot. Our village school is run by a centaur. I just wasn’t thinking of that out here in the wilderness.”

“I understand, though I’d call this range, not wilderness. I study history, and Chester works with uses of horsepower. Other centaurs are legal scholars, experts in natural sciences—” Cherie broke off. “Now hang on. There’s a trench up ahead I’ve got to jump.”

Bink had been relaxing, but now he leaned forward again and clasped his hands tightly around her waist. She had a sleek, comfortable back, but it was easy to slide off.

Cherie picked up speed, running down the hill, and the motion made him bounce in an alarming way. Peering ahead under her arm, he saw the trench. Trench? It looked more like a gorge, some three paces across, rushing up at them. Now he was more than alarmed; he was scared out of his mind. His hands became sweaty, and he began to slide off the side of her back. Then she jumped with a mighty heave and sailed up and across.

Bink slipped further. He had a short look at the stony bottom of the trench before they landed. The jolt made him slide around even more. His arms scrambled for a better hold—and wandered into a very awkward area. Yet if he let go …

Cherie caught him around the waist and set him on the ground. “Easy,” she said. “We made it.”

Bink blushed. “I—I’m sorry. I started to fall and just grabbed—”

“I know. I felt you move as I jumped. If you had done it on purpose, I’d have dropped you into the trench.” And in that moment she looked like Chester. He believed her: she could drop a man into a trench if she had reason to. Centaurs were tough creatures!

“Maybe I’d better walk now.”

“No, there’s another trench. They’ve been opening up lately.”

“Well, I could climb down one side and up the other. It would take longer, but—”

“No, there are nickelpedes at the bottom.”

Bink gave in. Nickelpedes were like centipedes but about five times as large and much more deadly. Their many legs could cling to steep rock faces, and their claws could dig out disks of flesh the size of a nickel. Not liking sunlight, they lived in shadowed cracks. Even dragons were unwilling to walk through ditches known to have nickelpedes, and for good reason.

“The cracks have been opening up lately,” Cherie repeated as she kneeled to let Bink climb on again. He picked up his dropped staff and used it to help him up. “I’m afraid there’s big magic brewing somewhere, spreading through Xanth, making trouble for animal, vegetable, and mineral. I’ll get you across that next trench; then it’s beyond centaur land.”

He hadn’t thought that there would be such barriers. They didn’t show on his map. The trail was supposed to be clear and safe all along. But the map had been made years ago, and these cracks in the ground were new, Cherie said. Nothing in Xanth was permanent, and travel was always risky. He was lucky he had gotten the lady centaur’s help.

The landscape changed, as if the trench separated one type of place from another. Before it had been rolling hills and fields; now it was forest. The path became narrower, crowded by the huge mock-pine trees, and the forest floor was a red-brown carpet of mock needles. Here and there were spots of light green ferns, which seemed to grow where weeds could not, and areas of dark green moss. A cold wind blew through, ruffling Cherie’s hair and mane and carrying strands back against Bink. It was quiet here, and there was a nice piney smell. He felt like getting off and lying down on a bed of moss, just enjoying this peaceful spot.

“Don’t do it,” Cherie warned.

Bink jumped. “I didn’t know centaurs used magic!”

“Magic?” she asked, and he knew she was frowning.

“You read my mind.”

She laughed. “Hardly. We do no magic. But we do know the effect these woods have on humans. It’s the peace spell that the trees make to keep from getting chopped.”

“Nothing wrong in that,” Bink said. “I wasn’t going to chop them anyway.”

“They don’t trust anyone. I’ll show you.” She stepped carefully off the trail, her hooves sinking into the soft pine-needle floor. She made her way between some dagger-spoked buck-spruce trees; passed a thin snake palm, which didn’t even bother to hiss at her; and stopped near a tangle tree—but not too near. Everyone knew better than to do that. “There,” she murmured.

Bink looked where her hand pointed. A human skeleton lay on the ground. “Murder?” he asked, shivering.

“No, just sleep. He came to rest here, as you wished to do just now, and never got up the energy to leave. Complete peace is a tricky thing.”

“Yes,” he breathed. No violence, no trouble. Just loss of energy. Why bother to work and eat when it was so much easier just to relax? If a person wanted to kill himself, this would be a great way. But Bink had reason to live, at least so far.

“That’s part of why I like Chester,” Cherie said. “He’d never give in to anything like this.”

That was for sure. There was no peace in Chester. Cherie herself would never give in, Bink thought, though she was much more gentle. Although Bink felt sleepy despite the sight of the skeleton, Cherie was clearly able to resist the spell. Maybe centaurs were different, or maybe she had wildness in her soul that her sweet form and pleasant words masked. Most likely a bit of both.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Bink.

She laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ll see you safely through it. But don’t come back this way alone. Travel with an enemy, if you can find one; that’s the best way.”

“Better than a friend?”

“Friends are peaceful,” she said.

Oh. That did make sense. He’d never rest under a pine tree if he were with Jama; he’d be too afraid of getting a sword in his gut. But what a strange need—to find an enemy to walk with through a peaceful forest!

This peace spell also explained why there was so little other magic here. The plants did not need their own spells; no one was going to attack. Even the tangle tree had seemed calm, though he was sure it would grab a victim when it had the chance since that was the way it fed. Interesting how quickly magic faded when survival took precedence. No—there was magic, strong magic; it was the group magic of the whole forest, with each plant giving its share. If people could figure out a way to stop the effect in themselves, they could live here in safety. That was worth remembering.

Cherie and Bink made their way back to the path. Bink almost slid off twice, falling asleep, each time waking up with a shock. He would never have made it out of here alone. He was glad to see the pine forest thin, shifting to hardwoods. He felt more alert, even more violent, and that was good. Harder wood, harder feelings.

“I wonder who that was back there,” Bink murmured.

“Oh, I know,” Cherie answered. “He was one of the Last Wave who got lost, wandered in here, and decided to rest. Forever!”

“But the Lastwavers were brutal!” Bink said. “They killed all they found.”

“All Waves were brutal when they came. All but one,” she said. “We centaurs know; we were here before the First Wave. We had to fight all of you until the Covenant. You didn’t have magic, but you had weapons and numbers and cleverness. Many of us died.”

“My ancestors were First Wave,” Bink said with pride. “We always had magic, and we never fought the centaurs.”

“Now, don’t get warlike, Human, just because I took you out of the peace pines,” she said. “You do not have our knowledge of history.”

Bink knew that he’d better calm down if he wanted to go on riding. And he did want to ride; Cherie was pleasant company, and she knew all the local magic. Last and most, she was giving his tired legs a good rest while carrying him along quickly. Already she had taken him the equivalent of a good half day’s foot travel.

“I’m sorry for what I said before. It was a matter of family pride,” Bink explained.

“Well, that’s no bad thing,” she said. She made her way across a wooden bridge over a bubbling brook.

Suddenly Bink was thirsty. “May we stop for a drink?” he asked.

She snorted again, a very horselike sound. “Not here! Anyone who drinks from that water becomes a fish.”

“A fish?” Suddenly Bink was twice as glad to have this guide. Otherwise he would have drunk. Unless she was just telling him that to tease him, or trying to scare him away from this area. “Why?”

“The river is trying to restock itself. It was cleaned out by the Evil Magician Trent twenty-one years ago.”

Bink was still not sure about non-living magic. How could a river want anything? Still, he remembered how Lookout Rock had saved itself from being broken up. Better to play it safe and assume that some parts of the landscape could cast spells.

Meanwhile, the mention of Trent got his attention. “The Evil Magician was here?”

“Trent was everywhere,” she said. “He wanted us centaurs to help him, and when we balked—because of the Covenant—he showed us his power by changing every fish in this river into a lightning bug. Then he left. I think he thought that those shocking buggers would force us to change our minds.”

“Why didn’t he change the fish into a human army and try to overcome you that way?”

“No good, Bink. They might have had the bodies of men, but their minds would still be fish. They would have made very wishy-washy soldiers. And even if they had been good soldiers, they would hardly have served the man who put them under that spell. They would have attacked Trent.”

“Um, yes. I wasn’t thinking. So he made them lightning bugs and got well away from here so they couldn’t shock him. So they went for the next best thing.”

“Yes. It was a bad time for us. Oh, those bugs were a pain! They pestered us in clouds, burning us with their little lightning bolts. I’ve still got scars on my—” She paused. “On my tail.”

“What did you do?” Bink asked, looking back to see if he could find the scars. What he could see seemed perfect.

“Trent was cast out soon after that, and we got Humfrey to stop the spell.”

“But the Good Magician isn’t a transformer.”

“No, but he told us where to find magic to drive off the flies. Without our flesh, the swarm soon died out. Good information is as good as action, and the Good Magician had the information.”

“That’s why I’m going to him,” Bink agreed. “But he charges a year’s service for a spell.”

“You’re telling us? Three hundred head of centaur. That’s one year each. What a job!”

“All of you had to pay? What did you have to do?”

“We are not allowed to tell,” she said.

Now Bink really wanted to know, but he knew better than to ask again. A centaur’s given word would not be broken. But what could Humfrey have needed done that he could not do himself with one of his hundred spells, or at least using his good information? Humfrey was the Magician of Information; anything he didn’t know, he could find out, and that gave him great power. Probably the reason the village Elders had not asked the Good Magician what to do about their King was that they knew what he would answer: get a new, young, fresh Magician. They clearly weren’t ready to do that even if they could find such a young Magician to serve.

Well, there were many mysteries and many problems in Xanth, and it was not for Bink to know of them all or to solve any. He had learned long ago to live with what could not be changed.

They were past the river now, and climbing. The trees were closing in more thickly, their great round roots rising across the path. No magic threatened them; either the centaurs had cleaned out the area, or Cherie knew this path so well that she stayed away from spells without seeming to. Probably some of each.

Life itself had many different answers, he thought, and was usually “some of each.” Few things were hard and fast in Xanth.

“What was that history you know that I don’t?” Bink asked, becoming bored by the trail.

“About the Waves of human settlement? We have records of them all. Since the Shield and the Covenant, things have quieted down; the Waves were terrors.”

“Not the Firstwavers!” Bink said loyally. “We were peaceful.”

“That’s what I mean. You are peaceful now, so you think your ancestors were peaceful then. But my ancestors found it otherwise. They would have been happier had man never discovered Xanth.”

“My teacher was a centaur,” Bink said. “He never said anything about—”

“He’d have been fired if he had told you the truth.”

Bink felt uneasy. “You’re not teasing me, are you? I’m not looking for any trouble. I have a very curious mind, but I’ve already had more trouble than I care for.”

She turned her head around to fix him with a gentle stare. Her body twisted from the human waist to complete the motion. The turn was impressive; her midsection was more flexible than that of a human girl, maybe because it was harder for a centaur to turn her whole body around. But if she had a human lower part to match the upper half, what a creature she would be!

“Your teacher didn’t lie to you. A centaur never lies. He just edits his information, on orders from the King, so as not to force on the minds of children things their parents do not want them to hear. Education has ever been like that.”

“Oh, I wasn’t suggesting he was not honest,” Bink said quickly. “I liked him, as a matter of fact; he was the only one who didn’t get fed up with all my questions. I learned a lot from him. But I guess I didn’t ask about history. I was more worried about something he couldn’t tell me. But at least he did tell me about the Magician Humfrey.”

“What is your question for Humfrey, if I may ask?”

What difference will it make if I tell her? he thought. “I have no magic,” he said. “At least I seem to have none. All through my childhood I was handicapped because I couldn’t use magic. I could run faster than anybody else, but the kid who could fly still won the race. Stuff like that.”

“Centaurs get along very well without magic,” she pointed out. “We wouldn’t take magic if it were offered.”

Bink did not believe that, but he did not argue. “Humans think differently, I guess. When I got older, it got worse. Now I will be cast out if I don’t show some magic talent. I’m hoping Magician Humfrey can … Well, if I do have magic, it means I can stay and marry my girl and have some pride. Finally.”

Cherie nodded. “I thought it was something like that. I suppose if I were in your position, I would choke down the need for magic, though I really think your people’s values are bent. Citizenship should be based on how a person acts and what he does, not on—”

“Exactly,” Bink agreed firmly.

She smiled. “You really should have been a centaur.” She shook her head so that her hair flung out prettily. “You have started on a dangerous trip.”

“Not more dangerous than the one to the Mundane world that will otherwise be forced on me.”

She nodded again. “Very well. You have answered my questions; I’ll answer yours. I’ll tell you the whole truth about humans coming into Xanth. But I don’t think you’ll like it much.”

“I don’t expect to like the truth about myself much,” Bink said. “I might as well know whatever there is to know.”

“For thousands of years Xanth was fairly peaceful,” she said, using the somewhat stuffy tone he remembered from his school days. Probably every centaur was at heart a teacher. “There was magic—very strong magic—but no unneeded cruelty. We centaurs were the highest life form, but as you know, we have no magic. We are magic. I suppose we came here from Mundania at first, but that was so long ago that it is lost even to our records.”

Something tripped over in Bink’s mind. “I wonder if that really is true about magic creatures not being able to work spells. I saw a chipmouse transport a crumb of bread—”

“Oh? Are you sure it wasn’t a chipmunk? That is a natural creature, according to our taxonomy, so it might work magic.”

“You tax animals?” Bink asked, amazed.

“Taxonomy,” she repeated with a smile. “The listing of living things into classes.”

Oh. Bink thought about that, embarrassed. “I thought it was a chipmouse, but I’m not sure now.”

“Actually, we’re not sure either,” she said. “It may be that some magical creatures can work magic. But as a general rule, a creature either does magic or is magic, not both. Which is just as well. Think of the harm a dragon Magician could make!”

Bink thought of it. He shuddered. “Let’s get back to the history lesson,” he said.

“About a thousand years ago the first human tribe found Xanth. They thought it was just another peninsula. They moved in and cut down the trees and killed the animals. There was more than enough magic here to fight them, but Xanth had never been given such treatment before, and we did not really believe it. We thought the humans would leave soon.

“But then they realized that Xanth was magic. They saw the animals flying and the trees moving their branches. They hunted the unicorns and griffins. If you wonder why those big animals hate people, they have good reason: their ancestors would not have survived if they had tried to be friendly. The Firstwavers were non-magical creatures in a land of spells, and after they got over the first shock they liked it.”

“But that’s wrong!” Bink cried. “Humans have the very strongest magic. Look at all the great Magicians. You yourself told me just now how evil Magician Trent changed all the fish—”

“Pipe down before I buck you off!” Cherie snapped. Her tail swished past Bink’s ear. “You don’t know the quarter of it. Of course humans have magic now. That’s part of their problem. But not at the start.”

Bink backed down again. It was easy to do; he liked this centaur lady very well. She was answering questions he hadn’t even thought to ask yet. “Sorry. This is new to me.”

“You remind me of Chester. I’ll bet you’re stubborn, too.”

“Yes,” Bink said.

She laughed, and it sounded a bit like neighing. “I do like you, Human. I hope you find your”—she pursed her lips—“magic.” Then she flashed a sunny smile and got serious. “Those Firstwavers had no magic, and when they found out what magic could do they were interested but a bit afraid of it. A number of them died in a lake that had a drown spell, and some ran up against dragons, and when they met the first basilisk—”

“Are there still basilisks?” Bink asked, remembering the omen of the chameleon. It had stared at him in the shape of a basilisk just before it died, as if its spell had backfired. He had yet to be sure of the meaning of that.

“Yes, there are—but not many,” she answered. “Both humans and centaurs worked to stomp them out. Their gaze is deadly to us, too, you know. Now they hide, because they know that the first creature killed that way will bring an army of mirror-masked warriors down on them. A basilisk is no match for a forewarned man or centaur; it’s just a small winged lizard, you know, with the head and claws of a chicken. Not very smart. Not that it usually needs to be.”

“Say!” Bink cried. “Maybe that’s the missing factor—intelligence. A creature can do magic or be magic or be smart—or any two of the three but never all three. So a chipmouse might use magic, but a smart dragon wouldn’t.”

She turned her head again to face him. “That’s a novel idea. You’re pretty smart yourself. I’ll have to think about it. But until we find proof, don’t go into the wilderness unprotected; there just might be a smart spell-throwing monster in there.”

“I won’t go into the wilderness,” Bink promised. “At least I won’t stray from the cleared path until I get to the Magician’s castle. I don’t want any lizards looking death at me.”

“Your ancestors were bolder,” Cherie said. “That’s why so many of them died. But they beat Xanth and set up a settlement where magic was outlawed. They liked the country and the uses of magic, you see, but they didn’t want it too close to home. So they burned the forest there, killed all magical animals and plants, and built a great stone wall.”

“The ruins!” Bink cried. “I thought those old stones were from an enemy camp.”

“They are from the First Wave,” she insisted.

“But I am descended from—”

“I said you wouldn’t like this.”

“I don’t,” he agreed. “But I want to hear it. How can my ancestors have—”

“They settled in their walled village and planted Mundane crops and herded Mundane cattle. You know—beans and wingless cows. They married the women they had brought along or could raid from the closest Mundane settlements, and had children. Xanth was a good land, even in that area cleared of magic. But then something amazing happened.”

Cherie turned to face him again in a manner that would have been most fetching in a human girl. In fact, it was the same in a centaur girl, especially if Bink squinted so as to see only her human part. It was very fetching despite his knowledge that because centaurs lived longer than humans, she was probably fifty years old. She looked twenty—a twenty that few humans ever were. No halter would hold this filly!

“What happened?” he asked, giving in to her desire for a response. Centaurs were good storytellers, and they did like a good audience.

“Their children came up with magic,” she said.

Aha! “So the Firstwavers were magic!”

“No, they were not. The land of Xanth is magic. It’s a natural effect. But it works much better with children, and it works best with babies born here. Adults, even if they’ve lived here a long time, tend to push down the talents they have because they ‘know better.’ But children accept what is. So not only do they have more natural talent, they use it more.”

“I never knew that,” he said. “My folks have much more magic than I do. Some of my ancestors were Magicians. But me—” He sobered. “I’m afraid I was a great disappointment to my parents. By rights I should have had very strong magic, maybe even been a Magician myself. Instead …”

Cherie did not comment on that but went on to explain. “At first the humans were shocked by their children’s special talents. But soon they accepted them and even encouraged them. One of the children could change lead into gold. They looted the hills, looking for lead, and finally a group was sent to get it from Mundania. It was almost as if lead had become more valuable than gold.”

“But Xanth has no dealings with the Mundane world.”

“You keep forgetting: this is history,” said Cherie.

“Sorry again. I wouldn’t break in so much if I weren’t so interested.”

“You are a very good audience,” she said, and he felt pleased. “Most humans would refuse to listen at all because it is not a nice history. Not for your kind.”

“Maybe I’d be less open-minded if I didn’t have to leave,” he said. “About all I have to work with is my brain and body, so I’d better not fool myself.”

“A good view of life. You are, by the way, getting a longer ride than I had planned because you listen so well. At any rate, they got the lead out, but they paid a horrible price. Because the Mundanes learned about magic. The thought of cheap gold sent them into a frenzy. They invaded, storming the wall, and killed all the First Wave men and children.”

“But—” Bink protested, horrified.

“These were the Secondwavers,” Cherie said gently. “They saved the First Wave women, you see. Because the Second Wave was an all-male army. They thought there was a machine to change the lead into gold, or a secret formula. They didn’t really believe in magic; that was just an easy term to use for the unknown. So they didn’t realize that the lead was changed into gold by the magic of a child—until too late. By then, they had destroyed what they had come for.”

“Horrible!” Bink said. “You mean I am descended from—”

“From the rape of a First Wave mother. We centaurs never liked the Firstwavers, but we felt sorry for them then. The Secondwavers were worse. Had we known, we would have helped the Firstwavers fight them off. Our archers would have ambushed them—” She shrugged. Centaur archery was famous; no need to go on.

“Then the invaders settled,” she went on after a while. “They sent their own archers all over Xanth, killing—” She broke off, and Bink knew how bad she felt about her kind being prey to the arrows of human beings. She gave a little shudder that almost made him fall, but she forced herself to go on. “They killed centaurs for meat. Not until we ambushed their camp, putting arrows through half of them, did they agree to let us alone. Even after that, they did not keep their agreement very well, for they had very little sense of honor.”

“And their children had magic,” Bink said, seeing it now. “And so the Thirdwavers invaded and killed off the Secondwavers.”

“Yes, this happened after several years, though it was every bit as cruel when it came. The Secondwavers had become fairly good neighbors by then. Again, only the women were saved—and not many of them. Because they had been in Xanth all their lives, their magic was strong. They used it to get rid of their rapist husbands one by one in ways that could not be traced to the women. But their victory was their defeat, for now they had no families. So they had to bring in more Mundanes.”

“This is horrible!” Bink said. “I am descended from a thousand years of disgrace.”

“Not completely. The history of man in Xanth is brutal, but it is not without some values, even greatness. The Second Wave women got together and brought in only the finest men they could find. Strong, just, kind, smart men who understood the background. They promised to keep the secret and to uphold the values of Xanth. They were Mundanes, but they were noble ones.”

“The Fourthwavers!” Bink cried. “The finest of them all.”

“Yes. The Xanth women were widows, victims of rape, and finally killers. Some were old or had physical or mental scars. But they all had strong magic and grit; they were the survivors of the upheaval that wiped out all other humans in Xanth. These qualities were clear. When the new men learned the whole truth, some returned to Mundania. But others liked marrying witches. They wanted to have children with strong magic, so they decided that youth and beauty were secondary. They made very good husbands. Others wanted the land of Xanth developed and protected; they were the environmentalists, and magic was the most priceless part of the environment. And not all the Fourthwavers were men; some were carefully selected young women brought in to marry the children to avoid too much inbreeding. So it was a settlement, not an invasion, and it was not rooted in murder but based on sound business and natural rules.”

“I know,” Bink said. “That was the Wave of the first great Magicians.”

“So it was. Of course, there were other Waves, but none so important. The leadership of the human beings in Xanth dates from the Fourth Wave. Other invasions killed many and drove more into the back woods, but the line was never broken. Just about every truly smart or magical person traces his family back to the Fourth Wave; I’m sure you do, too.”

“Yes,” Bink agreed. “I have ancestors from the first six Waves, but I always thought the First Wave was the most important.”

“The Magic Shield finally stopped the Waves. It kept all Mundane creatures out and all Xanth creatures in. It was greeted as the saving of Xanth. But somehow things didn’t improve much. It was as if people traded one problem for another. In the past hundred years Xanth has been free from invasion, but other threats have popped up.”

“Like the fireflies and the wiggles and Bad Magician Trent,” Bink agreed.

“Trent was not a Bad Magician,” Cherie corrected him. “He was an Evil Magician. There’s a difference—an important one.”

“Um, yes. He was a good Evil Magician. Luckily they got rid of him before he took over Xanth.”

“Certainly. But what if another Evil Magician appears? Or the wiggles come again? Who will save Xanth this time?”

“I don’t know,” Bink said.

“Sometimes I wonder if the Shield was really a good idea. It has the effect of making the magic in Xanth stronger. As if magic is building up toward the bursting point. Yet I wouldn’t want to return to the days of the Waves!”

Bink had never thought of it that way. “Somehow I find it hard to worry about the problems of magic in Xanth,” he said. “I keep wishing there was just a little more magic. Enough for me, for my talent.”

“You might be better off without it,” she said. “If you could just get a permit from the King—”

“Ha!” Bink said. “I’d be better off living like a hermit in the wilderness. My village won’t put up with a man without a talent.”

“Strange,” she murmured.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking of Herman the Hermit. He was cast out from our herd some years back for improper actions.”

Bink laughed. “What did he do?”

Cherie drew up at the edge of a pretty field of flowers. “This is as far as I go,” she said.

Bink realized that he had said the wrong thing. “I didn’t mean to offend. I’m sorry for whatever—”

Cherie relaxed. “You couldn’t know. The smell of these flowers makes centaurs do crazy things; I have to stay clear of them most of the time. I believe Magician Humfrey’s castle is about an hour’s march south. Keep alert for magic, and I hope you find your talent.”

“Thanks,” Bink said gratefully. He slid off her back. His legs were a bit stiff from the long ride, but he knew she had saved him a day’s travel time. He walked around to face her and held out his hand.

Cherie took it, then leaned forward to kiss him—a motherly kiss on his forehead. Bink wished she had not done that, but he smiled, and then he turned and started walking. He heard her hooves running back through the forest, and he suddenly felt lonely. Luckily his trip was nearly over.

But still he wondered: what had Herman the Hermit done that the centaurs thought was improper?

Chapter 3

Chasm

Bink stood at the brink, amazed. The path had been split by another trench—no, not a trench but a great channel, far across and seemingly bottomless. Cherie could not have known of it or she would have warned him. So it must have been made recently, maybe in the past month.

Only an earthquake or strong magic could have made such a channel so quickly. There had been no earthquakes that he knew of, so it had to be magic. And that meant a Magician of great power.

Who could it be? The King might have been able to make such a channel once, but he had no reason to, and his powers had faded too much to do anything like this now. Evil Magician Trent had not been an earth mover. Good Magician Humfrey’s magic was divided into a hundred spells. Some of those might tell him how to make such a large channel, but it was hardly possible that Humfrey would do it. Humfrey never did anything unless he was paid for it. Was there another great Magician in Xanth?

Wait—Bink had heard stories about a master of illusion. It was easier to make a fake channel than a real one. That could be like Zink’s pretend-hole talent. If a real Magician had that type of talent, this was what he might make. Maybe if Bink walked into this channel, he would find that the path continued.

He looked down. He saw a small cloud floating along about a hundred paces below. A cool wind came up and brushed his back. He shivered; the wind was very real!

He shouted “Hallooo!”

He heard the echo about five seconds after: “Allooo!” it said.

He picked up a pebble and flipped it into the channel. It vanished, and no sound of its landing came back.

At last he kneeled and poked his finger into the air beyond the brim. It met nothing. He touched the edge, and found it solid.

He was convinced. The channel was real.

There was nothing to do but go around it. That meant he was not really close to his goal but within a day’s travel—or several days, depending on the size of this amazing channel.

Should he turn back? The villagers should be told of this. On the other hand, it might be gone by the time he brought anyone back to see it, and he would be called a fool. Worse, he would be called a coward who had made up a story to explain his fear of visiting the Magician. And the visit would probably only provide proof that he had no talent. What had been made by magic could be taken away by magic. So he had better try to get around this channel.

Bink looked at the sky. The sun was low in the west. He had an hour or so of daylight left. He’d better try to find a house in which to spend the night. The last thing he wanted was to sleep outside in a strange area, at the mercy of unknown magic. He had had a very easy trip so far, thanks to Cherie, but with this detour it would become harder.

Which way to turn—east or west? The channel seemed to run endlessly both ways. But the land was less rugged to the east and sloped downhill; maybe the path would reach the bottom of the channel so he could cross it. He would go east.

Although farmers tended to build in valleys so as to have good sources of water and be free of the magic of high places, this area did not look very settled. He had seen no buildings along the path so far. He walked swiftly through the forest. As dusk came, he saw great black shapes rising out of the channel: large leathery wings, cruelly bent beaks, glinting small eyes. Vultures maybe, or worse. He felt very uneasy.

It was now important to save his food; it would have to last. He saw a breadfruit tree and cut a loaf from it, but he found that the fruit was not yet ripe. He would get sick eating it. He had to find a farmhouse.

The trees became larger and more gnarled. They seemed huge in the shadows. A wind was rising, making the stiff branches sigh. Nothing bad about that, though; it wasn’t even magical. But Bink found his heart beating quickly, and he felt the need to keep looking back over his shoulder. He was no longer on the trail, so he felt insecure. He was going deeper into the wild, where anything could happen. Night was the time of bad magic, and there were many strong kinds. The peace spell of the pines was only one example; there were surely fear spells and worse. If only he could find a farmhouse!

Some adventurer he was! The moment he had to go a little out of his way, the instant it got dark, he started imagining things. This was not the deep wilderness so there would be few real threats to a careful man. The true wilds were beyond the Good Magician’s castle, on the other side of the channel.

Bink forced himself to slow down and keep his eyes forward. Just keep walking, he reminded himself. Swing the staff over to touch anything suspicious, no foolish—

The end of the staff touched what looked like a black rock. But the rock burst upward with a loud whirring noise. Bink scrambled back, falling on the ground, arms thrown up in front of his face.

The rock spread wings and flapped away. “Koo!” it protested. It had been a stone dove folded into its rock shape for safety and warmth during the night. Naturally it had reacted when poked, but it was harmless.

If stone doves nested here, it was bound to be safe for him. All he had to do was stretch out and sleep. Why didn’t he do just that?

Because he was foolishly scared of being alone at night, he answered himself. If only he had some magic, he would feel safer.

He saw a light ahead. Relief! It was a yellow square, a sign of humans. He was almost tearfully pleased. He was no child, but he might as well be, here in the forest and off the bounds of his map. He needed the comfort of human company. He hurried toward the light, hoping it would not be some illusion or trap.

It was real. It was a farm at the edge of a small village; now he could see other squares of light farther down the valley. Almost joyfully he knocked on the door of the first farmhouse.

It opened slowly to show a plain woman in a dirty apron. She peered at him. “I don’t know you,” she grumped, pushing the door closed again.

“I am Bink of the North Village,” he said quickly. “I have traveled all day and was stopped by the channel. Now I need a place to stay for the night. I will work for the favor. I’m strong; I can chop wood or load hay or move rocks.”

“You don’t need magic to do those things,” she said.

“Not with magic! With my hands. I—”

“How do I know you’re not a ghost?” she asked.

Bink held out his left hand. “Prick me; I bleed.” It was the usual test, for most supernatural creatures had no blood.

“Oh, come on, Martha,” a man’s gruff voice called from inside. “There hasn’t been a ghost in these parts for years, and they don’t do no harm anyway. Let him in; if he eats, he’s human.”

“Ogres eat,” she muttered. But she cracked the door open far enough for Bink to squeeze through.

Now Bink saw the farm’s “watchdog”: a small werewolf, probably one of their children. There were no true werewolves that he knew of; all were humans who had the talent. This one had the large head and flat face of the type. A real werewolf would have seemed like a real wolf until it changed; then it would have been a wolfish man. Bink put out his hand as the animal slunk up to sniff him, and then he patted it on the head.

The creature changed into a boy about eight years old. “Did I scare you, huh?” the boy begged.

“You terrified me,” Bink agreed.

The lad turned to the man. “He’s clean, Paw,” he said. “No smell of magic on him.”

“That’s the trouble,” Bink murmured. “If I had magic, I wouldn’t be traveling. But I meant what I said. I can do good work.”

“No magic?” the man asked as the woman ladled Bink a steaming bowl of stew. The farmer was in his mid-thirties, as plain as his wife but with deep smile lines around his mouth and eyes. He was thin but sturdy; hard work made tough men. He turned purple as he talked, then green, his whole body changing color. “How’d you make it all the way from North Village in one day, then?”

“A lady centaur gave me a lift.”

“A filly! I’ll bet she did! Where’d you hang on to when she jumped?”

Bink smiled. “Well, she said she’d drop me in a trench if I did it again,” he said.

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” the man brayed. Farmers tended to have an earthy sense of humor. Bink saw that the wife wasn’t laughing, and the boy only stared.

Now the farmer got down to business. “Listen, I don’t need no hard labor now. But I’ve got a part in a hearing coming up, and I don’t want to go. Upsets the missus, you know.”

Bink nodded, though he did not understand. He saw the wife nod in agreement. What sort of thing was this?

“So if you want to pay for staying here, you can stand in for me,” the farmer went on. “Won’t only take an hour. No work to it ’cept to agree to anything the bailiff says. Softest job you can find, and easy for you, too, ’cause you’re a stranger. Working with a cute young thing—” He saw the grim look on his wife’s face and stopped. “How ’bout it?”

“Anything I can do,” Bink said uncertainly. What was this about working with a cute young thing? He’d never find out while the wife was there. Would Sabrina object?

“Fine! There’s hay in the loft, and a bucket so you won’t have to go outside. Just don’t snore too loud—the missus don’t like it.”

The missus didn’t like a lot of things, it seemed. How did a man ever come to marry a woman like that? Would Sabrina turn into a scold after the wedding? “I won’t snore,” Bink agreed.

The stew was not very tasty, but it was filling. Good stuff to travel on.

He slept well in the hay with the wolf curled up beside him. He did have to use the pot, and it stank, having no cover, but that was much better than going into the magic night. Bink really could not complain.

He had gruel for breakfast, heated without fire. That was the wife’s talent, a useful one on a farm. Then he went to the neighbor’s house for the hearing.

The bailiff was a big, bluff man above whose head a small cloud formed when he thought too hard. “Know anything about the hearing?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Bink said. “You’ll have to tell me what to do.”

“Good! It’s just a sort of little play to settle a problem without hurting anybody’s reputation. We call it surrogate magic. Mind you, don’t use any magic.”

“I won’t,” Bink said.

“You just agree to whatever I ask you. That’s all.”

Bink began to get nervous. “I don’t believe in lying, sir.”

“This ain’t really lying, boy. It’s for a good cause. You’ll see. I’m surprised you don’t do it in North Village.”

Bink was silent. He hoped he had not gotten himself into something ugly.

The others came in: two men and three young women. The men were bearded farmers, one young, one middle-aged; the girls ranged from plain to ravishing. Bink forced his eyes away from the prettiest one. She was the most striking black-haired beauty he had ever seen.

“Now the six of you sit down at this table,” the bailiff said in his official voice. “I’ll do the talking when the judge comes. Mind you, this is a play—but it’s secret. When I swear you in, it’s for keeps—no blabbing about it after you get out, understand?”

They all nodded. Bink was getting more confused. He now understood about working with a sweet young thing, but what kind of play was this, with an audience of one, that no one was to talk about? Well, maybe it was a kind of magic.

The three men sat in a row on one side of the table, and the three girls faced them. Bink was across from the beautiful one; her knees touched his. They were silky smooth, sending a shiver up his legs. Remember Sabrina! he told himself. He was not usually swayed by a pretty face, but she had a stunning face and body. It didn’t help that she wore a tight sweater.

The judge entered—a portly man with a large belly and sideburns. “All stand,” the bailiff said.

They all stood respectfully.

The judge took a seat at the end of the table, and the bailiff moved to the far side. They all sat down.

“Do you three ladies swear to tell no truth other than that given in this hearing and to shut up about that?” the bailiff asked.

“We do,” the girls said.

“And do you three louts swear the same?”

“We do,” Bink said with the others. If he was to lie here, but never talk about it outside, did that mean it wasn’t really a lie? The bailiff seemed to know what was true and what was false, so in effect—

“Now, this is the hearing for an alleged rape,” the bailiff said. Bink tried to hide his shock. Were they supposed to act out a rape?

“Among these present,” the bailiff went on, “is the girl who says she was raped—and the man she charges. He says it happened but it was not forced. That right, men?”

Bink nodded along with the others. Brother! He would rather have chopped wood. Here he was, maybe lying about a rape he had never done.

“This is done without using names,” the bailiff said, “so’s to have a recommendation, in the presence of the first parties, without advertising it to the whole community.”

Bink was beginning to understand. A girl who had been raped could be ruined though it was no fault of her own; many men would not marry her for that reason alone. So she could win her case but lose her future. A man guilty of rape could be cast out, and a man accused of rape would be looked at with suspicion, making his future harder. Getting at the truth could be very tricky and was not something either party would want to advertise in a public trial. Win or lose, reputations would suffer badly. Yet how could justice be done if the case never came to trial? Thus this private hearing. Would it be enough?

“She says she was walking down by the Gap,” the bailiff said, looking at his notes. “He came up behind her, grabbed her, and raped her. Right, girls?”

The three girls nodded, each looking hurt and angry. The knee of the girl facing Bink shook, and another ripple traveled up his leg. What an opposite lady, and what a play!

“He says he was standing there and she came up and made a suggestion and he took her up on it. Right, men?”

Bink nodded with the others. He hoped his side won; this was nervous business.

Now the judge spoke. “Was it close to a house?”

“ ’Bout fifty paces,” the bailiff said.

“Then why did she not scream?”

“He said he’d push her off the brink if she made a sound,” the bailiff answered. “She was frozen in terror. Right, girls?”

They nodded—and each looked terrified for a moment. Bink wondered which of the three had been raped. Then he corrected his thought: which one had made the accusation? He hoped it wasn’t the one facing him.

“Were the two known to each other before?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Then I assume she would have run from him at the start had she not liked him—and that he would not have forced her if she trusted him. In a small town like this, people get to know one another very well, and there are few surprises. This strongly suggests she had no strong objection to being with him, and may have tempted him, with a result she later regretted. I would probably, if this case were to come up in court, find the man not guilty of the charge because of reasonable doubt.”

The three men relaxed. Bink became aware of a trickle of sweat on his forehead; it started while he listened to the judge.

“Okay, you have the judge’s ifso,” said the bailiff. “You girls still want to bring it to open trial?”

Looking betrayed, the three girls shook their heads no. Bink felt sorry for the girl across from him. How could she not be seductive? She was made for no other visible reason than love.

“Then take off,” the bailiff said. “Remember—no talking outside or we’ll have a real trial for contempt of court.” The warning seemed unneeded; the girls would hardly be talking. The guilty—uh, innocent—man would also shut up, and Bink himself just wanted to get clear of this village. That left only one man who might want to talk. But if he said anything, all the others would know who had blabbed. There would be silence.

So it was over. Bink went out with the others. The whole thing had taken less than the promised hour, so he was well off. He’d had a good night’s sleep and felt rested. All he needed now was to find a way past the channel to the Good Magician’s castle.

The bailiff came out, and Bink went up to him. “Could you tell me if there is any way south from here?”

“Boy, you don’t want to cross the Gap,” the bailiff said, the little cloud forming over his head. “Not unless you can fly.”

“I’m on foot.”

“There’s a way, but you’ll encounter the Gap Dragon. You’re a nice boy—young, handsome. You did a good job in the hearing. Don’t risk it.”

Everybody thought he was so damned young! Only strong magic would give him manhood in the eyes of Xanth. “I have to risk it.”

The bailiff sighed. “Well, I can’t tell you no, then, son. I’m not your father.” He sucked in his belly, which was almost as large as that of the judge, and studied the cloud over his head. Bink flinched. Now he was getting fathered as well as mothered. “But it’s tricky. Better have Wynne show you.”

“Wynne?”

“Your opposite. The one you almost raped.” The bailiff smiled, making a signal with one hand, and his cloud vanished. “Not that I blame you.”

The girl came over in answer to the signal. “Wynne, honey, show this man to the southern slope of the Gap. Mind you, keep clear of the dragon.”

“Sure,” she said, smiling. The smile did not add to her beauty because that was impossible, but it tried.

Bink had mixed feelings. After the hearing, suppose she accused him of—?

The bailiff looked at him understandingly. “Don’t worry about it, son. Wynne don’t lie, and she don’t change her mind. You behave yourself, hard as that may be, and there’ll be no trouble.”

Embarrassed, Bink accepted this girl’s company. If she could show him a quick, safe way past the channel, he would be well ahead.

They walked east, the sun beating into their faces. “Is it far?” Bink asked, still feeling uncomfortable. If Sabrina could see him now!

“Not far,” she said. Her voice was soft, somehow sending a thrill through him. Maybe it was magic; he hoped so because he didn’t like to think that he could be swayed just by beauty. He didn’t know this girl.

They went on in silence for a while. Bink tried again: “What is your talent?”

She looked at him blankly.

Uh-oh. After the hearing, she could not be blamed for taking that the wrong way! “Your magic talent,” he said. “The thing you can do. A spell or …”

She shrugged.

What was with this girl? She was beautiful, but she seemed dull.

“Do you like it here?” he asked.

She shrugged again.

Now he was almost sure; Wynne was lovely but stupid. No wonder the bailiff had not been worried about her. She was not much use to the village.

They walked in silence again. As they rounded a bend, they almost stumbled over a rabbit nibbling a mushroom. Startled, the creature jumped straight into the air and hung there, its pink nose wiggling.

Bink laughed. “We won’t hurt you, magic bunny!” he said. Wynne smiled.

They passed under the floating rabbit. But the event, unimportant as it was, bothered Bink. Why should a rabbit have the magic power of floating while Bink had nothing? It wasn’t fair.

Now he heard a lovely tune. He looked about and saw a lyrebird playing its strings. The music carried through the forest, filling it with seeming joy. Ha!

Bink felt the need to talk, so he did. “When I was a kid, people always teased me because I had no magic,” he said, not caring if Wynne understood. “I lost footraces to others who could fly, or put walls in my way, or pass through trees, or pop out in one place and go back in at another place.” He had said as much to Cherie. He was sorry to be stuck in this groove, but part of his mind seemed to believe that if he said it often enough, he would find some way to change it. “Or who could cast a spell on the path ahead of them, making it slope downhill, while I had to run over flat land or even go uphill.” Remembering all those problems, he began to choke up.

“Can I go with you?” Wynne asked.

Uh-oh. Maybe she thought he could tell her more stories. She did not think about the hardships of travel. In a while her body, not made for hard work, would tire, and he’d have to carry her. “Wynne, I’m going a long way, to see the Magician Humfry. You don’t want to come along.”

“No?” Her pretty face clouded up.

Still thinking of the rape hearing, he said it carefully. They were now going down a path into a low part of the channel, going around clumps of clatterweed and clutchroot saplings. He had taken the lead, bracing with his staff, so as to be able to catch her if she should fall. When he glanced up at her, he got distracting looks at her thighs. There seemed to be no part of her body that was not perfect. Only her brain had been overlooked. “It is dangerous. Much bad magic. I go alone.”

“Alone?” She was still confused, though she was handling the path very well. Nothing wrong with her balance! Bink found himself surprised that those legs could be used for hiking. “I need help. Magic. The Magician charges a year’s service. You would not want to pay.” For the Good Magician was male, and Wynne had only one obvious way to pay. No one would be interested in her mind.

She looked at him, confused. Then she brightened, standing up on the path. “You want payment?” She put one hand to the front of her dress.

“No!” Bink yelled, almost falling from the steep slope. He already saw another hearing, and a different outcome. If she showed him any more of her body— “No!” he repeated, more to himself than to her.

“But—” she said, her face clouding up again.

He was saved by another distraction. They were near the bottom now, and Bink could see across to the more gentle rise of the south slope. No problem about climbing that!

He was about to tell Wynne she could go home when there was an uncomfortable sound, a kind of slide-bump. It was repeated—sounding very loud and scary.

“What’s that?” he asked.

Wynne cupped her ear, listening, though the noise could plainly be heard. With the change in her balance, she began to slide down the steep slope. He jumped to catch her, and then he lowered her to the channel floor. What an armful she was, all softness and slenderness!

She turned her face to him, brushing back her hair as he stood her back on her feet. “The Gap Dragon,” she said.

For a moment he was confused. Then he remembered that he had asked her a question: now she was answering it.

“Is it dangerous?”

“Yes.”

She had been too stupid to tell him before he asked. And he had not thought to ask before he heard it. Maybe if he hadn’t been looking at her body so much. Yet what man would not have looked?

Already he saw the monster coming from the west. It had a steaming snakelike head, low to the ground, but large. Very large. “Run!” he bawled.

She started to run—straight ahead, into the channel.

“No!” he yelled, running after her. He caught her by one arm and spun her about. Her hair swirled, a black cloud about her face.

“You want payment?” she asked.

Brother! “Run that way!” he cried, shoving her back toward the northern slope since it was the closest. He hoped the dragon was not a good climber.

She obeyed, moving swiftly over the ground.

But the glaring eyes of the Gap Dragon followed her. The creature turned to go for her. Bink saw she could not reach the path in time. The monster was whomping along at galloping-centaur speed.

Bink ran after her again, caught her, and half hurled her back toward the south. Even in this moment, her body threatened to distract his mind. “That way!” he cried. “It’s catching up!” He was acting as foolishly as she, changing his mind while doom closed in.

He had to draw the monster away from her. “Hey, steam snoot!” he bawled, waving his arms wildly. “Look at me!”

The dragon looked. So did Wynne.

“Not you!” Bink yelled at her. “Get on across. Get out of the Gap.”

She ran again. No one could be so stupid as not to understand the danger here.

Now the dragon’s attention was on Bink. It turned again and bore down on him. It had a long, flexible body and three sets of stubby legs. The legs lifted the body and whomped it forward, making it slide along. The motion looked clumsy, but the thing was traveling very, very fast.

Time for Bink to run! He took off down the channel toward the east. The dragon had already cut him off from the north slope, and he didn’t want to lead it the way Wynne was going. Even with its clumsy way of traveling, it could run faster than he; its speed was probably helped by magic. It was, after all, a magical creature.

But what about Bink’s idea that no creature has magic and is smart if it is magical itself? If that was right, this thing would not be very smart. Bink hoped so; he’d rather try to outwit a dumb dragon than a smart one.

So he ran, but already he knew this was hopeless. This was the dragon’s hunting ground. It was what stopped people from crossing the channel by foot. Bink should have known that a magically made channel would not be left alone. Someone or something did not want people crossing from north Xanth to south Xanth. Especially non-magical people like him.

Bink was puffing now, out of breath, and a pain was growing in his side. He had mistaken the speed of the dragon. It was not a little faster than he was, it was a lot faster. The huge head snapped forward, and steam gushed around him.

Bink inhaled the stuff. It wasn’t as hot as he had feared, and it smelled faintly of burning wood. But it was still uncomfortable. He choked, gasped, tripped on a rock, and fell flat. His staff flew out of his hands.

The dragon whomped right over him, unable to stop so quickly. It was so long and low that it couldn’t fall. The body shot past, carrying the head beyond range. If magic helped the thing’s speed, then there was no magic to help it stop.

Bink’s breath was knocked out of him by the fall. He was already short of air. He gasped for more, unable to think of anything else at the moment, not even escape. While he lay on the ground, the middle set of the dragon’s legs came down right at him. They came down together as though linked, ready to heave the heavy body up and forward again. Bink couldn’t even roll aside in time. He thought he would be crushed.

But the huge claws of the right foot landed on the rock that had tripped him. It was a big rock, bigger than it looked, and he had fallen on the lower side of it. He was in a kind of erosion gully. The three claws were splayed by the rock, so that one missed him to the left, another to the right, and the middle arched right over him, hardly touching the ground. The crushing mass of dragon was on that foot, none of its weight touching him. A lucky placement that could never have happened by plan.

Now Bink had some of his breath back, and the foot was gone, already lifted for the next whomp. Had Bink been able to roll aside, he would have been caught by one of the claws and squished.

But one lucky break did not mean he was out of trouble. The dragon was curling around to find him again. It was able to bend in a tight U-turn. Bink would have admired this more from a safe distance. Snakelike, the monster could twist into knots if it had to, reaching Bink wherever he tried to hide. No wonder it whomped; it had no stiff backbone.

Knowing it was hopeless, Bink still found himself trying to escape. He dashed under the tree-trunk-thick tail. The head chased him, following his smell as well as his motion.

Bink turned back and leaped up over the tail, scrambling for handholds on the scales. He was in luck; some dragons had scales with sharp edges that sliced the flesh of anything that touched them. This one’s scales were rounded. It was probably a survival trait, though Bink wasn’t sure why. Did sharp scales tend to snag on things, slowing the speed of a low-to-the-ground monster?

Bink tumbled over the tail, and the dragon’s head followed smoothly. No steam now; maybe the monster didn’t want to heat up its own flesh. It was already tasting its victory and meal, playing cat and mouse with him, though he’d never seen a were-cat do that. Maybe real cats did play that way.

But Bink was letting his mind run away with his attention again, and he couldn’t afford it. Could he lead the dragon’s head in such a merry chase around its own body that it did tie itself in a knot? He did not think so, but he might have to give it a try anyway. It was better than getting swallowed.

Bink was back at the rock he had stumbled over. Now it was in a different spot; the weight of the dragon must have moved it. There was a deep, dark hole in the ground where it had been.

Bink didn’t like holes in the ground. No telling what might be in there—nickelpedes, stinglice, hoopworms, leper-mud—ugh! But he had no chance if he was caught in the loops of the Gap Dragon. He jumped feetfirst into the hole.

The earth crumbled beneath his weight, and he sank up to his thighs, and stuck.

The dragon, seeing him about to escape down the hole, blasted steam into it. But it was warm mist, little more than breath. This was not, after all, a fire dragon but a false-fire dragon. The mist bathed Bink, soaking him, and it turned the dirt around him to mud. His body began to move again. Down.

The dragon snatched at him, but Bink popped down through the hole with a sucking sound. He dropped to solid rock. His feet stung, but he was unhurt. He ducked his head down and felt about him in the darkness. He was in a cave.

What luck! But he still wasn’t safe. The dragon was clawing at the ground above him, digging out chunks of dirt and rock, steaming the rest into mud. Gooey chunks splatted against the cave floor. The opening was getting wider, letting in more light. Soon it would be big enough for the dragon’s head. Bink’s doom had been put off only for a while.

This was no time for caution. Bink stood up straight and starting walking along the floor of the cave, hands touching each other before him, arms in a circle. If he hit a wall, he would only bruise his forearms. Better a bruise than the crunch of dragon’s teeth.

He did not hit a wall. He struck a mud slick instead. One foot shot out from under him, and he took a belly flop. There was water here—real water, not dragon’s breath—a trickle winding down.

Down? Down where? Surely to an underground river! That could explain the sudden channel. The river could have been tunneling for years, and suddenly the ground above fell in, making the channel. One great sinkhole. Now the river was working again. But he would surely drown if he splashed into it, for there was no way to tell if its flow was slow or if there was air in its tunnel. Even if he swam well, he could be eaten by river monsters.

Bink clawed his way back up the slope. He found a tunnel leading up, and followed it quickly. Soon he saw a shaft of light from above. Safe!

Safe? Not while the dragon was still out there. Bink dared not dig his way out until it left. He would have to wait, hoping the monster didn’t dig this far. He hunkered down, trying not to get any more mud on him.

The sounds of the dragon’s digging slowed, then stopped. There was silence, but Bink wasn’t fooled. Dragons were of the hide-and-pounce kind; at least the land ones were. They could move fast when they tried, but they could not keep it up long. A dragon would never run down a deer, for example, even if the deer lacked magic. But dragons were very good at waiting. Bink would have to stay low until he heard the creature move off.

It was a long wait, made worse by the discomfort of the mud and dark and his being dampened by the dragon’s breath. Plus he could not be sure the dragon was still there. This might all be for nothing, and the dragon could be laughing as it left silently. Dragons could be very quiet when they wanted to be.

No! That was what the monster wanted him to think. He dared not leave—or even move—or the thing would hear him. That was why it was so quiet now; it was listening. Dragons had an acute sense of hearing; maybe that was why they were so successful in the wilderness, and so feared. They had strong survival instincts.

It seemed that Bink’s smell had spread through the area, so it did not give away his hiding place. The dragon was probably not about to wear itself out digging up the whole cave.

Now that Bink was still, he was cold. The channel was sheltered from the sun, and the cool air tended to settle and be trapped. Although it had taken a while for the heat of Bink’s actions to fade, now he was shivering. And his legs and feet hurt and were becoming cramped. To top it off, he felt a tickle in his throat. He was coming down with a cold. His physical discomfort would hardly help him to throw that off, and he obviously could not go to the village doctor for a spell.

He tried to distract himself by thinking of other things, but he did not care to go over the problems of his childhood again, or the frustration of not being able to hold a lovely girl like Sabrina because of his lack of magic. The thought of lovely girls reminded him of Wynne; he would not be human if he didn’t react to her fantastic face and body! But she was so stupid, and anyway he was engaged already, so he had no business thinking of her. His efforts at distraction came to nothing; it was better to suffer in mental silence.

Then he became aware of something else. It had been there for some time, but he had not known of it because of his other problems.

It was something at the edge of his sight. A kind of flickering, which vanished when he looked at it. What was it? Something natural or something magic?

Then he recognized it. A shade! A half-real spirit or ghost doomed to hide in shadow and night until its wrongs were righted. Because shades could not enter light or go into crowded places, they were usually no threat to people. Most were bound to the place of their death. As Roland had told Bink long ago, “If a shade bothers you, walk away from it.” Shades were easy to escape; this was called “pulling the shade.”

Only if a person foolishly slept near a shade was he in trouble. It took a shade about an hour to enter a living body, and a person could move away anytime before that and be free of it. Once Roland, in a fit of unusual anger, had threatened to stun a trespasser and leave him for the nearest shade. The man had quickly left.

