A Spell for Chameleon

Now at last it was coming clear. Iris wanted power. All she needed was a suitable figurehead, to get herself installed. One sufficiently talentless and naive to be readily managed. So he would never get delusions of actually being King. If he cooperated with her, he would be dependent on her. But it was a fair offer. It provided a viable alternative to exile, regardless of the state of his own magic.

This was the first time he had seen his magic infirmity as a potential asset. Iris did not want an independent man or legitimate citizen; she would have no lasting hold on that kind of person. She needed a magic cripple like him-because without her he would be nothing, not even a citizen.

That diminished the romantic aspect considerably. Reality always did seem to be less enticing than illusion. Yet his alternative was to plunge back into the wilderness on a mission he suspected was futile. His luck was already considerably overextended; his chances of even making it as far as the castle of the Magician Humfrey were not ideal, since he now had to trek through the fringe of the central wilderness. He would be a fool not to accept the offer of the Sorceress.

Iris was watching him intently. As he looked back at her, her gown flickered, becoming transparent. Illusion or not, it was a breathtaking sight. And what difference did it make if the flesh only seemed real? He had no doubt now of what she was offering on the immediate, personal level. She would be glad to prove how good she could make it, as she had with the meal. Because she needed his willing cooperation.

Really, it made sense. He could have citizenship and Sabrina, since obviously the Sorceress Queen would never betray that aspect

Sabrina. How would she feel about the arrangement? He knew. She would not buy it. Not for anything, not for an instant. Sabrina was very straitlaced about certain things, very proper in the forms.

"No," he said aloud.

Iris's gown snapped opaque. "No?" Suddenly she sounded like Wynne, when he had told that idiot girl she could not accompany 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 fiance wouldn't like it if I-"

"She wouldn't like it!" Iris was working up a substantial head of steam, like the Gap dragon. "What does she offer you that I cannot better a hundredfold?"

"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 differ only in appearance 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 restrain him. Her gown disappeared entirely. "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 candor!" she exclaimed ruefully. "I could give you an experience like none you have imagined."

In her artful nudity, she already stimulated his imagination far more than was comfortable. But he steeled himself. "You could never give me back my integrity."

"You idiot" she screamed, with a startling shift of attitude. "I should have left you to the sea monsters."

"They were illusions too," he said. "You set up the whole thing, to make me beholden to you. The illusion beach, the illusion threat, all. That was your leather strap that wrapped around my ankle. My rescue was no coincidence, because I never was in danger."

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

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

She studied him appraisingly. "I underestimated your intelligence, 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 anew. "I'll destroy you!"

Bink walked away from her.

The crystal ceiling of the palace cracked. Fragments of glass broke off and dropped toward him. Bink ignored them, knowing they were unreal. He kept walking. He was quite nervous, but was determined not to show it.

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

The walls shattered and fell inward. The remaining, mass of the roof tumbled down. The noise was deafening. Bink was buried in rubble-and pushed on through it, feeling nothing. Despite the choking smell of dust and plaster, and the continued rumble of shifting debris, the palace was not really collapsing. 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 convert it to feel like something else. Thus there was no solidity to this collapse.

He banged face first into a wall. Jarred more than physically, he rubbed his cheek and squinted. It was a wooden panel, with flaking paint. The real wall, of the real house. The illusion had concealed it, but now reality was emerging. Doubtless she could have made it feel like gold or crystal or even like slimy slugs, but the illusion was breaking down. He could find his way out.

Bink felt his way along the wall, tuning out the terrifying sights and sounds of the collapse, hoping she did not change the feel of the wall so that he would be deceived by that and led astray. Suppose it became a row of mousetraps or thistles, forcing his hand away?

He found the door and pulled it invisibly open. He had made it! He turned and for a moment 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 sloppy hair net. She had the physical qualities she had shown him via her peek-a-boo outfit, but they were much less seductive at age forty than at the illusion of age twenty.

He stepped outside. Lightning flared and thunder cracked, making him jump. But he reminded himself that Iris was mistress of illusion, not weather, and 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 had no substance, and he was neither wet nor bruised after the initial sensation. Iris's magic was in its prime, but there were limits to illusion, and his own disbelief in what he saw tended to reduce the impact.

Suddenly there was the bellow of a dragon. Bink jumped again. A fire-belching winged beast was bearing down on him, not a mere steamer like the Gap dragon, but a genuine flamer. Seemingly genuine; was it real or illusion? Surely the latter-but he could not take the chance. He dived for cover.