Bink was not stunned or asleep. But if he moved, the Gap Dragon would pounce. If he did not move, the shade would enter his body. That could be a fate worse than death!

All because he had tried to rescue a beautiful, stupid girl from a dragon. In stories, a hero is always given a reward. In the real world, the hero is as likely as not to find himself in need of rescue, as now. Well, such was real life in Xanth.

The shade grew bolder, perhaps thinking that Bink was helpless. It did not glow; it was just less dark than the rest of the cave. Bink could see it fairly well now by not looking right at it. What he saw was an unclear, manlike outline, looking very sad.

Bink wanted to leap away, but there was a wall behind him, and anyway he could not afford to take a step. No matter how silently he did it, the dragon would hear. He could walk forward, right through the shade, and all he would feel would be a slight chill. It had happened to him before. But this time the dragon would know it and be on him.

Maybe he could run and get a head start before the dragon woke. The dragon must be sleeping, getting its rest, although its ears would be alert.

The shade touched him, and Bink jerked his arm away. The dragon stirred above. It was there, all right! Bink froze, and the dragon lost him again. The jerking motion must not have been enough to reveal his exact location.

The dragon circled, trying to sniff him out. Its huge nose passed over the top of the hole; steam jetted down. The shade sank back in alarm. Then the dragon settled down, giving up the chase for the moment. It knew its prey would give itself away sooner or later.

The dragon’s tail twitched, and the end of it dropped through the hole and hung almost to the floor. In order to escape, Bink would have to get past it. Now, what were his chances of that?

Suddenly Bink had an idea. The dragon was a living animal. Why shouldn’t the shade take over its body? A shade-controlled dragon would have other things on its mind than eating a hiding person. If Bink could just move over and place the dragon’s tail between him and the shade …

He shifted his balance very slowly, trying to lift one foot to put it in front of the other. Silently. But the moment he lifted his foot, it hurt, and he flinched. The dragon’s tail twitched again, and Bink had to freeze again. This was awkward because his balance in this semi-sitting position was not good, and now both feet and ankles felt as if they were on fire.

The shade started forward again.

Bink tried to ease his foot along to get a more comfortable balance without falling over. Again pain shot through him, and again the dragon’s tail twitched. Once more he froze. And again the shade moved closer. Bink could not go on this way!

The shade touched his shoulder. This time Bink steeled himself not to flinch; he would have lost his balance, and then his life. The touch was cool, although not cold; it made his skin crawl. What was he to do?

He controlled himself, with effort. He had an hour or so before the shade would take over his body, and he could break the spell at any time before it was done. The dragon would gobble him down in seconds. The shade was the better risk; at least it was slow. Maybe in half an hour the dragon would go away.

Right, and maybe the moon would fall out of the sky and squish the dragon under green cheese! Why wish for the impossible? If the dragon did not leave, then what? Bink simply didn’t know.

The shade moved in, cooling Bink’s shoulder, chest, and back. He felt sick. How could he give in to this invasion of the dead? Yet he had to do it, at least for a while, or the dragon would quickly make him into a shade himself. Or would that be better? At least he would die a man.

The cool spirit slowly entered his head. Now Bink was terrified as well as frozen; he could not move his head any farther away. The horror crept through him, and he felt himself sinking, slipping, being blotted up by … And then he was calm.

Peace, the shade said in his mind.

The peace of the pine forest, where the sleepers never woke? Bink could not protest aloud because of the dragon’s ears. But he got ready for a final effort to leap away from this dread. He would crash past the dragon’s tail before the monster could react, and take his chance with the underground river.

No! Friend, I can help you! the shade cried, louder but still silently.

Somehow Bink began to believe. The shade seemed honest. Or maybe it was just because of the other choices: being eaten by the dragon or drowned in the river.

Fair trade! the shade said. Let me control you for one hour! I will save your life and then go, my burden lifted.

It had the ring of truth. Bink faced death anyway; if the shade could somehow save him, it would be worth an hour of control. It was true that shades faded once their burden was lifted.

But not all shades were honest. The criminal ones sometimes were wayward, choosing not to regret their crimes of life. Instead they added to them in death, ruining the reputation of the unlucky person they controlled. After all, the shade had little to lose; he was already dead. Lifting his burden would only send him to his place in the afterlife. Small wonder some chose never to die completely.

My wife, my child! the shade begged. They go hungry, they are sad, not knowing what happened to me. I must tell them where the silver tree grows—the tree I died to find.

The silver tree! Bink had heard of it. A tree with leaves of pure silver, very valuable—for silver was a magic metal. It resisted evil magic, and armor made from it held off magic weapons. And, of course, it could even be used as money.

No, it is for my family! the shade cried. That they may never again live in poverty. Do not take the silver for yourself!

That convinced Bink. A dishonest shade would have promised him everything; this one promised only life, not riches. Agreed, Bink thought, hoping he was not making a mistake.

Wait until the joining is complete, the shade said gratefully. I cannot help you until I become you.

Bink hoped it was not a trap. But what, really, did he have to lose? And what did the shade have to gain by a lie? If it did not save Bink, it would only share being eaten by the dragon. Then they would both be shades, and Bink would be an angry one. He wondered what one shade could do to another. Meanwhile, he waited.

At last it was done. He was Donald, the miner. A man whose talent was flying.

“We go!” Donald cried through Bink’s lips. He put his arms up as if diving, and then rose straight up through the hole in the ceiling of the cave with such power that rock and dirt were flung aside.

The brightness of the day blinded them as they came out. The Gap Dragon took a moment to take in this strange event, and then pounced. But Donald made another effort, and shot up so swiftly that the dragon’s huge teeth snapped on plain air. Donald kicked the monster on the nose, hard. “Ha, gap tooth!” he yelled. “Chew on this!” he said as he connected with the soft part of the dragon’s nose.

The jaws opened, and a cloud of steam shot out. But Donald was already zooming out of reach. The dragon had no chance to catch them.

Up, up, they sailed, out of the channel, above the trees and slopes. It was easy, for this was magic flight. Then they leveled off and headed north across Xanth.

Slowly Bink realized he had a magic talent. Secondhand, certainly, but for the first time in his life he was experiencing what every other citizen of Xanth had. He was doing magic. Now he knew how it felt.

It felt wonderful.

The sun bore down from almost straight overhead, for it was now midday. They were up among the clouds. Bink felt discomfort in his ears, but his other self popped them, making the pain stop. He didn’t know why flying should hurt his ears; maybe it was because there wasn’t enough air to hear up here.

For the first time, too, he saw the upper shape of the clouds. From beneath they were flat, but from above they were charmingly curved. What seemed like tiny puffballs from the ground were big masses of fog. Donald flew through them calmly, but Bink didn’t like not being able to see. He was nervous about banging into something.

“Why so high?” he asked. “I can hardly see the ground.” This was an overstatement; what he meant was that he could not make out the details he was used to seeing. Also, it would have been nice to have people see him flying. He could buzz around the North Village, amazing the scoffers, getting his citizenship. No, that would not be honest. Too bad the most tempting things were not the right things to do.

“I don’t want to advertise,” Donald said. “It could make things hard if people thought I was alive again.”

Oh. Maybe so. There could be renewed hopes, maybe debts to be paid, ones that silver would not pay. The shade’s business had to be kept quiet.

“See that glint?” Donald asked, pointing down between two clouds. “That’s the silver oak tree. It’s so well hidden it can be spotted only from above. But I can tell my boy where to find it. Then I can rest.”

“I wish you could tell me were to find a magic talent,” Bink said.

“You don’t have one? Every citizen of Xanth has magic.”

“That’s why I’m not a citizen,” Bink said glumly. “I’m going to the Good Magician. If he can’t help me, I’ll be cast out.”

“I know the feeling. I spent two years in that cave.”

“What happened to you?”

“I was flying home after finding the silver tree, and a storm came up. I was so excited by the thought of riches that I couldn’t wait to get home. I risked the trip in high winds—and got blown into the Gap. The fall was so great that I landed in the cave, but I was already dead.”

“I didn’t see any bones.”

“You also didn’t see any hole in the ground. The dirt filled in over me, and then my body got washed away by the river.”

“But—”

“Don’t you know anything? It’s the place of death that holds the shade, not the place of the body.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“I hung on, though I knew it was hopeless. Then you came,” Donald paused. “Look, you’ve done me such a favor that I’ll share the silver with you. There’s enough on that tree for both my family and you. Only promise not to tell anyone else where it is.”

Bink was tempted, but a moment’s thought changed his mind. “I need magic, not silver. Without magic, I’ll be sent from Xanth, so I won’t be able to share the silver. With magic I don’t care about wealth. So if you want to share it, share it with the tree—take just a few leaves at a time, and some of the silver acorns that drop, so the tree can go on living in health. In the long run that will be more productive anyway.”

“It was a lucky day for me when you dropped into my cave,” Donald said. He banked into a curve and headed down.

Bink’s ears popped again as they fell. They dropped into a forest clearing and then walked toward a lonely, run-down farm. It took that much movement to stop the cramps in Bink’s legs.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Donald asked.

Bink looked at the rickety wooden fence and the sagging roof of the farmhouse. A few chickens scratched among the weeds. But to a man who had love here, love enough to keep him going two years after death, it must be the fairest of farms. “Um,” Bink said.

“I know it doesn’t look like much, but after that cave it is like heaven,” Donald went on. “My wife and boy have magic, of course, but it isn’t enough. She cures feather fade in chickens, and he makes little dust devils. She brings in barely enough to feed them. But she’s a good wife, and lovely beyond belief.”

Now they entered the yard. A seven-year-old boy looked up from the drawing he was making in the dirt. He reminded Bink of the werewolf boy he had left. Was it only six hours ago? But that feeling stopped when this boy opened his mouth. “Go ’way!” he yelled.

“Better I don’t tell him,” Donald said slowly, a bit taken aback. “Two years—that’s a long time for that age. He doesn’t know me in your body. But see how he’s grown!”

They knocked on the door and a woman answered. She was plain, in an old dress, her hair tied back under a dirty kerchief. In her youth she might have been beautiful; now hard work had made her old before her time.

She hasn’t changed a bit, Donald thought. Then, aloud: “Sally!”

The woman stared at him in an unfriendly way.

“Sally, don’t you know me? I’m back from the dead to wrap up my business!”

“Don!” she cried, her pale eyes lighting at last.

Then Bink’s arms were around her, and his lips kissed her. Bink and Donald both spoke through the same mouth and had the same body. Bink saw Sally through Donald’s love, and she was good and beautiful.

Donald drew back, staring into her fair face as he spoke. “Mark this, darling: four hours’ walk north-northeast of the small millpond, beside a sharp east-west ridge, there is a silver tree. Go gather a few leaves at a time, so as not to hurt it. Sell the metal as far away as you can, or get a friend to do it for you. Tell no one where the silver comes from. Remarry—I want you to be happy, and the boy to have a father.”

“Don,” she repeated, tears in her eyes. “I don’t care about silver now that you’re back!”

“I’m not back! I’m dead, returning only as a shade to tell you of the tree. Take it, use it, or my struggle has been for nothing. Promise!”

“But—” she started, and then she saw the look on his face. “All right, Don, I promise. But I’ll never love any other man.”

“My burden is lifted, my deed is done,” Donald said. “One more time, beloved.” He bent to kiss her again, and then he faded away. Bink found himself kissing another man’s wife.

She knew it and jerked her face away, “Uh, sorry,” Bink said. “I have to go now.”

She stared at him, suddenly hard-eyed. What little joy had been in her was crushed by the going of her husband. “What do we owe you, stranger?”

“Nothing. Donald saved my life by flying us away from the Gap Dragon. The silver is all yours. I will never see you again.”

She softened, seeing that he was not going to take away the silver. “Thank you, stranger.” Then, on impulse: “You could share the silver if you wanted. He told me to remarry—”

Marry her? “I have no magic,” Bink said. “I am to be cast out.” It was the kindest way he could think of to refuse. Not all the silver in Xanth could make this situation attractive to him.

“Will you stay for a meal?”

He was hungry, but not that hungry. “I must be on my way. Do not tell your son about Donald; he felt it could only hurt the boy. Farewell!”

“Farewell,” she said. For a moment he saw a hint of the beauty that Donald had seen in her; then that, too, was lost.

Bink turned and left. On the way out of the farm he saw a dust devil coming toward him. Bink dodged it and hurried away. He was glad he had done this favor for the miner, but he was also relieved it was done. He had not really understood before what poverty and death could mean to a family.

Chapter 4

Illusion

Bink continued his trip, but he was on the wrong side of the Gap. If only Donald’s farm had been to the south!

Strange how everyone here knew about the Gap yet nobody in the North Village did. The centaurs didn’t seem to know about it either, and they were very well informed. It had been there for at least two years, since the shade had been there that long, and probably much longer, since the Gap Dragon must have spent its whole life there.

It must be a spell so that only those people in the area of the Gap were aware of it. Those who left forgot. There had never been a clear path from the north to the south of Xanth.

Well, that was not his problem. He just had to get around it. He was not going to try to cross it again; only luck had saved his skin. Bink knew that luck could not be trusted.

The land here was green and hilly, with head-high candy-stripe ferns growing so thickly that it was hard to see very far ahead. He got lost once, thrown off by a spell. Some trees protected themselves by making travelers turn aside. If they got into a patch of such trees, they could be bounced far off course or even sent in a circle. It could be hard for them to break out of that sort of trap because they thought they were going where they wanted to go.

Another time Bink found a very fine path going right his way. It was so fine that he stayed away from it. There were a number of plants that made it easy to come near, right up until their traps were sprung.

It was three days before Bink got very far, but he was in good shape apart from his head cold. He found a few nosegays that helped clear his nose, and a pillbox bush with headache pills. Spaced out along the way were color-fruit trees bearing greens, yellows, oranges, and blues. He had luck finding a place to stay each night, but he had to spend some hours working for his bread. The people of this area were barely talented; their magic was of the “spot on the wall” type. So they always needed chores done.

At last the land met the sea. Xanth was a peninsula that had never been mapped well, so its real size was unknown. It stretched north-south, connected to Mundania by a narrow bridge of land on the northwest. Probably it had been an island at one time and so had grown its type of life forms free from the influences of the outside world. Now the Shield shut off Xanth again, blocking the land bridge by its curtain of death and wiping out the crews of invading ships. No, Mundania did not intrude anymore.

Bink hoped the sea would let him get around the channel. The Gap Dragon probably could not swim, and the sea monsters would not come close to land. There should be an area where neither dragon nor sea monster went. Maybe a beach he could walk across, jumping into the sea if the Gap Dragon charged, and onto land if magic came from the sea.

There it was: a thread of white sand beach stretching from one side of the Gap to the other. No monsters were in sight. He could not believe his luck—and he acted before it could change.

Bink hit the beach running. For ten steps everything was fine. Then his foot came down on water, and he fell into the sea.

The beach was an illusion. He had fallen for a simple trap. What better way for a sea monster to catch its prey than a vanishing beach?

Bink swam for the real shore, which he now saw was a rocky waste. Not a safe landing at all, but his only choice. He could not go back on the beach; it no longer seemed to be there. Either he had somehow been carried across the water or he had been swimming without knowing it. Either way, it was not magic that he cared to get tangled up in again.

Something cold and flat and powerful looped around one ankle. Bink had lost his staff when the Gap Dragon ran him down, and he had not cut a new one; all he had was his hunting knife. It was a small weapon against a sea monster, but he had to try.

He drew the knife, held his breath, and lashed at the tongue in the area of his ankle. What held him felt like leather; he would have to saw at it. These monsters were tough all over!

Something huge came at him under the water, pulling in the tongue he sawed at. Yard-long teeth flashed as the giant jaws opened.

Bink lost what little nerve he had left. He screamed.

But his head was underwater. The scream was a mistake. Water rushed into his mouth and down his throat.

* * *

Firm hands were pressing Bink’s back, forcing the water out, the air in. Bink choked and hacked. He had been rescued! “I—I’m okay!” he said, gasping.

The hands stopped pressing. Bink sat up and blinked. He was on a small ship. The sails were of brightly colored silk, the deck of polished wood. The mast was gold.

Gold? Gold plate maybe. Solid gold would have been too heavy.

He looked at his rescuer. And he was amazed again. She was a Queen.

At least she looked like a Queen. She wore a crown and a rich robe, and she was beautiful. Not as lovely as Wynne; this woman was older. Her flawless dress and her manner made up for her age. The Queen’s hair was the richest red he had ever seen—and so were her eyes. It was hard to think what a woman like this was doing on a boat in monster-filled water.

“I am the Sorceress Iris,” she said.

“Uh, Bink,” he said. “From the North Village.” He had never met a Sorceress before, and hardly felt dressed for it.

“Lucky I came by,” Iris said. “You might have had problems.”

The understatement of the year! She had given him back his life. “I was drowning. I never saw you. Just a monster,” he said. How could he thank this royal creature?

“You were hardly able to see anything,” she said, standing so that her figure showed well. He had been mistaken; she was not less beautiful than Wynne, just different, and certainly smarter. More like Sabrina.

There were sailors and servants on the ship, but they stayed in the background while Iris worked the sails herself.

The ship moved out to sea. Soon it came upon an island—and what an island it was! Plants grew all over it, flowers of all colors and sizes: polka-dot daisies the size of dishes, delicate orchids, tiger lilies that yawned and purred. Bink could see neat paths leading from the golden dock up to a palace of solid crystal, which shone like a diamond in the sun.

Like a diamond? Bink thought it was a diamond from the way the light shone through its many sides. The largest, most perfect diamond that ever was.

“I guess I owe you my life,” Bink said, unsure what to do next. It seemed silly to offer to chop wood or pitch manure; there was probably nothing so crude as firewood or manure on this fair island!

“I guess you do,” she agreed, speaking in a surprisingly normal way.

“But my life may not be worth much. I don’t have any magic; I am to be cast out of Xanth.”

She steered the ship to the dock and then flung a fine silver chain to its post and tied it tight.

Bink had thought his confession would upset her if she had mistaken him for someone important. But she surprised him when she said: “Bink, I’m glad you said that. It shows you are a fine, honest lad. Most magic talents aren’t worthwhile anyway. What use is it to make a pink spot on a wall? It may be magic, but it doesn’t do anything useful. You, with your strength and brains, have more to offer than many citizens.”

Amazed and pleased by this praise, Bink could make no answer. She was correct about the uselessness of spot-on-the-wall magic; he had often thought the same thing himself about this common insult, which meant that a person had small magic. Still, her remark made him feel at ease.

“Come,” Iris said, taking him by the hand. She led him across the gangplank to the dock, then along the main path to the palace. The smell of flowers was almost overpowering. Roses grew in all colors, sending out their perfumes. Plants with sword-shaped leaves were even more common; their flowers were like simple orchids, also of all colors. “What are those?” he asked.

“Irises, of course,” she said.

He had to laugh. “Of course!” Too bad there was no flower named Bink.

The path passed through a hedge and around a pool and fountain to the front porch of the palace. Not a true diamond after all. “Come into my parlor,” the Sorceress said, smiling.

Bink’s feet balked. He had heard about spiders and flies! Had she saved his life only to—

“Oh, for pity’s sake!” she cried. “Nothing will hurt you!”

It did seem foolish to hesitate. Why should she save him and then betray him? She could have let him choke to death; the meat would have been as fresh. Or she could have tied him up and had the sailors bring him ashore. She had no need to lie to him. He was already in her power—if that was the way it was. Still—

“I see you don’t trust me,” Iris said. “What can I do to convince you?”

This did not help very much. Yet he had better face it—or trust to fate. “You—you are a Sorceress,” he said. “You seem to have everything you need. I—what do you want with me?”

She laughed. “Not to eat you!”

But Bink was unable to laugh. “In some kinds of magic, sometimes people do get eaten.” He had a vision of a huge spider. Once he entered the palace, he could be—

“Very well, sit out here in the garden,” Iris said. “Or wherever you feel safe. If I can’t convince you of my honesty, you can take my boat and go. Fair enough?”

It was too fair; it made him feel like an ungrateful lout. Now Bink saw that the whole island could be a trap. He could not swim to the mainland—not with the sea monsters there—and the ship’s crew might grab him and tie him up if he tried to sail across.

Well, it wouldn’t hurt to listen. “All right.”

“Now, Bink,” she said, “you know that though every citizen of Xanth has magic, that magic is limited. Some people have more magic than others, but their talents are still only one type or another. Even Magicians obey this law of nature.”

“Yes.” She was making sense, but what was the point?

“The King of Xanth is a Magician, but his power is limited to weather. He can brew a dust devil or a hurricane or make a ten-day downpour, but he can’t fly or change wood into silver.”

“Yes,” Bink agreed again. He remembered Donald the Shade’s son, who could make dust devils. The boy had a normal talent; the King had a major one. The difference was in power, not type.

Of course, the King’s talent had faded with age. Maybe all he could make now was a dust devil.

“So if you know a person’s talent, you know his limits,” Iris went on. “If you see a man make a storm, you don’t have to worry about him making a pit under you or changing you into a cockroach. Nobody has many types of talent.”

“Except maybe Magician Humfrey,” Bink said.

“He is a powerful Magician,” she agreed. “But even he is limited. His talent is information. All his so-called hundred spells deal with that. None of them are performance magic.”

Bink did not know enough about Humfrey to argue, but it sounded correct. He was impressed with how the Sorceress kept up with the magic of others of her class. “Yes, talents run in schools,” he said. “But—”

“My talent is illusion,” she said. “This rose—” She picked a red one and held it under his nose. What a sweet smell! “This rose really is—”

The rose faded. In her hand was a blade of grass. It even smelled grassy.

Bink looked around. “All of this is illusion?”

“Most of it. I could show you the whole garden as it is, but it would not be as pretty.” The grass in her hand became an iris flower. “This should convince you. I am a powerful Sorceress. I can make an entire area seem like something it is not, and everything will be correct. My roses smell like roses, my apple pies taste like apple pies. All seems real, but it is illusion. That is, each thing has a base in fact, but my magic strengthens it, changes it. This is my talent. I have no other talent. You can trust me that far.”

Bink was not sure about that last point. A Sorceress of Illusion was the last person to be trusted. Yet he understood her point now. She had shown him her magic, and it was unlikely that she would use any other magic on him. He had never thought of it this way before, but it was true that no one in Xanth mixed types of talents.

Unless she was an ogre, using illusion to change her own looks, too. No. An ogre was a magical creature, and magical creatures did not have magical talents. Probably. So centaurs, dragons, and ogres always seemed like what they were unless some natural person, animal, or plant changed them. He had to believe that! Iris might be working with an ogre, but that was unlikely, for ogres tended to eat whatever they could get hold of. Iris herself would have been eaten by this time.

“Okay, I trust you,” Bink said.

“Good. Come into my palace, and I will tend to all your needs.”

That was unlikely. No one could give him a magic talent of his own. Humfrey might uncover his talent for him, but that would only be showing him what was already there.

Bink allowed himself to be led into the palace. It was lovely inside, too. Rainbow-colored beams of light dropped down from the roof, and the crystal walls were mirrors. These might be illusion, but he saw himself in them and he looked healthier than he felt. More illusion?

Soft pretty pillows were piled in the corners instead of chairs or couches. Suddenly Bink felt very tired; he needed to lie down for a while. But then he remembered the skeleton in the pine forest.

“Let’s get you out of those wet clothes,” Iris said.

“Uh, I’ll dry,” Bink said, not wanting to show his body before a woman.

“Do you think I want my pillows destroyed?” she asked. “You were in salt water; you’ve got to wash the salt off before you start to itch. Go into the bathroom and change; there is a dry outfit there.”

An outfit waiting for him? As though she had known he was coming. What could that mean?

Reluctantly, Bink went. The bathroom was very large. The tub was like a small swimming pool, and the toilet was of the sort the Mundanes were said to use. He watched the water circle around the bowl and run into a pipe below. He was fascinated.

There was also a shower; a spray of water came from a raised nozzle. That was sort of fun, though he was not sure he would want it as a regular thing. There must be a big tank of water upstairs somewhere.

He dried with a plush towel decorated with irises.

The clothing was hung on a rack behind the door: a rich robe, and knickers. Knickers? Ah, well—they were dry, and no one would see him here in the palace. He put on the outfit and then stepped into the sandals awaiting him. He strapped on his hunting knife, hiding it under the robe.

Now he felt better, although his head cold was getting worse. His sore throat had given way to a runny nose; he had thought this was because of the salt water he had taken in, but now he was dry. He didn’t want to sniff, but he had no handkerchief.

“Are you hungry?” Iris asked as he came out. “I will bring you a feast.”

Actually, Bink was hungry, for he had eaten only a little from his pack since starting along the channel. And the food he had found along the way was not much.

He lay half-buried in the pillows, his nose tilted back so that it wouldn’t dribble, mopping it with the corner of the pillow when he had to. He snoozed while she puttered in the kitchen. Now that he knew this was all illusion, he understood why she did so much of the work herself. The sailors and gardeners were all part of the illusion; Iris lived alone. So she had to do her own cooking. Illusion would not keep her from starving.

Why didn’t Iris marry, or trade for help? Much magic was useless, but her magic was special. Anyone could live in a crystal palace if he lived with this Sorceress. Bink was sure many people would like that. And if she was able to make potatoes taste like a feast, and medicine taste like candy—oh yes, it was a useful talent!

Iris returned bearing a steaming platter. She had changed into an apron, and her crown was gone. She looked less royal and a good deal more feminine. She set things up on a low table and they sat on pillows facing each other.

“What would you like?” she asked.

Again, Bink felt nervous. “What are you serving?”

“Whatever you like.”

“I mean—really?”

She pouted. “If you must know, boiled rice. I have a hundred-pound bag of the stuff I have to use up before the rats chew into it. But you can have anything you want—anything at all.”

So it seemed—and Bink thought that she meant more than just food. She must get pretty lonely here on her island. The local farmers probably stayed away from her, and monsters weren’t very social.

“Dragon steak,” he said. “With hot sauce.”

“The man is bold,” she murmured, lifting the silver cover. The rich smell drifted out, and there lay two broiled dragon steaks covered with hot sauce. She served one onto Bink’s plate and the other onto her own.

Bink cut off a piece and put it in his mouth. It was the finest dragon steak he had ever tasted, which was not saying much since he had eaten it only twice before. And the sauce—he had to grab for the wine she had poured for him in order to stop the heat. But it was a delicious burn, changing to flavor.

Still, he doubted. “Uh—would you mind—”

She frowned. “Only for a moment,” she said.

The steak faded into dull boiled rice, then back into dragon meat.

“Thanks,” Bink said. “It’s still a bit hard to believe.”

“More wine?”

“Uh, is it intoxicating?”

“No. You could drink it all day and never feel it, unless your own imagination made you dizzy.”

“Glad to hear it.” He sipped at the glass of sparkling fluid that she refilled. He had gulped the first too fast to taste it. Maybe it was water, but it seemed to be perfect blue wine, the best kind to go with dragon meat. Full bodied and appealing, like the Sorceress herself.

For dessert they had home-baked chocolate-chip cookies, slightly burned. That last touch made it so real that he was hard put to keep up his disbelief. Iris knew something about cooking and baking.

She cleared away the dishes and returned to join him on the pillows. Now she was in a low-cut evening gown, and he saw in more detail how well formed she was. Of course that, too, could be illusion. But if it felt the same as it looked, who would protest?

Then his nose almost dripped onto the inviting gown, and he jerked his head up. He had been looking too closely.

“Are you unhappy?” Iris asked.

“Uh, no. My nose. It—”

“Have a handkerchief,” she said, offering a lovely lace affair.

Bink hated to use such a work of art to honk his nose into, but it was better than using the pillows.

“Uh, is there any work I can do before I go?” he asked uneasily.

“You are thinking too small,” Iris said, leaning forward and breathing deeply. Bink felt the flush rising along his neck. Sabrina seemed very far away, and she would never have dressed like this anyway.

“I told you, I have to go to the Good Magician Humfrey to find my magic, or I will be cast out. I don’t really think I have any magic, so—”

“I could arrange for you to stay,” she said, getting closer.

She was making a play for him. But why would such a smart, talented woman be interested in a nobody like him? Bink mopped his nose again. A nobody with a cold. Her looks might be improved by illusion, but her mind and talent were real. She should have no need of him, or for anything.

“You could do magic that everyone would see,” she went on, nudging against him. She certainly felt real. “I could make an illusion of magic that no one could see through. I can do my magic from a distance, too, so there would be no way to tell I was involved. But that is the least of it. I can bring you wealth and power and comfort—all real. I can give you beauty and love. All that you might want as a citizen of Xanth—”

Bink grew more uneasy. What was she leading up to? “I have a fiancée—”

“Even that,” Iris agreed. “I am not a jealous woman. You could have her as a concubine.”

“As a concubine!” Bink cried.

She was unshaken. “Because you would be married to me.”

Bink stared at her. “Why should you want to marry a man with no magic?”

“So I could be Queen of Xanth,” she said evenly.

“Queen of Xanth! You’d have to marry the King.”

“Exactly.”

“But—”

“One of the odd, out-of-date laws of Xanth is that the ruler must be male. This means some very able magical females have been overlooked. Now the King is old and senile; it is time for a Queen. But first there must be a new King. That King could be you.”

“Me! I don’t know how to rule.”

“You would learn. And you would leave the dull parts for me.”

Now at last it was becoming clear. Iris wanted power. All she needed was a figurehead. One who was talentless and innocent enough to be managed so he would never get ideas of being King. If he helped her, he would be dependent on her. But it was a fair offer. It gave him a choice other than being cast out.

This was the first time he had seen his lack of magic as something that might be good. Iris did not want a talented man; she would have no hold on that kind of person. She needed a magic cripple like him—cripple because without her he would be nothing.

That greatly cut down the romance of it. Reality always did seem to be less pleasant than illusion. Yet his only other choice was to go back into the wilderness on a trip that he thought was hopeless. His luck was already stretched; his chances of making it even as far as the castle of the Magician Humfrey were not good. He would be a fool not to accept the offer of the Sorceress.

Iris was watching him closely. As he looked at her, her gown flickered until he could see through it. Illusion or not, it was a breathtaking sight. And what difference did it make if it only seemed real? He had no doubt now of what she was offering. She would be glad to show how good she could make it, as she had with the meal. Because she needed his willing help.

It all made sense. He could have citizenship and Sabrina since clearly the Sorceress Queen would never let his lack of magic be known.

Sabrina. How would she feel about it?

He knew. She would not buy it. Not for anything, not for an instant. Sabrina was very proper about some things.

“No,” he said.

Iris’s gown snapped back to solid. “No?” Suddenly she sounded like Wynne when he told that girl she could not go with him.

“I don’t want to be King.”

Now Iris’s voice was controlled, soft. “You don’t think I can do it?”

“I rather think you can. But it’s not my sort of thing.”

“What is your sort of thing, Bink?”

“I just want to be on my way.”

“You want to be on your way,” she repeated with great control. “Why?”

“My fiancée wouldn’t like it if I—”

“She wouldn’t like it!” Iris was working up a head of steam like the Gap Dragon. “What does she offer you that I can’t do better?”

“Well, self-respect, for one thing,” Bink said. “She wants me for myself, not to use me.”

“Nonsense. All women are the same inside. They are different only in looks and talent. They all use men.”

“Maybe so. I’m sure you know more about that sort of thing than I do. But I have to be going now.”

Iris reached out a soft hand to stop him. Her gown vanished totally. “Why not stay the night? See what I can do for you? If you still want to go in the morning—”

Bink shook his head. “I’m sure you could convince me overnight. So I have to go now.”

“Such honesty!” she cried. “I could give you an experience like none you have imagined!”

She was already making his imagination work far more than was comfortable. But he steeled himself. “You could never give me back my self-respect.”

“You idiot!” she screamed with a startling change of temper. “I should have left you to the sea monsters.”

“They were illusions, too,” he said. “You set up the whole thing. The illusion beach, the illusion monsters, all. That was your leather strap that wrapped around my ankle. I never was in danger.”

“You are in danger now,” she gritted. Her lovely bare body became covered by the military dress of an Amazon.

Bink shrugged and stood up. He blew his nose. “Good-bye, Sorceress.”

She studied him. “I made a mistake about you, Bink. I’m sure I can improve my offer if you will only let me know what you want.”

“I want to see the Good Magician.”

Now her rage burst out again. “I’ll destroy you!”

Bink walked away from her.

The crystal roof of the palace cracked. Pieces of glass broke off and dropped toward him. Bink ignored them, knowing they were not real. He kept walking. He was very nervous, but he was determined not to show it.

There was a loud crunching sound, as of stone falling. He forced himself not to look up.

The walls shattered and fell. The rest of the roof tumbled down. The noise was deafening. Bink was buried in rubble, but he pushed on through it, feeling nothing. Despite the smell of dust and plaster, and the rumble of shifting stone, the palace was not really falling. Iris was a marvelous mistress of illusion, though! Sight, sound, smell, taste—everything but touch. Because there had to be something to touch before she could make it feel like something else. Thus, there was nothing solid about this cave-in.

He banged face-first into a wall. Jarred, he rubbed his cheek and squinted. It was a wooden panel with flaking paint. The real wall of the real house. The illusion had hidden it, but the illusion was breaking down. Now he could find his way out.

Bink felt his way along the wall, hoping Iris did not change the feel of the wall so that he would be fooled by it and led astray. Suppose it became a row of mousetraps or thistles, forcing his hand away?

He found the door and pulled it open. He had made it! He turned, and for a moment he looked back. There was Iris, standing in the splendor of her female fury. She was a middle-aged woman running slightly to fat, wearing a worn housecoat and a sloppy hairnet. She had the physical features she had shown him in her peek-a-boo outfit, but they were much less seductive at age forty than at the illusion age of twenty.

He stepped outside. Lightning flared and thunder cracked, making him jump. But he reminded himself that Iris was a mistress of illusion, not weather, and he walked out into it.

Rain pelted him, and hailstones. He felt the cold splats of water on his skin, and the stones stung. But they were not real and he was dry and unhurt. Iris’s magic was strong, but there were limits to illusion. In reality she was probably throwing pebbles at him.

Suddenly there was the bellow of a dragon. Bink jumped again. A fire-belching winged beast was flying down at him. It was not a steamer like the Gap Dragon but a real flamer. Was it real or illusion? He could not take a chance! He dived for cover.

The dragon swooped low, passing over him. He felt the wash of the air from its motion, the blast of heat. He still didn’t know for sure whether it was real or illusion, but he might be able to tell from its actions. Real fire belchers were stupid because the heat cooked their brains. If this one reacted with intelligence—

It looped about, coming at him for a second run. Bink made a move to the right, then scooted left. The dragon was not fooled; it zeroed right in on him. That was the brain of the Sorceress.

Bink’s heart was thudding, but he forced himself to stand still and face the monster as it came. The dragon opened its jaws, blowing out a cloud of fire and smoke that covered Bink, burning the hair of his body but leaving him untouched.

He had gambled and won. He had been almost certain of the illusion, but his body still trembled. Only his brain had helped him, keeping him from giving in to the will of the Sorceress or being herded into some real danger. Illusions could kill if you believed them.

Bink moved out again. If there were a real dragon in the area, there would have been no need for the fake one; therefore, all dragons here were fake.

He stumbled. Illusion could hurt him in another way—by covering up breaks in the ground, forcing him to fall or drop into a well. He would have to watch his step.

As he watched the area near his feet, he was able to see better through the illusion. Iris’s talent was great, but in covering the whole island it was thinly spread. Behind the image of the flower gardens was a weedy wilderness. The palace was a rickety shack. Why build a good house when illusion could do it so much easier?

His borrowed clothing, too, had changed. Now he wore a shawl and—he saw with shock—panties. Lacy silk panties. His fancy handkerchief was what it appeared to be. It seemed the Sorceress did use some real things, and lace hankies were what she could afford. And lace panties.

He hesitated. Should he go back for his own clothes? He didn’t want to meet Iris again, but to travel in the wilderness or meet people in this outfit …

He had a vision of walking up to the Good Magician Humfrey to ask for information.

BINK: Sir, I have come across Xanth at great risk to ask—

HUMFREY: For a new dress? A bra? Ho, ho, ho!

Bink sighed, feeling his face reddening again. He turned back. Iris spotted him as soon as he reentered the shack. A flicker of hope lighted her face. That honest expression had more force than all her illusion. Human values moved Bink. He felt like a heel.

“You changed you mind?” she asked. Suddenly her youth was back and part of the glittering palace.

That dashed it. She was a creature of illusion, and he preferred reality—even the reality of a shack among the weeds. Most of the farmers of Xanth had nothing better, after all. When illusion became a crutch to life, that life lost value. “Just want my own clothes,” Bink said. Though his decision was firm, he still felt like a heel.

He went into the bathroom, which he now saw was an attached outhouse. The wonderful toilet was just the usual board with a hole in it, and flies buzzed below it. The bathtub was a horse-watering tank. How had he taken a shower? He saw a bucket; had he dumped water on his own head, not knowing it? His clothing and pack were in a pile on the floor.

He started to change, but he found that the room was only an opening in the back wall of the shack. Iris stood watching him. Had she watched him change before? If so, he had to take it as a compliment. Suddenly her offer had become much more direct and physical.

His eyes fell on the bucket again. Someone had dumped water on him, and he was sure now that he had not done it himself. The only other person who could have done it—ouch!

But he was not about to show himself so freely to her again, though it was clear that he had no secrets left. He picked up his things and headed for the door.

“Bink—”

He paused. The rest of the house was dull wood with flaking paint, straw on the floor, and light showing through the cracks. But the Sorceress herself was lovely. She wore very little, and she looked eighteen.

“What do you want in a woman?” she asked him. “A full figure?” She suddenly had an hourglass figure. “Youth?” Suddenly she looked fourteen, very slender, and innocent. “Maturity?” She was herself again, but better dressed. “Ability?” Now she was about twenty-five, very shapely but very able-looking. “Violence?” The Amazon again, sturdy but still lovely.

“I don’t know,” Bink said. “I’d really hate to choose. Sometimes I want one thing, sometimes another.”

“It can all be yours,” she said. The fourteen-year-old appeared again. “No other woman can make this promise.”

Bink was suddenly, forcefully tempted. There were times when he wanted this, though he had never dared admit it openly. The Sorceress’s magic was strong indeed—the strongest he had ever known. It was illusion. Yet in Xanth, illusion was common and accepted. In fact, illusion was part of Xanth reality, an important part. Iris really could bring him wealth and power and citizenship, and she could be, for him, any kind of woman he wanted. Or all kinds.

Further, through her illusion she could in time make it all real. She could build a real crystal palace with the powers of the Queenship. In that light, it was reality she offered, with her magic a means to that end.

But what was in her mind? Her inner thoughts might not be sweet at all. He could never be sure he understood her, and so he could never trust her. He was not at all sure she would make a good Queen; she was too interested in power instead of the good of the land of Xanth.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and turned away.

She let him go. No more palace, no more storm. She had accepted his decision. And that tempted him again. He could not call her evil; she was a woman with a need, and she offered a deal. And she was mature enough to give in once her temper cooled. But he forced himself to keep going, trusting his logic more than his feelings.

He picked his way down to the sagging dock, where the rowboat was tied. The boat did not look very solid, but it had brought him here, so it could take him away.

He got in—and stepped into water. The boat leaked. He grabbed a rusty pail and bailed it out, then sat down and took the oars.

Iris must have had a hard job rowing this boat while seeming to be an idle Queen. She had a lot of plain old-fashioned talent to go with her magic. She probably could make a good ruler of Xanth if she ever found a man who would go along with her.

Why hadn’t he helped her? As he rowed, he thought it over carefully, looking back at the island of illusion. His first reasons were enough for the moment but not for a lasting decision. He must have some underlying reason to which he was true. It could not just be his memory of Sabrina, for Iris was as much of a woman as Sabrina, and much more magical. There had to be something else. Ah, he had it! It was his love of Xanth.

He could not allow himself to be used for something that could hurt his homeland. Though the present King was weak and there were problems, still Bink was loyal. The days of might making right were over; there were set ways for the transfer of power, and these had to be followed. Bink would do anything to stay in Xanth—anything but betray it.

The ocean was calm. The rocks of the shore had also been illusion; there was, after all, a small beach, but it was not where it had seemed to be. A long, narrow dock stuck out from the side of the Gap; that was what he had run along. Until he had simply run off the end, splashing into deep water.

He landed his boat on the south shore. But how was he to return the boat to the Sorceress?

There was no way. If she didn’t have another boat, she would have to swim for it. He was not going back to that island again.

He changed into his own clothes, salty though they might be. Then he shrugged into his knapsack and turned his face to the west.

Chapter 5

Spring

The land south of the Gap was rougher than that to the north. It was mountainous. The narrow passes were choked with growth, forcing Bink to change course again and again. Nettles and itch bushes would have been bad enough, but there was no telling what magic these strange plants had. He could not risk it.

So when the jungle blocked him, Bink tried again farther along. He stayed away from the clearest paths; they could not be trusted. So he tramped between jungle and field, often the roughest ground of all. One cleared area turned out to be the landing strip for a very large flying dragon; no wonder there were no other dangers in that area.

Bink was traveling so slowly that he knew it would take him many days to reach the Good Magician’s castle. The first night he made a hollow in the ground and piled stones for a wind shield. He used dead brush for a blanket, and slept uncomfortably. He wondered now why he hadn’t at least stayed the night with the Sorceress; it would have been more comfortable.

No, he might never have left the island after that night. And if he had, Sabrina would never have forgiven him. The fact that it tempted him meant that it was not a night he could afford.

He reminded himself of that several times before he shivered himself to sleep. Then he dreamed of a crystal palace, woke up, and had to shiver his way to sleep again. Turning down temptation wasn’t much satisfaction when one was alone on the open trail.

On the third morning he hiked along a ridge. He had cut himself a new staff after several tries; the first trees he went for magicked him off. He was sure that there were many trees he had never seen at all because of their “do not see me” spells. One used a spell against cutting things; every time he slashed at the tree, his knife moved away.

About an hour along the way with his new staff, he was still thinking about magic. How many times did people come by here with knives? Then he thought that he might make good use of the “do not see me” spell. If he could cut a staff from such a tree, would it stop all attacks against him? Clearly this magic was used against dragons and such, and he would feel safer with an anti-dragon staff. No—cutting the tree would kill it, and its magic would stop. But maybe a seed from it …

No sense going back; he should be able to find another tree. All he had to do was try to cut a staff and see which tree stopped his knife. He might be able to dig up a small tree and keep it alive.

He moved down the side of the ridge, testing trees. This was more dangerous than he had thought; the knife so close to the trees brought out the worst in them. One dropped hard fruit on him; another blew out sleep perfume that almost stopped his trip right there. But he encountered no anti-metal spells.

One large tree had a dryad, a wood nymph, who looked very pretty but cursed Bink in most unladylike language. “If you want to carve helpless things, go carve your own kind!” she screamed. “Go carve the wounded soldier in the ditch, you son of a—” She stopped; dryads were not supposed to know such language.

Wounded soldier? Bink found the ditch. Sure enough, there lay a man in military clothes, blood on his back, groaning.

“Peace,” Bink said. “I will help you if you will let me.” Xanth had once needed an army, but now the soldiers were messengers for the King. Still, their outfits and pride remained.

“Help me!” the man cried weakly. “I will reward you somehow.”

Now Bink felt it safe to get closer. The soldier was badly wounded and had lost much blood. He was burning with fever. “I can’t do anything for you. I’m no doctor, and if I move you, you may die. I will return with medicine,” Bink said. “I must borrow your sword.”

“Return soon or not at all,” the man said. He gasped as he raised the hilt.

Bink took the heavy weapon and climbed out of the ditch. Then he went to the tree of the dryad. “I need magic,” he told her. “To heal wounds, stop a fever. Tell me where I can get them, or I will chop your tree down.”

“You wouldn’t!” she cried.

Bink lifted the sword. He thought of Jama with his magic swords; the picture made him sick.

“I’ll tell! I’ll tell!” she screamed.

“Okay. Tell.” He was glad she offered; he did not think he could really chop down her tree. Dryads were harmless. There was no point in harming them or their tree homes.

“An hour’s walk to the west. The Spring of Life. Its water will heal anything.”

Bink hesitated. “There is something you’re not telling me,” he said, lifting the sword again. “What’s the catch?”

“I may not tell it,” she cried. “Anyone who tells, there is the curse.”

Bink made as if to chop at the tree. The Dryad screamed with such suffering that he stopped. He had tried to protect Justin Tree; he could not hurt this one. “All right. I’ll risk the curse,” he said.

He found a path leading his way. It was an animal run, so he felt safe in using it. It seemed that others also knew the way to the Spring. Yet as he got nearer, he became more nervous. What was the curse? He really should know before he gave the water to the soldier.

Xanth was the land of magic, but magic had its rules. It was dangerous to play with magic unless the spell was understood. If this water really could heal the soldier, it was a strongly enchanted Spring. For that sort of help, there had to be a price.

He found the Spring. It was under a giant spreading acorn tree. The tree’s health was a good sign; the water could not be poison. But there could be some other danger. What if a river monster was hiding in the water? Hurt or sick creatures would be easy to catch. The magic would bring them from many miles around.

Bink didn’t have time to think about this. He had to help the soldier now or it would be too late.

He moved carefully to the Spring. It looked cool and clear. He dipped his canteen into it, keeping his other hand on the sword. But nothing happened.

Looking at the filled canteen, he had another thought. The water might not be poison, but that did not mean it would heal. What use to take it to the soldier if it wouldn’t do the job?

One way to find out. He was thirsty anyway. Bink put the canteen to his mouth and sipped.

The water was cool and good. He drank more deeply. It wasn’t poison.

He dipped the canteen again and watched the bubbles rise. They twisted the view of his left hand under the water, making it seem as though he had all his fingers when in fact one of them was missing from a childhood wound.

He lifted the canteen and almost dropped it. His finger was whole! The childhood wound had been healed.

He bent his new finger, and pinched it and it hurt. No question that his finger was real.

The Spring really was magic! If it could heal such an old wound so cleanly and painlessly, it could heal anything!

How about a head cold? Bink sniffed, and found that his nose was clear. The water had cured his sniffles.

No question about it: this was strong magic. If this Spring were a person, it would be a Magician.

But he still did not know the Spring’s secret. Clearly it was not its healing. The dryad had told him that, and he could tell it to others. The curse could not be a river monster, for none had struck.

But this did not mean there was no danger. It meant only that the danger was hidden. A hidden danger was the worst of all.

The soldier was dying. Moments were priceless, yet Bink stayed. He had to figure this out or he would put both the soldier and himself in greater danger. It was said that a person should not look a gift unicorn in the mouth, but Bink always looked.

He kneeled before the Spring. “O Spring of Life,” he murmured, “I seek nothing for myself, though I have been helped. I ask you to show how you work.” He just couldn’t accept such a wonderful gift without trying to learn the payment.

Something swirled deep in the Spring. Bink felt the magic of it. Oh, yes—this Spring had its own awareness and pride! Its awareness rose up to cover him, bringing understanding. Who drinks of me and acts against my interest will lose all that I bring him.

Uh-oh. This was a self-protection spell. But who decided what was against the interests of the Spring? Who but the Spring itself? There would clearly be no lumbering in this area, for cutting trees could hurt the environment. No mining, for that could pollute the Spring. Even the rule against talking about the spell made sense, for people with small hurts might not use the water if they knew the price. But any action had widening results, like the ripples of a stone dropped in a pool. In time such ripples could cover the whole ocean. Or the whole of Xanth, in this case.

Suppose the Spring decided that it was threatened by some action of the King of Xanth, such as a tax on lumber that caused lumbermen to cut more wood in order to pay it? Would the Spring force all its users to fight the King? A person who owed his life to the Spring might very well do it.

This Spring could change the society of Xanth and even become its hidden ruler. But the interests of one Spring were not the interests of all Springs. Probably the magic of the Spring could not reach that far, for it would have to be as strong as everything else in Xanth. But given time, it would have its effect.

“I can’t accept your terms,” Bink said. “I can’t act only in your interest. The interest of the whole of Xanth is more important. Take back your healing; I go my own way.”

Now there was anger in the Spring. The deep parts of it boiled. The field of magic rose up again. He would suffer for his boldness.

But it faded, leaving him whole. His finger stayed healed, and his cold was still cured. He had called the Spring’s bluff and won.

Or had he? Maybe his healing would not be taken away until he really acted against the interest of the Spring. Well, he could stand the loss. He would not let fear keep him from doing what he felt was right.

Bink stood, keeping the sword in his hand as he slung the strap of the canteen over his shoulder. He turned.

A chimera was crawling toward him.

Bink whipped his sword around. Chimeras were dangerous!

But then he saw that the creature was in trouble. The tongue was hanging out of its lion head; the serpent tail was dragging on the ground, and the goat body was scraping along. The creature crawled along on its stomach toward the Spring, trailing blood.

Bink let it pass. He had never seen a living creature suffering like this. Except the soldier.

The chimera reached the water and dropped its lion head into it.

The change was instant. The goat head snapped up and awake, turning on its neck in the middle of the back to glare at Bink. The snake head hissed.

The chimera was healthy again. But now it was dangerous, for this kind of monster hated all humans. It took a step toward Bink, who held his sword before him with both hands. If he wounded the chimera, he might get away before it dragged itself back to the Spring.

But suddenly the thing turned away without attacking. Bink sighed with relief; the last thing he wanted to do was to fight such a monster.

There must be a truce in this area. It was against the interest of the Spring to have hunting or fighting happen here. Lucky for him!

He scrambled up the slope and headed east. He hoped the soldier still lived.

The soldier was alive. He was tough; he would not gasp out his last until nature ripped it from him. Bink dribbled some magic water into his mouth, then poured some over the wound. Suddenly the man was well.

“What did you do?” he cried. “It is as if I never got stabbed in the back!”

“I got water from a magic Spring,” Bink said as they walked up the hill together. He stopped at the dryad’s tree. “This nymph kindly told me about it.”

“Why, thank you, Nymph,” the soldier said. “Any favor I can do in return—”

“Just move on,” she said, watching the sword in Bink’s hands.

They moved on. “You can’t act against the interest of the Spring,” Bink said. “Or tell anyone about the price you paid for its help. If you do, you’ll be right back where you started. I figured it was worth it, for you.”

“I’ll say! I was watching a plot of the King’s eyeball ferns when somebody— Hey, one drink of this water and the King’s eyes would be well, wouldn’t they? I should take—” He broke off.

“I can show you where the Spring is,” Bink said. “Anybody can use it, as far as I know.”

“No, it’s not that. I just suddenly got the feeling— I don’t think the King should have this water.”

This made Bink wonder. Did it mean he was right that the Spring had a wide influence? Better health of the King might not be in the interest of the Spring, so—

But if the King was healed by Spring water, then the King himself would serve the Spring. Why should the Spring not want that?

Also, why had Bink not lost his finger or had his cold return when he told the secret to the soldier? Was the curse a bluff?

The soldier held out his hand. “I’m Crombie. Corporal Crombie. You saved my life. How can I repay you?”

“Oh, I just did what was right,” Bink said. “I couldn’t let you die. I’m on my way to the Magician Humfrey to see if I have any magic talent.”

Crombie put his hand to his beard, thinking. He was rather handsome like that. “I can tell you the way.” He closed his eyes, put out his right hand, and slowly turned. When his pointing finger stopped moving, he opened his eyes.

“The Magician’s castle is that way. That’s my talent—direction. I can tell you where anything is.”

“I already know the way,” Bink said. “My problem is getting through this jungle. There’s so much magic—”

“You said it!” Crombie agreed. “The bandits must’ve magicked me here, thinking I’d never get out alive. My shade couldn’t get revenge in the deep jungle.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Bink said, thinking of Donald the Shade.

“But now I’ve recovered, thanks to you. Tell you what: I’ll be your bodyguard until you reach the Magician. Is that a fair return?”

“You really don’t need to—”

“Oh, but I do! Soldier’s honor. You did me a good turn; I’ll do you a good turn. I can help a lot. I’ll show you.” He closed his eyes again, held out his hand, and turned. When he stopped, he said: “That’s the direction of the greatest threat to you. Want to test it?”

“No,” Bink said.

“Well, I do. Danger never goes away by itself. You have to go out and overcome it. Give me back my sword.”

Bink gave it back, and Crombie went in the direction he had pointed: north.

Bink followed. He did not want to look for danger, but he knew it was not right to let the soldier walk into it for him. Maybe it was something like the Gap Dragon. But the dragon was no threat as long as Bink stayed out of the Gap. He meant to stay out.

When Crombie found himself stopped by thick brush, he simply slashed it away with his sword. Bink noticed that some of the plants gave way before the blade struck; if making a path was the best way to survive, these plants did it. But what if the soldier hacked into a tangle tree? That could be the danger he had “pointed” out.

No—a tangler did not move from the place it had rooted. Since Bink had been going west, not north, no plant was much of a threat to him unless it was to the west.

There was a scream. Bink jumped, and Crombie held his sword at the ready. But it was only a woman.

“Speak, girl!” Crombie roared, waving his wicked blade. “What do you plan?”

“Don’t hurt me!” she cried. “I am only Dee, lost and alone. I thought you came to help me.”

“You lie!” Crombie cried. “You mean harm to this man, my friend who saved my life. Confess!” And he lifted his sword again.

“For God’s sake, let her be!” Bink yelled. “You made a mistake. She’s obviously harmless.”

“My talent’s never been wrong before,” Crombie said. “This is where it pointed to your greatest threat.”

“Maybe the threat is behind her,” Bink said. “She was only between it and us.”

Crombie paused. “Could be. I never thought of that.” He was clearly a good man beneath the violence. “Wait, I’ll find out.”

The soldier moved to the east of the girl. He shut his eyes and turned. His finger came to rest pointing at Dee.

The girl burst into tears. “I mean you no harm, I swear it. Don’t hurt me!”

She was a plain girl, no beauty. Yet there was something familiar about her.

“Maybe it’s not a physical danger,” Bink said. “Can your talent tell the difference?”

“No, it can’t,” Crombie admitted. “It can be any kind of threat, and she may not mean you harm, but sure as hell there’s something.”

Bink studied the girl, whose sniffles were drying up. Where had he seen her before? She was not from the North Village. Somewhere on his trip?

Slowly the idea came to him: a Sorceress of Illusion did not have to make herself beautiful. If she wanted to keep track of him, she could use a different appearance. Yet it would be easiest if it matched her natural shape. Take off a few pounds, change the voice, and this could be Iris. If he fell for the trick, he could be in danger of being led astray.

But how could he be sure? Even if Dee was some threat to him, he had to be sure he had spotted the right danger. A man who stepped around a poison mouse could be overlooking the harpy on the other side.

An idea came to him. “Dee, you must be thirsty,” he said. “Have a drink of water.” He held out his canteen.

“Oh, thank you!” she said, taking it gladly.

The water cured all ills. An enchantment was an ill, wasn’t it? So if she drank, it might show her, at least for a moment, in her true form. Then he would know.

Dee drank deeply.

There was no change.

“Oh, this is very good,” she said. “I feel so much better.”

The two men looked at each other. Either Dee was not Iris or the Sorceress had very good control.

“Now be on your way, girl,” Crombie said curtly.

“I am going to see the Magician Humfrey,” she said. “I need a spell to make me well.”

Again Bink and Crombie looked at each other. Dee had drunk the magic water; she was well. So she had no need to see the Good Magician. She had to be lying. What was she hiding from them?

She must have chosen this goal because she knew that Bink was going there. Yet this was still only a guess. It could be coincidence.

Crombie made a decision. “If you let her go with you, then I’m coming, too. With my hand on my sword. Watching her all the time.”

“Maybe that’s best,” Bink agreed slowly.

“I do not hate you,” Dee cried. “I would do nothing to hurt you. Why don’t you believe me?”

Bink found it too hard to explain. “You can travel with us if you want to,” he said.

Dee smiled, but Crombie shook his head and fingered the hilt of his sword.

Crombie was still suspicious, but Bink soon found that he enjoyed Dee’s company. She was such an average girl that he could understand her. She seemed to have no magic. Maybe she was going to the Magician in hope of finding her talent; maybe that was what she had meant by needing a spell to make her well. Who was in good shape in Xanth without magic?

However, if she was the Sorceress Iris, her trick would be found by the Magician. So the truth would be known.

They stopped at the Spring of Life to refill their canteens and then traveled half a day. They were caught by a technicolor hailstorm, but it was magic, of course. The colors gave it away. Which meant there would not be any great melting or runoff. All they had to do was take shelter from it.

But they were on a bare ridge; there were no trees for miles around, no caves, no houses. The land went up and down and was covered with large stones, but there was nothing to shield them from the storm.

Pelted by hailstones, the three ran in the direction that Crombie’s magic pointed—the way to safe shelter. It came into view behind a boulder: a large spreading tree.

“That’s a tangler!” Bink cried in horror. “We can’t go there!”

Crombie stopped short, peering through the hail. “So it is. My talent never pointed wrong before.”

Now Bink wondered just how much the soldier’s magic could be trusted. For one thing, why hadn’t it pointed out the danger before he got stabbed in the back? But Bink did not say that out loud. Magic could be uncertain, and he was sure that Crombie meant well.

“There’s a hephalumph in there!” Dee cried. “Half-eaten.”

Sure enough, the huge body lay near the opening in the tree trunk. Its rear was gone, but the front was untouched. The tree had caught it and eaten as much as it could. But a hephalumph was so big that even a tangle tree could not finish it off in one meal.

“So it’s safe after all,” Bink said, flinching as an egg-sized red hailstone just missed his head. “It will be hours before the tree recovers enough to become nasty. And even then it’ll start eating the lumph first.”

Still Crombie balked. “Could be an illusion,” he warned. “A trap to make us think the tree’s tamed. How do you think it got the hephalumph in there?”

Good point. Hailstorms to drive prey to cover, and seemingly good cover awaiting. That was a beautiful plan. “But we’ll be knocked silly by hail if we don’t get to cover soon,” Bink said.

“I’ll go first,” Dee said. Before Bink could protest, she ran closer to the tree.

The branches shook, moving toward her, but they seemed to lack the energy to make a real effort. She ran up and kicked the hephalumph. It seemed solid. “No illusion,” she cried. “Come on in.”

“Unless she’s a shill,” Crombie muttered. “I tell you, she’s a threat to you, Bink. If she shilled for the tangler, she could trick dozens of people into the tree’s trap.”

The man was paranoid, thought Bink. Maybe this was another useful thing for soldiers, though it hadn’t seemed to have kept Crombie out of trouble before. “I don’t believe it,” Bink said. “But I do believe this hailstorm! I’m going in.”

He nervously passed the tree’s outer tentacles, but they stayed quiet. A hungry tangler normally grabbed the moment it could.

Finally Crombie followed. The tree shuddered slightly, as if angry that it was unable to catch them, and that was all. “Well, my talent usually tells the truth,” he said weakly.

It was actually very nice here. The hailstones bounced off the tree’s upper branches and piled up in a circle around it. This type of tree tended to sit in hollows. The trees’ tentacles cleaned brush and rocks out of the way in order to be surrounded by a good-looking lawn. The brush and rocks were tossed beyond in a great circle, so that over the years the land rose around the hollow. The tangle was a highly successful type of tree. They had been cleared out near the North Village, but all the village children were taught about them and their dangers.

Within the shielded area there was a fine green space rising in soft mounds. Sweet perfume drifted through, and the air was pleasantly warm. It seemed like a perfect place to seek shelter, which was the tree’s plan. It had fooled the hephalumph. Clearly this was a good location for this tree, for the tangler had grown to a very large size.

Bink wondered about the soldier’s honesty, and his magic. Had it broken down in Dee’s case, or was she really a bad threat? If so, what kind? He could not believe that she meant him harm. He had thought she might be Iris the Sorceress, but now he didn’t believe that.

“Why didn’t your magic warn you of the stab in the back?” Bink asked the soldier, trying again to understand what was to be trusted and what was not.

“I didn’t ask it,” Crombie said. “I was a damned fool. But once I see you safely to your Magician, I’ll sure as hell ask it who stabbed me, and then …” He fingered the blade of his sword meaningfully.

A fair answer. The talent was not a warning signal; it worked only on demand. Evidently Crombie had had no reason to suspect danger.

The storm went on. None of them was willing to sleep because they did not trust the tree, so they sat and talked. Crombie told a story of battle in the days of Xanth’s Fourth Wave. Bink found himself caught up in it, and he almost wished he had lived in those times, when men of no magic were treated as men.

By the end of the story, the storm had slowed down, but the hail was piled so high that it didn’t seem wise to go out. Usually the melt off from a magic storm was fast once the sun came out, so it seemed worth waiting for.

“Where do you live?” Bink asked Dee.

“Oh, I’m just a country girl, you know,” she said. “No one else was going to travel through the wilderness.”

“That’s no answer,” Crombie snapped.

She shrugged. “It’s the only answer I have. I can’t change what I am, much as I might like to.”

“It’s the same answer I have,” Bink said. “I’m just a villager, nothing special. I hope the Magician will be able to make me into something special by finding out that I have a good magic talent. I’m willing to work for him for a year for that.”

“Yes!” she said, smiling at him. Suddenly Bink felt himself liking her even more. She was ordinary, like he was. She was determined, as he was. They had some things in common.

“You’re going for magic so your girl back home will marry you?” Crombie asked.

“Yes,” Bink agreed, remembering Sabrina with sudden longing. Dee turned away. “And so I can stay in Xanth.”

“You’re a fool,” the soldier said kindly.

“Well, it’s the only chance I have,” Bink said. “Anything is worth a try when my choice is—”

“I don’t mean the magic. That’s useful. And staying in Xanth makes sense. I mean marriage.”

“Marriage?”

“Women are the curse of mankind,” Crombie said hotly. “They trap men into marriage, and they torment them the rest of their lives.”

“Now, that’s unfair,” Dee said. “Didn’t you have a mother?”

“She drove my father to drink and loco-berries,” Crombie said. “Made his life hell on Earth, and mine, too. She could read our minds. That was her talent.”

A woman who could read men’s minds? Hell indeed for a man! If any woman had been able to read Bink’s mind—ugh!

“Must have been hell for her, too,” Dee remarked.

Bink hid a smile, but Crombie frowned. “I ran off and joined the army two years before I was of age. Never regretted it.”

Dee frowned. “You don’t sound like God’s gift to women, either. We can all be thankful that you never touched any.”

“Oh, I touch them,” Crombie said with a harsh laugh. “I just don’t marry them. Not one of them’s going to get her hooks into me!”

“You’re disgusting,” she snapped.

“I’m smart. And if Bink’s smart, he’ll not let you start tempting him.”

“I wasn’t!” she cried angrily.

Crombie turned away. “Ah, you’re all the same. Why do I waste time talking with the likes of you? Might as well argue with the devil.”

“Well, if you feel that way, I’ll go!” Dee said. She jumped to her feet.

Bink thought she was bluffing, for the storm was still in force. Colored hailstones were mounded up two feet high, and the sun was not yet out.

But Dee dived into it.

“Hey, wait!” Bink cried. He ran after her.

Dee had vanished, hidden by the storm. “Let her go,” Crombie said. “She had plans for you; I know how they work. I knew she was trouble from the start.”

Bink put his arms up over this head and face against the hail and stepped out. His feet slid out from under him and he fell into the pile of hailstones. They closed over his head. Now he knew what had happened to Dee. She was buried somewhere out here.

He had to close his eyes, for the powder from the crushed hailstones was getting into them. This was not true ice but solid mist. It was magic; the stones were dry and not really cold. But they were slippery.

Something caught his foot. Bink kicked, remembering the sea monster. But its grip was tight; it dragged him into an open area.

He scrambled to his feet as it let go. He leaped on the troll shape he saw through the dust.

Then Bink found himself flying through the air. He landed hard on his back. Trolls were tough! He twisted around and tried to grab its leg, but the thing dropped on top of him and pinned him to the ground. “Ease up, Bink,” it said. “It’s me, Crombie.”

Bink did as much of a double take as he was able to, and recognized the soldier.

Crombie let him up. “I knew you’d never find your way out of that mess, so I pulled you out. You had magic dust in your eyes, so you didn’t know me. Sorry I had to put you down.”

Magic dust. Of course. It made men seem like trolls, ogres, or worse, and vice versa. It was an added danger of such storms so that people could not see their way out of them. Probably many had seen the tangle tree as a blanket tree. “That’s okay,” Bink said. “You soldiers sure know how to fight.”

“All part of the business. Never charge a man who knows how to throw.” Crombie raised one finger near his ear. “I’ll show you how to do it; it’s a non-magical talent you can use.”

“Dee!” Bink cried. “She’s still out there!”

Crombie frowned. “Okay. I made her walk out; if it means so much to you, I’ll help you find her.”

“Do you really hate all women?” Bink asked as he got ready to go out into the storm again. “Even the ones who don’t read minds?”

“They all read minds,” Crombie said. “Most of them do it without magic, is all. But I won’t swear that there’s no girl in Xanth for me. If I found a pretty one who wasn’t mean or nagging—” He shook his head. “But if there are any like that, they sure as hell wouldn’t marry me!”

So the soldier rejected all women because he felt they rejected him.

“I must find Dee,” Bink said.

“Not in this storm. You’ll just get lost yourself.”

Bink had to agree. “I’ll wait a little.”

“Here is how you do a throw,” Crombie said. “There are several kinds.”

He demonstrated and Bink began to catch on, clumsily.

“Practice in odd moments,” the soldier said. “You will get better.”

Now the storm had stopped. They went out into the piled hailstones, stepping carefully so as not to take any more spills. The colored storm clouds cleared, fading rapidly now that their magic was spent.

What caused such storms? Bink wondered. They had to be non-living. But this trip had shown him that dead objects did have magic, often very strong magic. Maybe it was in the material of Xanth, and it spread slowly into the things on the land. The living things controlled their magic, making it work at will. The non-living things let go of it at random, as in this storm. There had to be a lot of magic here. All wasted in pointless hailstorms.

Yet not all pointless. Clearly the tangle tree was helped by such storms, and there must be other ways in which hailstorms helped the local environment. Maybe the hail took out the weaker creatures, helping evolution. And other non-living magic was pointed, such as that of Lookout Rock and the Spring of Life. Maybe it was the magic itself that made these things aware. Every part of Xanth was touched by magic. Without magic, Xanth would be Mundane. That very thought filled Bink with horror.

The sun broke through the clouds. Where the beams hit, the hailstones puffed into colored mist. Their magic could not withstand direct sunlight. That made Bink wonder again. Was the sun harmful to magic? If the magic came from under the ground, the surface of the land was the tip of it. If someone ever went down deep, he might come near the center of power. Interesting idea.

In fact, Bink wished he could stop looking for his own magic and make that search. Surely, way down deep, there was the answer to all his questions.

But he could not think about the search. For one thing, he had to find Dee.

In a few minutes all the hail was gone. But so was the girl. “She must have slid down the slope into the forest,”

Crombie said. “She knows where we are; she can find us if she wants to.”

“Unless she’s in trouble,” Bink said worriedly. “Use your talent; point her out.”

Crombie sighed. “All right.” He closed his eyes, turned, and pointed down the south side of the ridge.

They ran down and found her tracks in the soft dirt at the edge of the jungle. They soon caught up with her.

“Dee!” Bink cried gladly. “We’re sorry for what happened. But you shouldn’t risk the jungle alone!”

She marched on. “Leave me alone,” Dee said. “I don’t want to go with you.”

“But Crombie didn’t mean—” Bink said.

“He did mean it. You don’t trust me. So keep away from me. I’d rather make it on my own.”

And that was that. She was firm, and Bink wasn’t going to force her. “Well, if you need help, call out, or something.”

She went on without answering.

“She couldn’t have been much of a threat,” Bink said.

“She’s a threat, all right,” Crombie insisted. “But no threat is as much of a danger when it’s somewhere else.”

They climbed the ridge again and traveled on. In another day they came into sight of the Magician’s castle, thanks to the soldier’s magic. He had been a big help.

“Well, that’s it,” Crombie said. “I have seen you to this point safely. I have business of my own before I report to the King. I hope you find your magic.”

“I hope so, too,” Bink said. “Thanks for the throws you taught me.”

“It was little enough. You’ll have to practice them more. Sorry I got the girl mad at you. Maybe my talent was wrong about her after all.”

Bink didn’t care to talk about that, so they just shook hands. Then Bink headed for the castle of the Good Magician.

Chapter 6

Magician

The castle was grand. It was not large, but it was tall and well planned. It had a deep moat, a strong outer wall, and a high tower. It must have been built by magic because it would have taken an army of craftsmen a year to build it by hand.

Yet Humfrey was supposed to be a Magician of information, not of building. How could he have magicked such a building?

No matter; the castle was here. Bink walked down to the moat. He heard a splash, and around the castle came a horse running on the water. No, not a horse. It was a hippocampus, or sea horse, with the head and front of a horse and the tail of a dolphin. Bink knew the dolphin from old pictures; it was a magic fish that breathed air instead of water.

Bink stepped back. The thing looked dangerous. It could not follow him out onto land, but it could beat him in the water. How was Bink to cross the moat? There did not seem to be any drawbridge.

Then he noted that the hippocampus wore a saddle. Oh, no! Ride the water monster?

Yet it clearly was the way to go. The Magician did not want his time wasted. Anyone who lacked the nerve to ride the sea horse didn’t deserve to see Humfrey. It made sense.

Did Bink really want the answer to his question? And at the price of a year’s service?

The picture of Sabrina came to his mind, so beautiful that all else became meaningless. He walked up to the hippocampus and climbed into its saddle.

The creature took off. It neighed as it raced around the moat. The steed was thrilled, using the water as a racetrack while Bink clung to the saddle horn. The powerful front legs of the hippocampus ended in flippers, scooping water back on both sides, soaking Bink with the spray. The tail hit the water with such energy that the saddle whipped back and forth, threatening to dump the rider.

“Neigh! Ne-ei-igh!” the monster cried joyfully. It had Bink where it wanted him: ripe for bucking off. The moment Bink hit the water, the creature would turn and swallow him. What a fool he had been!

But wait. As long as Bink stayed in the saddle, the hippocampus could not get at him. All Bink had to do was hang on, and in time the monster would tire.

Easier thought than done. The hippocampus bucked and dived, first lifting him above the moat, than dunking him into the water. It curled its tail and rolled, dunking him again and again. Bink was afraid it would stop with him underwater, forcing him to let go or drown. But the saddle was firmly fixed on its backside, and its horse’s head was on the same side as Bink’s head, so it had to hold its breath when Bink held his. The monster was using more energy than he was, and so it had to breathe sooner. Once Bink figured this out, he realized that the creature could not drown him.

In fact, all Bink needed to do was keep his head and he would win, for whatever that was worth.

Finally the creature gave up. It flopped to the gate and lay still while Bink got off. Bink had overcome the first hurdle.

“Thank you, Hip,” he said, making a little bow to the sea horse. It snorted and splashed quickly out of reach.

Now Bink faced a giant wooden door. It was closed, and he pounded on it with one fist. It was so solid that his hand hurt, but even so, the sound was very soft: dink, dink, dink!

He drew his knife and rapped with the handle, with no better result. Maybe the Magician was out, although there should still be servants in the castle.

Bink was angry. He had made a long, dangerous trip to get here and was ready to pay the high price, but the Good Magician lacked the good manners even to answer the door!

Well, somehow Bink would get in despite the Magician and would demand his interview.

He studied the door. It was almost twice as tall as he was, and wide in proportion, and was made of hand-cut posts. The thing must weigh a lot. It had no hinges, which meant it had to open by sliding to one side. No, the sides were solid stone. Was the door lifted out of the way? But he could see no ropes to pull it up. There might be hidden screws set into the wood, but that seemed like a lot of trouble and somewhat risky. Screws sometimes let go at the wrong moment. Maybe the whole door dropped into the floor. But that, too, was stone. So it seemed as though the whole thing had to be removed every time someone wanted to get in.

Ridiculous! The door had to be phony. There would be a more sensible opening for regular use. All he had to do was find it.

In the stone? No, that would be too heavy. But if it were not in the stone, it would be a place where an enemy could enter. No point in building a castle with such a weakness. Where, then?

Bink ran his fingers over the surface of the huge mock door. He found a crack. He traced it around in a square. He placed both hands against the center and shoved.

The square moved. It slid inward and finally dropped inside, leaving a hole just big enough for a man to crawl through. Here was the real door.

Bink wasted no time. He climbed through the hole.

Inside was a dimly lighted hall. And another monster.

It was a manticore—a creature the size of a horse, with the head of a man, the body of a lion, the wings of a dragon, and the tail of a scorpion. One of the most brutal magical monsters known.

“Welcome to lunch,” the manticore said, bending its tail up over its back. Its mouth was strange, with three rows of teeth, one inside another. But its voice was stranger. It was something like a flute and something like a trumpet, beautiful in its way but hard to understand.

Bink whipped out his knife. “I am not your lunch,” he said.

The manticore laughed. “You are not anyone else’s lunch, man. You have climbed into my trap.”

He had indeed. Bink was fed up with these pointless snags, yet he was also starting to think that they were not pointless. If the Magician’s monsters stopped all callers, Humfrey would never get any fees. And by all accounts, the Good Magician was a man who lived to profit himself; he needed those fees to add to his wealth. So probably this was another test, like those of the hippocampus and the mock door. All Bink had to do was figure out the answer.

“I can walk back out of this cage anytime I want to,” Bink said boldly. He willed his knees not to knock together. “It isn’t made to hold people my size; it holds in monsters your size. You’re the prisoner, molar face.”

“Molar face!” the manticore repeated, showing about sixty molars. “Why you pipsqueak, I’ll sting you into a billion-year suffering sleep!”

Bink made for the square hole. The monster jumped, its tail stabbing forward over its head. It was horribly fast.

But Bink had only pretended; he was already ducking forward into at the lion’s claws. This was not what the monster had expected, and the thing could not turn in midair. Its deadly tail stabbed into the wood of the door and its head popped through the square hole. Its lion’s shoulders were wedged tightly, unable to fit through the hole, and its wings fluttered helplessly.

Bink could not resist. He stood up, turned, and yelled: “You didn’t think I came all the way here just to back out again, did you, you half-reared monster?” Then he planted a swift hard kick in the creature’s rear.

There was a howl of rage and pain from the door. Then Bink started down the hall, hoping that there was a man-sized exit. Otherwise …

But before he was out of sight, the wooden door seemed to explode. There was a loud thump as the manticore fell free of the door and rolled back to its feet. Oh, it was angry now! If there was no other way out …

There was. The challenge had been to get around the monster, not kill it. No man could kill such a creature with a knife. Bink scrambled through a gate as the manticore charged down the hall, splinters of wood falling from its tail.

Now Bink was in the main castle. It was a fairly dark, damp place with little trace of human habitation. Where was the Good Magician?

Surely there was some way to let him know he was here if the fight with the manticore had not done it. Bink looked around and saw a hanging cord. He gave it one good yank and stepped back, not wanting anything to drop on him. He did not trust this castle.

A bell sounded. DING-DONG, DING-DONG.

A gnarled old elf trotted up. “Who shall I say is calling?”

“Bink of the North Village.”

“Drink of what?”

“Bink! B I N K.”

The elf studied him. “What shall I say is the business of your master Bink?”

“I am Bink! My business is the search for a magical talent.”

“And what payment do you offer for the time of the Good Magician?”

“The usual scale: one year’s service.” Then, in a lower tone, “It’s robbery, but I’m stuck for it. Your master robs people horribly.”

The elf thought. “The Magician is busy at the moment; can you come back tomorrow?”

“Come back tomorrow!” Bink cried, thinking of what the hippocampus and manticore would do to him if they got a second chance. “Does the old bugger want my business or doesn’t he?”

The elf frowned. “Well, if you’re going to be that way about it, come on upstairs.”

Bink followed the little man up a winding staircase. The inside of the castle got more light on the upper floors and looked more like a home.

Finally the elf showed the way into a paper-filled study. The elf seated himself at a big wooden desk. “Very well, Bink of the North Village. You have won your way into this castle. What makes you think your service is worth the old bugger’s time?”

Bink angrily started to say something, but he cut himself off as he realized that this elf was the Good Magician Humfrey. He was sunk!

All he could do now was answer before he got kicked out. “I am strong and I can work. It is for you to decide if that is worth your while.”

“You are oink-headed and probably eat a lot. You’d cost me more than I’d ever get from you.”

Bink shrugged, knowing it would be pointless to argue. That would only anger the Magician further. He had really walked into the last trap: the trap of pride.

“Perhaps you could carry books and turn pages for me. Can you read?”

“Some,” Bink said. He had been a fairly good pupil, but that had been years ago.

“You seem to be a fair hand at insult, too; maybe you could talk people out of coming with their small problems.”

“Maybe,” Bink agreed grimly. He had really done it this time, and after coming so close.

“Well, come on; we don’t have all day!” Humfrey snapped, bouncing out of his chair. Bink saw now that he was not a true elf but a very small human being. An elf, being a magical creature, could not be a Magician. That belief was part of what had put him off at first, though more and more he wondered about the truth of that idea. Xanth kept showing him magic that he had not thought of before.

It seemed that the Magician had accepted the case. Bink followed him into the next room. It was a lab, with magical instruments cluttering the shelves and piled high on the floor except for one cleared area.

“Stand aside,” Humfrey said, though Bink hardly had room to move. The Magician was not a pleasant person. It would be a real chore to work for him a year. But it just might be worth it if Bink learned he had a magic talent and it was a good one.

Humfrey took a small bottle from the shelf, shook it, and set it on the floor in the middle of a pentagram, a five-sided figure. Then he waved his hands and murmured.

The lid of the bottle popped off. Smoke came out. It swelled into a cloud and then changed into the shape of a demon. Not a wild demon; this one’s horns were small, and his tail had a soft tuft instead of a sharp point. Also, he wore glasses, which must have been brought from Mundania, where such things were used to help weak eyes. Or so the stories had it. Bink almost laughed. Imagine a short-sighted demon!

“O Beauregard,” Humfrey chanted. “I command thee by the power given me by the Compact, tell us what magic talent this lad, Bink of the North Village of Xanth, owns.”

So that was the Magician’s secret. He was a demon summoner. The pentagram was for controlling the demons, for even a serious demon was a creature of hell.

Beauregard focused his lens-covered eyes on Bink. “Step into my space that I may look at you,” he said.

“Nuh-uh!” Bink cried.

“You’re a tough nut,” the demon said.

“I didn’t ask you for his personality type,” Humfrey snapped. “What’s his magic?”

The demon frowned. “He has magic—strong magic—but …”

Strong magic! Bink’s hopes soared.

“But I am unable to understand it,” Beauregard said. He looked at the Good Magician. “Sorry, fathead. I’ll have to pass on this one.”

“Then get ye gone,” Humfrey snarled, clapping his hands together with a sharp sound. It seemed that Humfrey was used to being insulted; it was part of his lifestyle. Maybe Bink had lucked out again.

The demon faded into smoke and drained back into his bottle. Bink stared at the bottle, trying to see what was in it. There was a little figure, bent over a small book, apparently reading.

Now the Magician studied Bink. “So you have strong magic that cannot be understood. Were you aware of this? Did you come here to waste my time?”

“No,” Bink said. “I never was sure I had magic at all. There’s never been any sign of it. I hoped for it but feared I had none.”

“Is there anything you know of that could explain this block? A counterspell, maybe?”

It seemed that Humfrey was far from all-knowing. But now that Bink knew he was a demon controller, that explained it. Nobody called up a demon without good reason. The Magician charged heavily because he took a heavy risk.

“I don’t know of anything,” Bink said. “Except maybe the drink of magic healing water I took.”

“Beauregard should not have been fooled by that. He’s a pretty smart demon. Do you have any of that water with you?”

Bink held out his canteen. “I saved some. Never can tell when it might be needed.”

Humfrey took it, poured out a drop on his palm, touched his tongue to it, and frowned. “The usual mix,” he said. “It doesn’t bollix up information magic. I’ve got a keg of similar stuff in my cellar. Made it myself. Mine is free of the Spring’s self-interest spell, of course. Keep this; it can be useful.”

The Magician set up a pointer on a string beside a wall chart with pictures of a smiling angel and a frowning devil. “Let’s play Twenty Questions.”

He moved his hands, casting a spell, and Bink realized that his first idea about the Magician had been hasty. Humfrey did do more than demon control. “Bink of the North Village,” he said. “Have you centered on him?”

The pointer swung around to the angel.

“Does he have magic?”

The angel again.

“Strong magic?”

Angel.

“Do you know what it is?”

Angel.

“Will you tell me its nature?”

The pointer moved to cover the devil.

“What is this?” Humfrey demanded. “That’s not an answer, idiot! I can’t figure why you spirits are balking.” Angrily he cast another spell and turned to Bink. “There’s something mighty funny here. But it’s become a challenge. I’m going to use a truth-spell on you. We’ll get to the heart of this.”

The Magician waved his stubby arms again and muttered a chant. Suddenly Bink felt strange. He had never been around this odd type of magic before, with its movements, words, and instruments. He was used to talents that worked when they were willed to work. The Good Magician seemed to be something of a scientist.

“Who are you?” Humfrey asked.

“Bink of the North Village.” It was the truth, but this time Bink said it because the spell made him, not because he wanted to.

“Why did you come here?”

“To find out whether I have magic, and what it might be, so I shall not be cast out and can marry—”

“Enough. I don’t care about the details.” The Magician shook his head. “So you were telling the truth all along. The mystery deepens. Now, what is your talent?”

Bink opened his mouth to speak, and there was an animal roar.

Humfrey blinked. “Oh, the manticore is hungry.” He spoke to the wall chart. “Spell be gone.” Then to Bink again. “Wait here while I feed him.” He left.

An awkward time for the manticore to get hungry! But Bink could hardly blame the Magician for hurrying to the feeding chore. If the monster should break out of its cage …

Bink was left on his own. He walked around the room, stepping carefully over the litter, not touching anything. He came to a mirror. “Mirror, mirror on the wall,” he said playfully. “Who is the fairest one of all?”

The mirror clouded, then cleared. A gross, fat, warty toad peered out. Then he realized that this was a magic mirror so it had shown him the fairest one of all—the fairest toad.

“I mean, the fairest female human,” he said. Now Sabrina looked out at him. Bink had been joking, but he should have known that the mirror would take him seriously. Was Sabrina really the fairest girl of all? Probably not. The mirror showed her because, to his 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. On the other hand …

Now the Sorceress Iris looked out. “Well, it’s about time you got around to me, Bink,” she said. “I can still make you able to—”

“No!” Bink cried. The mirror went blank.

He calmed himself and then faced the mirror again. “Can you answer questions for information too?” Of course it could; otherwise, it wouldn’t be here.

The mirror clouded and changed. A picture of the angel appeared, meaning yes.

“Why are we having so much trouble finding 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 he couldn’t. The mirror must have gotten confused.

“What is my talent?” he asked at last.

And the mirror cracked.

“What are you doing?” Humfrey demanded behind him.

Bink jumped. “I seem to have broken your mirror,” he said. “I was just—”

“You were just asking questions it was not made to answer,” Humfrey said angrily. “Did you think the mirror could tell 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 restored 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 cried. “Everything happens at once.”

The Magician crossed the room and peered out the window. “No, it’s only the invisible giant passing by.”

Humfrey returned once more to Bink. This time he stared at him, hard. “It’s not coincidence! Something is keeping you—or anything else—from giving that answer. Something very powerful. Unknown magic. Magician-class magic. 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?”

“You call him evil. I never found him so. We were friends in our way. There is a kind of friendship at our level—”

“But he was cast out twenty years ago.”

Humfrey looked at Bink. “You think being cast out means death? He lives in Mundania. My information does not reach beyond the Shield, but I am sure he lives. But without magic.”

“Oh.” Bink had linked death with being cast out. This was a good reminder that there was life beyond the Shield. He still did not want to go there, but at least he felt more hopeful about it now.

“Though it upsets me very much, I dare not push the question further. I am not protected against this type of magic.”

“But why would anyone try to keep me from knowing my own talent?” Bink asked.

“Oh, you know what your talent is. You just can’t tell anyone about it, or even be aware of it yourself. The knowledge is buried deep inside you. And there, it seems, it is going to stay. I am not ready to take the risk for one year of service.”

“But why would a Magician— I mean, I’m nobody! How could it help anybody else to stop me from—”

“It might not be a person at all, but a thing placing a spell on you. A spell of ignorance.”

“But why?”

Humfrey frowned. “Lad, you grow boring. Your talent could be a threat to some powerful special interest, just as a silver sword is a threat to a dragon even though the sword may not be near that dragon. So that being protects itself by blocking off your knowledge of your talent.”

Still Bink tried. “How can I show my talent, then, so I can stay in Xanth?”

“You do seem to have a problem,” Humfrey remarked. He shrugged. “I’d answer if I could, but I can’t. There is of course no charge for my service since I was unable to finish it. I will send a note with you. Perhaps the King will let you stay after all. I believe the law says that each citizen shall have magic, not that he has to show it in public. I remember one young man who was able to change the color of his urine at will, for example. A signed statement was accepted instead of a public showing.”

Failure seemed to have mellowed the Magician. He served Bink a pleasant meal of brown bread and milk and chatted almost nicely. “So many people come here and waste their questions,” he told Bink. “The trick is not to find the answer but to find the correct question. Yours is the first real challenge I’ve had in years. The last one was—let me think—the amaranth. This farmer wanted to know how to grow a really good plant so he could feed his family better and bring in a little income. I found the magic amaranth for him, and now its use has spread all over Xanth—and beyond it, too, for all I know. It is possible to make bread from it that is almost the same as the real thing.” The Magician pulled out a drawer and brought out a special loaf. He broke off a chunk for Bink, who was glad to take it. “Now, his was the kind of question to ask. The answer helped the whole country of Xanth as well as the person. Too many wishes are of the monkey’s paw type.”

“The monkey’s paw!” Bink cried. “When I asked the magic mirror, it showed me—”

“It would. The image comes from a Mundane story. But here in Xanth there is magic like that.”

“But what—?”

“Do you want to give a year’s service after all?”

“Uh, no, not for that.” Bink chewed the new bread. It was tougher than true bread.

“Then have it free. It means a type of magic that brings you more harm than good, though it grants what you ask. It is magic that you are better off without.”

Was Bink better off not knowing his talent? That was what the mirror had seemed to tell him. “Do many people come here with questions, stupid or otherwise?”

“Not so many, now that I have built this castle and hid it. Only the really determined find their way here now. Like you.”

“How did you build it?” As long as the Magician was talking …

“The centaurs built it. I told them how to get rid of a local pest, and they served me for a year. They are very skilled, and did a fine job. Once in a while I mess up the paths, using spells, so as not to be pestered; it’s a good location.”

“The monsters!” Bink cried. “The hippocampus, the manticore—they’re serving their year’s service!”

“Of course. Do you think they’d stay here for the pleasure of it?”

Bink wondered. He remembered the unholy joy with which the hippocampus had flung itself about. Still, it would prefer the open sea.

Bink had finished the bread. It had tasted almost as good as real bread. “With your powers of information, you could—why, you could be King.”

Humfrey laughed. “Who in his right mind would want to be King? It’s a boring, hard job. I am not a ruler but a scholar. Most of my work is in making my magic safe and refining it for greater use. I am getting old. I can’t waste time. Let those who wish the crown take it.”

Bink cast about for someone who wanted to rule Xanth. “The Sorceress Iris—”

“The trouble with dealing with illusion,” Humfrey said seriously, “is that one begins to be fooled oneself. Iris doesn’t need power half so much as she needs a good man.”

Even Bink could see the truth in that. “But why doesn’t she marry?”

“She’s a Sorceress, a good one. She needs a man she can respect, one who has stronger magic than she has. But I’m really too old for her. And of course we would be a mismatch; I deal in truth, she in illusion. I know too much; she imagines too much. So she plays with lesser talents, telling herself that it can somehow work out.” He shook his head. “It is too bad, really. With the King fading and no one to replace him, and this rule that the crown go only to a full Magician, it is possible that the throne will fall to her plans. Not every young man has your honesty or loyalty to Xanth.”

Bink felt a chill. Humfrey knew about Iris’s offer, about their meeting. The Magician did not just answer questions for a fee, he kept track of what was going on in Xanth. But it seemed that he just watched. Maybe he looked up the background of seekers while the hippocampus, the manticore, and the mock door delayed them. Maybe he saved the information so that if someone came to ask “What is the greatest danger facing Xanth?” he could collect his fee for answering.

“If the King dies, will you take the crown?” Bink asked. “As you said, it will have to go to a powerful Magician who cares about the good of Xanth.”

“You ask a question almost as hard to answer as the one that brought you here,” the Good Magician said. “I do have a certain amount of loyalty, but I also have a rule against getting in the way of the natural flow of things. I suppose if there were no one else, I would take the crown. But first I would search very hard for some other Magician to take on the chore. We have not had a top talent appear in years.” He gazed at Bink. “There seems to be magic of that power linked to you, but we cannot use it if we do not understand it. So I don’t think you are in line for the throne.”

Bink exploded with laughter. “Me? You insult the throne.”

“No, there are traits in you that would honor the throne. The Sorceress may have chosen better than she knew. But clearly there is magic that stops you, though I am not sure that the source of that magic would make you a good King either. It is a strange matter.”

Bink was tempted by the idea of being a strong Magician, becoming King, and ruling Xanth. Oddly, it quickly turned him off. He knew that he lacked the abilities no matter what Humfrey said. This was not a matter of magic but of lifestyle and goals. He could never sentence a man to death or cast him out, or lead an army into battle. “You’re right,” Bink said. “No sensible person would want to be King. All I want is to marry Sabrina and settle down.”

“You are a sensible lad. Stay the night, and in the morning I will show you a way home, with protections against the dangers on the way.”

“Nickelpede repellent?” Bink asked hopefully, remembering the trenches.

“Right. You will have to stay alert; no path is safe for a stupid man. But I can give you protections for two days’ travel on foot.”

Bink stayed the night. He found he rather liked the castle and those who lived there; even the manticore was friendly now. “I would not really have eaten you, though I was tempted for a moment or three when you booted me in the … tail,” it told Bink. “It is my job to scare off those who are not serious. See, I am not locked in here.” It pushed against the bars, and the gate swung open. “My year is almost up anyway. I’ll almost be sorry to have it end.”

“What question did you bring the Good Magician?” Bink asked somewhat nervously. If he angered the manticore, he might have to brace himself for flight. In an open space, he was no match for the creature.

“I asked whether I have a soul,” the monster said seriously.

Again Bink had to control his feelings. “What did he tell you?”

“That only those who have souls are concerned about them.”

“But—but then you never needed to ask! You paid a year for nothing.”

“No. I paid a year for everything. Having a soul means that I can never truly die. My body may fall away, but I shall be reborn, or my shade will linger, or I shall live forever in heaven or hell. There is no more important question or answer. Yet that answer had to be in the correct form. A simple yes or no answer would not have satisfied me; it could be a blind guess or the Magician’s opinion. A technical answer would have confused the matter. Humfrey said it in such a way that its truth was clear. Now I need never doubt again.”

Bink was moved. Thought of in that way, it did make sense. Humfrey had given good value. He was an honest Magician. He had shown the manticore, and Bink himself, something important about the nature of life in Xanth. For if the fiercest monsters had souls, who could call them evil?

Chapter 7

Exile

The path was broad and clear, with no overlapping magic. Only one thing bothered Bink: an area with small wormlike holes in the trunks of trees and rocks. Holes that went straight through from one side to another. The wiggles had been here!

But he calmed himself. The wiggles had not passed lately, of course; that danger had been stopped. But where they had been was horrible, for the little flying worms had drilled magically through anything that got in their way. A tree could survive a few neat holes, but a person could bleed to death if he did not die from a hole in some organ. The thought made Bink flinch. He hoped the wiggles never showed up again in Xanth, but there was no certainty about that. There was no certainty about anything with magic.

Bink walked faster, made nervous by the old wiggle scars. In half an hour he reached the Gap and the invisible bridge that the Good Magician had told him about. He tested it by tossing a handful of dirt and watching the pattern of its fall into the depths; it fell around one area. He wished he had known of this bridge on the way over, but of course that was the thing about information. Without it, a person could have a very hard time! Who would have thought there was an invisible bridge all the way across the Gap?

Yet his long side trip had not been a total loss. He had taken part in the rape hearing, helped the shade, seen some wonderful illusions, saved Crombie the soldier, and learned a lot more about Xanth. He wouldn’t care to do it all over again, but the trip had made him grow.

He stepped onto the bridge. The Magician had warned him that once he started across, he could not turn back or the bridge would vanish, dropping him into the Gap. It was only one way, existing only ahead of him. So he walked across boldly, though the Gap opened beneath him. Only his grip on the invisible rail reassured him.

He did risk a look down. Here the bottom of the Gap was narrow—almost a crack rather than a valley. The Gap Dragon could not run here. But there seemed to be no way to climb down the steep slope; if a fall did not kill a person, hunger and weather would. He might find a way to walk east or west to a better part, but then the dragon could catch him.

Bink made it across. His feet safely on land, he looked back. There was no sign of the bridge, of course, and no clear path to it. He was not about to risk another crossing.

Now that he was safe, he realized he was thirsty. He saw a spring to one side of the path. The path? There had been none a moment ago. He looked back toward the Gap, and there was no path. Oh yes—it led away from the bridge. He went to the spring. He had water in his canteen, but it was Spring of Life water that he was saving for an emergency.

A driblet of water came from the spring, flowed along a winding channel, and finally trickled down into the Gap. The channel was overgrown with strange plants that Bink had never seen before: a strawberry vine with beechnuts, and ferns with round leaves. Odd, but no seeming threat. Bink looked around carefully for beasts that might hide near a water hole before he lay down to put his mouth to the pool.

As he lowered his head, he heard a cry above him. “You’ll be sooorry!” it seemed to say.

He looked up into the trees. A birdlike thing sat there, a type of harpy. She had full woman breasts and a snakelike tail. Nothing to worry about as long as she stayed in the trees.

He bent his head again—and heard a rustle. He jumped up, drew his knife, moved a few paces, and through the trees he thought he saw two creatures fighting: a griffin and a unicorn. One was male, the other female, and they were … not fighting, they—

Bink backed up, very embarrassed. They were two different kinds of animal! How could they?

Disgusted, he went back to the spring. Now he saw the tracks of the creatures. Both unicorn and griffin had come to drink here, so the water could hardly be poisoned.

Suddenly he caught on. This was a love spring. Anyone who drank of this water would fall forcefully in love with the first creature he met after that.

He looked over at the griffin and the unicorn. They were still at it. Bink backed away from the spring. If he had drunk from it— He shuddered. He was no longer thirsty.

“Aw, go take a drink!” the harpy cried.

Bink picked up a rock and threw it at her. She squawked and fluttered higher, laughing. One of her droppings just missed him. There was nothing more hateful than a harpy.

Well, the Good Magician had warned him that the path home was not free of problems. This spring must be one of the things Humfrey hadn’t thought important enough to mention. Once Bink was back on the trail to the North Village, he would know what the dangers were, such as the peace pines.

How would he get through them? He needed an enemy to travel with, and he didn’t know one.

Then he had an idea. “Hey, you birdbrain!” he called up into the treetops. “Stay away from me, or I’ll stuff your tail down your dirty throat!”

The harpy answered with a stream of curses. Bink threw another rock at her. “I’m warning you, don’t follow me!” he cried.

“I’ll follow you to the edge of the Shield itself!” she screeched. “You’ll never get rid of me!”

Bink smiled. Now he had the right kind of company.

He hiked on, dodging the droppings that the harpy dropped on him, hoping her anger was sufficient to carry her through the pines. After that? Well, first things first.

Soon the path met the one he had taken south. Curious, he looked north and south along the main path. Then he looked back the way he had just come, and there was only deep forest. He took a step back and found himself knee-deep in glow-thorns. The weeds sparkled as they snagged on his legs, and only by moving with great care did he manage to pull himself out without getting scratched. The harpy laughed so hard that she almost fell from her overhead perch.

There was simply no path in this direction. But the moment he turned around again, there it was, leading cleanly through the thorns. Ah, well. Why did he even bother to question such things? Magic was magic. Everyone knew that. Everyone but himself, at times.

He hiked all day, passing the brook where to drink was to become a fish. “Have a drink, Harpy!” But she already knew of the spell, and she cursed him with doubled energy. He passed the peace pines. “Have a nap, Harpy!” And the trench with the nickelpedes. “I’ll fetch you something to eat, Harpy!” But he used the repellent that the Good Magician had given him and never even saw a nickelpede.

At last he stopped for the night at a farmhouse in the centaur range. The harpy finally gave up her chase; she dared not come too close to a centaur bow. These were older centaurs, interested in news. They listened closely to the story of Bink’s trip across the Gap. Their grandchild colt was staying with them, a happy-go-lucky tot of barely twenty-five years, which was the same as a fourth of that in human terms. Bink played with him and did handstands for him—a trick no centaur could do—and the colt seemed fascinated.

The next day Bink traveled north again, and there was no sign of the harpy. What a relief. His ears felt dirty after the day of her cursing. He passed through the rest of the area without meeting anyone. As evening came, he reached the North Village.

“Hey! The Spell-less Wonder is back,” Zink cried. A hole opened at Bink’s feet, making him trip. Zink would have made wonderful company for the pines. Bink ignored the other holes and went on to his house. He was back, all right. Why had he bothered to hurry?

* * *

Bink’s trial was held the next morning in the outdoor theater. Rows of royal palms set off the stage area. The benches were formed from the knees of giant dryland cypress trees. The backdrop was braced by four honeymaple trees. Bink had always liked this setting.

The old King led the meeting, as this was one of his royal duties. He wore his jeweled robe and his handsome gold crown, and he carried the decorated wand. All were symbols of his power. Every citizen bowed as the King passed.

The King had a mane of white hair and a long beard, but his eyes tended to drift. Once in a while a servant would nudge him to keep him from falling asleep and remind him of his royal duties.

At the start, the King showed his magic by calling up a storm. He held his shaking hands high and mumbled his spell. At first there was silence; then, just as it seemed that the magic had failed, a gust of wind passed through the area, stirring up a handful of leaves.

No one said anything, though it was clear that this could have been coincidence. It was certainly a far cry from a real storm. But several of the ladies put up umbrellas while the master of ceremonies quickly went on to the business at hand.

Bink’s parents, Roland and Bianca, were in the front row, and so was Sabrina, as lovely as Bink had remembered her. Roland caught Bink’s eye and nodded, and Bianca’s eyes were wet, but Sabrina was looking down. They were all afraid for him.

“What talent can you show to gain your citizenship?” the master of ceremonies asked Bink. This was Munly, a friend of Roland’s; Bink knew that the man would do everything he could to help, but he had to follow the rules.

Now it was upon him. “I—I can’t show it,” Bink said. “But I have the Good Magician Humfrey’s note that I do have magic.” He held out the note with a shaking hand.

Munly took it, looked at it, and passed it to the King. The King’s eyes were so watery that he could not read it.

“As Your Majesty can see,” Munly murmured, “it is a message from Magician Humfrey. It says that this person has a hidden magical talent.”

Something like fire lighted the old King’s ashy eyes. “This counts for nothing,” he mumbled. “Humfrey is not King; I am!” He let the paper drop to the ground.

“But—” Bink protested.

The master of ceremonies looked at him warningly, and Bink knew it was hopeless. The King was jealous of the Magician Humfrey, whose power was still strong, and would not believe the message. But the King had spoken. Argument would only make it harder on Bink.

Then Bink had an idea. “I have brought the King a present,” he said. “Water from a healing Spring.”

Munly’s eyes lighted. “You have magic water?” He was aware of what it would mean to have a fully healthy King.

“In my canteen,” Bink said. “I saved it. See, it restored my lost finger.” He held up his left hand. “It also cured my cold, and I saw it help other people. It heals anything, instantly.” He decided not to tell about the curse.

Munly’s talent was the transporting of small objects. “With your permission—”

“Granted,” Bink said quickly.

The canteen appeared in Munly’s hand. “This is it?”

“Yes.” For the first time, Bink had real hope.

Munly went to the King again. “Bink has brought a gift for Your Majesty,” he said. “Magic water.”

The King took the canteen. “Magic water?” he repeated, hardly seeming to understand.

“It heals all ills,” Munly told him.

The King looked at it. One swallow and he would be able to read the Magician’s message, to brew storms again, and to make good decisions. This could change the course of Bink’s trial.

“You think I am sick?” the King demanded. “I need no healing! I am as fit as I ever was!” And he turned the canteen upside down, letting the water pour out upon the ground.

It was as though Bink’s blood, not just water, were spilling out. He saw his last chance ruined by the very illness he had thought to end. On top of that, now he had no healing water for his own use; he could not be healed again.

Was this the punishment of the Spring of Life? To tempt him with victory and then take it away at the last moment? In any case, he was lost.

Munly knew it, too. He bent to pick up the canteen, and it vanished from his hand, returning to Bink’s. “I am sorry,” he murmured under his breath. Then, loudly, “Show your talent.”

Bink tried. He willed his magic, whatever it might be, to break its spell and show itself. Somehow. But nothing happened. He heard a sob. Sabrina? No, it was his mother, Bianca. Roland sat stony-faced, refusing to show how he felt. Sabrina still would not look at him. But there were those who did: Zink, Jama, and Potipher were all smiling.

“I cannot,” Bink whispered.

The trial was over.

***

Bink’s life was over, for he had been cast out from all that he had known. Never again would he see the marvels of magic. He would be forever bound to the colorless world of Mundania.

Again he hiked. This time he headed west toward the land bridge. He carried a new staff and an axe and his knife. He had refilled his canteen with regular water. Bianca had made more sandwiches, this time flavored with her tears. He had nothing from Sabrina; he had not seen her at all since the trial.

Should he have taken up the offer of the Sorceress Iris? At least he could have stayed in Xanth. But even if he had known for sure that he would be cast out, he would not have changed his mind about Iris. What was right was right, and wrong was wrong.

The strangest thing was that he did not feel depressed. He had lost citizenship, family, and fiancée, and faced the great unknown of the Outside, yet there was a certain spring to his step. Was it a counterreaction lifting his spirit so that he would not commit suicide? Or was he in fact relieved that the decision had at last been made? He had been a freak among the magic people; now he would be among his own kind.

No, that wasn’t it. He had magic. He was no freak. Strong magic, Magician class. Humfrey had told him so, and he believed it. He was just unable to use it. Like a man who could make a colored spot on the wall when there was no wall. Why he should be magically silent he did not know, but it meant that he was right and the decision of the King was wrong. Those who had not stood by him were better off apart from him.

No, not that either. His parents had refused to go against the law of Xanth. They were good, honest people, and Bink shared their values. He had refused when tempted by the Sorceress. Roland and Bianca could not help him by going with him or by trying to help him stay. They had done what they felt was right, and he was proud of them. He knew they loved him but chose to let him go his own way. That was part of his buried joy.

And Sabrina—what then of her? She, too, had refused to cheat. Yet he felt she lacked the commitment of his parents. She would have cheated had she enough reason. Her love had not been deep enough. She had loved him for the magic talent she had thought he had as the son of strongly talented parents. The absence of that talent had undercut her love. She had not really loved him for who he was.

And his love for her was shallow. Sure, she was beautiful. But she had less personality than, say, the girl Dee. Dee had walked off because she had been insulted, and she had stuck by her decision. Sabrina would do the same but for a different reason. Dee had not been acting; she really had been angry. Sabrina would have done it with more art and less feeling—because she had less feeling.

Which reminded Bink of the Sorceress Iris again. What a temper she had! Bink respected temper; it was a window to the truth at times. But Iris was too violent. That palace-destruction scene, with storm and dragon …

Even stupid what’shername, the lovely girl of the rape hearing—Wynne, that was her name—had feelings. He had, he hoped, allowed her to escape from the Gap Dragon. There had not been anything false in her. But Sabrina was the perfect actress, so he had never really been sure of her love. He realized that she had been a picture in his mind to be brought out in time of need, and he had not really wanted to marry her.

Whatever it was that he wanted in a girl, Sabrina lacked. She had beauty, which he liked, and personality—which was not the same as character—and magic. All these things were good—very good—and he had thought he loved her. But when the crisis came, Sabrina’s eyes had been turned away. That said it all. Crombie the soldier had spoken the truth: Bink would have been a fool to marry Sabrina.