The dragon swooped low, passing him. He felt the wash of air from its motion, the blast of heat. He still didn't know for sure, but he might be able to tell from its action; real fire-belchers were very stupid, as dragons went, because the heat shriveled their own brains. If this one reacted intelligently-

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

Bink's heart was thudding, but he forced himself to stand upright and still, facing the menace as it came. He lifted one finger in an obscene gesture at it. The dragon opened its jaws, blowing out a tremendous cloud of fire and smoke that enveloped Bink, singeing the hair of his body-and leaving him untouched.

He had gambled and won. He had been almost certain, but his body still trembled in reaction, for none of his senses had doubted the illusion. Only his brain had defended him, preventing him from being reduced to quivering acquiescence to the will of the Sorceress, or from being herded into some genuine hazard. Illusions could kill-if one heeded them.

Bink moved out again, with more confidence. If there were a real dragon in the vicinity, there would have been no need for an illusory one; therefore all dragons here were illusion.

He stumbled. Illusion could hurt him another way, though-by covering up dangerous breaks in the terrain, forcing him to misstep or fall or drop into a well. He would have to watch his step-literally.

As he concentrated on the region near his feet, he was able to penetrate the illusion with greater facility. Iris's talent was phenomenal, but in covering the entire island it was necessarily thinly spread. His will could oppose hers in a localized area while her attention was distracted. Behind the facade of the flower gardens was the weedy wilderness of the island. The palace was a rickety shack, first cousin to the farmhouses he had met along the way. Why build a good house when illusion could do it so much easier?

His borrowed clothing, too, had changed. Now he wore a crude feminine shawl and-he verified with dismay-panties. Lacy silk girl-style panties. His fancy handkerchief was exactly what it appeared to be. Apparently the Sorceress did indulge herself in some reality, and lace hankies were what she could afford. And panties.

He hesitated. Should he go back for his own clothing? He didn't want to encounter 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 his boon of information,

BINK: Sir, I have come across Xanth at great peril to ask-

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

Bink sighed, feeling his face redden again. He turned back.

Iris spotted him as soon as he reentered the shack. A flicker of hope lighted her face-and that briefly honest expression had more compulsion than all her illusion. Human values moved Bink. He felt like the supreme heel.

"You changed your mind?" she asked. Suddenly her voluptuous youth was back, and a section of the glittering palace formed around her.

That dashed it. She was a creature of artifice, and he preferred reality-even the reality of a shack among weeds. Most of the farmers of Xanth had nothing better, after all. When illusion became an essential 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 for interfering with her splendid aspirations.

He proceeded to the bathroom-which he now saw was an attached outhouse. The fabulous toilet was merely the usual board with a hole sawed in it, and flies buzzed merrily below it. The bathtub was a converted horse-watering trough. How had he taken a shower7 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 found that the facility was really 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; her approach had become much more direct and physical thereafter.

His eye 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 display himself so freely to her again, though it was obvious that he had no physical secrets remaining! 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 a lush eighteen.

"What do you want in a woman?" she asked him. "Voluptuousness?" She became extremely well endowed, with an exaggerated hourglass figure. "Youth?" Suddenly she looked fourteen, very slender, lineless and innocent. "Maturity?" She was herself again, but better dressed. "Competence?" Now she was conservatively dressed, about twenty-five, quite shapely but of a businesslike mien. "Violence?" The Amazon again, robust 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 alluring fourteen-year-old reappeared. "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 potent indeed-the strongest he had ever experienced. So it was illusion-yet in Xanth illusion abounded, and was quite legitimate; it was never possible to know precisely what was real. 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.

Furthermore, through her illusions, applied politically, she could in time create an identical reality. She could build an actual crystal palace with all the trappings; the powers of the Queenship would make this possible. In that light, it was reality she offered, with her magic simply a means to that end.

But what was actually in her scheming mind? The reality of her inner thoughts might not be sweet at all. He could never be sure he understood her completely, and therefore could never trust her completely. He was not at all sure she would make a good Queen; she was too interested in the trappings of power, instead of the welfare of the land of Xanth as a whole.

"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, perversely, tempted him again. He could not call her evil; she was merely a woman with a need, and she had offered a deal, and was mature enough to accede to necessity, once her temper cooled. But he forced himself to keep going, trusting his logic more than his meandering feeling,

He picked his way down to the sagging wharf, where the rowboat was tied. The craft looked insecure, but it had brought him here, so it could take him away.