Bink smiled. How would Crombie and Sabrina get along together? The most demanding and suspicious male, the most artful and changing female. Would the soldier become a challenge to the girl? Could they, after all, have a lasting relationship? It almost seemed they might. They would either have an immediate and violent falling out or a just as violent falling in. Too bad they couldn’t meet, and that he could not be there to see such a meeting.

The whole of this Xanth life was passing through his mind now that he was through with it. For the first time in his life, Bink was free. He no longer needed magic. He no longer needed romance. He no longer needed Xanth.

His roving eye spotted a tiny dark spot on a tree. He felt a sudden shudder. Was it a wiggle wound? No, just a darker spot. He felt relief—and with it he realized that he had been fooling himself. If he no longer needed Xanth, he would not care about things like the wiggles. He did need Xanth. It was the place of his youth. But he could not have it.

Then he came to the post of the Shield man, and he felt even more uncertain. Once he passed through the Shield, Xanth and all its works would be forever behind him.

“What are you up to?” the Shield man asked him. He was a big, fat youth with a pale face. But he was part of the net of magic that formed the fence to the Outside. No living creature could pass either way through the Shield. But since no one in Xanth wanted to leave, its effect was to stop all mundane intrusions. The touch of the Shield meant death—instant, painless, final. Bink didn’t know how it worked, but he didn’t know how any magic worked, really. It just was.

“I have been cast out,” Bink said. “You have to let me through the Shield.” He would not, of course, try to cheat; he would leave as ordered. Had he wanted to try to stay, it would not have worked; one villager’s talent was the finding of individuals, and he was now tuned to Bink. He would know if Bink stayed on this side of the Shield today.

The youth sighed. “Why do all the tricky jobs have to come in my shift? Do you know how hard it is to open a man-sized hole without messing up the whole damn Shield?”

“I don’t know anything about the Shield,” Bink told him. “But I was cast out by the King, so—”

“Oh, very well. Now look, I can’t go with you to the Shield; I have to stay here. But I can make an opening spell that will open one spot for five seconds. You be there, and you step through on time, because if it closes on you, you’re dead.”

Bink gulped. For all his thoughts about death and being cast out, now that it had come to the test, he did want to live. “I know.”

“Right. The magic stone doesn’t care who dies.” The youth tapped the boulder he leaned against.

“You mean that old stone is it?” Bink asked.

“Shieldstone. Sure. The Magician Ebnez found it nearly a century ago and used it to form the Shield. Without it, we’d still be open to invasion by the Mundanes.”

Bink had heard of the Magician Ebnez, one of the great figures of history. In fact, Ebnez was in Bink’s family tree. He had been able to adapt things magically. In his hands a hammer could become a sledgehammer, or a piece of wood could become part of a window frame. Whatever was there became whatever was needed—within limits. He could not change air into food, for example, or make clothing out of water. But what he could do was amazing. So he had made a strong deathstone into the Shieldstone, killing at a distance instead of up close, and so he had saved Xanth.

“Okay, now,” the youth said. “Here’s a timestone.” He tapped it against the larger rock, and the small piece broke into two parts, each fading from red to white. He handed one piece to Bink. “When this goes red, you step across; the pieces are timed. The opening will be right in front of the big beechnut tree—and for only five seconds. So you be ready, and move on red.”

“Move on red,” Bink agreed.

“Right. Now move. Sometimes these timestones heal fast. I’ll be watching mine so as to time the spell. You watch yours.”

Bink moved. He ran along the path to the west. Usually a broken timestone took half an hour or so to heal. But the condition of the stone, the outside temperature, and other things could make a difference. Maybe it was something in the original piece of stone because the two pieces always changed color together even if one was in the sunshine and the other buried in a well. But why look for logic with magic? What was, was.

And would be no more for him. None of this had meaning in Mundania.

Bink came into sight of the Shield, or rather its effect. The Shield was invisible, but there was a line of dead plants where it touched the ground, and the bodies of animals who had tried to cross that line. Sometimes jumpdeer got confused and sprang through to the ground on the other side, but they were already dead before they hit the ground. The Shield was invisible but final.

Sometimes Mundane creatures blundered into it. A patrol walked the line each day on the Xanth side to check for bodies, pulling them out of the Shield when they were partway across, giving them a safe burial. It was possible to handle something that lay across the Sheild as long as the living person did not touch the Shield itself. Nevertheless, it was a grim chore sometimes given as punishment. There were never any human Mundanes caught in the Shield, but there was always the fear that there might one day be some.

Ahead was the spreading beechnut tree. One branch reached out toward the Shield, and the tip of that branch was dead. The wind must have made it sway across. It helped mark the spot were Bink should cross.

There was a smell along this line of doom. Probably it was the decay of many tiny creatures: worms in the dirt and bugs flying through the Shield, rotting where they fell. This was the area of death.

Bink glanced down at the stone he held and sucked in his breath in shock. It was red! Had it just now changed, or was he already too late? His life depended on the answer.

Bink threw himself at the Shield. He knew the sensible thing to do was return to the Shield man and explain, but he wanted this done with. Maybe it had been the change of the stone’s color that had caught his attention, in which case he did have time. So he took the foolish course and tried for it.

One second. Two. Three. He’d better have the whole five seconds because he wasn’t there yet. The Shield seemed close, but it had taken time to make the decision and get up speed. He was passing the beechnut tree at a dead run—maybe literally dead—going too fast to stop. Four seconds—he was crossing the line of death. If it closed on his trailing leg, would all of him die or just the leg? Five seconds—he felt a tingle. Six— No! Time was up, stop counting, start panting. He was through. Was he alive?

He rolled in the dirt, kicking up dry leaves and small bones. Of course he was alive! How could he worry about it otherwise? As with the manticore concerned about his soul, if he had none, he wouldn’t …

Bink sat up, shaking something dead out of his hair. So he had made it. That tingle must have been an effect of the turned-off Shield since it hadn’t hurt him.

Now it was done. He was free of Xanth forever. Free to make his own life without being teased or mothered or tempted. Free to be himself.

Bink put his face in his hands and cried.

Chapter 8

Trent

After a time, Bink got up and walked on into the fearful world of the Mundanes. It did not look much different from Xanth: the trees were the same, the rocks were unchanged, and the ocean shore he followed was exactly like an ocean shore in Xanth. Yet he was very homesick. His happiness had been but a swing of mood, giving him a false sense of cheer. Better if he had died in the crossing.

Well, he could still go back. Just step across the line. Death would be painless, and he could be buried in Xanth. Was that what others had done?

He rebelled against the idea. He loved Xanth and missed it already, but he did not want to die. He would simply have to make his way among the Mundanes. Others had done it before him. Maybe he would even be happy here.

The area was mountainous. Bink sweated as he climbed the steep pass. Was this the opposite of the Gap, a ridge that rose as high above the land as the Gap sank beneath it? Did a ridge dragon run along it? No, not in Mundania. But maybe such landforms did have something to do with the magic. Did the magic wash down from the heights and build up in the depths? No, that didn’t seem to make much sense. Most of the magic would have washed into the ocean.

For the first time, he wondered what Mundania was really like. Was it possible to live without magic? It would not be as nice as Xanth, but with no spells it would be a challenge. The people shouldn’t be evil; after all, his ancestors had come from Mundania. It seemed that the language and many customs were the same in both places.

He climbed over the rise of the pass, braced for his first sight of the new world, and suddenly was surrounded by men.

Bink whirled to run. Maybe he could trick them into the Shield and be rid of them the easy way. Not that he wanted to kill then. But he had to try to escape them.

But as he turned, he found a man behind him, blocking the way with a sword.

The sensible thing to do was give up. They had him outnumbered, and they could put an arrow into his back if they wanted to kill him. If all they wanted to do was rob him, he had almost nothing to lose.

But being sensible had never been Bink’s strongpoint. Not when he was under pressure or surprised. Thinking about it afterward, though, he realized he usually could be very sensible. If only he’d had a talent like that of his mother, only stronger, so that he could turn time back a couple of hours and replay all his problems.

Bink started to run at the man with the sword, swinging his staff to block the blade. But someone tackled him, bringing him down hard before he took two steps. Bink’s face struck dirt, and he took a mouthful. Still, he twisted about to get at the man who held him.

Then they were all on him, holding him down. Bink had no chance; in moments he was tied and gagged.

A man thrust his face close to Bink’s eyes as two others held him. “Now get this, Xanth. If you try any magic, we’ll knock you out and carry you to our camp.”

Magic? They didn’t know that Bink had none he could use or that, if he had, it would be no good out here beyond the Shield. But he nodded, showing he understood. Maybe they would treat him better if they thought he could somehow strike back.

They marched him down the other side of the pass to an army camp on the mainland.

What was an army doing here? If it was an invasion of Xanth, it could not succeed. The Shield would kill a thousand men as easily as one.

The men brought him to the main tent. Here, in a screened space, sat a handsome man in his forties wearing some sort of green uniform, a sword, and a badge of command. “Here is the spy, General,” the soldier said.

The General, who had a neat mustache, glanced at Bink. There was intelligence in that cool study. This was no bandit thug. “Untie him,” he said. “He is clearly harmless.”

“Yes, sir,” the soldier said. He untied Bink and removed his gag.

“You may go,” the General murmured to the soldiers, and without a word they were gone.

Bink rubbed at his wrists, amazed at the General’s confidence. The man was well formed but not large; Bink was younger and taller and surely stronger. If he acted quickly he might get away.

Bink bent, ready to jump at the man and knock him down. But suddenly the General’s sword was in his hand and pointing at Bink. The man’s draw had been a blur; the weapon jumped to his hand as if by magic, but that could not have been the case here. “I would not do that, young man,” the General said, as if warning him not to step on a thorn.

Bink staggered, trying to brake without falling on the point of the sword. He did not succeed. But the sword pulled back, returning to its scabbard. The General, now on his feet, caught Bink by his elbows and stood him back up. There was such power in those hands that Bink knew he had been mistaken about the General; he had no chance of overcoming him, with or without the sword.

“Be seated,” the General said mildly.

Bink moved awkwardly to the wooden chair and sat down. Now he was aware of his own dirty face and hands and the disorder of his own clothes in contrast to the neatness of the General.

“Your name?”

“Bink.” He did not give his village, as he was no longer part of it. What was the use of this question anyway? He was nobody, whatever his name was.

“I am the Magician Trent. Maybe you know of me.”

It took a moment for this to sink in. Then Bink didn’t believe it. “Trent? He’s gone. He was—”

“Cast out. Twenty years ago.”

“But Trent was—”

“Ugly? A monster? Crazy?” The Magician smiled, showing none of these traits. “What stories do they tell of me today in Xanth?”

Bink thought of Justin Tree. The fish of the stream turned to lightning bugs to bother the centaurs. The people who had been made into fish and left to die on land. “You were—he was a power-hungry spell caster who tried to take the throne of Xanth. An evil man whose evil still lives after him.”

Trent nodded. “This is kinder treatment than is normally given the loser. I was about your present age when I was cast out. Maybe our cases are similar.”

“No. I never killed anyone.”

“They accuse me of that, too? I transformed many, but I did that instead of killing. I have no need to kill since I can make an enemy harmless by other means.”

“A fish on land still dies!”

“Oh, so that is how they put it. That would be murder. I did transform enemies to fish, but always in water. On land I used only landforms. Possibly some did die later, but that was the normal course of nature. I never—”

“I don’t care! You abused your magic. I am not at all like you. I—had no magic.”

The fair eyebrows lifted. “No magic? Everybody in Xanth has magic.”

“Because they cast out those who don’t have it,” Bink said with a flash of bitterness.

Trent smiled, and it was a winning expression. “However, our interests may be similar, Bink. How would you like to return with me to Xanth?”

For an instant, wild hope jumped in his chest. Return! But he squashed it. “There is no return.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. To every act of magic there is an opposite. It is only a matter of finding it. You see, I have found a counter to the Shield.”

Again Bink had to think about that. “If you had that, you could have gone into Xanth already.”

“Well, there is a small problem. You see, what I have is a mixture made from a plant that grows on the very edge of the magical zone. The magic spreads somewhat beyond the Shield, you understand, or the Shield itself wouldn’t work, for it is magic and cannot operate beyond the magic zone. This plant seems to be Mundane and competes with the magical plants of Xanth. It is hard to compete with magic, so it grew the ability to suppress magic. Do you understand what that means?”

“Suppresses magic? Maybe that’s what happened to me.”

Trent studied him. “So you feel you were wronged by the present King? We do have something in common.”

Bink wanted no common ground with the Evil Magician, however winning the man might be. He knew that Evil could put on a fair face; otherwise, how could Evil ever have survived in the world so long?

“What are you getting at?” asked Bink.

“The Shield is magic. Therefore, the mixture should suppress it. But it does not because the source of the Shield is not touched. It is necessary to reach the Shieldstone itself. Unfortunately, we do not know where that stone is now, and there is not enough of the mixture to blanket the land of Xanth, or even a large part of it.”

“Makes no difference,” Bink said. “Your knowing where the Shieldstone is would not bring it within your reach.”

“Ah, but it would. You see, we have a catapult that can drop a bomb anywhere in nearby Xanth. We have it mounted on a ship that can sail right around Xanth. So it is very likely that we could drop the mixture upon the Shieldstone if we only knew the exact location of the stone.”

Now Bink understood. “The Shield would go down!”

“And my army would overrun Xanth. Of course, the effect would be temporary, for it fades quickly. But ten minutes would be enough to get most of my army across the line. I have been drilling the men in swift short-range movements; after that, it would be only a matter of time until the throne was mine.”

“You would return us to the days of invasion and danger,” Bink said, horrified. “The Thirteenth wave, worse than all the rest.”

“By no means. My army is disciplined. We shall use only the force that is necessary, no more. My magic will stop most who resist anyway, so there will be very little violence. I do not wish to harm the kingdom I am to rule.”

“So you haven’t changed,” Bink said. “You’re still hungry for power.”

“Oh, I have changed,” Trent told him. “I have become more educated and worldly. The Mundanes have very good schools and a broader worldview than that of Xanth citizens. I will not make the same mistakes this time. I will make a better King now than I would have twenty years ago.”

“Well, count me out!”

“But I must count you in, Bink. You know where the Shieldstone is placed.” The Evil Magician leaned forward. “It is important that the shot be exact; we have only a quarter pound of mixture, and that is the work of two years. We have cleared the area of the plants that are the source of the mixture; our supply cannot be replaced. We dare not guess at the location of the Shieldstone. We need a map—a map that only you can draw.”

So there it was. Trent had posted his men to catch any travelers from Xanth so they could update him on the position of the Shieldstone. That was the only piece of information that the Evil Magician needed to start his invasion. Bink happened to be the first to walk into that trap.

“No, I won’t tell you,” said Bink. “I won’t help overthrow the lawful government of Xanth.”

“Lawfulness is usually defined after the fact,” Trent remarked. “Had I been successful twenty years ago, I would now be the lawful King, and the Storm King would be an outcast noted for drowning people. The Storm King does still rule?”

“Yes,” Bink said shortly. The Evil Magician might try to convince him that it was only politics, but he knew better.

“I am ready to make you a very handsome offer, Bink. Anything you might want—wealth, power, women.”

He had said the wrong thing. Bink turned away. He would not want Sabrina that way, and he had already turned down a similar offer by the Sorceress Iris.

Trent steepled his fingers. Even in that small movement there was power. “You may wonder why I choose to return to Xanth after twenty years in Mundania. I have spent some time thinking about that myself.”

“Actually,” Bink said, “I don’t wonder why.”

But the man only smiled, refusing to be ruffled. Again Bink had the feeling that he was about to play into the hands of the Magician no matter how he tried to fight it. “You should wonder so you don’t allow your outlook to be as narrow as mine was when I came from Xanth. Every young man should go into the Mundane world for a year or two at least; it would make him a better citizen of Xanth. Travel tends to broaden one.”

Bink could not argue with that; he himself had learned a great deal in his two-week tour of Xanth. How much more would a year in Mundania teach him?

“In fact,” the Magician went on, “when I take power, I shall make such a rule. Xanth cannot survive cut off from the real world.”

Bink could not hold back his curiosity. “What is it like out there?”

“Do not speak with such distaste, young man. Mundania is not the evil place you may think. That is part of the reason why citizens of Xanth need to see more of it. Mundania is in many ways more civilized than Xanth. Without magic, the Mundanes have had to find other ways. They have turned to medicine and science. They now have weapons called guns that can kill more easily than an arrow or even a deadly spell. I have trained my troops in other weapons because I do not wish to bring guns into Xanth. My troops have carts that carry them across the land as fast as a unicorn can run, and boats cross the sea as swiftly as sea serpents can swim, and balloons take them as high in the air as a dragon can fly. They have people who heal the sick and wounded without the use of a single spell, and an instrument made up of little beads on rows that can multiply quickly and correctly.”

“Ridiculous!” Bink said. “Even magic can’t do figures for a person, unless it is a golem, and then it has really become a person.”

“That is what I mean, Bink. Magic is wonderful, but it is also limited. In the long run, the Mundane instruments may have greater value. Probably the basic lifestyle of the Mundanes is more comfortable than that of many Xanths.”

“There probably aren’t so many of them,” Bink muttered, “so they don’t have to fight for good land.”

“Oh, just the opposite. There are many millions of people here.”

“You’re never going to convince me of anything, telling such tall tales,” Bink pointed out. “The North Village of Xanth has about five hundred people, and that’s the largest one. There can’t be more than two thousand people in the entire kingdom. You talk of thousands of thousands of people, but I know the Mundane world can’t be much larger than Xanth.”

The Evil Magician shook his head in mock sadness. “Bink! Bink! None so blind as those who will not see.”

“And if they really have balloons flying through the air, why haven’t they flown them over Xanth?” Bink demanded hotly, knowing he had the Magician on the run.

“Because they don’t know where Xanth is and don’t even believe it is real. They don’t believe in magic, so—”

“Don’t believe in magic!” This had never been very funny, and it was getting worse.

“The Mundanes never did know very much about magic,” Trent said seriously. “It shows up in many of their stories but never in their daily lives. The Shield has closed off the border, so no truly magic animal has been seen in Mundania in a hundred years.

“And it may be good to keep them ignorant,” he went on, frowning. “If they ever get the idea that Xanth is a threat to them, they might use a giant catapult to throw in fire bolts.” He broke off, shaking his head as though at some horrible thought. Bink had to admire the motion, which was as well done as any his father used. He could almost believe there was some threat. “No,” the Magician finished, “Xanth must remain a secret for now.”

“It won’t stay secret if you send all Xanth youths into Mundania for two years.”

“Oh, we would put a forget spell on them first, and take it off only after they came back. Or at least a spell of silence so no Mundane could learn from them about Xanth. Thus they would gain Mundane experiences to go with their Xanth magic. Some trusted ones would be permitted to keep their memories and freedom of speech Outside, so they could bring in colonists and keep us informed. For our own safety and progress. But overall—”

“The Fourth Wave again,” Bink said. “A controlled settlement.”

Trent smiled. “You are a good student. Many citizens choose not to understand the true nature of the first settlements of Xanth. Actually, Xanth never was easy to find from Mundania because it seems to have no fixed location. People have entered Xanth from all over the world, always walking across the land bridge from their own countries, and all would have sworn that they traveled only a few miles. Furthermore, all understand one another’s speech in Xanth. So it would seem that there is something magical about the path to Xanth. Had I not kept notes of my path, I would never have found my way back this far. The Mundane stories of the animals that left Xanth in the past show that they were seen all over the world, not just at any one place. So it seems to work both ways.”

Trent shook his head as if it was a great mystery. Bink was hard put not to become interested. How could Xanth be everywhere at once? Did its magic spread, after all, in some way? It would be easy to get hooked by the problem!

“If you like Mundania so well, why are you trying to get back into Xanth?” Bink demanded, trying to distract himself.

“I don’t like Mundania,” Trent said, frowning. “I point out only that it is not evil, and that has to be kept in mind. If we do not keep aware of it, it may become aware of us, and that could destroy us. Xanth is a haven like none other known to man. A backward haven, to be sure, but there is no other place like it. And I—I am a Magician. I belong in my land, with my people, protecting them from the horrors coming.” He fell silent.

“Well, no Mundane tales are going to make me tell you how to get into Xanth,” Bink said firmly.

The Magician looked at Bink as if only now becoming aware that he was there. “I would rather not have to use force,” Trent said softly. “You know my talent.”

Bink felt a shiver. Trent was the Transformer, the one who changed men into trees—or worse. The strongest Magician of the past generation was too dangerous to be allowed to remain in Xanth.

Then Bink felt relief. “You’re bluffing,” he said. “Our magic can’t work outside Xanth, and I’m not going to let you into Xanth.”

“It is not a bluff,” Trent said evenly. “The magic, as I said, spreads beyond the Shield. I can take you to that border and transform you into a toad. And I shall do it if I have to.”

Bink’s relief tightened back into a knot in his stomach. Transformation—the idea of losing his body—terrified him.

But he still could not betray his homeland. “No,” he said, his tongue feeling thick in his mouth.

“I don’t understand, Bink. You surely did not leave Xanth because you wanted to. I offer you the chance to get your home back.”

“Not that way.”

Trent sighed with seemingly real regret. “You are loyal, and I can not blame you for that. I had hoped it would not come to this.”

Bink had hoped so, too. But he seemed to have no choice except to watch his chance to make a break for it, risking his life to escape. Better a clean death in a fight than to become a toad.

A soldier entered, reminding Bink of Crombie—it was a matter of bearing—and stood at attention. “What is it, Hastings?” Trent asked mildly.

“Sir, there is another person through the Shield.”

Trent hardly showed his feelings. “Really? It seems we have another source of information.”

Bink felt a new emotion, but it was hardly a comfortable one. If there was another person from Xanth, the Magician could get his information without Bink’s help. Would he let Bink go, or would he turn him into a toad anyway as a lesson? Remembering Trent’s reputation of past times, Bink did not think that he would be freed. Anyone who stopped the Evil Magician, in whatever manner, was in for it, unless Bink gave him the information now. Should he, since it could make no difference to the future of Xanth?

He saw Trent looking at him. Suddenly Bink caught on. This was a setup to make him talk. And he had almost fallen for it.

“Well, you won’t be needing me, then,” Bink said. One thing about being turned into a frog: he couldn’t tell the Magician anything at all in that form. He imagined a talk between man and frog:

MAGICIAN: Where is the Shieldstone?

FROG: Croak!

Bink almost smiled. Trent would transform him only as a last resort.

Now Trent turned back to the messenger. “Bring the other one here; I will question him.”

“Sir, it is a woman.”

A woman! Trent seemed surprised, but Bink was amazed. This was not what he expected in a bluff. There was no woman being cast out, and no other man either. What was Trent trying to do?

Unless—oh, no! Unless Sabrina had, after all, followed him out. Dismay tore at him. If the Evil Magician had her in his power—

No! It could not be. Sabrina did not really love him; the trial and her reaction to it had proved that. She would not give up all she had to follow him out. It simply was not in her nature. And he didn’t really love her; he had already decided that. So this had to be a trick.

“Very well,” Trent said. “Bring her in.”

It couldn’t be a bluff, then. Not if they brought her in. And if Sabrina had followed him, he couldn’t let her be changed into a toad. Yet with all of Xanth at stake, he would just have to play it as it came. If they had Sabrina, he was lost; if it was a bluff, he had won. Except that he would be a toad or a frog.

Maybe being a toad would not be so bad. No doubt flies would taste very good, and the lady toads would look as good as human girls did now. Maybe the great love of his life was waiting in the grass, warts and all.

The soldiers came in half carrying a struggling woman. Bink saw with relief that it was not Sabrina but a very ugly female he had never seen before. Her hair was wild, her teeth were crooked, her body was shapeless.

“Stand,” Trent said mildly, and she stood. “Your name?”

“Fanchon,” she muttered. “Yours?”

“The Magician Trent.”

“Never heard of you.”

Bink, caught by surprise, had to cough to hide his laughter. But Trent was not bothered. “This puts us on an even footing, Fanchon. I am sorry for the trouble my men have caused you. If you will kindly tell me the location of the Shieldstone, I shall pay you well and send you on your way.”

“Don’t tell him!” Bink cried. “He means to invade Xanth!”

She wrinkled her nose. “What do I care about Xanth?” She looked at Trent. “I could tell you, but how do I know I can trust you? You might kill me as soon as you have your information.”

Trent tapped his long fingers together. “This is a real concern. You have no way of knowing whether my given word is good. Yet it should be clear that I would have no reason to hurt anyone who helps me.”

“All right,” she said. “Makes sense. The Shieldstone is at—”

“Traitor!” Bink screamed.

“Remove him,” Trent snapped.

Soldiers entered and grabbed Bink and hurled him out. He had done nothing except make it harder for himself.

But then he thought of something else. What were the chances of another person coming from Xanth an hour after him? There couldn’t be more than one or two people cast out in a year; it was big news when anyone left Xanth. He had heard nothing about it, and no second trial had been planned after his.

So Fanchon had not been cast out. She was probably not from Xanth at all. She was an agent, planted by Trent, just as Bink had first thought. She was supposed to make him think that she was telling Trent where the Shieldstone was kept, tricking him into agreeing with the information.

Well, he had figured out the plan, so he had won. Do what he might, Trent would not get into Xanth.

Yet Bink was still not sure—

Chapter 9

Transformer

Bink was thrown into a pit. A pile of hay broke his fall, and a wooden roof set on four tall posts shaded him from the sun. Other than that, his prison was bare. The walls were of something like stone, too hard to dig into with his bare hands; the floor was packed dirt.

He walked around it. The wall was solid and too high for him to climb. He could almost touch the top of it when he jumped and reached up, but a network of metal bars across it sealed him in. He might get high enough to catch hold of one of those bars, but then all he would be able to do was hang there. It might be exercise, but it wouldn’t get him out. The cage was tight.

He had barely arrived at this conclusion when soldiers arrived at the overhead grate and shook rust onto him. Some stood in the shade of the roof while another one bent down to unlock the little door in the grate and swing it up and open. Then they dropped a person through. It was the woman Fanchon.

Bink jumped across the hole, wrapping his arms around her before she hit the straw, breaking her fall. They both sprawled in the hay. The door slammed shut and the lock clicked.

“I know my beauty didn’t overcome you,” she said as they got up.

“I was afraid you’d break a leg,” Bink said. “I almost did when they threw me in here.”

She looked down at her knobby knees. “A break couldn’t hurt the looks of either leg.”

Not far off the mark. Bink had never seen a more ugly girl than this one.

But what was she doing here? Why should the Evil Magician throw his stooge in the pit with his prisoner? This was no way to trick him into talking. The best way would be to tell Bink she had talked and then offer him his freedom for his agreement with the information. Even if she was real, she still should not have been put with him; she could have been held in another place. Then the guards would tell each one that the other had talked.

If she had been beautiful, they might have thought she could charm him into talking. But as ugly as she was, there wasn’t a chance. Pairing them in the same pit just didn’t seem to make sense.

“Why didn’t you tell him about the Shieldstone?” Bink asked. If she was a fake, she could not have told, but she also should not have been dumped in here. If she was real, she must be loyal to Xanth. But then why had she said she would tell Trent where the Shieldstone was?

“I told him,” she said.

She told him? Now Bink hoped she was phony!

“Yes,” she said, looking him in the eye. “I told him how it was set under the throne in the King’s palace.”

Bink tried to understand why she had said that. It was the wrong location, but did she know this? Was she trying to trick him into revealing the real location while the guards listened? Or was she really from Xanth and had lied? That would explain why she was here. Because if Trent’s catapult threw the magic mixture on the palace of Xanth, not only would it fail to hurt the Shield, it would alert the King—or at least the more aware ministers—to the nature of the threat. The damping out of magic in that area would give it away.

Had Trent actually thrown his bomb? And had he now lost all hope of invading Xanth? The moment the threat was known, the Xanth ministers would move the Shieldstone to a new, secret location, so that no information that Bink or Fanchon could provide would be useful. And if that happened, Trent would turn Fanchon into a toad and step on her. And he would not bother to keep Bink prisoner. Bink might be killed or freed but not simply kept. Nothing like that had yet happened because there had not yet been time for all that.

“I see you don’t trust me,” Fanchon said.

“I can’t afford to,” Bink said. “I don’t want anything to happen to Xanth.”

“Why should you care? You got kicked out.”

“I knew the rule. I was given a fair hearing.”

“Fair hearing!” she cried angrily. “The King didn’t even read Humfrey’s note or taste the water from the Spring of Life!”

Bink paused again. How would she know that?

“Oh, come on,” she said. “I passed through your village only hours after your trial. It was the talk of the town—how the Magician Humfrey had said you had magic, but the King—”

“Okay, okay,” Bink said. Clearly she had come from Xanth, but he still wasn’t sure how far he could trust her. Yet she must know the Shieldstone’s location but hadn’t told it yet. Unless she had told it and Trent didn’t believe her so he was waiting for agreement from Bink. But she had given the wrong location. Bink could challenge her on that, but it would still not give away the right location. There were many possible spots. So probably she meant what she said. She had tried to fool Trent and had not succeeded.

So now Bink believed that she was from Xanth and had not betrayed it. How complicated could Trent’s plans become? Maybe he had a Mundane machine that could pick up news from inside the Shield. Or he had a magic mirror set up in the magic zone just outside the Shield so he could learn news from Xanth. No. In that case he could have found out the location of the Shieldstone without help.

Bink felt dizzy. He didn’t know what to think, but he did know that he wasn’t going to tell the location.

“I wasn’t cast out, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Fanchon had interrupted Bink’s thoughts. “They don’t cast out people for being ugly. I came out on my own.”

“On your own? Why?”

“Well, I had two reasons.”

“What two reasons?”

She looked at him. “I’m afraid you won’t believe either one.”

“Try me and see.”

“First, the Magician Humfrey told me it was the easiest answer to my problem.”

“What problem?” Bink was hardly in a good mood.

She stared at him again. “Must I spell it out?”

Bink found himself reddening. Clearly her problem was her appearance. Fanchon was a young woman. She was not just plain but downright ugly—living proof that youth and health did not mean beauty. No clothing or makeup could help her enough; only magic could do it. Which seemed to mean that her leaving Xanth was nonsense. Was her judgment as warped as her body?

Needing to change the subject, Bink fixed on another objection: “But there’s no magic in Mundania.”

“That’s right.”

Fanchon was as difficult to talk with as look at! “You mean that magic makes you what you are?” he said.

She did not scold him for his lack of social grace. “Yes, more or less.”

“Why didn’t Humfrey charge you his fee?”

“He couldn’t stand the sight of me.”

Worse and worse. “Uh—what was your other reason for leaving Xanth?”

“I shall not tell you that at this time.”

It figured. She had said he wouldn’t believe her reasons, and he had believed the first one, so she wouldn’t tell him the other one. Typical female logic.

“Well, we seem to be prisoners together,” Bink said, looking around the pit again. It was as gloomy as ever. “Do you think they’re going to feed us?”

“Of course,” Fanchon said. “Trent will come around and dangle bread and water at us, and ask which one would like to give him the information. That one will be fed. It will become harder to turn him down as time passes.”

“You have a horribly quick mind.”

“I am horribly smart,” she said. “In fact, it is fair to say I am as smart as I am ugly.”

Yes, indeed. “Are you smart enough to figure out how to escape from here?”

“No, I don’t think escape is possible,” she said while nodding her head in a definite yes.

“Oh,” Bink said, taken aback. Her words said no, her head said yes. Was she crazy? No, she knew the guards were listening even though they were out of sight. So she sent them one message while sending Bink another. Which meant she had already figured out an escape.

It was now afternoon. Sunlight spilled through the grate, having found its way past the edge of the roof. Just as well, Bink thought; it would be unbearable in here if the sun never reached the floor of the pit.

Trent came to the grate. “I trust you two have become friendly,” he said patiently. “Are you hungry?”

“Now it comes,” Fanchon muttered.

“I’m sorry about your quarters,” Trent said, bending down with perfect ease. It was as if he were meeting them in a clean office. “If you both will give me your word not to leave this camp or get in our way, I shall set up a comfortable tent for you.”

“That will lead to defeat,” Fanchon said to Bink. “Once you accept things, you will owe him. Don’t do it.”

She was making sense. “No deal,” Bink said.

“You see,” Trent went on smoothly, “if you were in a tent and you tried to escape, my guards would have to put arrows in you, and I don’t want that to happen. It would be most uncomfortable for you, and I would not get my information. So it is important that I have you confined by one means or another. This pit has the value of being secure.”

“You could always let us go,” Bink said, “since you aren’t going to get the information anyway.”

If that ruffled the Evil Magician, he did not show it. “Here is some cake and wine,” Trent said, lowering a package on a cord.

Neither Bink nor Fanchon reached for it, though Bink suddenly felt hungry and thirsty. The smell of spice drifted through the pit. Clearly the package held fresh, good things.

“Please take it,” Trent said. “It is not poisoned or drugged. I want you both in good health.”

“For when you change us into toads?” Bink asked loudly. What did he have to lose, really?

“No, I am afraid you have called my bluff on that. Toads do not speak, and it is important to me that you speak.”

Could the Evil Magician have lost his talent during his long stay in Mundania? Bink began to feel better.

The package touched the straw. Fanchon shrugged and bent to untie it. Sure enough—cake and wine.

“Maybe one of us better eat now,” she said. “If nothing happens in a few hours, the other eats.”

“Ladies first,” Bink said. If the food was drugged and she was a spy, she wouldn’t touch it.

“Thank you.” She broke the cake in half. “Pick a piece,” she said.

“You eat that one,” Bink said, pointing.

“Very nice,” Trent said from above. “You don’t trust me or each other. So you are working out ways to protect yourselves. But it really is unneeded. If I wanted to poison you, I would pour it on your heads.”

Fanchon took a bite of cake. “This is very good,” she said. She uncorked the wine and took a sip. “This, too.”

But Bink decided to wait.

“I have been thinking about your cases,” Trent said. “Fanchon, I can transform you into any other life form, even another human being.” He looked down at her. “How would you like to be beautiful?”

Uh—oh. If Fanchon was not a spy, this would be a tempting offer. The ugly one changed to beauty.

“Go away,” Fanchon said to Trent, “before I throw a mudball at you.” But then she thought of something else. “If you’re really going to leave us here, at least give us a bucket and a curtain. If I had a lovely bottom, I might not mind the lack of privacy, but as it is I prefer to be modest.”

“Well said,” replied Trent. He waved, and the guards brought the items and lowered them through the hole in the grate. Fanchon set the pot in one corner and took pins from her straggly hair to tack the cloth to the two walls, forming a small chamber. Bink wasn’t sure why a girl of her appearance should be so modest. Surely no one would gawk at her flesh. Unless she really was sensitive. In that case it did make sense. A pretty girl could show shock if someone saw her bare body, but privately she might be pleased. Fanchon had no such need to pretend.

Bink felt sorry for her, and for himself. Things would be much more interesting if his company were good-looking. But he was grateful for the privacy, too. Natural functions would otherwise have been awkward. So he went full circle. She had found the problem before he even started thinking it out. She did have a quicker mind.

“He’s not fooling about making you beautiful,” Bink said. “He can—”

“It wouldn’t work.”

“Trent’s talent—”

“I know his talent. But that would only make my problem worse even if I were willing to betray Xanth.”

This was strange. She did not want beauty? Then why was she sensitive about her looks? Or was this some other trick to get him to tell the location of the Shieldstone? He did not think so. She clearly was from Xanth; no Outsider could have known about the water of the Spring of Life and the old King.

Evening came. Fanchon did not get ill from eating the cake, so Bink ate and drank his share of the meal.

It began to rain. The roof gave some shelter, but enough rain slanted in to wet them down anyway. Fanchon just smiled. “Good,” she whispered. “The fates are with us tonight!”

Good? Bink shivered in his wet clothing and watched her in wonder. She scraped with her fingernails in the rain-softened floor of the pit. Bink walked over to see what she was up to, but she waved him away. “Make sure the guards don’t see,” she whispered.

Small danger of that; the guards weren’t interested. They had taken shelter from the rain and were not in sight. Even had they been close, it was getting too dark to see.

What was so important about this business? She was scooping out mud from the floor and mixing it with the hay. Bink couldn’t make any sense of it. Was this her idea of fun?

“Did you know any girls in Xanth?” Fanchon asked. The rain was slacking off, but the darkness hid her secret work from Bink as well as the guards.

It was a subject Bink did not want to talk about. “I don’t see what—”

She moved over to him. “I’m making bricks, idiot!” she whispered. “Keep talking, and watch for any lights. If you see anyone coming, say the word ‘chameleon.’ I’ll hide the bricks in a hurry.” She slithered back to her corner.

Chameleon. There was something about that word. Now he had it. The chameleon lizard he had seen just before his trip to the Good Magician—his omen of the future. The chameleon had died. Did this mean his time was coming?

“Talk!” Fanchon hissed. “Cover my sounds!” Then, in a calmer and louder tone: “You did know some girls?”

“Uh, some,” Bink said. Bricks? What for?

“Were they pretty?” Her hands were blurred by the night, but he could hear the little slaps of mud and the rustle of hay. Maybe she was using the hay to make the mud bricks firmer. But the whole thing seemed crazy. Did she mean to build a brick privy?

“Or not so pretty?” she asked.

“Oh. Pretty.” It seemed he was stuck with this subject. If the guards were listening, they would pay more attention to him taking about pretty girls than to her slapping mud. Well, if that was what she wanted. “My fiancée, Sabrina, was beautiful—is beautiful—and the Sorceress Iris seemed beautiful, but I met others who weren’t. Once they get old or married, they—

“Chameleon,” he murmured. The rain had stopped and he saw a light moving near. Omens always were correct if understood.

“Women don’t have to get ugly when they marry,” Fanchon said. Bink heard the sounds change; now she was hiding the bricks. “Some women just start out that way,” she said.

She certainly was touchy about her looks. This made him wonder again why she had turned down Trent’s offer of beauty.

“I met a lady centaur on my way to the Magician Humfrey,” he said, finding it hard to think in the face of his strange situation—locked in a pit with an ugly girl who wanted to make bricks! “She was beautiful in a noble kind of way. Of course she was basically a horse—” Wrong words to use. “I mean, from the rear she—well, I rode her back.” Aware of what the guards might think he was saying—not that he should care what they thought—he watched the light getting nearer. He saw it mainly as reflections off the metal grate. “She was half horse. She gave me a ride through centaur country.”

The light faded. It must be a guard on patrol. “False alarm,” he whispered. Then, in a louder tone: “But I met one really lovely girl on the way to the Magician. Her name was”—he had to think—“Wynne. But she was very stupid. I hope the Gap Dragon didn’t catch her.”

“You were in the Gap?”

“For a while, until the dragon chased me off. I had to go around it. I’m surprised you know of it; I had thought there was a forget spell on it because it was not on my map and I never heard of it until I came to it.”

“I lived near the Gap,” she said.

“You lived there? When was it made? What is its secret?”

“It was always there. There is a forget spell. I think the Magician Humfrey put it there. But if your connections are really strong, you remember. At least for a while. Magic goes only so far.”

“Maybe that’s it. I’ll never forget the dragon and the shade!”

Fanchon was making bricks again. “Any other girls?”

Bink began to think she had more than a passing interest in the matter. Was it because she knew the people of the Gap area? “Let’s see. There was one other I met. An ordinary girl. Dee was her name. She had an argument with the soldier I was with, Crombie. He was a woman hater and she walked out. Too bad! I rather liked her.”

“Oh? I thought you liked pretty girls.”

“Look, don’t be so damned sensitive!” he snapped. “You brought up the subject! I like Dee better than— Oh, never mind! I’d have been happier talking about plans to escape.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I—I knew about your trip around the Gap. Wynne and Dee were friends of mine. So naturally I’m concerned.”

“Friends of yours? Both of them?” Pieces of a puzzle began to fit together. “What is your relation to the Sorceress Iris?”

Fanchon laughed. “None at all! If I were the Sorceress, do you think I would look like this?”

“Yes,” Bink said. “If you tried beauty and it didn’t work, and you still wanted power and thought you could get it through me, that would explain why Trent couldn’t tempt you with the promise of beauty. That would only ruin your cover. And you could be beautiful anytime you wanted to be. So you might follow me out in a disguise, and of course you would not help another Magician take over Xanth.”

“So I’d come right out here into Mundania, where there is no magic,” she finished. “Therefore no illusion.”

That gutted his case. Or did it? “Maybe this is the way you actually look. I may never have seen the real Iris there on her island.”

“And how would I get back into Xanth?”

For that Bink had no answer. He answered with bluster. “Well, why did you come here? Clearly the non-magic has not solved your problem.”

“Well, it takes time.”

“Time to cancel out magic?”

“Certainly. When dragons used to fly out over Mundania, before the Shield was set up, it would take them days or weeks to fade. Maybe even longer. Magician Humfrey says there are many pictures and mentions of dragons and other magic beasts in Mundane books. The Mundanes don’t see dragons anymore, so they think the old books are stories. But this proves that it takes a while for the magic in a creature or a person to fade.”

“So a Sorceress could keep her illusion for a few days after all,” Bink said.

She sighed. “Maybe so. But I’m not Iris, though I wouldn’t mind being her. I had different reasons for leaving Xanth.”

“Yes, I remember. One was to lose your magic, whatever it was, and the other you wouldn’t tell me.”

“I suppose you deserve to know. You’re going to have it out of me one way or another. I learned from Wynne and Dee what sort of person you were, and—”

“So Wynne did get away from the dragon?”

“Yes, thanks to you. She—”

“Chameleon,” Bink said. A light was coming.

Fanchon scrambled to hide her bricks. This time the light came all the way to the pit.

“I trust you have not been flooded out down there?” Trent’s voice asked.

“If we were, we’d swim away from here,” Bink said. “Listen, Magician, the more uncomfortable you make us, the less we want to help you.”

“I am aware of that, Bink. I would give you a more comfortable tent—”

“No!”

“Bink, I find it hard to understand why you should be so loyal to a government that treated you so badly.”

“What do you know about that?”

“My spies have of course been listening to you. But I could have guessed it, knowing how old and stubborn the Storm King must be by now. Magic shows up in many forms, and when the definitions become too narrow—”

“Well, it doesn’t make any difference here.”

The Magician went on, sounding reasonable in contrast to Bink. “It may be that you do lack magic, Bink, though I hardly think Humfrey would be wrong about a thing like that. But you have other good traits, and you would make a very good citizen.”

“He’s right, you know,” Fanchon said. “You do deserve better than you were given.”

“Which side are you on?” Bink demanded.

She sighed in the dark. She sounded very human; it was easier to like her when he couldn’t see her. “I’m on your side, Bink. I admire your loyalty. I’m just not sure you’re loyal to the right thing.”

“Then why don’t you tell him where the Shieldstone is if you know it?”

“Because with all its faults, Xanth remains a nice place,” she said. “The Storm King won’t live forever. When he dies they’ll have to put in the Magician Humfrey, and he’ll make things much better even if he does complain about it. Maybe some new Magician is being delivered right now to take over after that. It’ll work out somehow. It always has before. The last thing Xanth needs is to be taken over by a cruel Evil Magician who would turn all his enemies into turnips.”

Trent’s chuckle came down from above. “My dear, you have a keen mind and a sharp tongue. Actually, I prefer to turn my enemies into trees; they last longer than turnips. I don’t suppose you could agree, for the sake of argument, that I might make a better ruler than the present King?”

“He’s got a point, you know,” Bink said, smiling in the dark.

“Which side are you on?” Fanchon demanded, imitating the tone Bink had used before.

But it was Trent who laughed. “I like you two,” he said. “I really do. You have good minds and good loyalty. If you would only give that loyalty to me, I would be willing to let you have power in my government. For example, I might give you veto power over any transformations I made. You could choose the turnips.”

“So we’d be responsible for your crimes,” Fanchon said. “That sort of power would change us until we were no different from you.”

“Only if your basic values were no better than mine,” Trent pointed out. “And if they are not, then you would never have been any different from me. You have not yet been in my situation. It would be best if you found out how you would react.”

Bink hesitated. He was wet and cold, and he did not look forward to spending the night in this hole. Had Trent been one to keep his word twenty years ago? No, he hadn’t; he had broken his word freely. That was part of what had defeated him. No one could trust him, not even his friends.

The Magician’s promises were worthless. His logic was designed only to get one of the prisoners to tell the location of the Shieldstone. Veto power over transformation? Bink and Fanchon would be the first to be transformed once the Evil One had no further need of them.

Bink did not reply. Fanchon remained silent. After a moment Trent left. “And so we get through temptation number two,” Fanchon said. “But he’s a clever man. Resisting him will get harder.”

Bink was afraid she was right.

* * *

The next morning the sunlight slanting into the pit baked the bricks. They were not very hard yet, but at least it was a start. Fanchon placed them in the privacy corner so they could not be seen from above. She would set them out again for the afternoon sun if all went well.

Trent came by with more food: fresh fruit and milk. “I do not like putting it in these terms,” he said, “but my patience is wearing thin. At any time they might move the Shieldstone, making your information valueless. If one of you does not give me the information I need today, tomorrow I will transform you both. You, Bink, will be a cockatrice; you, Fanchon, a basilisk. You will be put in the same cage.”

Bink and Fanchon looked at each other with dismay. Cockatrice and basilisk—two names for the same thing: a winged reptile from an egg laid by a rooster and hatched by a toad in the warmth of a dungheap. The smell of its breath was so bad that it wilted plants and shattered stone, and the very sight of its face would cause other creatures to keel over dead. Basilisk—the little king of the reptiles.

The chameleon of Bink’s omen had changed into the likeness of a basilisk just before it died. Now Bink had been reminded of the chameleon by a person who could not have known about that omen, and threatened with transformation. Surely his death was coming soon.

“It’s a bluff,” Fanchon said at last. “He can’t really do it. He’s just trying to scare us.”

“He’s succeeding,” Bink muttered.

“Maybe I should show you my magic,” Trent said. “I ask no person to take it on faith when it is so readily shown as real. I need to use the magic regularly to restore my full talent after the long layoff in Mundania, so you will be my practice for today.” He snapped his fingers. “Allow them to finish their meal,” he said to the guard who came up. “Then remove them from the pit.” He left.

Now Fanchon was glum for another reason. “He may be bluffing, but if they come down here, they’ll find the bricks. That will finish us anyway.”

“Not if we move right out, giving them no trouble,” Bink said. “They won’t come down here unless they have to.”

“Let’s hope so,” she said.

When the guards came, Bink and Fanchon scrambled right up the rope ladder the moment it was dropped. “We’re calling the Magician’s bluff,” Bink said. The soldiers made no answer. The party marched eastward, toward Xanth.

Within sight of the Shield, Trent stood beside a wire cage. Soldiers stood in a ring around him, arrows on bows. They all wore smoked glasses. The scene looked very grim.

“I warn you,” Trent said as they arrived, “do not look at each other’s faces after the transformation. I cannot bring the dead back to life.”

If he was trying to scare them, it was working. Fanchon might doubt, but Bink believed. He remembered Justin Tree. The omen loomed large in his mind.

First to be a basilisk, then to die.

Trent saw Bink’s expression. “Have you anything to say to me?” he asked.

“Yes. How did they manage to cast you out without getting turned into toads or turnips or worse?”

Trent frowned. “That was not what I meant, Bink. But I will answer. A person I trusted was bribed to put a sleep spell on me. While I slept, they carried me across the Shield.”

“How do you know it won’t happen again? You can’t stay awake all the time, you know.”

“I spent much time thinking about that problem in the long early years of my stay in Mundania. I decided that I had brought it upon myself. I had been faithless to others, and so others were faithless to me. I was not without honor; I broke my given word only for what I thought were very good reasons.”

“That’s the same thing as lying,” Bink said.

“I did not think so at the time. But I daresay my reputation did not improve while I was gone. It has always been the right of the winner to present the loser as evil. However, I did not always keep my word, and in time I realized that this was the flaw in my character that was my undoing. The only way to keep it from happening again was to change my way of doing things. And so I no longer lie—ever. And no one lies to me.”

It was a fair answer. The Evil Magician was, in many ways, the opposite of the way Bink had always thought of him. Instead of being ugly, weak, and mean—Humfrey fitted that description better—Trent was handsome, strong, and polite. Yet he was the enemy, and Bink knew better than to let fair words sway him.

“Fanchon, stand forth,” Trent said.

Fanchon stepped toward him, open doubt on her face. Trent did not wave or chant. He only stared at her.

She vanished.

A soldier swooped in with a butterfly net, slamming down on something. In a moment he held it up—a struggling lizardlike thing with wings.

It really was a basilisk! Bink quickly looked away so as not to look at its horrible face and meet its deadly gaze.

The soldier dumped the thing into the cage and another soldier shoved on the lid. All the soldiers relaxed. The basilisk scrambled around, seeking some escape, but there was none. It glared at the wire cage, but its gaze had no effect on the metal. A third soldier dropped a cloth over the cage, cutting off the view of the little monster.

Now Bink himself relaxed. The whole thing had been carefully set up and practiced; the soldiers knew exactly what to do.

“Bink, stand forth,” Trent said as before.

Bink was terrified. But a corner of his mind protested. It was still a bluff. She was in on it. They had rigged it to make him think she was transformed and he was to be next. All her arguments against Trent were to make her seem all right, preparing for this moment.

Still, Bink only half believed that. The omen gave him a special, awful belief. Death hovered, as it were, close by on the silent wings of a moth hawk.

Yet he could not betray his homeland. Weak-kneed, he stepped forth.

Trent stared at him and the world jumped. Confused and frightened, Bink scrambled for the safety of a nearby bush. The green leaves withered as he got near; then the net came down, trapping him. Remembering his escape from the Gap Dragon, he dodged at the last moment and the net just missed him. He glared up at the soldier, who had let his smoked glasses fall. Their eyes met and the man tumbled backward.

The butterfly net flew wide, but another soldier grabbed it. Bink scooted for the withered bush again, but this time the net caught him. He was scooped inside, wings flapping helplessly, tail thrashing and getting caught in the net, beak snapping at nothing.

Then he was dumped out. Two shakes, three, and his claws and tail were loose. He landed on his back, wings outspread. A squawk escaped him.

As he righted himself, the light dimmed. He was in the cage, and it had just been covered so that no one outside could see his face. He was a cockatrice.

Some display! Not only had he seen Fanchon transformed, he had experienced it himself. And he had killed a soldier by looking at him. If there had been any doubters in Trent’s army, there would be none now.

He saw the curling, barbed tail of another of his kind. A female. But her back was to him. His cockatrice nature took over. He didn’t want company. Angrily he jumped on her, biting, digging in with his claws. She twisted around instantly, the strong serpent’s tail helping her turn. For a moment they were face-to-face.

She was ugly, frightful, nasty, ghastly, and shocking. He had never before seen anything so horrible. Yet she was female and therefore had a certain attraction. The opposite pulls of being disgusted and attracted at the same time overpowered his mind, and he fainted.

***

When he woke, he had a headache. He lay on the hay in the pit. It was late afternoon.

“It seems the stare of the basilisk is overrated,” Fanchon said. “Neither of us died.”

So it had really happened. “Not quite,” Bink agreed. “But I feel a bit dead.”

As he spoke he realized something that had not surfaced before. The basilisk was a magical creature that could do magic. He had been an intelligent cockatrice and had magically stricken an enemy. What did that do to his ideas about magic?

“Well, you put up a good fight,” Fanchon was saying. “They’ve already buried that soldier. It is quiet like death in this camp now.”

Like death. Had that been the meaning of his omen? He had not died, but he had killed without meaning to and in a way he could not have done in his normal state. Had the omen been fulfilled?

Bink sat up, another realization coming. “Trent’s talent is real. We were transformed. We really were.”

“It is real. We really were,” she agreed somberly. “I admit I doubted, but now I believe.”

“He must have changed us back while we were asleep.”

“Yes. He was only making a demonstration.”

“It was a good one.”

“It was.” She shuddered. “Bink, I—I don’t know if I can take that again. It wasn’t just the change. It was—”

“I know. You made a hell of an ugly basilisk.”

“I would make a hell of an ugly anything. But the stupidity and awfulness are foul! To spend the rest of my life like that—”

“I can’t blame you,” Bink said. But still something nagged at his mind. It was such an unusual experience that he knew it would take a long time for his mind to sift through it all.

“I didn’t think anyone could make me go against my values. But this, this—” She put her face in her hands.

Bink nodded silently. After a moment he shifted the subject. “Did you notice that those creatures were male and female?”

“Of course,” she said, gaining control of herself now that she had something to focus on. “We are male and female. The Magician can change our forms but not our sexes.”

“But the basilisks should not have sexes. Hatched of eggs laid by roosters. There are no parent basilisks, only roosters.”

She nodded thoughtfully, catching hold of the problem. “You’re right. If there are males and females, they should mate and have offspring. Which means they aren’t basilisks.”

“There must be something wrong with that,” Bink said. “Either there’s a lot of superstition about the monsters, or we were not real basilisks.”

“We were real,” she said, grimacing with renewed horror. “I’m sure of that now. For the first time in my life, I’m glad for my human form.” Which was quite a statement for her.

“That means Trent’s magic is all-the-way real,” Bink said. “He doesn’t just change the form, he really changes things into other things, if you see what I mean.” Then the thing that had been nagging at his mind became clear. “But if magic fades outside Xanth, beyond the narrow magic band beyond the Shield, all we would have to do—”

“Would be to go into Mundania!” she cried, catching on. “In time, we would go back to our proper form. So it would not be permanent.”

“So his transformation is a bluff even though it is real,” he said. “He would have to keep us caged right there or we’d escape and get out of his power. He has to get all the way into Xanth or he really has very little power. No more power than he already has as General of his army, which is the power to kill.”

“All he can get now is just the taste of real power,” she said. “I’ll bet he wants to get into Xanth!”

“But meanwhile we’re still in his power.”

She set out the bricks to catch the limited sunlight. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

“If he lets us go, I’ll travel on into Mundania. That’s where I was headed. One thing Trent has shown me—it is possible to live out there. But I’ll make sure to note my path carefully. It seems that Xanth is hard to find from the other direction.”

“I meant about the Shieldstone.”

“Nothing.”

“Yon won’t tell him?”

“No, of course not,” he said. “Now that we know that his magic can’t really hurt us worse than his soldiers can, some of the terror is gone. But I won’t blame you for telling him.”

She looked at him. Her face was still ugly, but there was something special in it now. “You know, you’re quite a man, Bink.”

“No, I’m nothing much. I have no magic.”

“You have magic. You just don’t know what it is.”

“Same thing.”

“I followed you out here, you know.”

Her message was becoming clear. She had heard about him in Xanth as the traveler with no spell. She had known that it would be no loss in Mundania. What better match—the man with no magic, the woman with no beauty. Similar problems. Perhaps he could get used to her looks in time; her other qualities were good ones. Except for one thing.

“I understand your position,” he said. “But if you cooperate with the Evil Magician, I won’t have anything to do with you even if he makes you beautiful. Not that it matters. You can get your reward in Xanth when he takes over if he honors his given word this time.”

“You give me courage,” she said. “Let’s make a break for it.”

“How?”

“The bricks, dummy. They’re hard now. As soon as it’s dark, we’ll make a pile.”

“The grate keeps us in; its door is still locked. A high step won’t make any difference. If just getting up there were the only problem, I could lift you.”

“There is a difference,” she murmured. “We pile the bricks, stand on them, and push up the whole grate. It’s not anchored; I checked that when they brought us in here. It’s heavy, but you’re strong.”

Bink looked up with sudden hope. “You could prop it up after I push it. Step by step, until—”

“Not so loud!” she whispered. “They may still be listening!” But she nodded. “You’ve got the idea. It’s not a sure thing, but it’s worth a try. And we’ll have to make a raid on the store of null-magic mixture so he can’t use it if someone comes out to tell him where the Shieldstone is. I’ve been working it all out.”

Bink smiled. He was beginning to like her.

Chapter 10

Chase

At night they piled up the bricks. Some crumbled, for the sunlight had not been hot enough to bake them all the way through, but on the whole they were pretty sturdy. Bink listened carefully for the guards, waiting until they took what they called a break. Then he stepped to the top of the brick pile, braced his hands against the grate, and shoved.

As his muscles tightened, he suddenly realized that this was Fanchon’s real reason for wanting the curtain. It had not been to hide her body but to hide the bricks so they would be saved for this escape. He had never caught on.

The thought gave him strength. He shoved hard, and the grate rose with surprising ease. Fanchon scrambled up beside him and jammed the privy pot under the lifted edge.

Ugh! Maybe some year someone would make a pot that smelled of roses!

But it did the job. It held up the grate as he let it go. Now there was room to scramble out. Bink gave her a boost, then pulled himself out. No guards saw them. They were free.

“The null-magic mixture is on that ship,” Fanchon whispered, pointing into the darkness.

“How do you know that?” Bink asked.

“We passed it on our way to the transformation. It’s the only thing that would be guarded so carefully. And you can see the catapult on board.”

She had kept her eyes open. Ugly she might be, but she was smart. He hadn’t thought to look over the area so closely.

“Now, getting the mixture will be a problem,” she went on. “I think we’d better take the whole ship. Can you sail?”

“I’ve never been on anything bigger than a rowboat in my life, except Iris’s ship, and that wasn’t real. I’d probably get seasick.”

“Me, too,” she agreed. “We’re landlubbers. So they’ll never look for us there. Come on.”

Well, it was better than being changed into a cockatrice.

They crept down to the beach and entered the water. Bink looked back nervously and saw a light moving toward the pit. “Hurry!” he whispered. “We forgot to put the grate back down. They’ll know right away that we’re gone.”

At least they were both fairly good swimmers. They took off their clothing and swam silently for the sailboat some distance out. Bink was alarmed by the dark water. What type of monsters were in Mundane seas?

The water was not cold, and swimming helped warm him, but in a while Bink tired and felt chilled. Fanchon suffered also. The ship had not seemed this far from land.

Then the cry went up back at the prison pit. Lights flared everywhere, moving around like fireflies. Bink felt new strength. “We’ve got to get there fast,” he said, gasping for air.

Fanchon didn’t answer. She was too busy swimming.

The swim seemed to take forever. It drained strength from Bink, making him become gloomy. But at last they came up to the ship. A sailor was standing on the deck, a shadow in the light of the moon, peering at the shore.

Fanchon drew close to Bink. “You go other side.” She pointed. “I distract.” She had guts. The sailor might put an arrow in her. But Bink swam around the ship to the far side. The ship was about fifteen paces long, large by Xanth standards. If any part of what Trent had said about Mundania was true, there were much larger ships there.

Bink reached up and put his fingers on the edge of the ship’s rail. He hoped there weren’t other sailors watching. He had to pull himself up slowly so as not to rock the boat.

Now Fanchon, with wonderful timing, made a noise as of someone drowning. The sailors went to the rail—four of them in all—and Bink pulled himself up as silently as he could. His wet body slapped against the deck and the ship tipped back a bit under his weight, but the sailors stood at the other side watching Fanchon’s show.

Bink got to his feet and slunk up to the mast. The sails were furled, so there were few hiding places. The crewmen would be able to see him when they turned on their lamps.

Well, he would have to act first. He did not feel ready for a fight because his arms and feet were cold, but he had no choice. He walked silently up behind the four, his heart pounding. They were leaning over the rail, trying to see Fanchon, who was still making a great deal of noise. Bink put his left hand against the back of the nearest sailor and caught the man’s trouser with his right hand. He pushed, hard and suddenly, and the sailor went up and over the rail with a cry of alarm.

Bink grabbed the next man and shoved. The man had started to turn but it was too late. Bink pushed, and the sailor went over. Well, almost over; one hand caught the rail. The sailor clung, twisting around to face inward. Bink knocked at his fingers and finally pried them loose, and the man dropped into the water.

But the loss of time had been costly. Now the other two men were upon Bink. One wrapped an arm around Bink’s shoulder, trying to choke him, while the other waited behind.

What had Crombie said to do? Bink thought hard and remembered. He grabbed the first man, bent his knees, leaned forward, and pulled.

It worked beautifully. The sailor sailed over Bink’s shoulder and crashed on his back onto the deck.

But the last man was stepping in, fists swinging. He caught Bink on the side of the head. Bink fell to the deck himself, and the man dived on top of him. To make things worse, Bink saw one of the others climbing back aboard. He put up his feet to hold off his opponent, but this helped only a little. The sailor was pushing him down, pinning him, and the other was about to join in.

The standing figure lifted a foot. Bink could not even recoil; his arms were tangled, his body held down. The foot swung, but it struck the head of Bink’s opponent.

The man rolled off Bink with a groan. Being kicked in the head was not fun. But how had the kicker missed the target at such close range? The lamps had all gone into the water. Maybe the dark accounted for the mistake.

“Help me get him over the edge,” Fanchon said. “We’ve got to take control of this ship.”

He had mistaken her for a sailor even though she was naked! Well, blame the bad light again. Moonlight was pretty, but in a situation like this …

The other two sailors were already climbing back over the side. Acting at the same time, Bink grabbed his opponent’s shoulders and Fanchon grabbed his feet. “One—two—three—heave!” she said with a gasp.

They let go almost together. The man swung up and into his companions. All three went over the edge to splash in the sea. Bink hoped they were all lively enough to swim. The fourth one lay on the deck, knocked out.

“Pull up the anchor!” Fanchon ordered. “I’ll get a pole.” She ran to the ship’s cabin, a lean figure in the moonlight.

Bink found the anchor chain and pulled on it. The thing snagged, but he finally got it up.

“What did you do to this guy?” Fanchon demanded, kneeling beside the fallen sailor.

“I threw him. Crombie showed me how.”

“Crombie? I don’t remember—”

“A soldier I met in Xanth. We got caught in a hailstorm, and I was going back after Dee, but— Well, it’s complicated.”

“Oh yes, you did mention the soldier.” She paused. “Dee. You went after her? Why?”

“She had run out into the storm, and— Well, I liked her.” Then, to cover up what might have been taken as an insult to his present company, he said: “What happened to the other sailors? Did they drown?”

“I showed them this,” she said, pointing to a wicked-looking boat hook. “They swam for shore.”

“We’d better get moving if we can figure out the sail—”

“No, the current is carrying us out. Wind’s the wrong way. We’d just mess it up, trying to handle the sail when we don’t know what we’re doing.”

Bink looked across at the other ship and saw lights aboard. “Those sailors we shoved overboard didn’t swim to land,” he said. “They went next door. They’ll be coming after us under sail.”

“They can’t,” she said. “I told you—the wind.”

But now it was unmistakable. The other sail was being hoisted. They were using the wind.

“We’d better find that mixture,” she said.

“Yes.” He had forgotten about it. But for that, they could have run across the land and been lost in Mundania. But could he have lived with himself, buying his own freedom while leaving Xanth open to the invasion of the Evil Magician?

“We’ll dump it overboard,” he said.

“No!”

“But I thought—”

“As long as we have it, they won’t close on us,” she said. “We’ll take turns standing on the deck and holding it over the sea so they can see us. If anything happens to—”

“Beautiful!” he cried. “I never would have thought of that.”

“First we have to find it. If we guessed wrong about the ship, if they put the catapult on this boat and the mixture on the other—”

“Then they wouldn’t be chasing us,” he said.

“Yes they would. They need the catapult, too. And most of all, they need us.”

They searched the ship. In the cabin was a chained monster of a type Bink had never seen before. It was not large, but it was horrible in other ways. Its body was covered with hair, white with black spots, and it had a thin tail, floppy black ears, a small black nose, and gleaming white teeth. Its four feet had stubby claws. It snarled as Bink came near, but it was chained by the neck to the wall.

“What is it?” Bink asked, horrified.

Fanchon thought about it. “I think it’s a werewolf.”

Now the creature looked halfway familiar. It did look like a werewolf that was fixed in its animal stage.

“Out here in Mundania?”

“Well, it must be related. If it had more heads, it would be like a cerberus. With only one head, I think it’s a dog.”

Bink gaped. “A dog! I think you’re right. I’ve never seen a dog before. Not a real one. Just pictures.”

“I don’t think there are any in Xanth today. There used to be, but they must have moved out.”

“Through the Shield?” Bink demanded.

“Before the Shield was set up, of course, though I thought there were dogs and cats and horses within the last century. I must have remembered the dates wrong.”

“Well, it seems we have one here now. It looks mean. It must be guarding the mixture.”

“Trained to attack strangers,” she agreed. “I suppose we’ll have to kill it.”

“But it’s a rare creature, maybe the only one left alive today.”

“We don’t know that. Dogs might be common in Mundania. But it is pretty once you get used to it.”

The dog had quieted down, though it still watched them warily. A small dragon might watch a person that way, Bink thought, if the person was outside its striking range. With luck, the person might come within range …

“Maybe we could wake up the sailor and have him handle it,” Bink said. “The animal must obey the members of this ship’s crew. Otherwise they could never get at the mixture.”

“Good idea,” she agreed.

The sailor had finally woken up, but he was in no shape to fight. “We’ll let you go,” Fanchon told him, “if you tell us how to handle that dog. We don’t want to have to kill it, you see.”

“Who, Jennifer?” the man asked dazedly. “Just speak her name, pat her on the head, and feed her.” He lay back. “I think my collarbone’s broke.”

Fanchon looked at Bink. “Can’t make him swim, then. Trent may be a monster, but we aren’t.” She turned back to the sailor. “If you will give your word not to bother us in any way, we’ll help you recover as well as we can. Deal?”

The sailor didn’t hesitate. “I can’t stop you because I can’t get up. Deal.”

This bothered Bink. He and Fanchon sounded just like Trent, offering better terms to an enemy in return for his help. Were they any different from the Evil Magician?

Fanchon checked the sailor’s body around the shoulders. “Yow!” he cried.

“I’m no doctor,” she said, “but I think you’re right. You have a broken collarbone. Are there any pillows aboard?”

“Listen,” the sailor said as she worked on him. He was clearly trying to think about something other than the pain. “Trent’s no monster. You called him that, but you’re wrong. He’s a good leader.”

“He’s promised you all the spoils of Xanth?” Fanchon asked with an edge to her voice.

“No, just farms or jobs for all of us,” he said.

“No killing, no loot?” She clearly did not believe him.

“None of that. This ain’t the old days, you know. We just protect him and keep order, and he’ll give us land where nobody’s settled yet. He says Xanth’s underpopulated. And he’ll ask the local gals to marry us so we can have families. If there aren’t enough, he’ll bring in gals from the real world. Meanwhile, he’ll transform some smart animals into gals. I thought that was a joke, but after what I hear about those cocks—” He grimaced. “I mean those basks—” He shook his head and grimaced again in pain.

“Keep your head still,” Fanchon told him, too late. “It’s true about the cockatrice and the basilisks. We were them. But animal brides—”

“Oh, it wouldn’t be so bad, miss. Just temporary until real gals arrived. If she looks like a gal and feels like a gal, I wouldn’t blame her for being a bitch before. I mean, some girls are bitches.”

“What’s a bitch?” Bink asked.

“A bitch? You don’t know that?” The sailor grimaced again. Either he was in a lot of pain or it was his natural expression. “A female dog. Like Jennifer. Hell, if Jennifer had a human body—”

“Enough,” Fanchon muttered.

“Well, anyway, we’ll get land and settle in. And our kids will be magic. I tell you, that last thing is what recruited me. I don’t believe in magic, understand—or I didn’t then—but I remember the fairy tales from when I was a little kid about the princess and the frog, and the mountain of glass, and the three wishes. Look, I was a metal worker for a crooked shop. Know what I mean? And I really wanted out of the rat race.”

Bink shook his head silently. He understood only part of what the sailor was saying, but it did not make Mundania look very good. Stores that were built off-balance? Crooked shops? Rats that raced? Bink would want to get out of that culture, too.

“A chance to have a decent life in the country,” the sailor continued. There was no question that he felt strongly about his vision. “Owning my own land, making good things grow, you know? And my kids knowing magic, real magic. I guess I still don’t really believe that part, but even if it’s a lie, it’s sure nice to think about.”

“But to invade another land, to take what doesn’t belong to you—” Fanchon said. She broke off, seeming to feel that it was useless to argue that sort of thing with a sailor. “He’ll betray you as soon as he doesn’t need you. He’s an Evil Magician, cast out from Xanth.”

“You mean he really can do magic?” the man asked with happy disbelief. “I figured all this stuff was sleight of hand. I mean, I believed some of the time, but—”

“He sure as hell can do magic,” Bink put in, becoming used to the sailor’s language. “We told you how he changed us.”

“Never mind about that,” Fanchon said.

“Well, he’s still a good leader,” the sailor insisted. “He told us how he was kicked out because he tried to be King, and how he lost his magic and married a gal from here and had a little boy.”

“Trent has a family in Mundania?” Bink asked, amazed.

“We don’t call our country that,” the sailor said. “But yes, he had a family. Until this mystery bug went around and they both got it and died. He said science wasn’t able to save them, but magic could have, so he was going back to magicland. Xanth, you call it. But he said they’d kill him if he just walked in alone, even if he got by the thing he called a Shield. So he needed an army. Ooooh!” he yelped. Fanchon had just lifted his shoulder onto a pillow.

They made the sailor as comfortable as possible, his shoulder bound up in assorted pieces of cloth. Bink would have liked to hear more, but the other ship was gaining on them. They watched its sail move back and forth as the ship zigzagged into the wind. With each pass it came closer. They had been wrong about ships moving only against the wind. What else were they wrong about?

Bink went into the cabin. He was feeling a bit seasick. “Jennifer,” he said hesitantly, offering her some of the dog food they had found. The small spotted monster wagged her tail. Just like that, they were friends. Bink screwed up his courage and patted her on the head, and she did not bite him. Then while she ate, he opened the chest she had guarded and lifted out the bottle of the greenish stuff he found. Victory!

“Miss,” the sailor called as Bink returned with the bottle. “The Shield—”

Fanchon looked about nervously. “Is the current carrying us into that?”

“Yes, miss. If you don’t turn this boat soon, we’ll all be dead. I know that Shield works. I’ve seen animals try to get through it and get fried.”

“How can we tell where it is?” she asked.

“There’s a glimmer. See?” He pointed with difficulty.

Bink peered and saw it. They were drifting toward a curtain of faint light, ghostly white. The Shield!

The ship sailed on. “We can’t stop it,” Fanchon cried. “We’re going right through!”

“Throw out the anchor!” the sailor said.

What else was there to do? The Shield was certain death. Yet to stop meant capture by Trent’s forces. Even bluffing them back by means of the bottle of mixture would not be enough.

“We can use the lifeboat,” Fanchon said. “Give me the bottle.”

Bink gave it to her, then threw out the anchor. The ship slowly turned as the anchor took hold. The Shield looked uncomfortably close, but so did the other ship. Now it was clear why that ship was using the wind instead of the current; it was under control, in no danger of drifting into the Shield.

They lowered the lifeboat. A lamp from the other ship bathed them in its light. Fanchon held up the bottle. “I’ll drop it!” she screamed at the enemy. “Hit me with an arrow and the mixture drowns with me.”

“Give it back,” Trent’s voice called from the other ship. “I promise to let you both go free.”

“Ha!” she muttered. “Bink, can you row this boat yourself? I’m afraid to set this thing down while we’re in range of their arrows. I want to be sure that no matter what happens to us, they don’t get this stuff.”

“I’ll try,” Bink said. He settled himself into the seat, grabbed the oars, and pulled.

One oar cracked into the side of the ship. The other dug into the water. The boat skewed around. “Push off the ship!” Fanchon cried. “You almost dumped me!”

Bink tried to put the end of one oar against the ship to push against it, but it didn’t work because he could not pull the oar free of its oarlock. But the current carried the lifeboat along until it passed beyond the end of the ship.

“We’re going into the Shield!” Fanchon cried, waving the bottle. “Row! Row! Turn the boat!”

Bink put his back into it. The problem with rowing was that he faced backward; he could not see where he was going. Fanchon sat in the stern and held up the bottle as she peered ahead. Bink finally got the feel of the oars and turned the boat. Now the shimmering curtain came into view. It was rather pretty in its way, its ghostly glow parting the night, but he shrank back from its horror.

“Go alongside the Shield and stay parallel to it,” Fanchon directed. “The closer we stay, the harder it will be for the other ship. Maybe they’ll give up the chase.”

Bink pulled on the oars. The boat moved ahead. But he was unused to this exercise and not recovered from his swim, so he knew he couldn’t keep it up long.

“You’re going into the Shield!” Fanchon cried.

Bink looked. The Shield loomed closer, yet he was not rowing toward it. “The current is carrying us sideways!” he said. He had thought that once he started rowing, all other forces would stop.

“Row away from the Shield!” she cried. “Quickly!”

He turned the boat, but it did not move away from the Shield. The current was bearing them on as fast as he could row. To make it worse, the wind was now changing direction and rising. He was holding his own at the moment, but he was tiring. “I can’t keep this up!” he gasped, staring at the glow.

“There’s an island!” Fanchon said. “Row toward it!”

Bink looked around. He saw a black something cutting the waves to the side. Island? It was no more than a rock! But maybe they could hold on to it.

He put forth a great effort. But it was not enough. A storm was coming up. In the rising wind, they were going to miss the rock and lose their only chance at a handhold. The dreaded Shield loomed nearer.

“I’ll help!” Fanchon cried. She set down the bottle, crawled forward, and put her hands next to his on the oars. She pushed, timing her efforts with his.

It helped. But Bink was distracted. In the moonlight her naked body lost some of its shapelessness. Shadow and imagination could make her halfway good-looking. That embarrassed him because he had no right to think of such things. Fanchon could be a good companion if only—

The boat smashed into the rock and tilted. “Get hold! Get hold of the rock!” Fanchon cried as water surged over the side of the boat.

Bink reached out and tried to hang on to the rock. It was both rough and slippery. A wave broke over him, filling his mouth with its salty taste. Now the sky was black; the clouds had completely covered the moon.

“The mixture!” Fanchon cried. “I left it in the—” She lunged for the rear of the flooded boat.

Bink, still choking on seawater, could not yell at her. He clung to the rock with his hands, his fingers finding holds in a crack, trying to anchor the boat with his hooked knees. He had a foolish vision; if a giant was drowning and grabbed on to the land of Xanth for support, his fingers would catch in the Gap. Did the tiny people of this rock resent the crack that Bink’s giant fingers had found? Did they forget spells to remove it from their memory?

There was a distant flash of lightning. Bink had a clear view of the ragged rock; no tiny people on it. But there was a glint, as of light reflecting from a knob in the water. He stared at it, but the lightning was gone and he was squinting at the memory, trying to make out the shape. For it had been a highlight from something larger.

Lightning flashed again, closer. Bink saw clearly.

It was a toothy reptile. The highlight had been from its eye.

“A sea monster!” he cried, terrified.

Fanchon was working at an oar, finally moving it from its oarlock. She aimed the oar at the monster and shoved.

Thunk! The end of the oar struck the green nose. The creature backed off. “We’ve got to get away from here!” Bink cried.

But as he spoke, another wave broke over him. It lifted the boat and started to pull it away from his bent knees. But he reached over and put one arm about Fanchon’s skinny waist and hung on. It seemed the fingers of his other hand would break, but they remained in the crack of the rock and he held on.

The lightning showed small sail-like things moving in the water. What were they?

Then another monster broke the surface right beside him; he saw it as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. It seemed to have a single broad eye across its face, and a round nose. Huge fins were at the sides. Bink was held by terror, though he knew that most of the details were really from his imagination. He could only stare at the thing as the lightning permitted.

And then the lightning showed that his imagination was right. It was a horrible monster!

Bink struggled through his terror to form some plan. One hand clung to the rock; the other held Fanchon. He could not act. But maybe Fanchon could. “Your oar,” he gasped.

The monster acted first. It put its hands to its face and lifted the face away. Underneath was the face of the Evil Magician Trent. “You fools have made enough trouble! Give me the mixture and I’ll have the ship throw us a line.”

Bink hesitated. He was bone weary and cold, and he knew he could not hold out much longer against the storm and the current. It was death to stay here.

“There’s a crocodile sniffing around,” Trent went on. “And several sharks. Those are just as deadly as the monsters, you know. I have repellent, but the current is carrying it away, so it’s not much help. On top of that, sometimes whirlpools develop around these rocks during storms. We need help, and I alone can bring it. Give me that bottle.”

“Never!” Fanchon cried. She dived into the black waves.

Trent snapped the mask back over his face and dived after her. As he moved, Bink saw that the Magician’s body was naked except for his long sword strapped to a harness. Bink dived after him, not even thinking of what he was doing.

They met in a tangle underwater. In the dark and bubbly swirl, there was nothing but trouble. Bink tried to swim to the surface, sure that he would drown otherwise. But someone had a death grip on him. He had to get his head above water so he could breathe. The current had hold of them all, carrying them around and around.

It was the whirlpool. It sucked them down, spinning, into the depths. For the second time Bink felt himself drowning, and this time he knew that no Sorceress would rescue him.

Chapter 11

Wilderness

Bink woke with his face in sand. Around him lay the unmoving limbs of a great monster. Bink groaned and sat up.

“Bink!” Fanchon cried gladly, bounding across the beach toward him.

“I thought it was night,” he said.

“You were knocked out. This cave has natural glow. It’s much brighter here. Trent pumped the water out of you, but I was afraid—”

“What’s this?” Bink asked, staring at a green tentacle.

“A kraken seaweed,” Trent said. “It pulled us out of the drink meaning to eat us, but the bottle of the mixture broke over it and killed it. That’s all that saved our lives. If the bottle had broken earlier, it would have stopped the kraken from catching us, and we would have drowned; later, and we would already have been eaten. As lucky a coincidence as I have ever known.”

“A kraken weed!” Bink cried. “But that’s magic!”

“We’re back in Xanth,” Fanchon said.

“But—”

“I would say that the whirlpool drew us down below the Shield,” Trent said. “We passed under it. An accident. I’m not going to try to go back that way. I lost my breathing equipment on the way in; luckily I got a good breath first! We’re in Xanth to stay.”

“I guess so,” Bink said dazedly. He had finally become used to the thought of spending the rest of his life in Mundania; it was hard to change his thinking so suddenly. “But why did you save me? Once the mixture was gone—”

“It was the right thing to do,” the Magician said. “I realize you will not believe that, but I can give no better reason. I never had anything personal against you. You can go your way now and I’ll go mine.”

Bink had to think. He was faced with new facts. Back in Xanth, no longer at war with the Evil Magician. The more he went over the details, the less sense any of it made. Sucked down by a whirlpool through the deadly Shield, to be saved by a man-eating plant, and then knocked out at the moment needed to let them drop safely onto this beach? “No,” he said. “I don’t believe it. Things just don’t happen that way.”

“It does seem as though we were charmed,” Fanchon said. “Though why the Evil Magician should have been saved, too …”

Trent smiled. Naked, he was as impressive as before. He was a fit and powerful man. “It does seem strange that the evil should be saved along with the good. I don’t understand how we got here, but I do not question that we are here. Getting to land may be more of a problem. We are hardly out of danger yet.”

Bink looked around the cave. Already the air seemed close, though he hoped that this was his imagination. There seemed to be no exit other than the water through which they had come. In one corner was a pile of clean bones—the leftovers of the kraken.

It began to seem less amazing. What better place for an ocean monster to live than at the exit to a whirlpool? The sea caught the prey, and most of it was killed by the Shield. The kraken weed had only to pull the fresh bodies out of the water. And this private cave was just right for unhurried eating. The living animals could be left here on the beach, and even given food, so that they would stay healthy until the kraken was hungry. A nice little larder to keep the food fresh and tasty. Any animals that tried to escape by swimming past the tentacles—ugh! So the kraken could have dropped the humans here, then been hit by the magic mixture; instead of split-second timing, it became several-minute timing. Still a coincidence, but much easier to believe.

Fanchon was kneeling by the water, flicking dry leaves into it. The leaves had to be from the kraken weed; why it needed them here, with no sunlight, Bink didn’t understand. Maybe it had been a regular plant before it turned magic, and it still had not totally changed. Or maybe the leaves had some other use. There was a great deal yet to be understood about nature. At any rate, Fanchon was floating the leaves on the water. Why she wasted her time that way was also hard to understand.

She saw him looking. “I’m finding the currents,” she said. “See? The water is moving that way. There must be an exit under that wall.”

Bink was impressed again with her intelligence. Every time he caught her doing something that he thought was stupid, it turned out to be the opposite. She had a mind that worked very well. She had planned their escape from the pit, and had stopped Trent’s invasion. Now she was at it again. Too bad her looks fell short.

“Of course,” Trent agreed. “The kraken can’t live in standing water; it needs a constant flow to bring in its food and carry away its wastes. We have an exit—if it leads to the surface quickly enough and does not pass through the Shield again.”

Bink didn’t like the sound of it. “Suppose we dive into that current and it takes us an hour underwater before it comes out? We’d drown.”

“My friend,” Trent said, “I have been thinking about that problem. We cannot be saved by my sailors because we are beyond the Shield. I do not like to trust the current or what we may find within it. Yet it seems we must do so, for we cannot stay here.”

Something twitched. Bink looked and saw one green tentacle moving. “The kraken’s recovering!” he cried. “It isn’t dead!”

“Uh-oh,” Trent said. “The mixture has thinned out and faded. The magic is returning. I had thought it would be deadly to a magic creature, but it seems not.”

Fanchon watched the tentacles. Now others were moving. “I think we’d better get out of here,” she said. “Soon.”

“But we don’t dare dive into the water without knowing where it goes,” Bink said. “We must be well below the surface. I’d rather stay here and fight than drown.”

“I suggest we make a truce among us until we get free,” Trent said. “The mixture is gone, and we cannot go back the way we came. We shall have to work together to get out of here.”

Fanchon didn’t trust it. “So we help you get out but then the truce ends and you change us into bugs. Since we’re inside Xanth, we’ll never be able to change back again.”

Trent snapped his fingers. “Stupid of me to forget. I can use my magic now to get us out.” He looked at the twitching green tentacles. “Of course I’ll have to wait until the mixture is all gone, for it stops my magic, too. That means the kraken will be fully recovered. I can’t transform it because its main body is too far away.”

The tentacles lifted. “Bink, dive for it!” Fanchon cried. “We don’t want to be caught between the kraken and the Evil Magician.” She jumped into the water herself.

The question had been forced. She was correct: the kraken would eat them or the Magician would transform them. Right now, while the mixture still blunted the effects of both, was the time to escape. Still, Bink would have hesitated if Fanchon had not already taken action. If she drowned, there would be no one on his side.

Bink charged across the sand, tripped over a tentacle, and fell. Acting on instinct, the tentacle wrapped itself around his leg. The leaves glued themselves to his skin with little sucking noises. Trent drew his sword and came toward him.

Bink grabbed a handful of sand and threw it at the Magician, but it did not deter him. Then Trent’s sword slashed down—and cut the tentacle. “You are in no danger from me, Bink,” the Magician said. “Swim if you wish.”

Bink scrambled up, took a deep breath, and dived into the water. He saw Fanchon’s feet kicking ahead of him as she swam down, and then he saw the dark tube of the exit. It terrified him, and he balked.

His head popped to the surface. There was Trent, standing on the beach, slashing the tentacles with his sword. Fighting off the monster, the man was the very picture of a hero. Yet the moment the fight was over, Trent would be a more dangerous monster than the kraken.

Bink decided. He took a new breath and dived again. This time he swam right into the black tube and felt the current take him. Now there was no turning back.

The tunnel opened out almost immediately into another glowing cave. Bink had gained on Fanchon, and they broke the surface almost together. Probably she had been more careful going through the exit.

Heads turned their way. Human heads on human bodies—very nice female ones. Their faces were elfin, their hair flowing over their bare shoulders and perfect breasts. But the lower body joined into a fish’s tail.

“What are you doing in our cave?” one of the mermaids cried.

“Just passing through,” Bink said. Naturally the mermaids spoke the common language of Xanth. He would not have thought anything of it had Trent not remarked on how Xanth language matched all Mundane languages. Magic worked in so many ways. “Tell us the shortest way to the sea.”

“That way,” one said, pointing left. “That way,” another said, pointing right. “No, that way!” a third cried, pointing straight up. There was a burst of girlish laughter.

Several mermaids dived into the water, tails flashing, and swam toward Bink. In a moment he was surrounded. Up close, the creatures were even prettier. Each one had perfect skin, and their breasts floated somewhat, making them seem fuller. Maybe he had been around Fanchon too long; the sight of all this loveliness gave him strange feelings. If he could grab them all at once … But no, they were mermaids, not his type at all.

They paid no attention to Fanchon. “He’s a man!” one mermaid cried, meaning that Bink was human, not merman. “Look at his split legs! No tail at all!”

Suddenly they were diving below the surface to view his legs. Bink, naked, found this awkward. They began to put their hands on him, feeling the muscles of his legs. Yet why weren’t they looking at Fanchon’s legs, too? There seemed to be more play than wonder here.

Trent’s head broke the water behind them. “Mermaids,” he said. “We’ll get nothing from them.”

So it seemed. It also seemed that Bink and Fanchon could not escape the Magician. “I think we’d better make the truce,” Bink said to Fanchon. “We have to trust sometime.”

She looked at the mermaids, then at Trent. “Very well,” she said ungraciously. “For what it’s worth, which isn’t much.”

“A wise decision,” Trent said. “Our long-range plans may differ, but our short-range one matches. We both want survival. See, here come the tritons.”

As he spoke, a group of mermen appeared, swimming in from another tunnel. There seemed to be a maze of caves.

“Ho!” a triton cried, waving his trident. “Skewer!”

The mermaids screamed playfully and dived out of sight. Bink did not look at Fanchon; the ladies had been having too much fun with him, and clearly not because of his split legs.

“Too many to fight,” Trent said. “The mixture is gone. With your agreement, I will change you both into fish, or maybe reptiles, so that you can escape.”

“How will we change back?” Fanchon demanded.

“That is the key. I cannot change myself. Therefore, you will have to save me or stay transformed. So we shall survive together or suffer apart. Fair enough?”

She looked at the tritons, who had swum toward the three and surrounded them, their tridents raised. They did not look at all playful. This was a gang of bullies, showing off for the mermaids, who had now reappeared onshore. “Why not change the tritons into fish?”

“That would stop the immediate threat if I could get them all in time,” Trent agreed. “But it still would not free us from the cave. I think we shall have to use magic on ourselves at some point. And we are in their cave; there is a moral—”

“All right!” Fanchon cried as a triton threw his three-pointed fork. “Do it your way.”

Suddenly Fanchon was a monster, one of the worst that Bink had ever seen. She had a huge greenish shell around her body from which arms, legs, head, and tail stuck out. Her feet were webbed, and her head was like that of a snake.

The triton’s fork struck Fanchon’s monster shell and bounced off.

Suddenly Bink saw the sense of this change. This monster could not be harmed that way.

“Sea turtle,” Trent murmured. “Mundane. Normally harmless, but the merfolk don’t know that. I’ve made a study of non-magical creatures and have much respect for them. Oops!” Another trident was flying toward them.

Then Bink became a sea turtle. Suddenly he was comfortable in the water and had no fear of the spears. If a triton’s spear came at his face, he would simply pull in his head. It would not go back all the way, but the shell around it would stop almost anything.

Something tugged at his shell. Bink started to dive, trying to be rid of it, but then he remembered that this was something to be tolerated. So he dived but allowed the dragging weight to stay.

Bink swam slowly but powerfully for the underwater tunnel. Another turtle had already entered it. Bink didn’t worry about air; he knew he could hold his breath for as long as it took.

It did not take long. This tunnel slanted up to the surface. Bink could see the moon as he broke through. The storm had stopped.

Suddenly he was human again, and swimming was harder. “Why did you change me back?” he asked Trent. “We weren’t to land yet.”

“When you are a turtle, you have the brain and the instincts of a turtle,” Trent explained. “Otherwise you would not be able to survive as a turtle. Too long in that form, and you might forget you ever were a man. If you headed out to sea, I might not be able to catch you, so I would never be able to change you back.”

“Justin Tree kept his human mind,” Bink pointed out.

“Justin Tree?”

“One of the men you changed into trees in the North Village. His talent was throwing his voice.”

“Oh, I remember now. I made him into a thinking tree—really a man in tree form, not a true tree. I can do that when I put my mind to it. For a tree it can work. But a turtle needs turtle instincts to deal with the ocean.”

Bink didn’t follow all that, but he didn’t care to argue. Cases clearly differed.

Then Fanchon reappeared in human form. “Well, you kept the truce,” she said grudgingly. “I didn’t really think you would.”

“The real world must be faced sometime,” Trent said.

“What do you mean by that?” she demanded.

“I said that we are not out of danger yet. Look over there. I believe that is a sea serpent coming our way.”

Bink saw the huge head, and there was no question. The monster had seen them. It was big; the head was huge. “Maybe the rocks,” Bink said, looking at the outcropping that marked the exit from the triton’s cave.

“That thing’s a huge, long snake,” Fanchon said. “It could reach right down into the cave or loop around the rocks. We can’t escape it in this form.”

“I could change you into a poisonous jellyfish that the serpent would not eat,” Trent said. “But you might get lost. It also may not be wise to be transformed more than once a day; I have not been able to check this lately, but I am concerned that your bodies may suffer a shock each time.”

“Besides which, the monster could still eat you,” Fanchon said.

“You have a very quick mind,” Trent agreed. “I shall have to do something I dislike—transform the monster.”

“You don’t want to change the sea monster?” Bink asked, surprised. The thing was now close, its small red eyes fixed on them. Spit dripped from its giant teeth.

“It is an innocent creature going about its business,” Trent said. “We should not enter its waters if we do not want to take part in its way of life. There is a balance of nature, whether magical or mundane, that we should not play around with.”

“You have a strange sense of humor,” Fanchon said sourly. “But I never understood evil magic. If you really want to protect its lifestyle, change it into a little fish until we get to shore, then change it back.”

“And hurry,” Bink said. The thing was now looming over them.

“That would not work,” Trent said. “The fish would swim away and be lost. I must be able to find the creature I mean to transform, and it must be within an arm’s reach of me. Other than that, your suggestion is a good one.”

“An arm’s reach?” Bink said. “We’ll be inside it before we get that close.” He was not trying to be funny; the monster’s mouth was much longer than it was wide, so as it opened, the upper teeth were a good two body lengths from the lower teeth.

“I must work within my limits,” Trent said calmly. “The important spot is the head. When I transform that, the rest naturally follows. If I tried it when only the tail was within reach, I would botch the job. So when it tries to take me into its mouth, it comes into my power.”

“What if it goes for one of us first?” Fanchon demanded. “What if we’re more than an arm’s reach from you?”

“I suggest you be within that area,” Trent said dryly.

Hastily Bink and Fanchon splashed closer to the Evil Magician. Bink had the feeling that even if Trent had had no magic, they would have been in his power. He was too skilled; he knew how to manage people.

The sea monster moved. Its head struck down, teeth leading. Spittle sprayed out from it in little clouds. Fanchon screamed. Bink felt terror. That feeling was becoming all too familiar. He simply was no hero.

But as the awful jaws closed on them, the sea serpent vanished. In its place fluttered a glowing, brightly colored insect. Trent caught it in one hand and set it on his own hair.

“A love bug,” Trent explained. “They are not good fliers, and they hate water. This one will stay close until we leave the sea.”

Now the three swam for shore. It took them some time, for the sea was still choppy and they were tired, but no other creatures bothered them. It seemed that no smaller monsters entered the fishing area of the sea serpent.

But within hours a host of them would probably appear if the sea monster did not return. As Trent had remarked, there was a balance of nature.

The light became stronger in the shallows. Some of it was from glowing fish, flashing in colors; most of it was from the water itself. It came in washes of pale green, yellow, and orange—magic, of course. At the bottom Bink saw shells, some lighted around the edges, some glowing in patterns. A few vanished as he passed over them. He could not tell if they had become truly invisible or just turned off their lights. However, they were magic, and that was familiar. He realized that he was glad to be back in Xanth.

Dawn was coming as they reached the beach. The sun pushed up behind the clouds over the jungle and finally burst through to bounce its rays off the water. It was a thing of beauty. Bink clung to that idea because his body was numb, his brain locked on to the need to move his limbs, over and over, on and on.

At last he crawled onto the beach. Fanchon crawled beside him. “Don’t stop yet,” she said. “We must find cover, or other monsters will come from the beach or jungle.”

But Trent stood knee-deep in the water, his sword dangling from his handsome body. He was clearly not as tired as they were. “Return, friend,” he said, flicking something into the sea. And the sea monster reappeared, its body much more impressive in the shallow water. Trent had to lift his feet and splash back out of the way or he would have been crushed.

But the monster was not looking for trouble now. It was upset. It gave a honk of rage and thrashed its way toward deeper water.

Trent walked up the beach. “It is not fun to be a helpless love bug when you are used to being the king of the sea,” he said. “I hope the creature does not suffer a breakdown.”

He was not smiling. Bink thought there was something funny about a man who liked monsters that well. But of course Trent was the Evil Magician. He was handsome, polite, and educated, having strength, skill, and courage, but his ties were to monsters more than to men. It would be dangerous to forget that.

Odd that Humfrey, the Good Magician, was an ugly little gnome in a castle, using his magic for profit, while Trent was a model of hero material. The Sorceress Iris had seemed lovely and sexy but was in fact plain; Humfrey’s good traits were seen in his actions. But Trent, so far, had seemed good in looks and actions, at least on a personal level. If Bink had met him for the first time in the kraken’s cave and hadn’t known the man’s evil nature, he would never have guessed it.

Now Trent walked across the beach, hardly seeming tired. The sunlight touched his hair, turning it bright yellow. He looked in that instant like a god—all that was perfect in man. Again Bink was confused, trying to match the man’s looks and actions with what he knew to be the man’s nature, and again finding it almost impossible. Some things just had to be taken on faith.

“I’ve got to rest, to sleep,” Bink muttered. “I can’t tell evil from good right now.”

Fanchon looked toward Trent. “I know what you mean,” she said, shaking her head so that her ratty hair shifted its wet tangles. “Evil has a tricky way about it, and there is some evil in all of us. We have to fight it, no matter how tempting it becomes.”

Trent arrived. “We seem to have made it,” he said cheerfully. “It is good to be back in Xanth by whatever freak of luck. Strange that you, who tried to keep me from entering, instead helped me.”

“Strange,” Fanchon agreed dully.

“I believe this is the coast of the central wilderness area. I had not realized we had drifted so far south, but the shape of the land is clear. That means we are not yet out of trouble.”

“Bink’s an outcast, you’re banished, and I’m ugly,” Fanchon muttered. “We’ll never be out of trouble.”

“I believe it would be best to keep up our truce until we are free of the wilderness,” the Magician said.

Did Trent know something that Bink didn’t? Bink had no magic, so he would be prey to all the spells of the jungle. Fanchon did not seem to have magic, and that was odd. She said she had not been forced to leave, yet if she really had no magic she should have been cast out, too. Anyway, she would have the same problem as Bink had. But Trent, with his skills with sword and spell, should have no reason to fear.

Fanchon also had doubts. “As long as you’re with us, we’re in danger of being changed into toads. I can’t see how the wilderness could be worse than that.”

Trent spread his hands. “I realize you do not trust me, and maybe you have reason. I believe your safety and mine would be greater if we worked together a little longer, but I shall not force my company on you.” He turned and walked south along the beach.

“He knows something,” Bink said. “He must be leaving us to die so he can be rid of us without breaking his word.”

“Why should he care about his word?” Fanchon asked. “That would mean he is a man of honor.”

Bink had no answer. He crawled to the shade of the nearest tree and dropped to the soft grass. He had been knocked out during part of the previous night, but that was not the same as sleep. He needed real rest.

***

When he woke it was high noon, and he was fixed in place. There was no pain, only some itching, but he couldn’t lift his head or his hands. They were held to the ground by many threads, as though the very grass had—

Oh, no! He had been so careless as to lie in a bed of meat-eating grass! The root blades had grown up into his body, entering it so slowly that it had not awakened him, and now he was caught. Long ago he had happened upon a patch of the stuff near the North Village with an animal skeleton on it. He had wondered how any creature could have been so stupid as to be trapped by such a thing. Now he knew.

He was still breathing, so he could still yell. He did so with energy. “Help!”

There was no answer.

“Fanchon!” he cried. “I’m tied down. The grass is eating me up.” Actually he was not hurt, only bound to the ground. But the grass kept growing into him, and soon it would start to feed.

Still no answer to his cry. He realized that Fanchon would not or could not help him. Probably something had put a sleep spell on her. It was clear now that there were plenty of threats right here at the edge of the beach; she must have fallen to another. She might be dead already.

“Help! Anybody!” he screamed.

That was another mistake. All around him, in the forest and along the beach, things were stirring. Had he struggled with the grass in silence, he might have managed in time to work his way free, because evidently he had awakened before it was ready for the kill. Maybe he had tried to turn over in his sleep and his body had objected strongly enough to throw off the sleep spell that the grass was using. If he struggled and failed, his demise at least would have been fairly comfortable—just a slow sinking into sleep. Now by his noise he had alerted much less comfortable threats. He could not see them, but he could hear them.

From the nearby trees came a rustle as of meat-eating squirrels. From the beach came a scrape as of hungry acid crabs. From the sea came a horrible kind of splashing as of a small sea monster struggling to get out of the water and cross to the prey before it was gone. But the most dreadful sound of all was the pound-pound-pound of the footfalls of something in the forest, large and far away but moving quickly.

A shadow fell on him. “Hi!” a shrill voice cried. It was a harpy, cousin to the one he had met on the way back to the North Village. She was every bit as ugly, smelly, and nasty, and now she was dangerous. She lowered herself slowly, her claws reaching down, twitching. The other harpy had seen him healthy so had stayed well out of reach. This one saw him helpless.

She had a human face and human breasts, but instead of arms she had great greasy wings, and her body was that of a gross bird. And she was a dirty bird; not only were her face and breasts ugly, they were caked with dirt. It was a wonder she could fly at all. Bink had not had the chance to see the other harpy at close range, but he had a really good view of this one. Double ugh! The mermaids showed much that was lovely in the female form; this harpy was the ugly side. She made Fanchon look halfway good; at least Fanchon was clean.

The harpy dropped onto him, claws clutching and unclutching. Some of her nails were broken and jagged. He caught the smell of her, a stink like none he remembered. “Oooh, you big handsome hunk of meat!” she screeched. “You look good enough to eat. I can hardly choose what to take first.” And she burst into crazy laughter.

Bink, horrified, put forth the greatest effort of his life and pulled one arm free of the grass. Little roots trailed from it, and it hurt. He was lying partly on his side, one cheek anchored, but his ears brought him the dreadful news of the threats about him. He struck at the harpy, scaring her off for the moment. He was thankful that she was a coward.

Her wings fluttered heavily. A dirty feather drifted down. “Oooh, you bad boy!” she screeched. She seemed to be unable to use anything less than a screech. “I’ll goozle your gizzard for that.” She let out her horrible cackle again.

But now a shadow fell on the bird from something he could not see, but the outline was awful. He heard heavy breathing and smelled its breath, which for the moment overrode the stink of the harpy. It was the thing from the sea, its feet dragging as it hunched forward. It sniffed him—and the other creatures stopped moving in, afraid to stand up to this monster.

All except the harpy. She was ready to curse anything from the safety of the air. “Get away, argus!” she screeched. “He’s mine, all mine, especially his gizzard.” She dropped down again, forgetting Bink’s free arm. He could fight off the dirty bird, but this other thing was too much for him.

The unseen thing snorted and leaped, passing right over Bink’s body with amazing skill. Now he saw it; it had the body and tail of a large fish, four short legs ending in flippers, the tusked head of a boar, and no neck. Three eyes were set along its body, the middle eye lower than the others. Bink had never seen a monster like this before. It was a land-walking fish.

The harpy flew up out of the way just in time, missing being gored by the thing’s curved horns. Another stinking feather fell. She screeched some really disgusting insults, and then let fly with a gooey dropping, but the monster ignored her and turned to Bink. It opened its mouth, and Bink made a fist to punch it in the nose, for what little good that might do. Then it paused, looking 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 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, angry that its meal should be taken away. Bink dropped flat again, letting the slimy flippers pass over him, and then shook loose more of his body. He was getting free!

The two brutes crashed into each other. “Sick ’em, monsters!” the harpy screeched, hovering overhead. In her excitement 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 was still anchored, but now he could rip it out of the hold of the 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 within reach. The body of the catoblepas was covered with scales, from its gorgon head to its cloven hooves, safe from the attack of the argus. But its deadly snakelike hair was a horror!

Did Bink really want to return to magic Xanth? He had forgotten its ugly side. Magic had as much evil as good. Maybe Mundania would have been better.

“Fools!” the harpy cried, seeing Bink free. “He’s getting away!” But the monsters were now enmeshed in their own fight and paid her no attention. No doubt the winner would feast on the loser.

The harpy darted down at Bink, forgetting all caution. But he was on his feet now and able to fight. He reached up, caught her by one wing, and tried to get his hands around her scrawny neck. He would gladly have strangled her, in a sense strangling all the meanness of Xanth. But she squawked and fluttered so hard that all he got was a handful of gummy feathers.

Bink took advantage of his luck and ran away. The harpy fluttered after him for a moment but soon gave up. She had no chance to overcome him by herself. Harpies were not hunters. It was their way 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 hunters only of the helpless.

Where was Fanchon? Why hadn’t she come to help him? She must have heard his cries for help—if she still lived. There was no way she could have been unaware of the fight. So this must mean—

No! She had to be somewhere. Maybe down by the sea, catching fish, out of hearing. 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 turned to anger. “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 upset. “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 stopped, losing the words to go on.

“Maybe if you moved me away from the tree,” she said.

“I’ll dump you in the sea!” he cried. He walked up to her, leaned over to grab her by the arm, and felt a sudden wash of weakness.

Now he understood. The tree had put a spell on her and was starting in on him. As with the hungry grass, the full effect of the spell took a while. Fanchon must have settled here to sleep, being as careless as he had been, and was now far under the spell. There was no pain, just a slow draining of energy, strength, and will until all were gone.

Bink fended off the spell. He squatted beside her and slid his arm under her back and legs. He wasn’t too weak yet if he acted fast.

He lifted her and found that his position had given him a false sense of well-being. He could not raise her up; in fact, he wasn’t sure he could stand alone. He just wanted to lie down and rest.

No! That would be the end. He dared not give in to it. “Sorry I yelled at you,” he said. “I didn’t understand what had happened to you.”

“That’s all right, Bink. Take it easy.” She closed her eyes.

He let go of her and backed away on his hands and knees. “Good-bye,” she said, reopening one eye. She was almost done for.

He took hold of her feet and pulled. Another surge of weakness came, making the job seem impossible. There was no way he could pull her weight. He tried anyway, his stubbornness winning over even this magic. But he failed. She was too heavy for him.

He backed farther away, and as he left the area around the tree his energy and will returned. But now she was beyond his reach. He stood up and took another step toward her. But he lost his strength again and fell to the ground. He would never make it this way.

Again he pulled himself away from the tree, sweating with the effort. Were he less stubborn, he would not have gotten this far. “I can’t get you out, and I’m wasting time,” he said. “Maybe I can loop you with a rope.”

But there was no rope. He walked along the edge of the jungle and saw a hanging vine. That would do nicely if he could get it loose.

He grabbed it in one hand—and screamed. The thing moved in his hand and looped about his wrist. More vines dropped from the tree and swung toward him. This was a land kraken, a type of tangle tree! He was still being careless, walking straight into traps that should never have fooled him.

Bink yanked on the vine with his full weight. It stretched, twining more tightly about his arm. But now he saw a pointed bit of bone on the ground; he swept it up with his free hand and poked at the vine with it.

Thick orange sap welled out. The whole tree shivered. There was a high cry of pain. Slowly the vine loosened, and he drew his arm free. Another close call.

He ran down the beach, searching for whatever would help him. Maybe a sharp-edged stone to cut off another vine. No, the other vines would get him. Give up that idea. Maybe a long pole. No, same problem. This peaceful-seeming beach was full of danger.

Then he saw a human body. Trent was sitting cross-legged on the sand looking at something. It seemed to be a colorful gourd; maybe he was eating it.

Bink paused. Trent could help him; the Magician could change the tree and make it harmless. But Trent himself was a greater long-term threat than the tree. Which should Bink choose?

Well, he would try to make a deal. The known evil of the tree might not be as bad as the uncertain evil of the Magician, but Trent was here now.

“Trent,” he said hesitantly.

The man paid him no attention. He stared at his gourd. He did not seem to be eating it. What, then, was there about it?

Bink hesitated to upset the man, but he did not know how long he could wait. Fanchon was slowly dying. At what point would she be too far gone to recover even if she was saved from the tree? Some risk had to be taken.