He got into it-and stepped into a puddle. The boat leaked. He grabbed a rusty pail and bailed it out somewhat, then sat and took the oars.

Iris must have performed quite a maneuver, to row this boat while seeming to be an idle Queen. She had a lot of plain old-fashioned practical talent to supplement 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 cooperated? As he rowed, he considered the matter more carefully, looking back at the isle of illusion. His superficial reasons were sufficient for the moment, but not for an enduring decision. He must have some underlying rationale to which he was true, even though he gave himself some more-presentable justification. It could not just be his memory of Sabrina, evocative as that was, for Iris was as much of a woman as Sabrina, and much more magical. There had to be something else, diffuse but immense-ah, he had it! It was his love of Xanth.

He could not allow himself to become the instrument of his homeland's corruption. Though the present King was ineffective, and many problems were developing, still Bink was loyal to the established order. The days of anarchy, or of brute might making right, were over; there were set procedures for the transfer of authority, and these had to be honored. Bink would do anything to stay in Xanth-except to betray it.

The ocean was calm. The devastating 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, either when he thought he ran along it or after he was in the brine. A long narrow pier angled out from the side of the chasm; that was what he had run along at the beginning. Until he had simply run off the end, splashing abruptly into deep water. In more than one sense.

He beached his boat on the south shore. Now-how was he to return the boat to the Sorceress?

No way. If she didn't have another boat, she would simply have to swim for it. He regretted that, but he was not going back to that isle of illusion again. With her powers, she could probably scare away any sea creatures that threatened, and he was sure she was an adequate swimmer.

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

Chapter 5.

Spring

The landscape south of the chasm was rougher than that to the north. It was not hilly, but mountainous. The tallest peaks were enchanted with white snow. The narrow passes were choked with almost impenetrable growth, forcing Bink to detour again and again. Ordinary nettles and itch bushes would have been bad, but there was no telling what magic these strange plants had. A lone tangle tree was well worth avoiding, and there were whole groves of related species. He could not risk it.

So whenever an aspect of the jungle balked him, Bink turned back and tried again farther along. He avoided the most obvious paths also; they were suspect. Thus he tramped through intermediate vegetation-the borderline between jungle and field, often in the roughest terrain of all: barren, burning rock faces; steep rocky slopes; high windswept plateaus. What even magic plants disdained was hardly worth any person's trouble-except for the traveler who wanted to stay out of trouble. One cleared area turned out to be the landing strip for a very large flying dragon; no wonder there were no other predators in that region. Bink's progress was so slow that he knew it would take him many days to reach the Good Magician's castle.

He fashioned himself a burrow in the ground, with a pile of stones for a windshield and dead brush for a blanket, and slept uncomfortably. He wondered now why he hadn't at least accepted the Sorceress's offer to stay the night; it would surely have been much more comfortable than this.

No, he knew why he had to go. He might never have left the island after that night. Not as his own man. And if he had, Sabrina would never have forgiven him. The very fact that such a night tempted him in retrospect- and not merely for the comfort of sleep-meant that it was not a night he could have afforded.

He reminded himself of that several times before he shivered himself to sleep. Then he dreamed of a diamond-crystal palace, woke with mixed emotions, and had to shiver his way to sleep again. Turning down temptation certainly wasn't much pleasure when alone on the open trail. Tomorrow he would search diligently for a blanket tree and some hotsoup gourds.

On the third morning of his south-chasm leg, he trekked along a ridge, his only feasible route westward. He had cut himself a new staff, after several tries; the first saplings he went for magicked him off by using aversion spells of assorted types. He had no doubt there were many suitable trees he never saw at all, because of their passive "do not notice me" spells. One used a physical repulsion charm directed at cutting objects; every time he slashed at it, his knife veered away.

About an hour on the way with his new staff, he was still pondering the natural selectivity of magic. The plants with the most effective spells survived best, so became more common, but how many times did stray travelers come by here with knives? Then he realized that he might make good use of that repulsion spell. If he succeeded in cutting a staff from such a tree, would it repel all attacks against him? Obviously this magic was for defense against the depredations of dragons, beavers, and such, not actual knives, and he would certainly feel safer with an anti-dragon staff. No; cutting the tree would kill it, and its magic would abate. But maybe a seed from it-

No sense consuming time going back; he should be able to locate another such tree. All he had to do was attempt to cut a new staff and note which tree repulsed his knife. He might be able to dig up a small one and take it entire, keeping it alive and effective.