“Magician Trent,” Bink said more firmly. “I think we should keep the truce. Fanchon is caught and—” He stopped, for the man was still ignoring him.

Bink’s fear of the Magician began to change. “Listen, she’s in trouble!” he snapped. “Are you going to help or aren’t you?”

Still Trent paid no attention.

Bink, still tired and upset by his recent experiences, went a little crazy. “Damn it, answer me!” he cried, knocking the gourd from the Magician’s hands. The thing bounced off the sand and rolled.

Trent looked up. There was no sign of anger in his face, just surprise. “Hello, Bink,” he said. “What is your concern?”

“My concern?” Bink cried. “I told you three times.”

Trent looked at him, puzzled. “I did not hear you.” The Magician paused thoughtfully. “In fact, I did not see you arrive. I must have been sleeping, though I had not meant to.”

“You were sitting here looking at the gourd,” Bink said hotly.

“Now I remember. I saw it lying on the beach, and it looked interesting.” He broke off, glancing at his shadow. “By the sun, that was an hour ago! Where did the time go?”

Bink realized that something was wrong. He went to pick up the gourd.

“Hold!” Trent barked. “It’s hypnotic!”

Bink stopped in place. “What?”

“Hypnotic. That’s a Mundane word, meaning it puts you into a trance. It usually takes some time to do, but of course a magic spell could be instant. Don’t look too closely at the gourd. Its pretty colors attract the eye; then it has—yes, I remember now—a peephole. A single look into it becomes eternal.”

“But what’s the point?” Bink asked. “I mean, a gourd can’t eat a man.”

“But the gourd vine might,” Trent pointed out. “Or it may be that a living body provides nourishment for its seeds to grow on. There are wasps in Mundania that sting other creatures, stunning them, and then the wasps lay their eggs in the bodies.”

Still Bink was bemused. “How is it that you, a Magician—”

“Magicians are human, too, Bink. We eat, sleep, love, hate, and make mistakes. I can be hurt by magic as much as you can. I just have a stronger weapon with which to protect myself. If I wanted to be quite safe, I would lock myself in a stone castle like my friend Humfrey. My chances of survival would be greatly helped by one or two alert, loyal companions. That is why I suggested the truce, and I still feel it is a good idea. It is clear that I need help, even if you don’t.” He looked at Bink. “Why did you help me just now?”

“I—” Bink was ashamed to admit that it was an accident. “I think we should keep the truce.”

“Very good. Does Fanchon agree?”

“She needs help now. She is in the spell of a lethargy tree.”

“Oh, no! I shall repay your favor by saving the girl. Then we shall talk of truce.” Trent jumped up.

On the way up the beach, Bink pointed out the land kraken, and Trent whipped out his sword and neatly cut off a length of vine. Again Bink was reminded of the skill this man had with his weapon. Even if Trent’s magic were taken away, he would still be dangerous. In fact, he had risen to General in Mundania.

The vine twisted like a dying snake, oozing orange sap from the cut end, but it was now harmless. The tree cried again, and Bink almost felt sorry for it.

They took the vine to Fanchon, looped it about her feet, and pulled her away from the tree. So simple with the right tools!

“Now,” Trent said briskly as Fanchon slowly recovered her energy, “I suggest a truce among us until we escape the wilderness of Xanth. We seem to have problems on our own.”

This time Fanchon agreed.

Chapter 12

Chameleon

The first thing Fanchon did when she recovered was to get the magic gourd that Bink had told her about. “This could be useful,” she said, wrapping it in a leaf from a blanket plant.

“Now we must plan the best way out of here,” Trent said. “I believe we are south of the Gap, so that will stop us if we go north unless we stay on the coast. I don’t think that is wise.”

Bink remembered crossing the Gap at the other side. “No, we don’t want to stay on the beach,” he agreed. The Sorceress Iris had bothered him there, but there could be other threats.

“Our other choice is to cut inland,” Trent said. “I do not know this area well, but I believe that Humfrey was building a castle east of here.”

“He completed it,” Fanchon said.

“Fine,” Bink said. “Trent, you can change us into big birds, maybe rocs, and we’ll carry you there.”

Trent shook his head. “This is not possible.”

“But you changed us before, and we helped you. We made the truce. We won’t drop you.”

Trent smiled. “It is not a question of trust, Bink. I trust you. I have no question about your honesty or Fanchon’s. But we are in a strange position.”

“Fancy the Evil Magician paying a call on the Good Magician!” Fanchon said. “What a scene that would make.”

“No,” Trent said. “Humfrey and I have always gotten along well. I would be happy to meet him again. But it would be his duty to send the news of my return to the King, and he would use his magic to keep track of me.”

“Yes, I see the problem,” Fanchon said. “No sense tipping your hand to the enemy. But we could fly somewhere else.”

“We can fly nowhere,” Trent insisted. “I cannot afford to advertise my return to Xanth, and neither can you.”

“That’s right,” Bink agreed. “We’ve been cast out. And the punishment for breaking banishment—”

“Is death,” Fanchon finished. “I never thought … I guess we’re all in trouble.”

“If you had forgotten that two days ago,” Trent said, “we would not be here now. We are all unified in opposition to the present laws of Xanth.”

Fanchon looked sober, as if there was something special about the remark. Oddly, it made her look less ugly than usual. Bink thought he was probably just getting used to her.

“What are we going to do?” Bink asked. “The whirlpool brought us in under the Shield; we can’t go back that way. We can’t stay here on the beach. And we can’t let anyone know we’re back even though we entered only by accident.”

“We’ll have to hide,” Fanchon decided. “There are places in Xanth where we would be unknown.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a life,” Bink said. “Always in hiding. And if anyone asked Magician Humfrey where we were—”

“Who’d do that?” Fanchon demanded. “One year’s service just to check up on someone who was cast out?”

“That is our only security,” Trent said. “The fact that Humfrey will not bother to check without a fee. However, we can worry about such things after we escape the wilderness. Maybe by then some new choices will have appeared. It may not matter after all.”

Not matter because they might never make it through the wilderness, Bink thought.

***

They traveled along the beach until they found an area that seemed less dangerous than the rest. They spaced themselves out in case anything dangerous did appear so that they would not all be caught together.

The plan worked well enough. At first the magic they found was largely harmless. There were shells to make passing animals turn away, or color shows for no clear reason. Bink had been through worse on his trip to the Good Magician’s castle. Maybe the wilderness was overrated.

Fanchon spotted a fabric plant and made tunics for all of them. The men tolerated this with good humor. Had Fanchon been a well-formed woman, there might have been more reason for clothing. Still, Bink remembered how she had seemed modest in the prison pit so as to gain a private area in which to hide the bricks. She probably had her reasons this time, too.

There were several patches of spell-cast coldness and one patch of heat. The tunics helped protect against these, although they were easy to go around. The tangle trees were easily spotted and bypassed. Staying off nice paths was second nature to them all.

One area was very awkward, however. It was dry and sandy, yet it was covered by waist-high broad-leaved plants. The area seemed harmless, so they walked straight through the center. Then all three felt a sudden call of nature. They had to scatter, barely getting separated in time.

These were very practical plants, Bink realized. Their spells made passing animals leave nourishing fluids and solids on the soil. Fertilizer magic!

Farther along they encountered an animal that did not flee or attack. This knee-high snuffling creature had a very long nose. Trent drew his sword as it walked toward them, but Fanchon stopped him. “I know that one,” she said. “It’s a magic sniffer.”

“It smells by magic?” Bink asked.

“It smells magic,” she said. “We used to use one on my folks’ farm to sniff out magic plants. The stronger the magic, the more it reacts. But it’s harmless.”

“What does it feed on?” Trent asked, keeping his hand on his sword.

“Magic berries. Other magic doesn’t seem to affect it one way or the other; it is just curious. It doesn’t react to the type of spell, just its strength.”

They stood and watched. Fanchon was nearest to the sniffer, so it went to her first. It snorted, making a flutelike sound. “See, I have some magic; it likes me,” she said.

What magic? Bink wondered. She had never shown any talent, and never told him what she could do. There was still too much he did not know about her.

Satisfied, the sniffer moved on to Trent. This time its reaction was much stronger; it danced around, uttering a series of notes. “Sure enough,” Trent said with pride, “it knows a Magician when it smells one.”

When it came to Bink, it danced almost as much as it had for Trent. “So much for that,” Bink said, laughing with embarrassment.

But Trent did not laugh. “It believes you are almost as strong a Magician as I am,” he said, his fingers tapping his sword. Then he caught himself and seemed to be at ease again.

“I wish I were,” Bink said. “But remember, I was banished for lack of magic.” Yet the Magician Humfrey had told him he had very strong magic that could not be brought out. What kind of talent could he have that hid itself so well? Or was it hidden by some outside spell?

They hiked on. They cut poles with which to poke the ground ahead for barriers and pitfalls. This made progress slow, but they dared not hurry. Actually, they had no reason to; they were only trying to stay hidden and survive.

Food turned out to be no problem. They did not trust the fruit and candy trees they saw; some might be magic. But Trent turned a thistle tree into a multifruit tree, and they feasted on apples, pears, bananas, blackberries, and tomatoes. It reminded Bink of the strength of a true Magician’s power. Used correctly, the reach of Trent’s magic was great.

But they were still heading into the wilderness, not out of it. Illusions became bolder and harder to see through. There were great bellowings and other loud, threatening sounds. Now and then the ground shuddered, and trees leaned toward them, leaves twitching.

“I think,” Fanchon said, “we have not begun to realize the strength of this forest. Its seeming harmlessness may have been to let us get more deeply in.”

Bink, looking nervously about, agreed. “We picked the safest-seeming path. Maybe that’s where we went wrong. We should have taken the most threatening one.”

“And gotten eaten by a tangle tree,” Fanchon said.

“Let’s try going back,” Bink suggested. Seeing their doubt, he added, “Just to test.”

They tried it. Almost immediately the forest darkened and tightened. More trees appeared, blocking the way they had come. Bink was reminded of the one-way path he had walked from the Good Magician’s castle, but this was worse. These were not nice trees; they were gnarled giants bearing thorns and twitching vines. Branches crisscrossed one another, and leaves grew to form new barriers even as they watched. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

“No doubt about it,” Trent said. “We failed to see the forest for the trees. I could transform any trees in our direct path, but if some started firing thorns at us, we would be in trouble.”

“Even if we wanted to go that way,” Fanchon said, looking west, “we’d never have time to retrace our steps. Not before night, and night is the worst time for magic.”

“But the other choice is to go the way the forest wants us to go,” Bink said. “And although that may be easy now, it surely is not our best choice.”

“The wilderness does not know us well,” Trent said with a grim smile. “I feel able to handle most threats as long as someone watches behind me and stands guard as I sleep.”

Bink thought of the Magician’s powers of magic and swordplay and had to agree. The forest might be one giant spiderweb, but that spider might suddenly become a fly. “Maybe we should gamble that we can handle it,” Bink said. “At least we’ll find out what it is.” For the first time, he was glad to have the Evil Magician along.

“Yes, there is always that,” Fanchon agreed.

Now that they had made the decision, progress became easier. The threatenings of the forest stayed as background warnings. As dusk came, the way opened into a clearing within which stood a run-down stone fortress.

“Oh, no!” Fanchon cried. “Not a haunted castle!”

Thunder cracked behind them. A chill wind came up, cutting through their tunics. Bink shivered. “I think we spend the night there or in the rain,” he said. “Could you change it into a harmless cottage?”

“My talent works only with living things,” Trent said. “That leaves out buildings—and storms.”

Glowing eyes appeared in the forest behind them. “If those things rush us,” Fanchon said, “you could transform only a couple before they were on us, since you can’t zap them from a distance.”

“And not at night,” Trent said. “Remember, I have to see my target. I think we had better enter the castle. Once inside, we should sleep in shifts. It is likely to be a difficult night.”

Bink shuddered. The last place he wanted to spend the night was there, but he realized they had come far too deep into the trap to get themselves out easily. There was powerful magic here, the magic of a whole area. Too much to fight directly.

So they gave in, intimidated by the looming storm. The castle walls were tall and covered by moss and clinging vines. The drawbridge was down, its once-strong timbers rotting in places. Yet there was a lingering, rugged glory about it. “This castle has style,” Trent said.

They tapped the planks of the drawbridge and found a fairly solid part on which to cross. The moat was overgrown with weeds. “Such a shame to see a good castle get run-down,” Trent said. “It is clearly not lived in and has not been for decades.”

“Or centuries,” Bink added.

“Why would a forest herd us into an old building?” Fanchon asked. “Even if something horrible lurks here, what would our deaths do for the forest? We’re only passing through, and we would make it much faster if the forest just left us alone. We mean it no harm.”

“There is always a reason,” Trent said. “Magic does not work without reason.”

They came to the front portcullis as the storm broke. That made them step inside, though it was almost black.

“Maybe we can find a torch,” Fanchon said. “Feel along the walls. Usually a castle has something near the entrance—”

CRASH! The portcullis, which they had thought was rusted in place, crashed down behind them. The iron bars were far too heavy to lift; the three were trapped inside. “The jaws close,” Trent remarked, not seeming upset. But Bink could see that his sword was in his hand.

Fanchon uttered a half-muffled scream and clutched Bink’s arm. He looked around and saw a ghost. There was no question about it; the thing was a humped white sheet with dead black eyeholes. It made a mouthless moan.

Trent lunged forward, and his sword whistled as he swung. The blade sliced through the sheet—with no effect. The ghost floated away through a wall.

“This castle is haunted,” Trent said matter-of-factly.

“If you really believed that, you wouldn’t be so calm,” Fanchon said.

“It is physical threats I fear,” Trent answered. “The thing to remember about ghosts is that they have no solid body, and they lack the ability of shades to take over living creatures. They cannot directly affect people. They act only through fear, so it is best to have no fear. In addition, this ghost was as surprised to see us as we were to see it. It meant no harm.”

It was clear that Trent was not afraid. He had not used his sword in panic but to prove that it was a real ghost he faced. This was courage of a type that Bink had never had. He was shivering with fear right now.

Fanchon had better control now that her scream was out. “We could fall into pits or set off more booby traps if we try to explore this place in the dark. At least we’re out of the rain. Why don’t we sleep right here in shifts until morning?”

“You have wonderful common sense, my dear,” Trent said. “Shall we draw straws for first watch?”

“I’ll take it,” Bink said. “I’m too scared to sleep anyway.”

“So am I,” Fanchon said, and Bink felt grateful for her remark. “I have not become used to ghosts.”

“There is not enough evil in you,” Trent said, chuckling. “Very well, I shall be the first to sleep.” He moved, and Bink felt something cool touch his hand. “Do take my sword, Bink, and run it through whatever appears. If it has no impact, relax, for it is a true ghost. If it hits anything solid, that threat will no doubt be stopped by the thrust. Just take care”—Bink heard the smile in his voice—“that you do not strike the wrong thing.”

Bink found himself holding the heavy sword, amazed. “I—”

“Do not worry that you are not skilled with the weapon. A straight, bold thrust will work,” Trent went on. “When your watch is done, pass the blade on to the lady. When she is done, I will take my turn.”

Bink heard him lie down. “Remember,” the Magician’s voice came from the floor, “my talent does not work in the dark since I cannot see my target. We depend on your alertness and judgment.” Then he said no more.

Fanchon found Bink’s free arm. “Let me get behind you,” she said. “I don’t want you running me through by accident.”

Bink was glad for her closeness. He stood peering about, sword in one sweaty hand, staff in the other, unable to see in the dark. The sound of the rain outside became loud; then he made out Trent’s snoring.

“Bink?” Fanchon said at last.

“Um.”

“What kind of man would give his enemy his sword and then go to sleep?”

That question had also been bothering Bink. He had no answer. “A man with iron nerve,” he said at last, knowing that this could be only part of it.

“A man who gives such trust,” she said thoughtfully, “must expect to get it back.”

“Well, he knows he can trust us.”

“It doesn’t work that way, Bink. It is the man who can’t be trusted who does not trust others because he judges them by himself. I don’t see how a liar and a criminal like the Evil Magician can be this way.”

“Maybe he’s not the true Trent but someone else, an impostor—”

“An impostor would still be a liar. But we’ve seen his power. Magic is never twice the same; he has to be Trent the Transformer.”

“Yet something is wrong.”

“Yes. Something is right; that’s what’s wrong. He trusts us, and he shouldn’t. You could run him through right now while he sleeps. Even if you didn’t kill him, he could not transform you in the dark.”

“I wouldn’t do that!” Bink said, horrified.

“Right. You have honor. So do I. It is hard not to think that he does, too. Yet we know he is the Evil Magician.”

“He must have spoken the truth before,” Bink decided. “He can’t make it through the wilderness alone, and he figures he’ll need help to get out of this castle in one piece. He knows we can’t get out either, so we’re all on the same side and won’t hurt one another. So he’s serious about the truce.”

“But what about when we get out of all this and the truce ends?”

Bink didn’t answer. With that they were silent. But his troubled thoughts went on. If they survived the night in this dreaded castle, they could probably survive the day. In the morning Trent might figure that the truce was over. Bink and Fanchon could guard the Magician through the night; then in the morning Trent could slay them both while they slept. If Trent had taken the first watch, he could not have done that because he would be slaying the people who could protect him for the rest of the night. So it made sense for him to take the last watch.

But Bink was not ready to believe that. He himself had chosen the first watch. He had to have faith in the truce. If that faith was wrong, then he was lost. But he would rather lose that way than win through dishonor. That decision gave him comfort.

Bink saw no more ghosts that night. At last he gave the sword to Fanchon. Then, to his surprise, he managed to sleep.

He woke at dawn. Fanchon was asleep beside him, looking less ugly than he recalled. In fact, she did not look ugly at all. Would it ever come to the point where Trent seemed noble and Fanchon seemed beautiful?

“Good,” Trent said. He was wearing his sword again. “Now that you can watch over her, I’ll take a look around.” And he walked down the hall.

At least they had survived the night. Bink wasn’t sure whether he had been more worried about the ghosts or the Magician.

As for Fanchon, as the light brightened, he was sure that her looks had improved. She could hardly be called lovely, but she was not the ugly girl he had seen when he met her four days ago. In fact, she now reminded him of someone.

“Dee!” he cried.

She woke. “Yes?”

Her answer amazed him. He had called her Dee, but Dee was elsewhere in Xanth. Why, then, had she answered to that name as if it were her own? “I—I just thought you—”

She sat up. “You’re right, of course, Bink. I knew I couldn’t hide it much longer.”

“You mean you really are—?”

“I am Chameleon,” she said.

Now he was really confused. “That was only a code word to alert—”

“I am Fanchon-ugly,” she said. “And Dee-average. And Wynne-beautiful. I change a little every day, completing the cycle in a month. It’s the female cycle, you know.”

Now he remembered how Dee had reminded him of someone. “But Wynne was stupid! You—”

“My intelligence changes in the opposite way,” she explained. “That is the other part of my curse. I range from ugly and smart to lovely and stupid. I’ve been looking for a spell to turn me normal.”

“A spell for Chameleon,” he said softly. What surprising magic! Yet it had to be true, for he had almost caught on when he met Dee so close to where he had lost Wynne, and now he had seen Fanchon change day by day. Chameleon. She had no magic talent; she was magic, like the centaurs or the dragons. “But why did you follow me into Mundania?”

“Magic doesn’t work outside Xanth. Humfrey told me I would center on my normal state if I went to Mundania. I would be Dee, completely average. That seemed my best choice.”

“But you said you followed me.”

“I did. You were kind to Wynne. My mind may change, but my memory doesn’t. You saved her from the Gap Dragon, and you didn’t take advantage of her when she—you know.” Bink remembered the beautiful girl’s willingness to undress. She had been too stupid to think through the results of her offer, but Dee and Fanchon, later, would understand. “And now I know you also tried to help Dee. I shouldn’t have cut you off then, but we weren’t as smart then as we became later. And we didn’t know you as well. You—” she cut off. “It doesn’t matter.”

But it did matter! Fanchon was not one but three of the girls he had known. One of them was very beautiful but also stupid. How should he react to this chameleon?

The chameleon again! The magic lizard that changed its color and shape at will. If only he could forget that omen or be sure he understood it. He was sure that this chameleon meant him no harm, but she might in fact be the death of him. Her magic controlled her life. She had a problem, and so did he.

So she had learned that he was to be cast out for lack of magic, and she made her decision. Dee without magic, Bink without magic. Two ordinary people with a common memory of the land of magic. No doubt her smart stage had figured that out. So she had acted, but she had had no way of knowing about the Evil Magician.

It had been a good idea. Bink liked Dee. She was not so ugly as to turn him off and not so lovely as to make him distrust her after his experience with Sabrina and the Sorceress Iris. But she was also not so stupid as to make it pointless. Just an average girl he could have loved, especially in Mundania.

But now they were back in Xanth, and her curse was in force. She was not simple Dee but Chameleon, swinging from one end to the other, when all he wanted was the middle.

“I’m not so stupid that I can’t figure out what’s going through your mind,” she said. “I’m better off in Mundania.”

Bink could not argue. Now he almost wished it had worked out that way. To have settled down with Dee and raised a family could have been its own special kind of magic.

There was a crash. Both reacted to the sound. It had come from somewhere above.

“Trent’s in trouble!” Bink said. He grabbed his staff and started down the hall. “There must be a stairway somewhere.” Behind his concern he realized that this reaction meant a change in his feelings toward the Magician. If evil was as evil did, last night with the sword and the sleeping man meant that Trent could not be very evil. Trust made trust. Even if the Magician was only trying to trick him, Bink’s feelings had changed.

Chameleon followed Bink. Now that it was light, they had no fear of pitfalls, though Bink knew there could be magic ones. They saw a grandly curving stone staircase and charged up it.

Suddenly a ghost loomed ahead. “Ooooo!” it moaned, its great eyes staring like holes in a dark coffin.

“Get out of my way!” Bink snapped, swinging his staff at it. The ghost faded. Bink ran through it and felt its chill. Trent was right; there was no need to fear the ghosts.

Every step Bink took was solid. It seemed there were no illusions in this old castle, just its harmless spooks.

But now there was silence upstairs. Bink and Chameleon picked their way through surprisingly well-kept and richly appointed rooms as they searched for their companion. At another time Bink would have admired the rooms and halls and been glad for the tight roof that had protected them, but right now his attention was held by concern. What had happened to Trent? What if some monster was lurking in this castle, catching its victims by magic?

Then they found a kind of library. Fat old books and scrolls were on shelves along the walls. In the center, at a polished wood table, sat Trent, leaning over an open book.

“Another peephole spell’s got him!” Bink cried.

But Trent lifted his head. “No, only the thirst for knowledge, Bink. This is fascinating.”

A bit embarrassed, they halted. “But the crash …,” Bink started.

Trent smiled. “My fault. That old chair gave way under my weight.” He pointed to a small heap of splintered wood. “Much of the furniture here is weak. I was so interested in this library that I was thoughtless.” He rubbed his backside. “I paid for it.”

“What’s so fascinating about the books?” Chameleon asked.

“This one is a history of this castle,” Trent explained. “It is not, it seems, just another building. This is Castle Roogna.”

“Roogna!” Bink cried. “The Magician King of the Fourth Wave?”

“The same. He ruled from here, it seems. When he died and the Fifth Wave overcame Xanth eight hundred years ago, his castle was left empty and finally forgotten. But it was an unusual building. Much of the King’s nature seeped into it.”

“I remember,” Bink said. “Roogna’s talent—”

“Was the changing of magic to his own uses,” Trent said. “A powerful talent. He grew the magic trees around here, and he built this fine castle. During his rule, Xanth was in harmony. It was a kind of Golden Age.”

“Yes,” Bink agreed. “I never thought I’d see this famous place.”

“You may see more of it than you want to,” Trent said. “Remember how we were guided here?”

“It seems like only yesterday,” Bink said dryly.

“Why were we herded here?” Chameleon demanded.

Trent looked at her, his gaze lingering. “I believe this area is good to you, Fanchon.”

“Never mind that,” she said. “I’ll be a lot prettier before I’m through, more’s the pity.”

“She is Chameleon,” Bink said. “She changes from ugly to pretty and back again, and her intelligence changes in the opposite way. She left Xanth to escape that curse.”

“I would not see that as a curse,” the Magician said. “All things to all men in due course.”

“You’re not a woman,” she snapped. “I asked about this castle.”

Trent nodded. “Well, this castle needs a new resident. A Magician. It is very selective, which is one reason it has been empty for so long. It wants to restore the years of its glory; therefore, it must support a new King of Xanth.”

“And you’re a Magician!” Bink cried. “So when you came near, everything shoved you this way.”

“So it would seem. There was no evil, only a need. A need for Castle Roogna and a need for Xanth to again make this land what it could be.”

“But you’re not King,” Chameleon said.

“Not yet,” he stated firmly.

Bink and Chameleon looked at each other in understanding. So the Evil Magician had gone back to form. They had discussed his seeming nobility and been mistaken. He had planned to invade Xanth, and now—

“Not ever!” she flared. “The people would never accept a criminal like you! They haven’t forgotten—”

“So you do know my reputation,” Trent said mildly. “I had understood that you had not heard of me.” He shrugged. “However, the citizens of Xanth may not have much choice, and it would not be the first time a criminal has held a throne. With the powers of this castle added to mine, I may not need an army.”

“We’ll stop you,” Chameleon said grimly.

Trent’s gaze touched her again. “Are you ending the truce?”

That gave her pause. The end of the truce would put the two of them in Trent’s power. “No,” she said. “But when it does end—”

“Yes, it seems there will have to be settlement,” said Trent. There was no hint of evil in his smile. “I had thought if I allowed you to go your way, you would allow the same to me. But when I said that the people of Xanth might not have a choice, I did not mean it the way you seem to have taken it.

“This castle may not permit us to do other than its will,” Trent continued. “For centuries it has been here, waiting for a Magician. Maybe the magic sniffer we met in the forest was one of its helpers. Now it has found not one but two Magicians. It will not lightly give them up. From here we may be bound to glory or death, depending on our decision.”

“Two Magicians?” she asked.

“Remember, Bink has almost as much magic as I do. That was the ruling of the sniffer, and I am not sure it was mistaken. That would place him in the Magician class.”

“But I have no talent,” Bink protested.

“Correction,” Trent said. “To have an unknown talent is hardly the same as having no talent. But even if you are talentless, there is strong magic connected with you. You may be magic, as is Fanchon.”

“Chameleon,” she said. “That’s my real name.”

“I beg your pardon,” Trent said, making a little bow to her. “Chameleon.”

“You mean I’ll change somehow?” Bink asked, half hopeful, half afraid.

“Maybe. You might change into some higher form, like a pawn becoming a queen.” He paused. “Sorry, that’s another Mundane term. I don’t believe chess is known in Xanth. I have been too long in Mundania.”

“Well, I still won’t help you try to steal the crown,” Bink said firmly.

“Naturally not. Our goals differ. We may even be rivals.”

“I’m not trying to take over Xanth!”

“Not that you know of. But to stop an Evil Magician from doing so, would you not consider—”

“Ridiculous!” Bink said. Yet the idea was hard to forget. If the only way to keep Trent from—

“The time may have come for us to part,” Trent said. “I have enjoyed your company, but the situation seems to be changing. Maybe you should leave now. I shall not stop you. Should we manage to separate, the truce will be ended. Fair enough?”

“How nice,” Chameleon said. “You can relax over your books while the jungle tears us up.”

“I do not think anything here will hurt you,” Trent said. “Castle Roogna is in harmony with man.” He smiled again. “Harmony, not harm. But I think you will not be allowed to leave.”

Bink had had enough. “I’ll take my chances. Let’s go.”

“You want me to come along?” Chameleon asked.

“Unless you want to stay with him. You might make a very pretty Queen in a few weeks.”

Trent laughed. Chameleon moved quickly to Bink’s side, and they walked toward the staircase, leaving the Magician to resume reading.

Another ghost met them. This one seemed larger than the others, more scary. “Waarrningg,” it moaned.

Bink stopped. “You can speak? What is your warning?”

“Dooom beeyonnd. Staay.”

“Oh. Well, that’s a chance we have already decided to take,” Bink said. “Because we are loyal to Xanth.”

“Xaaanth!” the spirit repeated with feeling.

“Yes, Xanth. So we must leave.”

The ghost seemed confused and then it faded.

“It almost seems they’re on our side,” Chameleon said. “Maybe they’re just trying to make us stay in the castle, though.”

“We can’t afford to trust ghosts,” Bink said.

Chameleon and Bink could not exit through the front gate because the portcullis was firmly wedged and they did not know how to lift it. They poked through the downstairs rooms, searching for another exit.

Bink opened one promising door—and slammed it shut as a host of leather-winged, long-toothed creatures stirred. They looked like vampire bats. He cracked open the next door more carefully, and a rope twined out.

“Maybe the cellar,” Chameleon suggested, spotting the stairs leading down.

They tried it. But huge rats faced them at the foot of the stairs. The beasts looked too hungry, too sure. They must have magic to trap prey.

Bink poked his staff at the nearest rat. “Scat!” he cried. But the rat leaped onto the staff and climbed toward Bink’s hands. Bink shook the staff, but the creature clung, and another jumped onto the staff. Bink thunked it against the stone floor, but both rats still hung on and kept climbing. The ability to cling must be their magic.

“Bink! Look up!” Chameleon cried.

There was a chittering overhead. More rats were crowding the beams and preparing to leap.

Bink threw away the staff and backed up the stairs, holding on to Chameleon until he could get turned around. The rats did not follow.

“This castle is really organized,” Bink said as they reached the main floor. “I don’t think it means to let us go peacefully. But we’ve got to try. Maybe a window.”

But there were no windows on the ground floor. The outer wall had been built to withstand attack. No point in jumping from an upper tower; one of them could break a bone. They moved on and found themselves in the kitchen area. Here they found a back exit. They slipped out and faced a small bridge across the moat—a perfect way to escape.

But there was motion on the bridge already. Snakes were coming out from the rotten planking. Not healthy, normal ones but tattered, discolored things whose ribs showed through oozing gaps in their sagging flesh.

“Those are zombie snakes!” Chameleon cried with real horror.

“It figures,” Bink said grimly. “This whole castle is waked from the dead. Rats can live anywhere, but the other creatures died out when the castle died. Zombies aren’t as strong as real living things, though. We can handle them with our staffs.” But he had abandoned his own staff in the cellar.

Now he smelled the stench of decay, worse than that of the harpy. Waves of it rose from the snakes and the moat. Bink’s stomach made a heave. He had never seen real, far-advanced decay. Usually creatures were either living or dead. The stages in between, of rotting flesh and maggots, he had chosen not to look at closely before this.

“I don’t want to try that bridge,” Chameleon said. “We’ll fall through, and there are zombie crocs in the water.”

So there were. Big reptiles were thrashing the slimy surface with leather-covered bones, their worm-eaten eyes gazing up.

“Maybe a boat,” Bink said. “Or a raft.”

“Uh-uh. Even if it weren’t rotten and filled with zombie bugs, it would—well, look across the water.”

He looked. Now came the worst of all. Walking jerkily along the far bank of the moat were human zombies, some mummified, others hardly more than skeletons.

Bink watched the awful things for a long moment, fascinated by their grossness. Fragments of clothing and decayed flesh dropped from them. Some dribbled caked dirt.

He thought of fighting that army, hacking apart already-destroyed bodies, feeling their rotting flesh on his hands, wrestling with those ghastly creatures, surrounded with the stink of it all. What sicknesses would they give him as they fell apart on him? What attack would make these moldering dead lie down again?

The spell-driven things were closing in, coming across the ragged bridge. Surely this was even worse for the zombies, for they could not have awakened on their own. They had to have been pressed into service in this state instead of staying in the bliss of oblivion.

“I don’t think I’m ready to leave yet,” Bink said.

“No,” Chameleon agreed, her face somewhat green. “Not this way.”

And the zombies halted, giving Bink and Chameleon time to reenter Castle Roogna.

Chapter 13

Rationale

Chameleon was now well through her normal stage, which Bink had known before as Dee, and moving into her beauty stage. It was not the same as the other Wynne. Chameleon’s hair was lighter in color, and her face was vaguely different. It seemed she differed each time, never repeating herself. But she was also becoming less smart, and was no help with the problem of leaving the castle. She was much more interested now in getting friendly with Bink, and he could not afford that at the moment.

First, he had to get away from here; second, he was not sure he wanted to be connected with a person who changed so much. If only she were beautiful and bright. But that would not work either. He understood now why she had not been tempted by Trent’s offer to make her beautiful. That would only have changed her stage. If she were beautiful when she was smart, she would be stupid when she was ugly. She needed to be free of the curse. And even if she could be fixed with both beauty and brains, Bink would not trust her, for he had been hurt by that type, too. Sabrina— He choked off that memory. Yet even an ordinary girl would be dull if she had no more than normal intelligence or magic.

Castle Roogna, now that they gave in to it rather than fight it, was a nice place. It did its best to make itself so. The gardens had rich crops and many small animals. Trent practiced his archery by bringing down rabbits, shooting from the high towers, using one of the fine bows in the weapons room. Some of the creatures were false rabbits, making images of themselves apart from their real locations, but Trent seemed to enjoy the challenge. One he hit was a stinker, whose magic smell was such that there was nothing to do but bury it in a hurry. Another was a shrinker; as it died it shrank until it was more like a mouse. But some of them were good to eat.

The kitchen did need some attention; otherwise, the zombies would come in to do the cooking. Rather than permit that, Chameleon took over. Helped by the lady ghosts, she made meals. She had no trouble washing the dishes because there was a magic fountain. One rinse and everything sparkled. In fact, having a bath in that water was a pleasing experience; it bubbled.

The inner walls of the castle were as solid as the roof; there seemed to be spells for weatherproofing. Each person had a private bedroom with elegant drapes on the walls, plush rugs on the floors, goose-down pillows, and solid silver chamber pots. The three of them lived like royalty. Bink found that the tapestry on the wall opposite his bed was a magic picture. The little figures moved: tiny knights killed dragons, tiny ladies sewed, and in private the knights and ladies came together. At first Bink closed his eyes during that portion of their lives, but soon his curiosity won out, and he watched it all. And wished he could— But no, that would not be right, though he knew that Chameleon was willing.

The ghosts were no problem; they even became friendly.

Bink got to know them all. One was the gatekeeper; another was the chambermaid; a third was the cook’s helper. There were six ghosts in all, each of whom had died without proper burial. They were shades, really; only the King of Xanth could free them, and they could not leave the castle. So they were doomed to serve here forever. They were nice people who had no control over the castle itself. They helped wherever they could, telling Chameleon where to search for food and telling Bink stories of their lives here in the Grand Old Days. They had been surprised by the coming of living people at first, for they had been alone for centuries. But they understood that it was part of the spell of the castle.

Trent spent most of his time in the library. At first Chameleon spent some time there, too. But as she lost intelligence, she lost interest. Her goals also changed; now she looked for some spell to make her normal. When the library did not help, she left it to poke around the castle and grounds. As long as she was alone, no harmful things appeared. She was no prisoner here; only the men were prisoners. She looked for magic. She ate things freely, alarming Bink, who knew how bad magic could be. But she seemed to lead a charmed life.

One of her finds was helpful; it was a small red fruit growing on one of the garden trees. Chameleon tried to bite into one, but the rind was hard so she took it to the kitchen to chop it in half. No ghosts were present, so Chameleon did not have any warning about the nature of the fruit. She was careless and dropped one of the fruits on the floor.

Bink heard the explosion and came running. Chameleon, quite pretty now, was huddling in a corner of the kitchen. “What happened?” Bink demanded, looking about.

“Oh, Bink!” she cried, running to him. Her homemade dress was in shreds, showing her finely formed breasts above and her firm round thighs below. What a difference a few days made! She was not at the height of her loveliness, but she was close enough for the need.

The need? Bink found her in his arms, aware that she was ready to do anything he might ask. It was hard to steel himself against it, for she also had much of Dee in her—the stage he had liked before. He could take her now, make love to her, and none of her stages would blame him.

But he was not a casual lover. He pushed her away gently, the action taking more effort than he cared to show. “What happened?” he asked again.

“It—it banged,” she said.

He had to remind himself that her dullness was the other side of her curse. Now it was easier to hold her off. A body without a mind did not attract him. “What banged?”

“The cherry.”

“The cherry?” This was the first time he had heard about the new fruit. After careful questioning, he got the story.

“Those are cherry bombs!” he cried, understanding. “If you had eaten one—”

She was not yet so stupid as to not understand that. “Oh, my mouth!”

“Oh, your head! Those things are powerful. Didn’t Millie warn you?” Millie was the chambermaid ghost.

“She was busy.”

What would a ghost be busy with? Well, this was no time to explore that. “After this, don’t eat anything unless a ghost tells you it’s okay.”

Chameleon nodded.

Bink picked up a cherry carefully. It was just a hard little red ball with a mark where its stem had broken off. “Old Magician Roogna must have used these bombs in war. He didn’t like war, as I understand it, but he never let his defense grow soft. One man standing atop the walls with a slingshot could stop an army by throwing these cherry bombs down on it. No telling what other trees there are here. If you don’t stop fooling around with strange fruits—”

“I could blow up the castle,” she said, watching the fading smoke. The floor was scorched, and a table had lost a leg.

“Blow up the castle,” Bink repeated, suddenly thinking of something. “Chameleon, why don’t you bring in some more cherry bombs? I’d like to try something with them. But be careful, very careful. Don’t knock or drop any.”

“Sure,” she said, eager to please. “Very careful.”

“And don’t eat any.” That was not a joke.

Bink gathered cloth and string and made bags of different sizes. Soon he had bag bombs. He planted these around the castle. One bag he kept.

“I think we are ready to leave Castle Roogna,” he said. “But first I have to talk with Trent. You stand here by the kitchen door, and if you see any zombies, throw cherries at them.” He was sure that no zombie could catch such a bomb and throw it back. “And if you see Trent come down here and not me, throw a cherry into that pile. Fast, before he gets within reach of you.” Bink pointed to a large bomb he had tied to a main post. “Do you understand?”

She didn’t, but he drilled her on it until she had it straight. She was to throw a cherry at anything she saw except Bink himself.

Now he was ready. He went up to the library to speak with the Evil Magician. His heart beat loudly now that the moment had come, but he knew what he had to do.

A ghost stopped him. It was Millie, the chambermaid, her white sheet fixed to look like her working dress. The ghosts had become careless over the past centuries, but now that there was company they were shaping up into their old forms. Another week would have them back into people outlines and people colors. Bink thought Millie would turn out to be a rather pretty girl, and he wondered just how she had died. An affair with a castle visitor, then a stabbing by the wife who found them?

“What is it, Millie?” he asked. He had mined the castle, but he did not hate the poor ghosts. He hoped he would not have to destroy their home.

“The King—private meeting,” she said. Her speech was still somewhat windy, as it was hard for a being who was not solid to speak clearly. But he could make it out.

“Meeting? There’s nobody here but us,” he objected. “Or do you mean he’s on the pot?”

Millie flushed as well as she was able to. Though as chambermaid she had been used to emptying out the chamber pots, she felt that any mention of a person’s use of them was rude. Perhaps she liked to believe that the stuff appeared magically overnight. “No. He’s in private meeting.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but I’ll have to interrupt him,” Bink said. “You see, I don’t think of him as King, and I am about to leave the castle.”

“Oh.” She put a foggily formed hand to her faint face. “But seeee!”

“Very well.” Bink followed her to the little room next to the library. An offshoot of the master bedroom, it had a small window opening onto the library. Since the gloom of this little room was deeper than that of the library, it was possible to see without being seen.

Trent was not alone in the library. Before him stood a woman of early middle age, still handsome, though the first flush of beauty had faded. Her hair was tied back and up in a tight bun, but there were smile lines around her mouth and eyes. And beside her was a boy, perhaps ten years old, who looked like the woman and had to be her son.

Neither person spoke, but their breathing showed that they were alive. How had they come here, and what was their business? Why hadn’t Bink or Chameleon seen them enter? It was almost impossible to come near this castle unseen. The portcullis was still down, blocking the front door, and Bink had been down by the kitchen door, making his bombs.

But they clearly had found a way in. Why didn’t they speak? Why didn’t Trent speak? They all just looked at one another in eerie silence. This whole scene seemed to make no sense.

Bink studied the odd, silent visitors. They were a little like the widow and son of Donald the Shade. The ones he had told about the silver oak so that they would no longer have to live in poverty. The likeness was not in their appearance, for these were better-looking people who had clearly not suffered poverty. It was in their sense of quiet loss. Had they lost their man, too, and come to Trent for help? If so, they had chosen the wrong Magician.

Bink backed away, not liking to snoop. Even Evil Magicians should have some privacy. He walked around to the hall and back to the top of the stairs. Millie, her warning given, vanished. It seemed to take some effort for the ghosts to appear and speak clearly, and they had to rest when off duty.

Bink resumed his march to the library, this time stepping heavily so as to make noise. Trent would have to introduce him to the visitors.

But only the Magician was there as Bink pushed open the door. He was seated at the table, looking over another book. He looked up as Bink entered. “Come for a good book, Bink?” he asked.

Bink became confused. “The people! What happened to them?”

Trent frowned. “People, Bink?”

“I saw them. A woman and a boy, right here—” Bink faltered. “Look, I didn’t mean to peek, but when Millie said you were in a meeting, I looked in from another room.”

Trent nodded. “Then you did see them. I did not mean to burden you with my problems.”

“Who are they? How did they get here? What did you do to them?”

“They were my wife and son,” Trent said gravely. “They died.”

Bink remembered the story the sailor had told of the Evil Magician’s Mundane family. “But they were here! I saw them!”

“And seeing is believing.” Trent sighed. “Bink, they were two roaches, transformed to look like my loved ones. Those were the only two people I ever loved or ever shall love. I miss them, I need them—if only to look upon them sometimes. When I lost them, there was nothing left for me in Mundania.”

Bink was amazed to see that the Evil Magician’s eyes were shining with tears. But Trent kept his control. “However, this is not your problem, and I do not want to discuss it. What is it that brings you here, Bink?”

Oh, yes. He had decided to leave, and now he had to follow through. Somehow the nerve had gone out of it, but he went on: “Chameleon and I are leaving Castle Roogna.”

The handsome brow wrinkled. “Again?”

“This time for real,” Bink said, nettled. “The zombies won’t stop us.”

“And you find you need to tell me? We already have our understanding about this, and I am sure I would have become aware that you had gone. If you feared I would fight it, you should have left without telling me.”

Bink did not smile. “No. I feel I should, under our truce, inform you.”

Trent made a little wave of one hand. “Very well, I will not say I am glad to see you go. I have come to like your traits, such as your coming to inform me of your action. And Chameleon is a fine girl, and daily more pretty. I would much prefer to have you both on my side, but since this cannot be, I wish you well.”

Bink found this awkward. “This is not a social leave-taking. I’m sorry.” He wished now that he hadn’t seen Trent’s wife and son; they had clearly been good people, and Bink was feeling sorry for the Magician. “The castle won’t let us go. We have to force it. So we have planted bombs, and—”

“Bombs!” Trent cried. “Those are Mundane things. There are no bombs in Xanth and shall be none. Never while I am King.”

“It seems there were bombs in the old days,” Bink said. “There’s a cherry bomb tree in the yard. Each cherry explodes on contact.”

“Cherry bombs?” Trent repeated. “So, what have you done with the cherries?”

“We have used them to mine the castle. If Roogna tries to stop us, we will destroy the place. So it is better if it lets us go in peace. I needed to tell you so you could disarm the bombs after we’re gone.”

“Why tell me this? Aren’t you against my plans and those of Castle Roogna? If Magician and castle were destroyed, you would be the clean winner.”

“Not clean. It’s not the kind of victory I want,” Bink said. “Look, you could do so much good in Xanth if you only—” But he knew it was useless. It simply was not the nature of an Evil Magician to work for good. “Here is a list of the bomb locations,” Bink said, setting a piece of paper on the table. “All you have to do is pick up the bags very carefully and take them outside.”

Trent shook his head. “I can’t believe that your bomb threat will work, Bink. The castle does not think. It might let Chameleon go, but not you. In its view, you are a Magician and you must stay. You may have out-thought Roogna, but it will not understand your threat. The zombies will stop you, as before.”

“Then we shall have to bomb the castle.”

“Exactly. You will have to set off the cherries, and all of us will be destroyed together.”

“No, we’ll get outside first and throw a cherry back. If the castle can’t be bluffed—”

“It can’t be bluffed! It is not a thinking thing. You will be forced to destroy it, and you know I can’t permit that. I need Roogna.”

Now it was getting tough. Bink was ready. “Chameleon will set off the bombs if you transform me,” he said. He didn’t like this sort of power play, but he had known it would come to this. “If you get in the way—”

“Oh, I would not break the truce. But—”

“You can’t break the truce. If I don’t go back down alone, Chameleon will throw a cherry bomb. She’s too stupid to do anything but follow directions.”

“Listen to me, Bink! It is my given word that keeps me from breaking the truce. I could change you into a flea, and then transform a roach into your likeness and send that likeness down to meet Chameleon. Once she set down the cherry—”

Bink’s face showed his discomfort. The Evil Magician could stop the plan. Chameleon would not catch on until too late.

“I am not doing this,” Trent said. “I tell you about it only to show that I, too, have honor. The end does not justify the means. I feel that you have allowed yourself to forget this, and if you will listen a moment you will see your mistake and correct it. I cannot allow you to destroy this historical building.”

Already Bink was feeling guilty. Was he to be talked out of a course he knew was right?

“Surely you realize,” the Evil Magician went on, “that the whole area would become dangerous if you did this thing. You might be outside the castle, but you would still be on Roogna land, and you would die horribly. Chameleon, too.”

Chameleon, too? That hurt. That beautiful girl, gobbled by a tangle tree, ripped apart by zombies … “It is a risk I must take,” Bink said grimly, though he knew that the Magician was correct. The way they had been herded to this castle, there would be no escaping the forest. “Maybe you will be able to convince the castle to let us go rather than set off that chain of events.”

“You are a stubborn one!”

“Yes.”

“At least hear me out first. If I can’t convince you, then what must be must be, though I hate it.”

“Speak briefly.” Bink was surprised at his own boldness, but he felt he was doing what he had to. If Trent tried to come within reach, Bink would take off to keep from being changed. He might be able to outrun the Magician. But even so, he could not wait too long. He was afraid that Chameleon would do something foolish.

“I really don’t want to see you or Chameleon die, and of course I also want to live,” Trent said. “While I love nobody alive today, you two have been as close to me as anyone. It is almost as if fate had ordered that like types must be banned from Xanth. We—”

“Like types!” Bink cried.

“I am sorry if that bothers you. We have been through a great deal together in a short time, and I think it is fair to say we have saved one another’s lives. Perhaps it was to be with your kind that I really returned to Xanth.”

“Maybe so,” Bink said stiffly, holding in the mixed feelings he had. “But that does not mean that conquering Xanth and killing many families is right.”

Trent looked pained, but he controlled himself. “I do not pretend that it does, Bink. The Mundane tragedy of my family was the prod, not the reason, for my return. I had nothing left in Mundania worth living for, so my attention turned to Xanth. I would not try to harm Xanth; I hope to help it by opening it up to the rest of the world before it is too late. Even if there are some deaths, this is a small price to pay for the survival of Xanth.”

“You think Xanth won’t survive unless you rule it?” Bink tried to put a sneer in his tone, but it didn’t come out very well. If only he had a voice like that of the Evil Magician!

“Yes, I do. Xanth is overdue for a new wave of settlement, and such a wave would help it, as the other ones did.”

“The Waves were murder and destruction! The curse of Xanth.”

Trent shook his head. “Some were that, yes. But others were helpful, such as the Fourth Wave when this castle was built. It was not the fact of the waves but the lack of control over them that made trouble. On the whole they were important to Xanth. But I don’t expect you to believe that. Right now I’m only trying to get you to spare this castle and yourself; I’m not trying to bring you over to my side.”

Something about this discussion was troubling Bink. The Evil Magician seemed too reasonable, too informed. Trent was wrong—he had to be!—yet he spoke with such honesty that Bink had trouble pinpointing that wrongness. “Try to win me over,” he said.

“I’m glad you said that, Bink. I’d like you to know my logic. Maybe you can offer some suggestions.”

That sounded a little like a trick. Bink feared that the Magician was more intelligent than he was, but he also knew what was right. “Maybe I can,” Bink said carefully. He felt as if he were walking into the wilderness, being led to the trap at the center. Roogna had lacked a voice for eight hundred years, but now it had one. Bink could no more fence with that voice than he could with the Magician’s keen sword, yet he had to try. But first he would listen to Trent’s side of things.

“My logic has two parts,” said Trent. “Part of it relates to Mundania and part to Xanth. You see, Mundania has progressed greatly in the past few centuries; in many ways it is a far more civilized area than Xanth. But the Mundanes’ powers of war have also progressed. This you will have to take on faith, for I have no way to prove it here. Mundania has weapons that are able to kill all life in Xanth, even through the Shield.”

“That’s a lie!” Bink cried. “Nothing can go through the Shield!”

“Except perhaps the three of us,” Trent murmured. “But mainly the Shield is against living things. You could charge through the Shield—your body could do that—but you would be dead when you got to the other side.”

“Same thing.”

“Not the same thing, Bink! You see, there are big guns that throw bolts that are dead to begin with, such as bombs, like your cherry bombs, but much worse. Xanth is a small area compared to Mundania. If the Mundanes really wanted to, they could cover Xanth. In such an attack, even the Shieldstone would be destroyed. The people of Xanth can no longer ignore the Mundanes. There are too many Mundanes; we in Xanth can’t remain hidden forever. The Mundanes can and will one day wipe us out. Unless we start relations now.”

Not fully understanding, Bink shook his head in disbelief.

But Trent went on. “Now, the Xanth part is another matter. It is not a threat to Mundania since magic does not work there. But it is a threat to life as we know it in Xanth itself.”

“Xanth is a threat to Xanth? This is nonsense.”

Now Trent’s smile was a bit lofty. “I can see you would have trouble with the logic of Mundane science.” But he sobered before Bink could ask about that. “No, I am being unfair to you. This inside threat of Xanth is something I learned just in the past few days from my reading in this library, and it is important. This alone is a good reason for keeping this castle, for its knowledge is important to Xanth society.”

Bink still doubted. “We’ve lived without this library for eight centuries; we can live without it now.”

“Ah, but the manner of that life!” Trent shook his head as he got up and moved to a shelf behind him. He took down a book and flipped carefully through its cracked old pages. He settled on one page and set down the open book before Bink. “What is that picture?”

“A dragon,” Bink said at once.

Trent flipped to another page. “And this?”

“A manticore.”

What was the point? The pictures were very nice, though they did not match the creatures of this time. The details were faintly wrong.

“And this?” It was a picture of a human-headed creature with hoofs, a horse’s tail, and catlike front legs.

“A lamia.”

“And this?”

“A centaur. Hey, we can look at pictures all day, but—”

“What do those creatures have in common?” Trent asked.

“They all have human heads or other parts—except the dragon, though the one in this book has an almost human shortness of nose. Some have human intelligence. But—”

“Exactly!” said Trent. “Think about it. Trace a dragon back, and it becomes more and more manlike. Does that suggest anything to you?”

“Just that some creatures are more manlike than others. But that’s no threat to Xanth. Anyway, most of these pictures are out of date; the creatures don’t look like that anymore.”

“Did the centaurs teach you the Theory of Evolution?” asked Trent.

“Yes. They taught that today’s creatures are evolved from simpler ones, selected for survival. Go back far enough and you find a common ancestor.”

“Right. But in Mundania, creatures like the lamia, the manticore, and the dragon never evolved.”

“Of course not. They’re magic. Only in Xanth can—”

“Yet clearly Xanth creatures started from Mundane ancestors. They have so many common—”

“All right!” Bink said impatiently. “They came from Mundanes. What has that got to do with your conquering Xanth?”

“According to centaur history, man has been in Xanth only a thousand years,” Trent said. “In that time there have been ten major Waves from Mundania.”

“Twelve,” Bink said.

“That depends on how you count them. At any rate, this went on for nine hundred years, until the Shield cut off those Waves. Yet there are many part-human forms that predate the arrival of human beings. Does that seem to be important?”

Bink was getting worried that Chameleon would foul up or that the castle would figure out a way to take out the cherry bombs. He was not sure that Castle Roogna could not think for itself. Was the Evil Magician stalling to make time for this? “I’ll give you one more minute to make your case,” said Bink. “Then we’re going.”

“How could partly human forms have evolved unless they had human ancestors? Regular evolution doesn’t make the mishmash monsters we have here. It makes creatures that fit their environments, and humans fit few environments. There had to have been people in Xanth many thousands of years ago.”

“All right,” Bink agreed. “Thirty seconds more and we’re leaving.”

“These people must have interbred with animals to form the creatures we know. And the creatures crossbred among themselves, and with other types, making critters such as the chimera.”

Bink turned to go. “I think your minute is up,” he said. Then he froze. “They what?”

“The species mated with other types to make hybrids. Man-headed beasts, beast—headed men—”

“Impossible! Men can mate only with men. I mean women. It would be unnatural to—”

“Xanth is an unnatural land, Bink. Magic makes many things possible.”

Bink saw that logic won over emotion. “But even if species did interbreed,” he said with difficulty, “that still doesn’t give you a reason to rule Xanth. What’s past is past; a change in government won’t—”

“I think this background does give me a reason for taking power, Bink. Because the faster evolution brought by magic and crossbreeding is changing Xanth. If we stay cut off from the Mundane world, there will in time be no humans left—only crossbreeds. Only the constant flow of pure stock in the past has let man keep his type. And there really are not too many humans here now. Our population is shrinking—not through sickness or war but through crossbreeding. When a man mates with a harpy, the result is not a manchild.”

“No!” Bink cried, horrified. “No one would breed with a filthy harpy.”

“Filthy harpy, maybe not. But how about a clean, pretty harpy?” Trent asked with a lift of his eyebrow. “They aren’t all alike, you know; we see only their outcasts, not their fresh young—”

“No!”

“Suppose a man had accidentally drunk from a love spring, and the next to drink there was a harpy?”

“No! He—” But Bink knew better. A love spell would give an overriding need. He remembered the love spring by the Gap from which he had almost drunk. There had been a harpy there. He shuddered.

“Have you ever been tempted by a pretty mermaid? Or a lady centaur?” Trent asked.

“No!” But a memory of the firm mermaid breasts came to him. And Cherie, the centaur who had given him a lift. When he touched her, had it really been accidental? She had threatened to drop him in a trench, but she hadn’t been serious. She was a very nice filly—oops, person. Honesty made him correct himself. “Well, maybe.”

“And surely there were others less honest than you,” Trent went on firmly. “They might do it, might they not? Just for variety? Don’t the boys of your village hang around the centaur grounds as they did in my day?”

Bink remembered boys like Zink and Jama and Potipher, bullies and troublemakers, who had caused anger in the centaur camp. Of course they had gone to see the bare-breasted fillies, and if they caught one alone—

Bink knew his face was red. “What are you getting at?” he demanded, trying to cover his embarrassment.

“Just this: Xanth must have had intercourse with—sorry, bad word!—must have had contact with Mundania long before the date of our earliest records. Because only in Mundania is the human race pure. From the time a man sets foot in Xanth, he begins to change. He develops magic, and his children develop more magic, until some of them become full-fledged Magicians. And if they remain, they become magic themselves. Or their descendants do, either by breaking down the natural barriers between species or by evolving into imps, elves, goblins, giants, trolls. Did you get a good look at Humfrey?”

“He’s a gnome,” Bink said without thinking. “Oh, no!”

“He’s a man, and a good one, but he’s well along the way to something else. He’s at the height of his magical powers now. But his children, if he ever has any more, may be true gnomes. And think about Chameleon. She has no direct magic because she has become magic. This is the way all humans of Xanth will go unless there is a steady flow of new blood from Mundania. The Shield must come down! The magic creatures of Xanth must be allowed to go outside, freely, and go back slowly and naturally to their original species. New animals must come in.”

“But—” Bink found himself fumbling with the horrors of these ideas. “If there was always contact before, what happened to the people who came thousands of years ago?”

“Probably there was something that cut off travel for a while. Xanth could have been a true island for a thousand years or so, trapping the first human settlers, so that they joined with the existing forms and gave rise to the centaurs and others. It is happening again under the Shield. Humans must—”

“Enough,” Bink whispered, shocked. “I can’t listen anymore.”

“You will disarm the cherry bombs?”

Like a bolt of lightning, sanity returned. “No! I’m taking Chameleon and leaving—now.”

“But you have to understand.”

“No.” For the Evil Magician was beginning to make sense. If Bink listened anymore, he would start to agree and Xanth would be lost. “What you suggest is awful. It can’t be true. I can’t accept it.”

Trent sighed with seemingly real regret. “Well, it was worth a try, though I did fear you would reject it. I still cannot permit you to destroy this castle.”

Bink braced himself to move, to get out of range. Arm’s reach—

Trent shook his head. “No need to flee, Bink; I shall not break the truce. I could have done that when I showed you the pictures, but I value my word. If you will not join me, I shall have to join you.”

“What?” Bink was caught off guard.

“Spare Castle Roogna. Disarm the bombs. I will see you safely clear of this area.”

This was too easy. “Your word?”

“My word,” Trent said gravely.

“You can make the castle let us go?”

“Yes. This is another thing that I have learned in this library. I have only to speak the correct words to the castle, and it will even help us leave.”

“Your word,” Bink repeated. So far, Trent had not broken it. “No tricks, no sudden change of mind?”

“My word of honor, Bink.”

What could he do? If the Magician wanted to break the truce, he could change Bink into a tadpole now, then sneak up on Chameleon and transform her. Bink felt he could trust him. “All right.”

“Go and disarm your bombs. I will settle with Roogna.”

Bink went. Chameleon met him with a happy little cry. This time he was willing to accept her hug. “Trent has agreed to get us out of here,” he told her.

“Oh, Bink, I’m so glad!” she cried, kissing him. He had to grab her hand to make sure she didn’t drop the cherry bomb she still held.

She was growing lovelier by the hour. Her personality was not changing much except that she was less complicated. He liked that personality, and now he had to admit he liked her beauty, too. She was of Xanth, she was magic, she did not try to trick him, and she was his type of girl.

But he knew that her stupidity would turn him off, just as her ugliness had. He could not live with a lovely idiot or an ugly genius. She was attractive only right now, while her intelligence was fresh in his memory and her beauty was real to his sight and touch. To believe otherwise would be foolish.

He drew away from her. “We have to remove the bombs. Carefully,” he said.

But what about the emotional bombs within him?

Chapter 14

Wiggle

The three of them walked out of Castle Roogna without challenge. The portcullis was raised; Trent had found the lifting winch, oiled it, and cranked it up. The ghosts came to bid them farewell. Chameleon cried, and even Bink felt sad. He knew how lonely it would be for the ghosts after these days of company, and he even respected the castle itself. It did what it had to do, much as Bink himself did.

They carried bags of fruit from the garden and wore clothing from the castle closets. They looked like royalty and felt like it, too. Castle Roogna had taken good care of them.

No storm came up this time. No trees made threats. No horrible animals appeared, and there were no zombies.

In a short time the castle was out of sight. “We are now beyond Roogna’s lands,” Trent said. “We must return to full alertness, for there is no truce with the wilderness.”

“We?” Bink asked. “Aren’t you going back to the castle?”

“Not at this time,” the Magician said.

Bink’s suspicions were renewed. “Just what did you say to that castle?”

“I said, ‘I shall return as King. Roogna shall rule Xanth again.’ ”

“And it believed that?”

Trent was calm. “Why should it not believe the truth? I could hardly win the crown while in the wilderness.”

Bink did not answer. After all, the Evil Magician had never said he’d given up his plan to rule Xanth. He had only agreed to see Bink and Chameleon safely out of the castle. He had done this. So now they were back where they had been—under a truce to get them all safely out of the wilderness. After that, Bink’s mind was blank.

The unnamed forest did not take long to make its presence felt. They cut through a small field with pretty yellow flowers, and a swarm of bees rose up. Angrily they buzzed the three at short range.

Chameleon sneezed. And sneezed again, violently. Then Bink sneezed, too, and so did Trent.

“Sneeze bees!” the Magician cried between sneezes.

“Transform them!” Bink cried.

“I can’t—achoo!—see them because my eyes are watering so much. Achoo! Anyway, they are innocent creatures of the ah, aahh, ACHOO!”

“Run, you dopes!” Chameleon cried.

They ran. As they cleared the field, the bees left and the sneezes stopped. “Good thing they weren’t choke bees!” the Magician said, wiping his flowing eyes.

Bink agreed. A sneeze or two was okay, but a dozen piled on top of one another was a serious matter. There had barely been time to breathe.

Their voices had alerted others in the jungle. That was always the danger here. There was a bellow and the sound of big paws striking the ground. All too soon a huge fire-snorting dragon came into view. It charged right through the sneeze field, but the bees left it alone. They knew better than to start any fire sneezes that would burn up their flowers.

“Change it! Change it!” Chameleon cried as the dragon charged at her. Dragons seemed to have a taste for girls.

“Can’t,” Trent muttered. “By the time it gets within range, its fire will have burned us all. It’s got a twenty-foot blowtorch.”

“You aren’t much help,” she complained.

“Transform me!” Bink cried with sudden inspiration.

“Good idea!” Suddenly Bink was a sphinx. He kept his own head, but he had the body of a bull, the wings of an eagle, and the legs of a lion. And he was huge; he towered over the dragon. “I had no idea sphinxes grew this big,” he boomed.

“Sorry, I forgot again,” Trent said. “I was thinking of the sphinx in Mundania.”

“But the Mundanes don’t have magic.”

“This one must have wandered out from Xanth. For thousands of years it has been stone, petrified.”

“Petrified? What could scare a sphinx that size?” Chameleon wondered, peering up at Bink’s huge face.

He ignored her question. There was real business to attend to. “Begone, beastie!” Bink thundered.

The dragon was slow to take in the new situation. It shot a jet of orange flame at Bink, scorching his feathers. The blast didn’t hurt, but it was annoying. Bink reached out with one lion’s paw and swiped at the dragon. It was a small effort, but the creature was thrown into a tree. A shower of rock nuts dropped on it. The dragon gave a yelp of pain, stopped its fire, and fled.

Bink turned around carefully, hoping he hadn’t stepped on anyone. “Why didn’t we think of this before?” he bellowed. “I can give you a ride right to the edge of the jungle. No one will know us, and no creature will bother us!”

He bent as low as he could, and Chameleon and Trent climbed up his tail to his back. Bink moved forward with a slow stride that was still faster than any man could run. They were on their way.

But not for long. Chameleon decided she had to answer the call of nature. There was nothing to do but let her go. Bink bent down so she could slide easily to the ground.

Trent used the break to stretch his legs. He walked around to Bink’s huge face. “I’d change you back, but it’s really better to stick with the form until we’re finished with it,” he said. “I have no real proof that these changes are harmful, but it seems best not to gamble. Since the sphinx is an intelligent life form, you aren’t suffering mentally.”

“No, I’m okay,” Bink agreed. “Better than ever, in fact. Can you guess this riddle? What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?”

“I shall not answer,” Trent said, looking startled. “In all the legends I’ve heard, some sphinxes killed themselves when the correct answers to their riddles were given. Those were the smaller types. But I seem to have muddled things somewhat.”

“Uh-oh,” Bink said. “I guess the riddle was from the mind of the sphinx, not me. I’m sure all sphinxes had a common ancestor, though I don’t know the difference between one kind and another.”

“Odd. Not about your ignorance of Mundanian legends but about your riddle memory. You are the sphinx. I didn’t move your mind into an existing body, for most of the real creatures have all been dead for thousands of years. I transformed you into a similar monster, a Bink-sphinx. But if you actually have sphinx memories—”

“There must be results of your magic that you don’t understand,” Bink said. “I wish I understood the real nature of magic—any magic.”

“Yes. It is a mystery. Magic exists in Xanth but nowhere else. Why? Why does Xanth seem to be next to any Mundane land? How is this magic passed from the land to those who live on it?”

“I have thought about that,” Bink said. “I thought maybe some radiation from the rock or something in the dirt—”

“When I am King, I shall begin a study to find the true story of Xanth’s magic.”

When Trent is King. The study was worthwhile, but not at that price. For a moment Bink was tempted; with the smallest swipe of his mighty paw he could squash the Evil Magician, ending the threat forever.

No. Even if Trent were not his friend, he would not break the truce that way. Besides, he didn’t want to remain a monster all his life.

“The lady is taking her sweet time,” Trent muttered.

Bink moved his large head, looking for Chameleon. “She’s usually very quick about that sort of thing. She doesn’t like being alone.” Then he thought of something else. “Unless she went looking for her spell—you know, to make her normal. She left Xanth to stop her magic, and now that she’s stuck back in Xanth, she wants some kind of countermagic. She’s not very bright right now, and—”

“This is the jungle,” said Trent. “I don’t want to intrude on her, but—”

“Maybe we’d better check on her.”

“Umm, well, I guess you can stand one more change,” Trent decided. “I’ll make you a bloodhound. That’s a Mundane animal, very good at sniffing out a trail. If you run into her doing something private—well, you’ll only be an animal.”

Suddenly Bink was a floppy-eared, loose-faced creature with a very good sense of smell. He could pick up the smell of anything. He had never before realized how important the sense of smell was. Strange that he had ever used any other sense.

Trent hid their supplies in a mock-tangle tree and turned. “Very well, Bink, let’s sniff her out.” Bink could understand him but could not answer because a bloodhound was not a speaking animal.

Chameleon’s trail was so clear, it was a wonder that Trent couldn’t smell it. Bink put his nose to the ground—how natural that a dog’s head be so close to the source of information—and moved forward.

The trail led around behind a bush, past the smell of urine, and into the wilderness. She had been led away; in her present stupid stage, almost anything would fool her. Yet there was no smell of any animal or plant that she might have followed. That suggested magic. Worried, Bink woofed and sniffed on, the Magician following.

But the track did not lead into a tangle tree or a swamp or the den of a dragon. It twisted among these dangers, bearing south into the deepest jungle. Something had led her safely past all threats, but what, and where, and why?

Bink knew what if not why. Some will-o’-the-wisp spell had led her ever forward, always just a little out of reach. Maybe something seemed to offer some spell to make her normal, and so she had followed. It would lead her into the wilderness, where she would be lost, and leave her there. She would not survive long.

Bink hesitated. He had not lost the trail. There was something else.

“What is it, Bink?” Trent asked. “I know she was following the will-o’-the-wisp, but since we are close on her trail we should be able to—” He broke off, becoming aware of the other thing. It was a shuddering in the ground as if something huge was striking it.

Trent looked around. “I can’t see it, Bink. Can you smell it?”

Bink was silent. The wind was wrong. From this far, he could not smell whatever was making that sound.

“Want me to change you into something more powerful?” Trent asked. “I’m not sure I like this. First the wisp, which could be mere swamp gas, now this strange chase.”

If Bink changed, he would no longer be able to sniff out Chameleon’s trail. He remained silent.

“Very well, Bink. But stay close by me. I can change you into a creature to meet any emergency, but, as you know, you have to be within range. I believe we’re walking into great danger, or it is walking into us.” He touched his sword.

They moved on. But the shuddering grew bolder, becoming a thumping, as of some very large animal. Yet they saw nothing. Now it was behind them, and gaining.

“I think we’d better hide,” Trent said.

Good idea. They went around a beerbarrel tree and watched silently.

The thumping became very loud. The whole tree shook. TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP! Small branches fell off the tree, and a leak sprang in the trunk. A thin jet of beer splashed under Bink’s nose. He fell back; even in the human state, he had never liked that drink. He peered around the trunk, but nothing was there.

Then at last something came into view. A branch crashed off a spike-spire tree, splintering. Bushes waved wildly. A patch of earth collapsed inward. Some beer jetted from cracks in the trunk of their hiding place. Still nothing could be seen.

“It’s invisible,” Trent whispered, wiping beer off one hand. “An invisible giant.”

Invisible! That meant Trent couldn’t transform it. He had to see what he changed.

Silently, soaked in beer, they watched the giant pass. Horribly large human footprints appeared, each ten times as long as a regular man’s, sinking inches deep into the dirt. TRAMP! TRAMP! The trees jumped and shuddered and lost their fruits and leaves and branches. TRAMP! An ice-cream bush became a spot of color on the footprint. TRAMP! A tangle tree hugged its tentacles about itself. TRAMP! A fallen tree trunk splintered across the giant’s footprint.

A smell washed outward like that of a stench-puffer or an overflowing outhouse in the heat of summer. Bink’s keen nose hurt.

“I am not a coward,” Trent murmured. “But I’m beginning to feel fear. When spell and sword cannot touch an enemy …” His nose twitched. “His body odor alone is deadly.”

Bink became aware that his own hair was raised. He had heard of such a monster but taken it as a joke. An invisible—but not unsmellable—giant!

“If the rest of its body matches those footprints,” Trent remarked, “that giant is more than ten times normal height. That would be impossible in Mundania. But here, who can say no to magic? He’s looking over much of the forest, not through it.” He paused, thinking. “He clearly was not following us. Where is he going?”

Wherever Chameleon went, Bink thought. He growled.

“Right, Bink. We’d better track her down quickly before she gets stepped on!”

They moved ahead, following what was now a well-trodden trail. Where the huge prints crossed Chameleon’s path, the smell of the giant was so heavy that Bink’s nose rebelled. He went around the footprints and picked up Chameleon’s much milder scent on the far side.

Now a whistling came down from above the path they were following. Bink looked up and saw a griffin flying carefully down between the trees.

Trent whipped out his sword and backed toward the black trunk of an oilbarrel tree in order to face the monster. Bink, in no shape to fight it, bared his teeth and backed toward the same protection. He was glad it wasn’t a dragon; one good flame could set off the tree and wipe them all out. As it was, the overhanging branches would get in the way of the monster’s flight, forcing it to fight on the ground. Still a risky business, but it limited the battle zone. Maybe if Bink distracted it, Trent could get swiftly within range to transform it.

The griffin settled to earth and folded its wide wings. Its coiled lion’s tail twitched and its great eagle claws made streaks in the dirt. Its eagle head turned to Trent. “Cawp?” it asked. Bink could almost feel that deadly beak slicing through his flesh. A really healthy griffin could take on a medium-sized dragon, and this one was healthy. He nudged within transformation range.

“Follow the giant tracks that way,” Trent said to the monster. “Can’t miss it.”

“Bawp!” the griffin said. It turned about, found the giant tracks, spread its wings, and jumped into the air. It flew along the path that the invisible giant had carved through the forest.

Trent and Bink looked at each other, startled. They had had a narrow escape; griffins were very good in a fight, and Trent’s magic might not have worked in time. “It only wanted directions!” Trent said. “Must be something very strange up ahead. We’d better get there in a hurry. What if some part-human cult is having a sacrifice?”

Sacrifice! Bink growled his confusion.

“You know,” Trent said grimly, “bloody altar, beautiful virgin—”

“Rrowr!” Bink took off down the trail.

Soon they heard a great noise ahead. It was a chorus of thumps, crashes, bellows, and squawks. “Sounds more like a battle than a party,” Trent said.

At last they came in sight of the happening. They paused, amazed. It was a surprising group of creatures in a large, loose circle facing inward: dragons, griffins, manticores, harpies, land serpents, trolls, goblins, fairies, and too many others to take in all at once. There were even a few human beings. It was not a free-for-all. All of them were doing individual exercises, stamping their feet, biting at air, slamming their hooves together, and banging on rocks. Inside the circle a number of creatures were dead or dying, ignored by the others. Bink could see and smell the blood and hear their groans. This was a battle, but where was the enemy? It was not the invisible giant; his prints were in only one area.

“I thought I knew something about magic,” Trent said, shaking his head. “But this is beyond my understanding. These creatures are natural enemies, yet they ignore one another. Have they happened on a patch of loco?”

“Woof!” Bink cried. He had seen Chameleon. She had two large, flat stones in her hands and was holding them about a foot apart while she stared between them. Suddenly she clapped them together with such force that they fell out of her hands. She peered at the air above them and then smiled, picked them up, and repeated the whole thing.

Trent followed Bink’s gaze. “Loco!” he repeated. But Bink could smell no loco. “Her, too. It must be an area spell. We’d better back off.”

They started to back up, but Bink did not want to leave Chameleon. An old centaur ran up. “Don’t just wander around!” he snapped. “Go to the north.” He pointed. “We’ve suffered heavy losses there, and Bigfoot can’t do it all. He can’t even see the enemy. They’ll break through any minute. Get some rocks; don’t use your sword, fool!”

“Don’t use my sword on what?” Trent demanded.

“The wiggles, naturally. Cut one in half and all you have is two wiggles. You—”

“The wiggles!” Trent breathed, and Bink growled.

The centaur sniffed. “You been drinking?”

“Bigfoot’s passage had holed a beerbarrel tree that we hid behind,” Trent explained. “I thought the wiggles had been wiped out.”

“So thought we all,” the centaur said. “But there’s a colony swarming here. You have to crush them or chew them or burn them or drown them. We can’t let a single one escape. Now get moving!”

Trent looked about. “Where are the stones?”

“Here. I’ve collected a pile.” The centaur showed the way. “I knew I couldn’t handle it myself, so I sent out will-o’-the-wisps to bring help.”

Suddenly Bink knew the centaur: Herman the Hermit. He had been cast out from the centaur camp almost ten years ago. Amazing that he had survived, but centaurs were hardy.

Trent did not make the connection. But he well knew the horror of the wiggles. He picked up two good rocks from Herman’s pile and strode toward the north.

Bink followed. He had to help, too. If even one wiggle got away, there would be at some later date another swarming. He caught up to the Magician. “Woof! Woof!” he barked.

Trent looked straight ahead. “Bink, if I transform you, the others will see and know me for what I am. They may turn against us, and the fight against the wiggles will be broken. I think we can stop the swarm; the centaur has organized the effort well. Your natural form would not be better able to fight this war. Wait until this is over.”

Bink was not satisfied, but he seemed to have no choice. So he decided to make himself useful as he was. Maybe he could smell out the wiggles.

As they came to their place, a griffin gave a loud squawk and keeled over. It looked like the one they had directed here. But all griffins looked and smelled pretty much alike to Bink. Not that it mattered; all creatures here had a common aim. Still, he ran to the griffin, hoping its injury was not too bad.

The creature was bleeding from a deadly wound. A wiggle had holed it through its lion’s heart.

Wiggles traveled by sudden rushes along wiggle-sized magic tunnels. Then they stopped to rest or maybe only to think; no one really knew. The wiggle that had gotten into the griffin should be right about here. Bink sniffed and picked up its faint rotten smell. He traced it and saw his first live wiggle.

It was a finger-long loosely twisted worm hanging in midair. It hardly looked like the danger it was. Bink barked and pointed his nose at it.

Trent heard him and approached with his two rocks. “Good job, Bink,” he cried. He smashed the rocks together on the wiggle. As he separated the rocks, the squished tiny form dropped. One down!

Zzapp! “There’s another!” Trent cried. “They tunnel through anything—even air—so we hear the falling of air behind them. This one should be right about there!” He smashed his stones together again, crushing the wiggle.

After that it was hectic. The wiggles were zapping outward, each in its own pattern. There was no way of telling how long they would stay in one place or how far they would zap. But each wiggle went in the direction it started, never shifting, so it was possible to trace that line and find it fairly quickly. If someone stood in front of a wiggle at the wrong time, he got zapped. But it was not possible to stand behind a wiggle, for the closer toward the center one went, the more wiggles were present. There were so many wiggles that a creature smashing one could be holed by another at the same time. It was best to stand at the outer edge and nab the leaders first.

The wiggles seemed to be mindless. Their preset wiggle paths holed anything in the way. If a person didn’t find a wiggle fast, it was too late, for the thing had already zapped again. Yet it could be tricky to find a still wiggle, for it looked like a twisted stem from the side and a coiled stem from the end. It had to move to attract attention to itself, and then it might be too late to nab it.

“This is like standing on a firing range and catching the bullets as they pass,” Trent muttered. It seemed that Mundane wiggles were called bullets.

The invisible giant worked beside Bink on the right, as his nose plainly told him. TRAMP! A wiggle was crushed. Maybe a hundred wiggles at once. But so was anything else that got underfoot. Bink didn’t dare point out wiggles to Bigfoot; it would be his own death. For all he knew, the giant was just stomping. It was as good a way as any.

On Bink’s left side, a unicorn worked. When it found a wiggle, it either crushed it between horn and hoof or closed its mouth over it and ground it to shreds with its teeth. This seemed to Bink to be dangerous, because if it mistimed a wiggle—

Zzapp! A hole appeared in the unicorn’s jaw. Blood dripped out. The creature gave a neigh of pain and then trotted along the path of the zap. It found the wiggle and chomped down again, using the other side of its jaw.

Bink admired the unicorn’s courage. But he had to get on with his own job. Two wiggles had just zapped within range. He pointed out the nearest for Trent, then ran to the other. His hound’s teeth were made for cutting and tearing, not chewing, but maybe they would do. He bit down on the wiggle.

It squished nastily. Its body was firm but not really hard, and the juice squirted out. The taste was awful. There was some sort of acid—yecch! But Bink chewed carefully several times to be sure of crushing it all; he knew that any unsquished part would zap away as a tiny wiggle, just as dangerous as the first. He spat out the remains. His mouth would never be the same again.

Zzapp! Zzapp! Two more wiggles nearby. Trent heard one and went after it; Bink looked for the other. But even as they both hunted, a third Zzapp! sounded between them. The pace was stepping up as the great inside mass of wiggles reached the edge. There were too many wiggles to keep up with!

There was a bellow from above. “OOAAOUGH!”

Herman the centaur galloped by. Blood trailed from a wiggle wound in his side. “Bigfoot’s hit!” he cried. “Get out of the way.”

“But the wiggles are breaking out,” Trent said.

“I know! We’re taking heavy losses all around. It’s a bigger swarm than I thought. We can’t hold them anyway. We’ll have to form a new circle and hope that more help arrives in time. Save yourselves before the giant falls.”

Good advice. A huge print appeared in Bink’s area as Bigfoot staggered. They got out of there.

“AAOOGAHH!” the giant bawled. Another print appeared, this time toward the center of the circle. A wash of air, heavy with giant smell, passed as he fell. “GOUGH-OOOAAA-AAHH.” The sound came from small treetop height toward the center of the wiggle swarm. The crash was like that of a stone pine felled by magic. WHOOMP!

Herman, who had hidden behind the same jellybarrel tree as Trent and Bink, wiped the jelly out of his eyes and shook his head. “There goes a big, big man! Little hope now of stopping the threat. We’re confused and short of help, and the enemy is sweeping outward. Only a hurricane could get them all, and the weather’s dry.” Then he looked again at Trent. “You seem familiar. Aren’t you—? Yes, twenty years ago …”

Trent raised his hand. “I regret the need—”

“No, wait, Magician,” Herman said. “Transform me not. I will not tell your secret. I could have bashed your head in with my foot just now. Know you not why I was banished from my kind?”

Trent paused. “I know not, for I do not know you.”

“I am Herman the Hermit, punished for magic. For summoning the will-o’-the-wisps. No centaur is supposed to—”

“You mean centaurs practice magic?”

“They could if they would. We centaurs have been so long in Xanth that we have become a natural species. But magic is thought of as—”

“Dirty,” Trent finished, voicing Bink’s thought. So some intelligent magic creatures could do magic. “So you became a hermit in the wilderness.”

“Correct. I share your banishment. But now we have a need more important than privacy. Use your talent to stop the wiggle threat.”

“I can’t transform all the wiggles. I must look at one at a time, and there are too many—”

“Not that. We must burn them. I had hoped my wisps would lead in a salamander—”

“A salamander,” Trent cried. “Of course! But even so, the fire could not spread fast enough to burn out all the wiggles. And if it did, the fire itself would then be unstoppable. We’d only trade one danger for another.”

“Not so. There are certain limits on salamanders, and they can be controlled. I was thinking of—”

Zzapp! A hole appeared in the trunk of the tree. Jelly oozed out like purple blood. Bink dashed out to crunch the wiggle. Yuch! That taste!

“They’re inside the tree,” Trent said. “Some are bound to land within things. Impossible to catch those.”

Herman trotted over to a plain bush. He yanked several vines from it. “Salamander weed,” he explained. “This is the one thing salamanders can’t burn. It is a natural barrier to the fire; in time the flames are stopped by these weeds. If I make a harness of this, I can carry a salamander around in a great circle just beyond the swarm.”

“But how to stop the fire before it destroys most of Xanth?” Trent asked. “We can’t wait for the weeds; half the wilderness could be destroyed before it burns itself out. We can’t clear a firebreak in time.” He paused. “You know, that must be why your wisps brought no salamanders. This thick forest would have a spell to keep them away. Still, if we start a fire …”

Herman held up one strong hand. He was an old centaur but still powerful. “You know how a salamander fire burns only in the direction it starts? If we form a circle of inward-burning fire—”

“Suddenly I understand!” Trent cried. “It will burn itself out at the center.” He looked around. “Bink?”

What else? Bink did not fancy being a salamander, but anything was better than giving Xanth to the wiggles. No person or thing would be safe if the swarms got out of control again. Bink trotted up to Trent.

Suddenly he was a small, bright amphibian, half a hand span from nose to tail. Once more he remembered the omen: the chameleon lizard had also become a salamander before being swallowed up by the moth hawk. Had his time finally come?

The ground he stood on burst into flame. The sand would not burn, but all the material on top of it was fuel. “Climb in here,” Herman said, holding a weed net that he had formed of vines. “I will carry you in a great circle. Be sure to direct your fire inward, to the left.” And to make sure that Bink understood, he pointed with his left hand.

Well, such a limit would not be much fun, but …

Bink climbed into the net. The centaur picked it up and dangled it at arm’s length—as well he might, for Bink was hot. Only the salamander weed kept him from really tearing loose.

Herman galloped. “Clear out! Clear out!” he cried loudly to the creatures who were still trying to fight the wiggles. “We’re burning them out. Salamander.” And to Bink: “To the left! To the left!”

Bink had hoped he’d forgotten about that limit. Ah, well, half a burn was better than none. From him a sheet of flame burst out. Everything it touched burned wildly. Branches, leaves, whole green trees, even the bodies of fallen monsters—the flame burned them all. That was the nature of salamander fire; it burned magically. No rainstorm could put it out, for water itself would burn. Everything except the rock and the earth—and salamander weed. Curse the weed!

Now a hasty retreat went on. Dragons, griffins, harpies, goblins, and men scrambled out of the path of the terrible fire. Every form cleared out except the wiggles, which went on as mindlessly as ever.

The flames spread hungrily up the great trees, burning them with awesome speed. A tangle tree twisted in agony as it burned, and the smell of burning beer and jelly spread. Already a path of scorched earth was growing along the path they traveled. Glorious!

Zzapp! Bink dropped to the ground. A wiggle, with the luck of the mindless, had holed Herman’s right hand. Good. Now Bink could get out of the net and really go to work, setting the greatest blaze in all history.

But the centaur looped about and grabbed the net with his left hand. The flames touched Bink’s fingers for a moment, and the tips turned to ash, but he hung on to the net with the stubs. Damn the courage of the Hermit! “On!” Herman cried, picking up forward speed again. “To the left!”

Bink had to obey. Angrily he shot out a very hot flame, hoping the hermit would drop him again, but it didn’t work. The centaur galloped on, widening the circle a bit since the wiggle circle had gotten larger. It was useless to burn where the wiggles had been or where they would be; the flame had to be where they were now. Any wiggles that zapped past the sheet of flames would survive. That made it tricky. But it was their only chance.

The circle was almost complete. These centaurs could really move. They all raced up to their starting point, pausing to let a few trapped monsters get out. The last to go was the great land serpent—thirty paces of slithering body.

Trent was there, organizing the animals to stop any wiggles already outside the circle of fire. Now that most of the wiggles were being stopped, it was possible to go after the rest one at a time. Every last one had to be squished.

The fire closed on the wiggle hive. There was a loud groan. “AAOOGAAH!” Something stirred.

“Bigfoot!” Trent cried. “He’s still alive in there.”

“I thought he was dead,” Herman said, horrified. “We’ve already closed the circle; we can’t let him out.”

“He was riddled through the legs so he fell, but he wasn’t dead,” Trent said. “The fall must have knocked him out.” He stared into the leaping flames, now outlying the form of a huge man lying facedown. The smell was of roasting garbage. “Too late now.”

The doomed giant thrashed about. Flaming branches flew wide. Some landed in the jungle beyond the circle. “Squelch those flames!” the centaur cried. “They can start a forest fire.”

But no one could stop the flames. No one except Herman, with his weed net. He dumped Bink out and galloped toward the nearest flame, which was dangerously close to an oilbarrel tree.

Trent waved, and Bink was his human self again. He jumped off the burning ground where his salamander self had touched. What power the Evil Magician had; he could destroy Xanth at any time just by making a dozen salamanders.

Bink blinked—and saw Chameleon chasing a wiggle between lines of magic fire. She was too stupid to realize the danger!

He ran after her. “Chameleon! Turn back!” She paid no heed, faithful to her task. He caught up and spun her about. “The fire’s getting the wiggles. We have to get out of here.”

“Oh,” she said faintly. Her once-fancy dress was ragged, and dirt smeared her face, but she was still lovely.

“Come on!” He took her by the hand and drew her along.

But a tongue of fire had crossed behind them. They were trapped.

The omen! Now at last it became clear to him.

Herman leaped over the fire. “Up on my back,” he cried.

Bink wrapped his arms about Chameleon and lifted her onto the hermit’s back. She was very flexible, slender of waist and round of thighs. Not that he had any business noticing such things at the moment. But his place behind her as her belly slid onto the centaur made the thoughts come anyway. He gave her graceful bottom one last shove and then scrambled up himself.

Herman started walking, then running, ready to jump the fire with his burden.

Zzapp! A wiggle, close by.

The centaur staggered. “I’m hit!” he cried. Then he righted himself, made a great effort, and jumped.

He fell short. His front legs buckled and the rear ones were in the flame. Bink and Chameleon were thrown forward onto the other side of the fire. Herman grabbed each by an arm and shoved both beyond the danger zone.

Trent charged up. “Hermit, you’re burning!” he cried. “I will transform you—”

“No,” Herman said. “I am holed through the liver. I’m done for. Let the clean fire take me.” He grimaced. “Only, to end the agony quickly, your sword, sir.” And he pointed at his neck.

Bink would have stalled, pretending not to understand, trying to delay the unavoidable. The Evil Magician was more decisive. “As you require,” Trent said. Suddenly his blade was in his hand. It flashed in an arc, and the centaur’s noble head flew off its body, to land upright on the ground just beyond the flames.

Bink stared, astonished. Never before had he witnessed such a cold-blooded killing.

“I thank you,” the head said. “You ended the agony most efficiently. Your secret dies with me.” The centaur’s eyes closed.

Herman the Hermit had really wanted it that way. Trent had judged correctly and acted instantly. Bink himself would have bungled it.

“There was a creature I would have been proud to have taken for a friend,” Trent said sadly. “I would have saved him had it been within my power.”

Little lights danced in close, centering on the dead head. At first Bink supposed they were sparks, but they did not actually burn. “The will-o’-the-wisps,” Trent murmured. “Paying their respects.”

The lights dispersed, taking with them their dreamlike promise of wonders never seen and joys never known. The fire swallowed the body, then the head, and swept on into an already burned area. Most of the remaining flame was now in the center of the circle, where the invisible giant no longer thrashed.

Trent raised his voice. “All creatures silent out of respect for Herman the Hermit, wronged by his own kind, who has died in defense of Xanth. And for Bigfoot and all the other noble creatures who died for the same cause.”

A hush fell on the monsters. The silence was complete; not even an insect hummed. One minute, two minutes, three—no sound. It was a fantastic crowd of monsters with heads bowed in respect. Bink was deeply moved; never again would he think of these creatures as just animals.

At last Trent lifted his eyes. “Xanth is saved thanks to Herman, and to you all,” he said. “The wiggles are gone. Depart, with our thanks, and go with pride. There is no more important service you could have given.”

“But some wiggle may have escaped,” Bink protested in a whisper.

“No. None escaped. The job was well done.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I heard no zaps during the silence. No wiggle sits still longer than three minutes.”

Bink’s mouth dropped open. The silence of respect, honest as it had been, had also been the proof that the threat had been stopped. Bink would never have thought of that. How well Trent had taken on the job of leadership. And without letting out his secret.

The monsters went peacefully under the truce of the effort. Many were wounded, but they bore their pain with the same courage that Herman had, and did not snap at one another. The great land serpent slithered by, and Bink counted half a dozen holes in its length, but it did not stop. The serpent, like the others, had come to do what had to be done, although it would be as dangerous as ever in the future.

“Shall we go on with our trip?” Trent asked, taking a last look across the ashes.

“We’d better,” Bink said. “I think the fire’s dying out now.”

Suddenly he was the sphinx again, half as tall as the invisible giant. Evidently Trent had decided that many changes were safe after all. Trent and Chameleon boarded Bink-sphinx, and he retraced their path to their supplies. “And no more comfort breaks,” Bink muttered in a boom. Someone chuckled.

Chapter 15

Duel

They came over a forest ridge, and the wilderness ended. The blue fields of a bluejean farm spread out before them.

Trent and Chameleon climbed down from Bink-sphinx. Bink had walked all night, sleeping while his great legs worked by themselves. Nothing had bothered the party. Now it was midmorning on a fine clear day. Bink felt good.

Suddenly he was a man again, and he still felt good. “I guess this is where we part,” he said to the Magician.

“I am sorry we could not agree on more things,” Trent said, putting out his hand. “But I think parting will end those differences. It has been a pleasure to know you both.”

Bink took Trent’s hand and shook it, feeling oddly sad. “Although you are the Evil Magician, you helped save Xanth from the wiggles, and you have been a friend. I cannot like your plans, but—” He shrugged. “Farewell, Magician.”

“Same here,” Chameleon said, flashing Trent a breathtaking smile that made up for the shortness of her speech.

“Well, isn’t this cozy!” a voice said.

All three turned quickly, but there was nothing to see. Nothing but bluejeans hanging on their green vines, and the forbidding jungle.

Then a swirl of smoke formed. “A genie,” Chameleon said.

But Bink knew the shape. “No such luck,” he said. “That’s the Sorceress Iris, mistress of illusion.”

“Thank you, Bink,” the now-solid-seeming woman said. She stood among the jeans, beautiful in a low-cut gown, but Bink no longer felt any temptation. Chameleon had a natural if magical charm that the Sorceress could not copy.

“So this is Iris,” Trent said. “I knew of her before I left Xanth, but we never met. She is clearly skilled at her talent.”

“I had no hankering for transformation,” Iris said, giving him an impish look. “You left quite a trail of toads and trees and bugs and things. I thought you had been cast out.”

“Times change, Iris. Didn’t you see us in the wilderness?”

“As a matter of fact, I didn’t. That jungle is a dull place, and I had no idea you were back in Xanth. I don’t believe that anyone knows, not even Humfrey. It was the huge sphinx that got my attention, but I could not be sure you were around until I saw you change it into Bink. I knew he had been cast out, so something was wrong. How did you pass the Shield?”

“Times change,” Trent repeated.

“Yes, they do,” she said, nettled at being put off. She looked at each of them in turn. Bink had not known she could send her illusions so well or see things from so far. The powers of Magicians and Sorceresses were amazing. “Now, shall we get down to business?”

“Business?” Bink asked blankly.

“Don’t be fooled,” Trent muttered. “The bitch means trouble.”

So it was strong magic against strong magic. Maybe they would cancel each other out and Xanth would be safe after all.

Iris looked at him. “Are you sure you won’t think again about my offer, Bink?” she asked. “I could arrange things so that you could still be King. The time is ripe. And if you really prefer the innocent look in women—” Suddenly another Chameleon stood before him. “Anything you want, Bink, and with a mind, too.”

That last dig at the girl’s stupid stage annoyed him. “Go jump in the Gap,” Bink said.

The figure changed back to Iris. It faced Chameleon. “I don’t know you, my dear, but it would be a shame to see you fed to a dragon.”

“A dragon!” Chameleon cried, frightened.

“That is the punishment for breaking banishment when I tell the Elders and they put their magic spotters on you three and find you here.”

“Leave her alone!” Bink said sharply.

Iris ignored him. “Now if you could only get your friend to cooperate,” she went on to Chameleon. “You could escape that horrible fate and be beautiful all the time.” Iris had clearly figured things out. “I can make you seem as lovely in your off state as you are right now.”

“You can?” Chameleon asked, excited.

“The tricks of the Sorceress are good,” Trent murmured to Bink, clearly with double meaning.

“The truth is not in her,” Bink murmured back. “Only illusion.”

“A woman is as a woman seems,” Iris told Chameleon. “If she looks lovely and feels lovely, she is lovely. That is all men care about.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Bink said. “The Sorceress just wants to use you.”

“Correction,” Iris said. “I want to use you, Bink. I have nothing against your girlfriend. I’m not a jealous woman. All I want is power.”

“No!” Bink cried.

Chameleon, following his lead, echoed “No!”

“Now you, Magician Trent,” Iris said. “I have not been watching you long, but you seem to be a man of your word. I could be a strong Queen, or I can have the palace guards on the way to kill you in five minutes.”

“I would transform the guards,” Trent said.

“From longbow range? Maybe,” she said, raising a fair eyebrow. “But I don’t think you could be King after such an event. The whole land of Xanth would be out to kill you. You might transform a great number, but when would you sleep?”

Telling blow! The Evil Magician had been caught before when he slept. If he was caught before he could find loyal troops, he would not be able to survive.

But why should that bother Bink? If the Sorceress betrayed the Evil Magician, Xanth would be safe through no action of Bink’s. His own hands would be clean. He could simply stay out of it.

“Well, I might transform animals or people into my own likeness,” Trent said. “It would then be very hard for the guards to know whom to kill.”

“Wouldn’t work,” Iris said. “Nothing will fool a magic spotter once it fixes on its subject.”

Trent thought about that. “Yes, it would be very hard for me to win. I believe I should accept your offer, Sorceress. There are some details to work out, of course—”

“You can’t!” Bink cried, shocked.

Trent gazed at him with mild puzzlement. “It seems reasonable to me, Bink. I want to be King; Iris wants to be Queen. There is power enough to share that way. It would be a marriage of convenience, but I have no present interest in any other kind.”

“Well, now,” Iris said, smiling.

“Well, nothing,” Bink cried, aware that his decision to stay clear was being overturned. “You’re both traitors to Xanth. I won’t permit it.”

“You won’t permit it!” Iris laughed. “Who the hell do you think you are, you Spell-less Wonder?”

Her true attitude toward Bink came out now that she had found another way to reach her goal.

“Do not treat him lightly,” Trent told her. “Bink is a Magician in his way.”

Bink felt a sudden flood of thanks for this support. But he fought it off, knowing he could not afford to let anything sway him from what he knew was right. The Evil Magician could spin an illusion with words that matched anything the Sorceress could do with magic. “I’m no Magician. I’m just loyal to Xanth, to the proper King.”

“To the has-been who cast you out?” Iris demanded. “He can’t even raise a dust devil anymore. He’s sick now; he’ll soon be dead. That’s why the time to act is now. The throne must go to a Magician.”

“To a good Magician!” Bink said, “not to an evil transformer or a power-hungry sluttish mistress …” He paused, tempted to end it there, but he knew that wouldn’t be honest. “Of illusion.”

“You dare speak of me like that?” Iris screamed, sounding much like a harpy. She was so angry that her image wavered into smoke. “Trent, change him into a stinkbug and step on him!”

Trent shook his head, hiding a smile. He clearly had no strong feelings for the Sorceress, and he shared a male enjoyment of the insult Bink had made. Iris had shown them all how ready she was to sell her body for power. “We are under truce,” said Trent.

“Truce? Nonsense!” Her smoke now became fire. “You don’t need him anymore. Get rid of him.”

Again, Bink saw how she would have treated him after he had helped her get power and she no longer had use for him.

Trent was firm. “If I were to break my word to him, Iris, how could you trust my word to you?”

That stopped her, and it impressed Bink. There was a small but important difference between these two magic workers. Trent was a man in the finest sense of the word.

Iris was hardly pleased. “I thought your truce was only until you got out of the wilderness.”

“The wilderness is not only the jungle,” Trent muttered.

“What?” she demanded.

“That truce would be worthless if I broke it so easily,” Trent said. “Bink and Chameleon and I will part company, and with luck we shall not meet again.”

The man was being more than fair, and Bink knew he should leave—now. Instead, his stubbornness drove him toward disaster. “No,” Bink said. “I can’t just go away while you two plot to overcome Xanth.”

“Now, Bink,” Trent said reasonably. “I never lied to you about my goal. We always knew that our plans were different. Our truce covered only the time of shared danger, not our long-range plans. I have promises to keep to my Mundane army, to Castle Roogna, and now to the Sorceress Iris. I am sorry you disapprove, but the throne of Xanth is and always was my goal. Now I ask you to part from me with what grace you can, for I have respect for you, even though I feel the situation places you in error.”

Again Bink felt the charm of Trent’s golden tongue. He could find no flaw in the reasoning. He had no chance to overcome the Magician magically, and he was probably outclassed mentally. But morally he had to be right. “Your respect means nothing if you have no respect for the traditions and laws of Xanth.”

“A most telling answer, Bink. I do have respect for those things. Yet the system seems to have gone wrong and must be corrected, or disaster will overtake us all.”

“You talk of disaster from Mundania; I fear for our culture. I must fight you in whatever way I can.”

Trent seemed puzzled. “I don’t believe you can fight me, Bink. Whatever your magic is, it has never appeared. The moment you act against me, I will have to transform you. I don’t want to do that.”

“You have to get within range to transform me,” Bink said. “I could strike you down from a distance with a thrown rock.”

“But he’s within range now, Trent,” said Iris. “Zap him!”

Yet the Magician resisted. “You actually wish to fight me, Bink?”

“I don’t want to. I have to.”

Trent sighed. “Then the only thing to do is to end our truce with a duel. I suggest we set the place and the terms. Do you wish to think about it for a second?”

“A second, a minute, an hour—whatever it takes,” Bink said. He tried to stop the shaking he felt in his legs. He was afraid, and he knew he was being a fool, yet he could not back down.

“I meant another person to back you up, to see that the rules are followed. Chameleon, perhaps?”

“I’m with Bink!” Chameleon said immediately. She could understand only part of the discussion, but there was no question of her loyalty.

“Well, maybe the idea of seconds is unknown here,” Trent said. “Suppose we agree on an area along the wilderness border, perhaps fifteen hundred paces deep and the same across. A square section. And neither of us shall leave until dark today. If the issue is undecided by then, we shall say that the contest is ended and we will both leave in peace. Fair enough?”

The Evil Magician seemed so reasonable that it made Bink unreasonable. “To the death!” he said. And then he wished he hadn’t. He knew that the Magician would not kill him unless he was forced to. Instead he would change Bink into a tree or another harmless form and let him be. First there had been Justin Tree; now there would be Bink Tree. Perhaps people would come to rest under his shade. Except that now his fate would have to include the possibility of death.

“To the death,” Trent said sadly. “Or surrender.” He had neatly softened Bink’s terms without hurting his pride. He had made it seem as if the Magician arranged the loophole for himself, not for Bink. How was it possible for a man so wrong to seem so right?

“All right,” Bink said. “You go southwest into the forest, I’ll go northwest. In five minutes we’ll turn and start.”

“Fair enough,” the Magician agreed. He held out his hand again, and Bink shook it.

“You should get out of the duel zone,” Bink told Chameleon.

“No! I’m with you,” she insisted. Bink could no more blame her for being loyal than he could blame Trent for wanting power. Yet he had to get her to leave.

“It wouldn’t be fair if you stayed,” he said, realizing that it would be pointless to try to scare her into leaving. “Two against one. You have to go.”

She was firm. “I’m too dumb to go by myself.”

Ouch! How true.

“Let her go with you,” Trent said. “It really will make no difference.”

That seemed logical.

Bink and Chameleon headed northwest into the jungle. Trent went southwest. In moments the Magician was out of sight. “We’ll have to figure out a plan of attack,” Bink said. “Trent has been a gentleman, but the truce is over, and he will use his power against us. We have to get him before he gets us.”

“Yes.”

“We’ll have to collect stones and sticks, and maybe dig a pit for a trap.”

“Yes.”

“We have to keep him from getting close enough to use his power.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t just say yes!” he snapped. “This is serious business. Our lives are at stake.”

“I’m sorry. I know I’m awfully dumb right now.”

Bink immediately regretted his harsh words. Of course she was stupid; that was her curse. And he might be wrong; Trent might avoid the issue by leaving, putting up no fight at all. Bink would make his stand and have a moral victory—and have changed nothing. If so, Bink was the dumb one.

He turned to Chameleon to beg her pardon—and saw again that she was very beautiful. She had seemed lovely before, but now she was as he had first met her, as Wynne. Had it really been only a month ago? Now she was no stranger, though. “You’re great just the way you are, Chameleon.”

“But I can’t help you plan. I can’t do anything. You don’t like stupid people.”

“I like beautiful girls,” he said. “And I like smart girls. But I don’t trust brains and beauty together. I’d settle for an ordinary girl, but she’d get dull after a while. Sometimes I want to talk with someone, and sometimes I want to—” He broke off. Her mind was like that of a child; it really wasn’t right to talk about such ideas with her.

“What?” she asked, turning her eyes upon him. They had been black in her last beauty stage; now they were dark green. They could be any color and still be lovely.

Bink knew his chances of surviving the day were less than even, and his chances of saving Xanth worse than that. He was afraid, but he also had a deep awareness of life right now. And of loyalty. And of beauty. Why hide what was in his mind? “Sometimes I want to make love,” he finished.

“That I can do,” she said, her eyes brightening with understanding. How well she understood what he said, Bink wasn’t sure.

Then he was kissing her. It was wonderful.

“But Bink,” she said when she had a chance. “I won’t stay beautiful.”

“That’s the point,” he said. “I like variety. I would have trouble living with a stupid girl all the time, but you aren’t stupid all the time. Ugliness is no good for all the time, but you aren’t ugly all the time either. You are variety. And that is what I want, and what no other girl can give me.”

“I need a spell,” she said.

“No! You don’t need any spell, Chameleon. You’re fine just the way you are. I love you.”

“Oh, Bink!” she said.

After that they forgot about the duel.

* * *

Reality returned all too soon. “There you are!” Iris cried, appearing over them. “Tut-tut! What have you two been doing?”

Chameleon adjusted her dress. “Something you wouldn’t understand,” she said with female insight.

“No? It hardly matters. Sex is unimportant.” The Sorceress cupped her hands to her mouth. “Trent! They’re over here.”

Bink dived for her, but he passed through her image and took a tumble on the forest floor. “Silly boy,” Iris said. “You can’t touch me.”

Now they heard the Evil Magician coming through the forest. Bink looked for some weapon, but he saw only the great trunks of the trees. Sharp stone might have been used against these trees, so all stones had been magically removed. Some other area might have weapons, but not this area near the farms that were always in need of more land.

“I have ruined you!” Chameleon cried. “I knew I shouldn’t have …”

Shouldn’t have made love? thought Bink. True enough in one sense. They had wasted time loving instead of warring. Yet there might never be another chance. “It was worth it,” Bink said. “We’ll just have to run.”

They started out, but the image of the Sorceress appeared in front of them. “Here, Trent!” she cried again. “Cut them off before they get away.”

Bink realized that they could go nowhere as long as Iris followed them. There was no place they could hide, no surprise they could make ready. Trent would run them down.

Then Bink’s eye fell on an object that Chameleon still carried. It was the hypnotic gourd. If he could get Trent to look into that …

The Magician came into sight. Bink gently took the gourd from Chameleon. “See if you can distract him until I get close enough to shove this in his face,” he said. He held the gourd behind his back. Iris probably did not realize what it was.

“Iris,” the Magician called loudly, “this is supposed to be a fair duel. If you interfere again, I shall have to end our understanding.”

The Sorceress started to react with anger, then thought better of it. She vanished.

Trent stopped a dozen steps from Bink. “I regret this. Shall we start over?” he asked gravely.

“We’d better,” Bink agreed. The man was so damned sure of himself that he could give away any advantage. Maybe he wanted to wrap it up with a clear conscience. But by so doing, he had saved himself. Bink did not think he would have another chance to use the gourd.

They separated again. Bink and Chameleon fled deeper into the forest—and almost into the arms of a tangle tree. “If only we could trick him into running into that,” Bink said. But he found that he didn’t mean it. He had gotten himself into a duel that he really did not want to win—and could not afford to lose. He was as dumb as Chameleon, only more complicated about it.

They spotted a noose-loop bush. The loops were up to eighteen inches around, but they would shrink suddenly when any careless animal got its head or leg through them. They were so tight that only a knife or a counterspell could loosen them. Even when taken from the bush, the loops kept their power for several days, slowly hardening in place. Careless or unlucky animals could lose feet or their life. No creature alive bothered a noose-loop plant twice.

Chameleon backed away, but Bink paused. “It is possible to pick and carry such loops,” he said. “The trick is to touch them only on the outside. We can take some of these and lay them on the ground where Trent has to step. Or we can throw them at him. I don’t think he can transform them once they’re off the living plant. Can you throw pretty well?”

“Yes.”

As he walked toward the bush, he saw another wilderness threat. “Look—a nest of ant lions!” he cried. “If we can put them on his scent …”

Chameleon looked at the big lion-headed ants and shuddered. “Do we have to?”

“I wish we didn’t,” Bink said. “But they wouldn’t actually eat him; he’d transform them first. But they might keep him so busy that we could overpower him. If we don’t stop him, he’s very likely to take over Xanth.”

“Would that be bad?”

It was just one of her stupid questions. But it bothered him. Would the Evil Magician really be worse than the present King? He put the question aside. “It is not for us to decide. The Council of Elders will choose the next King. If the crown starts being taken by might or plotting, we’ll be back in the days of the Waves, and no one will be safe. The law of Xanth must decide who gets the crown.”

“Yes,” she agreed. Bink had surprised himself with a very good statement, but of course it was beyond her understanding.

Still, the idea of throwing Trent to the ant lions bothered him, so he went on looking. In the back of his mind another search was going on. What if Trent was right about the need to reopen Xanth? According to the centaurs, the number of humans had slowly diminished during the past century; where had those people gone? Were new part—human monsters being formed even now by magical interbreeding? The very thought was like being in a noose-loop bush. Yet it seemed to be so. Trent, as King, would change that situation. Was the evil of the Waves worse? Bink was unable to decide.

They came to a large river. Bink had crossed this in his sphinx stage, hardly noticing it. But now it was a deadly barrier. Little ripples betrayed the presence of lurking monsters, and eerie mists played about the surface. Bink flipped a clod of mud into the water, and it was caught by a giant crablike claw. The rest of the monster never showed; Bink was unable to decide whether it was a mercrab or a super crayfish or just a large claw. But he was sure he did not want to swim here.

There were a few round stones on the shore. The river did not have the same reasons to be careful of stones that the trees did, but it was best that Bink be careful. He poked at the stones with his staff to be sure they weren’t magic; they weren’t. He poked at a nearby water lily, and the flower nipped three inches off the tip of his staff. He would steer clear of the water lily.

“All right,” he said when he and Chameleon had gathered a pile of stones. “We’ll try to ambush him. We’ll arrange noose loops across his likely path and cover them over with leaves, and you can throw your loops at him and I’ll throw stones. He’ll duck the stones and loops, but he’ll have to keep his eyes on us so he won’t see the hidden loops. One will bind on his foot, so he’ll be open to attack while he tries to get it off. We’ll get some material from a blanket tree to throw over his head so he can’t see us and can’t transform us, or we can hold the hypnotic gourd in front of his face. He’ll have to give up then.”

“Yes,” she said.

They set up the trap. Their covered loops made a line from a hungry tangle tree to the ant lion nest, and their ambush was in an invisible bush they had found by accident. That was about the only way such a bush could be found. When they hid behind it, they became invisible, too, as long as they kept the bush between them and the viewer. They settled down to wait.

But Trent surprised them. While they had been setting up the trap, he had been circling around. Now he came at them from the north. Chameleon, like most girls, had to answer calls of nature often. She went behind a mock-tangle banyan tree, gave a little gasp of alarm, and disappeared. As Bink turned, he saw a lovely young winged deer bound out.

The battle was upon him! Bink charged the tree, stone in one hand, staff in the other. He hoped to knock out the Magician before Trent could throw his spell. But Trent wasn’t there.

Had he jumped too soon? Chameleon could have scared out a hiding doe—

“Now!” the Evil Magician cried from above. He was in the tree. As Bink looked up, Trent waved, bringing his hand within range so as to cast the spell. Bink jumped back—too late. He felt the tingle of magic.

He rolled on the ground. In a moment he got his hands and feet under him—and saw that he was still a man. The spell had failed! He must have had only one arm in range, not his head.

He looked back at the tree—and gasped. The Evil Magician was tangled in the prickles of a candy-stripe rosebush.

“What happened?” Bink asked

“A branch of the tree got in the way of the spell,” Trent said, shaking his head as if dazed. He must have had a hard fall. “The spell changed the branch instead of you.”

Bink would have laughed, but now he remembered his own danger. So the Magician had tried to turn him into a rosebush. He lifted his rock. “Sorry,” he said as he threw it at the handsome head.

But it bounced off the shell of a purple tortoise. Trent had changed the rosebush to a tortoise and was hiding behind it.

Bink acted without thinking. He aimed the staff like a lance, ran halfway around the tortoise, and thrust the staff at the Magician. But the man dodged, and again Bink felt the tingle of magic.

He went back to the invisible bush, wondering how he could escape. Meanwhile, the Magician made another attempt to cast a spell, but this time it bounced off the tortoise, changing it into a were-hornet. The insect buzzed up angrily.

But Trent was still hot on Bink’s trail. The invisible bush became a woman-headed serpent that slithered away, so Bink was in the open again. He tried to run, but he was caught a third time by the magic. Beside him a yellow toad appeared.

“What’s going on?” Trent demanded. “My spell struck a passing gnat instead of you. Three times my spell has missed you. My aim can’t be that bad.”

Bink scrambled for his staff. Trent focused on him again, and Bink knew he could not get out of range or bring his weapon to bear in time. He was finished.

But the winged deer charged from the side, threatening to push over the Magician. Trent heard her coming and spun to focus on her. As she reached him, she became a lovely butterfly, then a very pretty wyvern. “No problem there,” Trent remarked. “She’s good-looking in whatever form I put her, but at least my spells are working.”

The small winged dragon turned on him, hissing, and suddenly it was the winged deer again. “Scat!” Trent told her, clapping his hands. Startled, the deer bounded away. She was not overly bright.

Meanwhile, Bink had taken advantage of the distraction to back away. But he had gone toward his own carefully made trap, and now he did not know exactly where the noose loops lay hidden. If he tried to cross that line, he would either trap himself or give away the trap’s presence to Trent.

Trent strode toward him. Bink was cornered, victim of his own plans. He stood unmoving, knowing that the Magician would turn on him the moment he tried to act. He cursed himself for not being more in control, but he simply did not know what to do. He was no duelist; he had been out-thought and out-magicked from the start. He should have left the Evil Magician alone. Yet he didn’t see how he could have stood by and given up Xanth without protest.

“This time, no error,” Trent said, stepping boldly toward Bink. “I know I can transform you, for I have done it many times before. I must have been overhasty today.” He stepped within range. Bink stood still, choosing not to run again. The magic hit Bink once more, powerfully.

A flock of funnelbirds, hooting scornfully, appeared around Bink. Then they jetted away on their fixed wings.

“My spell bounced right off you again!” said Trent. “Now I know something strange is going on.”

“Maybe you just don’t want to kill me,” Bink said.

“I was not trying to kill you, only change you into something harmless. I never kill without reason.” The Magician thought deeply. “Something very odd is happening here. I don’t believe there is anything wrong with my talent; something is fighting it. Some counterspell must be working. You have led a rather charmed life, you know. I had thought it was coincidence, but now …”

Trent thought again, then snapped his fingers. “Your talent! Your magic talent. That’s it. You cannot be harmed by magic!”

“But I’ve been hurt many times,” Bink protested.

“Not by magic, I’ll bet. Your talent stops all magical threats.”

“But many spells have affected me! You transformed me—”

“Only to help you or to warn you. You may not have trusted me, but your magic knew the truth. I never meant to harm you before, and so my spells were permitted. Now that I am trying to change you for the worse, my spells bounce. In this your magic is more powerful than mine.”

Bink was amazed. “Then—then I have won. You cannot hurt me!”

“Not so, Bink. My magic has brought yours to bay, and shown its nature.” The Evil Magician drew his gleaming sword. “But I have talents other than magic. Defend yourself physically!”

Bink brought up his staff as Trent lunged with his sword. He barely blocked the blade in time.

Suddenly past confusions were clear. He had never actually been harmed by magic. Embarrassed, yes, especially in childhood. But it was physical harm that he was protected against. When he had run a race with another boy, and the boy had charged through trees and barriers to win, Bink had not suffered any physical harm. And when he had chopped off his own finger, non-magically, magic did not cause the injury. He had been threatened by magic many times, and been terrified by it, but somehow those threats had never taken effect. Even when he had taken a lungful of Potipher’s poison gas, he had been saved just in time. He had indeed led a charmed life.

“Your magic seems fascinating,” Trent said as he looked for another opening. “Clearly it would be small protection if its nature were known. So it hides itself. Your escapes so often seemed lucky.”

Yes, as when Bink escaped the Gap Dragon. He had also been helped by magic, as when he had been taken over by Donald the Shade, giving him the ability to fly.

“Your pride was never saved, only your body,” Trent went on, taking his time about the fight while he worked out all the details. He was a careful man. “Maybe you felt some discomfort, as in our return to Xanth, to hide the fact that nothing serious had happened to you. Rather than show itself, your talent allowed you to be cast out, for that was not really magical. Yet you were not hurt by the Shield.”

Bink had felt the tingle of the Shield as he dived through it on his way out, and he even thought he had gotten safely through it. Now he knew that he had taken the full force of the Shield and survived. He could have walked through it anytime. But had he known that, he might have done it and given away his talent. So it had been hidden even from himself.

“But you were not hurt by the Shield either!” Bink cried, striking Trent hard with his staff.

“I was in contact with you when we entered,” Trent said. “So was Chameleon. You weren’t awake, but your talent still worked. To allow the two of us to die while you survived would have given away your talent. Or maybe there’s a small field around you, allowing you to protect those you touch. Or your talent looked ahead and knew that if the Shield killed us at that time, you would have been cast into the den of the kraken weed alone and been unable to escape. You needed me and my power to survive, so I was spared. And Chameleon, too, because you would not have worked with me if she had not done so. So we all survived and we never suspected the true cause. Your magic protected us all during our trip. I thought I needed you to protect me, but it was the other way around. My talent became a part of yours. When you were threatened by the wiggles and the invisible giant, you drew on my transformation of you to stop that threat.”

Trent shook his head. “Suddenly all this becomes less amazing—and your talent more impressive. You are a Magician, with not only the clear mix of talents but the hidden parts, too. Magicians are not just powerfully talented people; our spells differ in ways that are little understood by normal citizens. You are on a level with Humfrey and Iris and myself. I’d really like to know your power’s full nature.”

“So would I,” Bink said.

“But alas it seems I cannot become King while a talent like that fights me,” said Trent. “I really regret the need to take your life, and I want you to know that this was not my plan at the start of this meeting. I would much prefer to change you harmlessly. But the sword can only injure or kill.”

Bink remembered Herman the centaur, his head flying from his body. When Trent decided that killing was needed …

Trent made a skilled move and Bink flung himself aside. The point of the sword touched his hand. Blood flowed; with a cry of pain, Bink dropped his staff. He could be hurt by mundane means. Trent had aimed for that hand, testing his power.

This broke the numbness that had limited Bink’s defense. He was open to attack; but on a straight man-to-man basis, he did have a chance. The power of the Evil Magician had alarmed him, but he realized now that Trent was only a man. He could be taken by surprise.

As Trent set up for the finishing thrust, Bink ducked under the Magician’s arm, caught it with his bloody hand, turned, bent his knees, and pulled. It was a throw that the soldier Crombie had taught him.

But the Magician was ready for him. As Bink pulled, Trent stepped around, keeping his feet under him. He pulled his sword arm free, threw Bink back, and aimed for the killing thrust. “Very nice move, Bink, but such throws are also known in Mundania.”

Trent thrust with decision and with killing force. Bink, off balance, unable to move out of the way, saw the terrible point driving straight at his face. He was done for this time!

But then the winged doe shot between them. The sword drove into her body, the point coming out the other side, just missing Bink’s nose.

“Bitch!” Trent yelled, though that was not the term for a female deer. He yanked the bloody blade free. “That strike was not meant for you,” he told her.

The doe fell, red blood spurting from her wound. She had been gored through the belly.

“I’ll change you into a jellyfish!” the Evil Magician went on in fury. “You’ll smother to death on land!”

“She’s dying anyway,” Bink said, feeling pain in his own gut. Such wounds were terrible. It would be death by torture for Chameleon.

The omen! It had finally been completed! The chameleon had died suddenly. Or would die.

Bink again threw himself at his enemy, this time with an anger he had never felt before. With his bare hands he would …

Trent cuffed Bink on the side of the neck with his left hand, and Bink stumbled and fell. Blind rage was no match for cool skill. He saw Trent stepping up to him, raising his sword high in both hands.

Bink shut his eyes, no longer able to defend himself. He had done everything he could, and lost. “Kill her, too—cleanly,” he begged. “Do not let her suffer.”

He waited. But the blow did not fall. Bink opened his eyes and saw Trent putting away his terrible sword.

“I can’t do it,” the Magician said.

The Sorceress Iris appeared. “What is this?” she demanded. “Have your guts turned to water? Kill them both and be done with it. Your kingdom awaits.”

“I don’t want my kingdom this way,” Trent told her. “Once I would have done it, but I have changed. I have learned the true history of Xanth, and I know too well the sorrow of untimely death. My honor came late in my life, but it grows stronger. It will not let me kill a man who has saved my life and is so loyal that he gives his life in defense of the one who banished him.” He looked at the dying doe. “And I would never kill the girl who gives up her own welfare for the life of that man. This is true love, the kind that I once knew. I could not save mine, but I would not destroy that of another. The throne is not worth this price.”

“Idiot!” Iris screamed. “It is your own life you are throwing away.”

“Well, I suppose I am,” Trent said. “But this was the risk I took when I decided to return to Xanth, and this is the way it must be. Better to die with honor than to live in dishonor. Perhaps it was not power I wanted but perfection of self.”

The Magician kneeled beside the doe and touched her, and she became the human Chameleon again. Blood leaked from the wound in her stomach. “I cannot save her,” he said sadly, “any more than I could cure my wife and child. I am no doctor. Any creature into which I might change her would suffer also. She must have help—magic help.”

The Magician looked up. “Iris, you can help. Send your image to the castle of the Good Magician Humfrey. Tell him what has happened here, and ask him for healing water. I believe the Elders will help this girl and spare this young man.”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort!” the Sorceress screamed. “Come to your senses, man. You have the kingdom within your grasp.”

Trent turned to Bink. “The Sorceress has not had the change that experience has brought me. The idea of power has blinded her to all else, as it almost blinded me. You will have to go for help.”

“Yes,” Bink agreed. He could not look at the blood coming from Chameleon.

“I will cover her wound as well as I can,” Trent said. “I believe she will live for an hour. Do not take longer than that.”

“No,” Bink agreed. If she died …

Suddenly Bink was a bird—a fancy, fire-winged phoenix, sure to be noticed since it appeared in public only every five hundred years. He spread his wings and took off into the sky. He rose high and circled, and to the east he saw the Good Magician’s castle glinting magically in the sun. He was on his way.

Chapter 16

King

A flying dragon appeared alongside the phoenix. “Pretty bird, I’m going to eat you up!” it said.

Bink moved away, but the monster was before him again. “You can’t escape!” it said. It opened its toothy mouth wide as if to snatch the bird in midair.

Was Bink’s errand to end here, so near success? He pumped his wings and climbed higher, hoping that the heavier dragon could not reach the same height. But Bink’s wounded wing—actually the hand that Trent’s sword had cut—robbed him of full lifting power and balance, and forced him to rise with less speed. The dragon kept pace without effort, staying between him and the castle. “Give up, dumbo,” it said. “You’ll never make it.”

Suddenly Bink caught on. Dragons did not speak like that. Not flying fire-breathers, anyway. They lacked the coolness of brain to talk at all. They were simply too light and hot to be smart. This was no dragon. It was an illusion made by the Sorceress. She was still trying to stop Bink, hoping that if he disappeared and Chameleon died, Trent would think he had done his best and failed, and then could pursue his goal of the throne. Iris could still gain her dream of power through him. Naturally, she would never reveal her own role in this.

Her evil plan still might work. Because Bink was a phoenix instead of a talking bird, he could not tell anyone other than the Good Magician what was happening. If he returned to Trent now, too much time would have been lost. And anyway, Iris would stop him there, too. This was his own private battle with the Evil Sorceress; he had to win it himself.

He changed course suddenly and flew directly at the dragon. If he had guessed wrong, he would light a fire in the belly of the fire-breather and lose all. But he passed right through.

Iris shouted something most unladylike at him. What a fishwife she was when stymied! But Bink ignored her and winged on.

A cloud formed before him. Uh-oh, a storm? He had to hurry. But the cloud loomed larger. Blisters of black mist boiled out of it, and swirling funnels formed below. In moments the big cloud blotted out the castle. Ugly dark smaller clouds scudded about it. A larger whirling pattern grew. The whole sky looked dangerous.

There was no hope of rising above it. Bink’s injured wing was hurting, and the storm towered into the sky. Bolts of jagged lightning danced about, crackling loudly. There was the smell of metal burning. Deep in the center of the cloud were tangled colors and faint shapes of demon faces. A magic storm, the most dangerous kind.

Bink dropped lower, and the cloud tightened into a single gray tube. A super tornado. It could destroy him!

Then Bink almost fell out of the air with the shock of his sudden memory that he could not be harmed by magic! This was a magic storm; it could not touch him. He was being stalked by a false threat.

There was no actual wind. This was another illusion. All he had to do was fly toward the castle. He shot straight into the cloud.

He was right again. There was no real storm. Soon he would be through it, having called its bluff. Then nothing could stop him from reaching the castle of the Good Magician.

But the grayness went on. How could he go to the castle when he couldn’t see it? Iris couldn’t fool him, but she could blind him.

Damn it, talent, he thought angrily. Maybe I can’t be harmed by magic, but I’ll kill myself if I find my life not worth living. I need Chameleon. So you can’t save me at all if you can’t make this magic save her, too.

It had seemed that his talent was an unreasoning thing. But in the end, it seemed useless. He had made it this far through life without any talent that he had known about. He would have to make it the same way in the future.

***

Had Bink been headed directly toward the castle? He thought so, but now he could not be sure. He had been distracted by the cloud and could have lost his way. Trent might better have made him into a carrier pigeon. But that bird would not have been unusual enough to attract the attention of the Good Magician.

Anyway, Bink’s thoughts on what he might have been were useless. He was what he was, and he would have to win as he was. If he were now aimed in the wrong direction, he might never reach the castle, but he would keep trying.

He dropped down, seeking some landmark. But the cloud stayed about him. He could not see a thing. If he went too low, he might crash into a tree. Had Iris won after all?

Then he came out from under the cloud. There was the castle! He zoomed toward it, but then he paused, shaken again. This wasn’t the home of the Good Magician. This was Castle Roogna! He had become turned around and flown across the wilderness to the west. The Sorceress had surely known this and kept up the blinding fog so that he would not discover his mistake until too late. How much time had he wasted? If he changed course now and flew to the correct castle, could he still get help for Chameleon within the hour? Or would she be dead by the time help arrived?

Bink heard a faint snort. Immediately it was echoed by snorts all around him. The base of the cloud dropped down to block his view again.

Something was funny here! Bink might not have paid any attention to the sound if there had not been such an effort to mask its direction. Why should the Sorceress try to keep him from landing at Castle Roogna? Was there healing water there, too, used to patch up zombies?

The snort had to be important in some way. But what had made it? There was no moat dragon at Roogna, and zombies didn’t snort very well anyway. Yet something alive had made that sound. Maybe a winged horse, or …

The hippocampus! The hippocampus of the moat had snorted, giving away the true location. This was not Castle Roogna but the castle of the Good Magician after all! The Sorceress had only made it look like Roogna to turn him back. He had been headed in the right direction, after all, perhaps led by his talent. His talent had always worked secretly. There was no reason for it to change now.

Bink headed for the remembered sound of the first snort, tuning out all others. Suddenly the fog faded. It seemed the Sorceress could not keep up her illusions too near the home of the Good Magician.

“I’ll get you yet!” the voice of the Sorceress cried to Bink from the air above. Then she and all her images were gone, and the sky was clear.

Bink circled the castle, which now had its real appearance. He shivered with the realization of how close he had come to losing his fight with the Sorceress! If he had turned back …

He found an open window and flew through it. The phoenix was a powerful flyer with good control; he probably could have outrun a real dragon, even with his bad wing.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom of the interior. He flapped from one room to another and finally found the Magician. He was bending over a large book. For an instant the little man reminded Bink of Trent in the Roogna library; both had an interest in books. Had the two really been friends twenty years ago?

Humfrey looked up. “What are you doing here, Bink?” he asked, surprised. He didn’t seem to notice Bink’s present form.

Bink tried to talk but could not. The magic of the phoenix was survival from fire, not human speech.

“Come over here by the mirror,” Humfrey said, rising. This mirror must have been a twin to the one that Bink had broken, for he saw no cracks.

As Bink drew near, the magic mirror showed a scene of the wilderness, with Chameleon lying nude and lovely and bleeding in spite of a bandage of leaves and moss on her stomach. Before her stood Trent, sword drawn, as a wolf-headed man drew near.

“Oh, I see,” Humfrey said. “The Evil Magician has returned. Foolish of him. This time he won’t be cast out; he’ll be killed. Good thing you managed to warn me. He’s a dangerous one. I see he stabbed the girl and transformed you, but you managed to get away. Good thing you had the sense to come here.”

Bink tried to speak again, and failed again. He danced about.

“More to say? This way.” The gnomelike Magician took a book off a shelf, set it on top of his other book on the table, and opened it. The pages were blank. “Speak,” he said.

Bink tried yet again. No sound came out, but he saw his words forming on the pages of the book.

Chameleon is dying. We must save her.

“Oh, of course,” Humfrey agreed. “A few drops of healing water will take care of that. There will be my fee, naturally. But first we’ll have to deal with the Evil Magician, which means we’ll have to go to the North Village to pick up a stunner. No magic of mine can handle Trent!”

No! Trent is trying to save her! He’s not …

Humfrey’s brow wrinkled. “You are saying that the Evil Magician helped you?” he asked, surprised. “That is hard to believe, Bink.”

As quickly as possible, Bink explained about the change in Trent.

“Very well,” Humfrey said. “I’ll take your word that he is acting in your best interest. But I suspect you’re a bit innocent, and now I don’t know who’s going to pay my fee. The Evil Magician is very likely to get away, but we have to try to catch him for a fair trial. He has broken the law of Xanth and must be dealt with. It would gain us nothing if we saved Chameleon while leaving Xanth in danger from the transformer.”

There was so much more Bink wanted to explain, but Humfrey gave him no chance. And Bink probably was being too trusting. Once the Evil Magician had time to think, he would probably revert to his former ways. He was still a threat to Xanth.

Humfrey led Bink down to the cellar, where he took some fluid from a barrel. He sprinkled a drop on Bink’s wing, and it was instantly sound again. The rest he put in a small bottle and tucked it into his vest pocket.

Now the Good Magician went to a closet and pulled out a plush carpet. He unrolled it and then sat cross-legged upon it. “Well, get on, birdbrain!” he snapped. “You’ll get lost out there by yourself since Iris is fooling around with the weather.”

Bink stepped onto the carpet and faced the Magician. Then the rug lifted; it was a flying carpet. Startled, Bink spread his wings and dug his claws deeply into the material to hang on.

The thing flew out through a window, then looped high up into the sky. It leveled and then gained speed. Bink, facing backward, had to fold his wings tightly and almost tear the fabric of the carpet with his claws to keep from being blown off it by the wind. He saw the castle shrink in the distance.

“I took this carpet instead of demanding a year’s service some years back,” Humfrey explained. He sneezed. “Never had much use for it; it just collects dust. But I suppose this is an emergency.”

He peered at Bink, shaking his head. “You say the Evil Magician transformed you to help you get to me quickly? Just nod your beak once for yes, twice for no.”

Bink nodded once.

“But he did stab Chameleon?”

Another nod. But that was not the whole story.

“He didn’t really mean to stab her? Because he was really trying to kill you, and she got in the way?”

Bink had to nod yes again. What a damning statement.

Humfrey shook his head. “It’s easy to be sorry after a mistake has been made. Yet when I knew him, he was not a cruel man. Still, I don’t think he can ever rest until he gains his goal. And as long as he remains alive and in Xanth, we can never be certain he won’t. It is a difficult case. There will have to be a careful investigation.”

Such an investigation would be the death of Trent. The old King would be determined to end this threat to his power.

“And Trent knows what is likely to happen to him when the Elders get there—if they catch him?”

Trent surely did. Bink nodded yes again.

“And you—do you want him dead?”

Bink shook his head no.

“Or cast out again?”

Bink had to think a moment. Then he shook his head no again.

“Of course. You need him to change you back into human form. That may give him something to bargain with. The Elders might spare his life in return for such servings. But after that, it seems likely to be banishment—or blindness.”

Blindness! Bink understood the logic of it. Blind, Trent could not transform anyone because he had to see his subjects. What a terrible fate.

“I see you don’t like that either. Yet there are hard facts to weigh.” Humfrey thought for a moment. “It will be hard enough to save your life since you also are illegal. But perhaps I have a wrinkle.” He frowned. “I’m really sorry to see Trent get into this fix; he’s a truly great Magician, and we’ve always gotten along. But the welfare of Xanth comes first.” He smiled briefly. “After my fee, of course.”

Bink didn’t see much humor in that.

“Well, it will soon be out of our hands. What will be will be.”

After that he was silent. Bink watched the clouds, real ones this time. They loomed up larger and darker as the carpet flew northward. Now the carpet was over the Gap, making Bink feel less safe in spite of his wings. It was a long way down. When the carpet passed through a cloud, it dipped alarmingly. But Humfrey rode with seeming calmness, eyes closed, deep in thought.

But then the weather worsened. The carpet zoomed straight for its goal, not attempting to avoid the cloud banks that formed into towering mountains and deep valleys. The updrafts and downdrafts got worse. This building storm was no illusion. Although it lacked the colors and swirls of Iris’s illusion cloud, it was just as threatening.

Then the carpet dropped through the fog and came out below. There was the North Village.

The windows of the King’s palace were draped in black. “I think it has happened,” Humfrey remarked as they landed before the palace gate.

A village Elder came out to meet them. “Magician!” he cried. “We were about to send for you. The King is dead!”

“Well, you’d better choose his replacement, then,” Humfrey said sharply.

“There is no one except you,” the Elder said.

“Lamebrain!” Humfrey snapped. “What would I want with the throne? It’s a big boring job that would get in the way of my studies.”

The Elder stood his ground. “Unless you can show us another Magician, the law demands that you accept.”

“Well, the law can go—” Humfrey paused. “We have more pressing business. Who is caretaker now?”

“Roland. He is seeing to the funeral.”

Bink jumped. His father! But he knew that his father would be very careful in filling this post. Better not to tell him that his son was back.

Humfrey glanced at Bink, seeming to have the same idea. “Well, I think I know just the sucker for the job,” the Good Magician said. “But he has a problem to solve first.”

Bink felt an uncomfortable shiver. Not me! he tried to say, but he was still a phoenix and could not speak. I’m no real Magician, he thought. I know nothing of kingship. All I want to do is save Chameleon. And hope that Trent gets away, too.

“But first we have to settle a couple of other matters,” Humfrey went on. “The Evil Magician is back in Xanth, and a girl is dying. If we move fast, we may catch them both before it is too late.”

“Trent!” the Elder was shocked. “What a time for him to show up.” The Elder ran back into the palace.

Very soon a war party had gathered. The villager with travel magic was given Trent’s location, and he started popping people through to it.

First to go was Roland himself. With luck he would catch the Evil Magician by surprise and stun him in place. Then the others could follow safely. Next the Good Magician went with his bottle of healing water to save Chameleon—if she still lived.

Bink realized that if this plan was successful, Trent would never have another chance to transform anyone. If the Evil Magician was killed before Bink was transformed, he would remain forever a phoenix. Chameleon would be alone, though well. And his father would be responsible. Was there no way out of this mess?

Well, the plan might fail. Trent could transform Roland and Humfrey. Then Bink himself might recover his human form, but Chameleon would die. That was no good either. Maybe Trent would have escaped. Then Chameleon would be cured and Trent would survive, but Bink would remain a bird.

No matter how it worked out, someone dear to Bink would be hurt. Unless Humfrey somehow managed to make everything come out all right. Yet how could he?

One by one the Elders disappeared. Then it was Bink’s turn.

The first thing Bink saw was the body of the wolf-headed man. The creature had charged and been killed by Trent’s sword. There were a number of caterpillars that had not been there before. Trent himself stood frozen, as though in the act of casting a spell. And Chameleon—

Bink flew to her gladly. She was well! The terrible wound was gone, and she was standing there, looking confused.

“Here is Bink,” Humfrey told her. “He flew to get help for you. Just in time, too.”

“Oh, Bink!” she cried, picking up his bird form and trying to hug him to her bare body. Bink, as a bird with delicate feathers, did not find this as delightful as he might have in his natural form. “Can he be changed back?” she asked.

“I am afraid that only the transformer can change him back,” Humfrey said. “And the transformer must first stand trial.”

And what would be the result of that trial? Why hadn’t Trent escaped when he had the chance?

The trial was swift and orderly. The Elders put questions to the frozen Magician, who of course could not answer. Then Humfrey had the person with travel magic fetch the magic mirror.

It was Munly, who was himself an Elder. Bink’s birdlike brain was letting him get confused. Munly used his talent to transport a small item to his hand from the Good Magician’s castle. He held it up so that all could see the images within it.

In the mirror were images of the trio’s travels in Xanth. Slowly the story came out, though it did not uncover Bink’s talent. Instead it showed how Bink, Chameleon, and Trent had helped one another survive the wilderness and how they had stayed at Castle Roogna. There was excitement about that, for no one had known that this old, famous building had remained intact. The mirror also showed how the three of them had fought the wiggle swarm. That victory generated a positive response! And it showed how Trent and Bink had finally dueled and how the Sorceress Iris had influenced the outcome. And it showed—Bink felt embarrassment at this—how he had made love to Chameleon.

The whole story was damning to Trent, for the audience heard no words. What Bink wanted to say was, But it wasn’t really like that. Trent is a fine man. In many ways his logic makes sense. If he had not chosen to spare me and Chameleon, he could have taken over Xanth.

The scene in the mirror froze on the final part of the duel: Trent wounding Bink, making ready to strike the final blow and then halting. See, he spared me, Bink wanted to say. He is not evil. Not anymore. He is not evil!

But no one heard him. The Elders looked at one another, nodding gravely. Bink’s father, Roland, was among them, as was the family friend Munly, both of whom said nothing.

Then the magic mirror showed what had happened after Bink flew away. The monsters of the wilderness, smelling fresh blood, had arrived. Trent barely had time to bandage Chameleon before these threats became pressing. He had stood before her, sword in hand, bluffing the creatures back and transforming those who attacked anyway. Two wolf-heads charged together, jaws gaping wide. Trent turned one into a caterpillar and cut down the other one with his sword. Trent killed only as needed.

Trent could have run, even then, Bink cried silently. Trent could have let Chameleon be taken by the monsters. He could have escaped into the jungle. The Elders would never have caught him until he caught them. He is a good man!

Yet Bink knew that there was no way he could argue this good man’s case. Chameleon, of course, was too stupid to do it, and Humfrey didn’t know the whole story.

At last the mirror showed the arrival of Roland, as strong and handsome in his way as the Evil Magician, and a few years older. He had landed facing away from Trent and in front of a two-headed serpent. Roland, searching the wilderness, had not seen the Magician or the serpent.

In the mirror, Trent charged, running at the tail of the monster, grabbing it with his bare hands, making it turn on him. Both heads had struck, but then the monster had become another caterpillar. A two-headed caterpillar.

Roland whirled. For an instant the two men looked into each other’s eyes, their deadly talents equal at this range. Then Roland squinted, which froze Trent in place. The stun had scored before the transformation.

Or had it? Trent never even tried to resist, Bink thought. He could have charged my father instead of the serpent, or simply let the serpent strike.

“Elders, have you seen enough?” Humfrey asked gently.

If I could have the throne of Xanth at the cost of Trent’s life, I would not take it, Bink thought savagely. The trial had been nonsense. The Elders had never let Trent speak for himself in order to present his idea of the damage that magic was doing to the humans of Xanth, or of the threat of attack from Mundania. Were the Elders going to get rid of Trent the same way they had cast out Bink? Thoughtlessly, regardless of the meaning behind the facts?

The Elders traded looks gravely. Each nodded.

At least let Trent talk! Bink cried silently.

“Then it would be best to stop the spell,” Humfrey said. “He must be free of magic for the outcome.”

Thank God!

Roland snapped his fingers. Trent moved. “Thank you, honorable Elders of Xanth,” he said politely. “You have granted me a fair trial, and I stand ready to accept your judgment.”

Trent wasn’t even defending himself. This one-sided, silent trial was a token gesture. How could the Evil Magician go along with that?

“We find you guilty of breaking banishment,” Roland said. “For this the punishment is death. But we are in a special situation, and you have changed. You always had courage, intelligence, and strong magic. Now you also have loyalty, honor, and mercy. I am not unmindful that you spared the life of my son, and that you protected his chosen one. You have some guilt in these matters, but you have paid for it. We therefore withdraw the punishment and will allow you to remain in Xanth. Under two conditions.”

They were not going to kill Trent. Bink almost danced for joy. But he realized that there would still be limits to keep Trent from ever again trying to take the throne. Humfrey had talked about blinding him so that he would be unable to use his magic. Bink knew what a life without magic was like. Trent would be forced to take some low-level job, working out his days in shame. The Elders might be slowing down in their later years, but they were not gentle. No smart citizen ever crossed them twice.

Trent bowed his head. “I thank you, Elders. I accept your conditions. What are they?”

But there is so much more to be said! thought Bink. The Elders were treating this fine man as a common criminal and forcing his agreement. And Trent was not even protesting.

“First,” Roland said, “you must marry.”

Trent looked up, startled. “I can understand changing back those I have transformed, and not using my talent anymore. But what has marriage to do with it?”

“You are out of order,” Roland said grimly. Bink realized that Trent hadn’t caught on. The Elders would have no need to make limits if they blinded him. He would be helpless then anyway.

“I apologize, Elders. I will marry. What is the other condition?”

Now it comes! Bink wished he could blot out the sounds, as though by not hearing the verdict, he could stop it. But that was not his type of talent.

“That you accept the throne of Xanth.”

Bink’s beak fell open. So did Chameleon’s mouth. Trent stood as if stun-frozen again.

Then Roland bent down slowly on one knee. The other Elders followed silently.

“The Storm King, you see, is dead,” Humfrey explained. “It is important to have a good man and strong Magician in the office, one who has the ability to command along with self-control and wisdom yet who will use force when needed, as in the event of a wiggle swarm. One who may also have a child so that the throne is never again in question. We do not need to like such a King, but we must have him. I clearly do not qualify, for I could hardly bring myself to give the needed attention to the details. The Sorceress Iris would be unfit even if she were not female because of her lack of control. And the only other person of Magician level does not have the skills for the task. Xanth needs you, Magician. You cannot refuse.”

Having spoken, Humfrey, too, bent down on one knee before Trent.

The Evil Magician, evil no longer, bowed his head. He had conquered Xanth after all.

***

The crowning was splendid. The centaurs marched with dazzling skill, and from all over Xanth people and intelligent beasts came. Magician Trent, now the Transformer King, took both crown and bride together, and both were glowing.

There were, of course, some sly remarks, but most citizens agreed that the King had been chosen wisely. They remarked, “And if his Queen is too old to have a child, they can adopt a Magician-class boy. After all, Trent is the only one who can control this Queen, and he’ll never suffer from lack of variety. And it ends the last real threat to the kingdom.”

They were not yet aware of the other threats.

Bink, restored to his natural form, stood alone, staring at the place where Justin Tree had stood. Bink was glad for Trent and was sure that the man would make a fine King. Yet he was also disappointed. What would he do now?

Three youths passed by him: Zink, Jama, and Potipher. They were quiet, their eyes downcast. They knew that their days of wild pranks were over. With the new King in power, they would have to behave.

Then two centaurs trotted up. “So glad to see you, Bink!” Cherie cried. “Isn’t it wonderful you weren’t cast out after all!” She nudged her companion. “Isn’t it, Chester?”

Chester forced his face into a smile. “Yeah, sure,” he mumbled.

“You must come and visit us,” Cherie went on brightly. “Chester speaks so often of you.”

Chester made a little strangling motion with his powerful hands. “Yeah, sure,” he repeated more brightly.

Bink changed the subject. “Did you know that I met Herman the Hermit in the wilderness?” he said. “He died a hero. He used his magic …”

Bink paused; he remembered that centaurs thought magic in any centaur was obscene, although that would probably change once Trent announced the knowledge gained from the Castle Roogna library. “Herman organized the fight that wiped out the wiggle swarm before it overran all of Xanth. I hope Herman’s name will be honored among your kind in the future.”

Surprisingly, Chester smiled. “Herman was my uncle,” he said. “He was a great character. The colts used to kid me about him. Now he’s a hero, you say?”

Cherie’s mouth tightened. “We don’t discuss such things in front of a filly,” she warned him. “Come on.”

Chester had to go with her. But he looked back. “Yeah, sure,” he said to Bink. “You come see us real soon. Tell us all about what Uncle Herman did to save Xanth.”

Then they were gone. Suddenly Bink felt very good. Chester was the last creature he thought he would have something in common with, but he was glad it had happened. Bink knew all about getting teased. And he did want to tell someone about Herman the magic centaur.

Now Sabrina came up to him. She was as lovely as he had ever seen her. “Bink, I’m sorry about what happened before,” she said. “But now that everything is cleared up …”

She was like Chameleon in her beauty state, and she was intelligent, too. A fit bride for almost any man. But Bink knew her too well now. His talent had stopped him from marrying her by keeping itself secret. Smart talent.

He looked about and saw the new bodyguard that Trent had taken—the man who could spot anything before it developed. The soldier was very impressive in his uniform. “Crombie,” Bink called.

Crombie strode over. “Hello, Bink. I’m on duty now so I can’t stay to chat. Is something the matter?”

“I just wanted to introduce you to this lovely lady, Sabrina,” Bink said. “She does a very nice magic figure in air.” He turned to Sabrina. “Crombie is a good man and an able soldier, favored by the King, but he doesn’t trust women. I think he’s just never met the right one. I believe you two should get to know each other.”

“But I thought …” she began.

Crombie was looking at her with interest, and she returned the look. He was observing her charms, which were very good; she was thinking of his position at the palace, which was noteworthy. Bink wasn’t sure whether he had just done a good thing or dropped a bag full of cherry bombs into a privy. Time would tell.

“Good-bye, Sabrina,” Bink said, and then he turned to go.

***

King Trent called Bink to a meeting. “Sorry about the delay in getting back to you,” Trent said when they were alone. “There were some things I needed to do first.”

“The crowning. The marriage,” said Bink.

“Those, too. But mainly certain feelings to adjust. The crown landed on my head rather suddenly, as you know.”

Bink knew. “If I may ask, Your Majesty—”

“Why I did not leave Chameleon and flee into the wilderness? The answer is that I did what in Mundania is called figuring the odds. When you took flight for the castle of the Good Magician, I judged your chances of success to be about three-to-one in your favor. Had you failed, I would have been safe anyway, so there was no point in leaving Chameleon. I knew Xanth stood in need of a new King, for the Storm King was failing. The chances against the Elders finding any Magician more skilled than I were also about three-to-one. And so on. Altogether, my chances of gaining the throne by sitting tight were about nine-in-sixteen, with only a three-in-sixteen chance of death. These were better odds than survival alone in the wilderness. Understand?”

Bink shook his head. “Those figures—I don’t see—”

“Just take my word that it was a good decision. Humfrey was my friend; I was sure he would not betray me. He knew I had figured the odds, but that didn’t make any difference because I was the kind of man Xanth needed in a King, and he knew it. So he went along. Not that I didn’t have some serious worries at the time of the trial. Roland made me sweat.”

“Me, too,” Bink agreed.

“But had the odds been otherwise, I would still have acted as I did.” Trent frowned. “And I charge you not to embarrass me by telling that to the public. They don’t want a King who is swayed by personal feelings.”

“I won’t tell,” Bink said, though he thought it was not much of a failing. After all, it was Chameleon he had saved.

“And now to business,” the King said briskly. “I shall of course give you and Chameleon royal permission to stay in Xanth. No, this has nothing to do with your father. I never even realized you were the son of Roland until I met him again and saw the family likeness. He never said a word about you. Fine job of balancing his interests, there.

“Roland shall be an important man in the new government. But that’s beside the point. There will not be any more banishments or limits on settlers from Mundania unless violence is involved. Of course this means you are freed from having to show your magic talent. In all Xanth, only you and I understand its nature. Chameleon was present at the discovery, but she was not able to understand it. Humfrey knows only that you have Magician-class magic. So it will remain our secret.”

“Oh, I don’t mind—”

“You don’t understand, Bink. It is important that the nature of your talent remain secret. That is its nature; it must be a private thing. To uncover it is to cancel it. That is why it protects itself. Probably I was permitted to learn of it only to help protect it from others, and that I mean to do. No one else will know.”

“Yes, but—”

“I see you still don’t follow. Your talent is remarkable. It is a thing of Magician rank, equal to any magic in Xanth. All other citizens are open to attack from those types of magic that they don’t themselves use. Iris can be transformed, I can be stunned, Humfrey can be fooled by illusion—you get the point. Only you are safe from all other forms. You can be fooled or shamed or made uncomfortable, but you can never be hurt. That is a very broad protection.”

“Yes, but—”

“In fact, we may never know the limits of it. Think about the manner in which you reentered Xanth without uncovering your talent to anyone who could tell. Our adventure may be no more than the work of one part of your talent. Chameleon and I may have been only tools to bring you back into Xanth safely. By yourself, you might have been trapped in Castle Roogna or harmed by the wiggles. So I was there to smooth your way. It may even have protected you from my sword by bringing in Chameleon to take the killing thrust. Because, you see, I had discovered your talent through its effect on my magic. Because I am a full Magician, it could not stop me completely. But still it worked to protect you. I was able to wound you, so it acted to end my quarrel with you by making me King in a way you could accept. Maybe it was your talent that changed my mind and kept me from killing you. I think it was your talent’s decision that I be allowed to find out its nature, for this has, as you see, affected my attitude toward you.”

Trent paused, but Bink did not say anything. This was quite an idea to take in one lump. Bink had thought that his talent was limited, but it seemed that he had been mistaken about that.

“So you see,” Trent went on, “my throne may only be the easiest way to promote your welfare. Maybe your previous banishment and the death of the Storm King at this time are all part of that magical plan. Your banishment brought me into Xanth without my army and in your company. I am not going to gamble that coincidence brought me to this place; your talent makes wonderful use of coincidence. I don’t want to go against you, and perhaps die the way the old King did after he acted against your interest. No, Bink. I wouldn’t want to be your enemy even if I weren’t already your friend. So I will keep your secret and help you in the best way I am able. Knowing how you feel about Xanth, I shall try to be the best possible King, bringing in a new Golden Age, so that you never suffer because of my actions. Now do you understand?”

Bink nodded. “I guess I do, Your Majesty.”

Trent stood up, clapping Bink heartily on the back. “Good.” He paused, thinking of something else. “Have you decided on a job yet, Bink? I can offer you anything short of the crown itself, though even that may be in your future if—”

“No!” Bink cried. Then he had to backtrack, seeing Trent’s broad grin. “I mean, yes, I thought of a job. I—you once said …” Bink hesitated, suddenly feeling awkward.

“You don’t seem to have listened very well. What you want, you will get if it is within my power. But my talent is not mind reading. You must speak. Out with it!”

“Well, in the wilderness, when we were waiting for Chameleon to—you know, just before the wiggles, we talked about the mystery of—”

Trent raised one royal hand. “Say no more. I make you, Bink of the North Village, Official Researcher of Xanth. Any mysteries of magic you desire to know you shall research until they are understood to your satisfaction. Then you shall turn in your reports to me to be put in the royal library. Your secret talent makes you the best one to explore the most dangerous parts of Xanth, for the Secret Magician needs no bodyguard. Your first task will be to discover the source of the magic of Xanth.”

“I—uh, thank you, Your Majesty,” Bink said gratefully. “I think I will like that job much better than being King.”

“Perhaps you know how grateful that makes me,” Trent said with a smile. “Now let’s go see the girls.”

The man with travel magic moved them both. Suddenly they stood at the front gate of Castle Roogna.

The drawbridge had been repaired and the brass and polished wood now shone. The moat was clean and full of water and monsters of the finest breeds. The teeth of the portcullis glittered. Bright flags fluttered from the highest towers.

Bink peered at something that he thought he saw around to the side. Was it a small graveyard? Something moved there, white as bone, with a trailing bandage. Oh, no!

Then the ground opened up. With a final cheery wave, the zombie sank into its resting place.

“Sleep in peace,” Trent murmured. “I have kept my promise.”

And if he had not, would the zombies have marched out of the wilderness to make sure he did? That was one mystery that Bink did not want to explore.

They entered the castle. All six ghosts greeted them in the front hall, everyone in full human shape. Millie quickly popped off to tell the Queen of the King’s arrival.

Iris and Chameleon approached together wearing castle tunics and slippers. The Sorceress was in her natural form, but she was so neatly dressed and groomed that she looked lovely, and Chameleon was almost back to her “center” stage.

The Queen did not pretend to have affection for Trent. But her pleasure with the position and her excitement about the castle were real.

“This place is wonderful!” she cried. “Chameleon has been showing me around. All the room and splendor I ever wanted—and it’s all real. And it wants so much to please. I know I’m going to love it here.”

“That’s good,” Trent said. “Now put on your pretty face; we have company.”

The middle-aged woman was replaced by a stunning young lady in a low-cut dress. “I just didn’t want to embarrass Chameleon—you know, her normal stage,” Iris said.

“You cannot embarrass her in any stage,” said Trent. “Now apologize to Bink.”

Iris made a curtsy to Bink. She was ready to do anything to stay Queen—and to stay human. Trent could make her into a warty toad, or he could make her into the way she now looked. He could probably make her young enough to bear a child. Trent was the master, and Iris seemed to lack even the desire to question this. “I’m sorry, Bink, I really am. I just got carried away there during the duel and after. I didn’t know you were going to bring the Elders to make Trent the King.”

Bink hadn’t known that either. “Forget it, Your Majesty,” he said uncomfortably. He looked at Chameleon, so close now to Dee, the girl he had liked from the outset. A fit of shyness overcame him.

“Go ahead, get it over with,” Trent muttered in his ear. “She’s smart enough now.”

Bink thought about how much of his adventure had centered around Chameleon’s search for a spell to make her normal when she really was quite satisfactory as she was. How many other people spent their lives searching for their own spells—something such as a silver tree or power or fame—when all they really needed was to be happy with what they already had? Sometimes what they had was better than what they thought they wanted. Chameleon had thought she wanted to be normal. Trent had thought he wanted conquest. And Bink had thought he wanted an easily shown talent. But Bink’s real task, in the end, had been to save Chameleon and Trent and himself as they were, and to make Xanth accept them that way.

Bink had not wanted to take advantage of Chameleon in her stupid stage. He wanted to be sure she understood that before he—before he—

Something tickled his nose. Oops! He sneezed.

Iris nudged Chameleon with her elbow.

“Yes, of course I’ll marry you, Bink,” Chameleon said.

Trent laughed. Then Bink was kissing Chameleon—his ordinary, wonderful girl. She had found her spell, all right; she had cast it over him. It was the same as Crombie’s curse. It was love.

And at last Bink understood the meaning of the omen. He was the hawk who had carried away Chameleon. She would never get free.

About the Author

I was born in Oxford, England, in AwGhost 1934. My parents both graduated from the University at Oxford, but I was slow from the outset. I spent time with relatives and a nanny while my parents went to do relief work in Spain during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–39. They were helping to feed the children rendered hungry by the devastation of the war. When that ended, my sister and I joined them in Spain. I left my native country at the age of four and never returned. The new government of General Franco in Spain, evidently error-prone and suspicious of foreigners doing good works, arrested my father in 1940. They refused to admit that they had done so, making him in effect a “disappeared” person, but he was able to smuggle out a note from prison. Then rather than admit error, they let him out on condition that he leave the country. World War II was then in progress, so instead of returning to England, we went to my father’s country. In this manner I came to America at age six, on what I believe was the last ship out. Though I was too young to understand what was going on, in time I learned, and I retain an abiding hostility to dictatorships.

My parents’ marriage grew strained and finally foundered. Suffering the consequences of separation from my first county and my second country as well as the stress of a family going wrong, I showed an assortment of complications, such as nervous tics of head and hands, bed-wetting, and an inability to learn. It required three years and five schools to get me through first grade. I later gained intellectual ground but lost physical ground. When I entered my ninth school in ninth grade, I was at the proper level but not the proper size, being the smallest person, male or female, in my class. However, boarding school, and later college, became a better home for me than what I had had, and I managed to grow almost another foot by the time I got my BA in writing at Goddard College, Vermont, in 1956. This was just as well, because I married a tall girl I met in college. I had to grow, literally, to meet the challenge.

When I was discharged from the army in 1959, my wife and I decided to move to Florida. We had family there, and the winters were warm. I had spent several years going to school in the cold winters in Vermont and I do not like the cold weather. I do like mountainous scenery, so we live in north-central Florida, where it is hilly rather than flat.

I had the hodgepodge of employments typical of writers. Of about fifteen types of work I tried, ranging from aide at a mental hospital to technical writer at an electronics company, only one truly appealed: the least successful. But the dream remained. Finally in 1962 my wife agreed to go to work for a year so that I could stay home and try to write fiction full time. The agreement was that if I did not manage to sell anything, I would give up the dream and focus on supporting my family. As it happened, I sold two stories, earning $160. But such success seemed inadequate to earn a living. So I became an English teacher, didn’t like that either, and in 1966 retired again to writing. This time I wrote novels instead of stories, and with them I was able to earn a living. As with the rest of my life, progress was slow, but a decade later I got into light fantasy with the first of my ongoing Xanth series of novels, A Spell for Chameleon, and that proved to be the gold ring. And I wrote two other fantasy series: the Adept novels and the Incarnations of Immortality. My sales and income soared, and I became one of the most successful writers of the genre, with twenty-one New York Times paperback best sellers in the space of a decade. This enabled us to send our two daughters to college, and it drove the wolf quite far from our door. We now live on a tree farm and would love to have a wolf by our door, but we do have deer and wildcats and other wildlife. I am an environmentalist.

But a writer does not live by frivolous fantasy alone. I turned back to serious writing with direct comment on sexual abuse in Firefly, and on history, in novels including Tatham Mound, which relates to the fate of the American Indians, and the Geodyssey series, covering man’s past from 3.5 million years ago to the present, and Volk (available via the Internet), which shows love and death in Civil War Spain and World War II Germany. So I close the circle, returning in my writing to the realm I left as a child. And I have a new, less frivolous fantasy series, ChroMagic, that begins with Key to Havoc. There has always been a serious side to my writing, even in my fantasy, and my readers respond to it. They tell me that I have taught many to read by showing them that reading could be fun, and that I have saved the lives of some by addressing concerns such as suicide. I take my readers as seriously as I take my writing; a number of them have become collaborators in a series of joint novels. My autobiography to age fifty, Bio of an Ogre, is now out of print; there is a sequel, How Precious Was That While. I have had more than 145 books published, with more in the pipeline, such as the online Trail Mix fantasy series.

In fact, I am a workaholic, and I love my profession. I have, of course, an ongoing battle with critics who see only the frivolous level. It is doubtful whether my work will ever in my lifetime receive much critical applause, but I believe in its validity for the longer haul. So do my readers.

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