He moved down the side of the ridge, testing trees. This proved to be more hazardous than anticipated; the knife's approach toward their tender bark brought out the worst in them. One dropped hard fruit on him, barely missing his head; another exhaled sleep perfume that almost stopped his journey right there. But no cutting-aversion spells, now.

One large tree had a dryad, an inhabiting wood nymph, who looked very fetching, about like Iris at fourteen, but who cursed Bink roundly in most unladylike language. "If you want to carve defenseless things, go carve your own kind!" she screamed. "Go carve the wounded soldier in the ditch, you son of a-" Fortunately she balked at completing the rhyme. Dryads were not supposed to know such language.

Wounded soldier? Bink located the ditch and explored it carefully. Sure enough, there lay a man in military apparel, blood crusted on his back, groaning piteously.

"Peace," Bink said. "I will help you, if you permit." Xanth had once needed a real army, but now the soldiers were mostly messengers for the King. Still, their costumes and pride remained.

"Help me!" the man exclaimed weakly. "I will reward you-somehow."

Now Bink felt it safe to approach. The soldier was severely wounded and had lost much blood. He was burning with the fever of infection. "I can't do anything for you myself; I'm no doctor, and if I even move you, you may expire. I will return with medication," Bink said. "I must borrow your sword." If the soldier gave up his sword, he was really sick.

"Return soon-or not at all," the man gasped, raising the hilt.

Bink took the heavy weapon and climbed out of the ditch. He approached the tree of the dryad. "I need magic," he told her, "Blood restoration, wound healing, fever abatement-that sort of thing. Tell me where I can get them, quickly, or I will chop your tree down."

"You wouldn't!" she cried, horrified.

Bink hefted the sword menacingly. At this moment he reminded himself of Jama, the village sword conjurer; the image disgusted him.

"I'll tell! I'll tell!" she screamed.

"Okay. Tell." He was relieved; he doubted that he could actually have made himself chop down her tree. That would have killed her, and to no real purpose. Dryads were harmless creatures, pretty to look at; there was no point in molesting them or their cherished tree homes.

"Three miles to the west. The Spring of Life. Its water will cure anything."

Bink hesitated. "There is something you're not telling me," he said, hefting the sword again. "What's the catch?"

"I may not reveal it," she cried. "Anyone who tells-the curse-"

Bink made as if to chop at the trunk of the tree. The dryad screamed with such utter misery that he abated the effort. He had fought to protect Justin Tree back at home; he could not ravage this one. "All right. I'll risk the curse," he said. He set off westward.

He found a path leading his way. It was not an inviting one, merely an animal run, so he felt justified in using it with caution. It seemed others knew the route to the Spring. Yet as he approached, he became increasingly nervous. What was the catch, and what was the curse? He really ought to know before he either risked himself or gave the water to the ailing soldier.

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

He found the Spring. It was in a depression, under a giant spreading acorn tree. The tree's health augured well for the water; it could hardly be poisoned. But there could be some other menace associated with it. Suppose a river monster were hiding in it, using the water as a lure for the unwary? Injured or dying creatures would be easy prey. A false reputation for healing would attract them from many miles around.

Bink didn't have time to wait and watch. He had to help the soldier now or it would be too late. So this was a risk he simply had to take.

He moved cautiously to the Spring. It looked cool and clear. He dipped his canteen into it, keeping his other hand on the sword. But nothing happened; no grim tentacle rose from the depths to challenge him.

Viewing the filled canteen, he had another thought. Even if the water were not poisoned, it was not necessarily curative. What use to take it to the soldier, if it wouldn't do the job?

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

The water was chill and good. He drank more deeply, and found it supremely refreshing. It certainly wasn't poisoned.

He dipped the canteen again and watched the bubbles rise. They distorted the view of his left hand under the water, making it seem as if he had all his fingers. He did not think much about the digit he had lost in childhood, but such a view of a supposedly complete hand teased him unpleasantly.

He lifted out the canteen-and almost dropped it. His finger was whole! It really was! The childhood injury had been eliminated.

He flexed it and touched it, amazed. He pinched it and it hurt. No question: his finger was real.

The Spring really was magic. If it could heal a fifteen-year-old amputation so cleanly and painlessly and instantly, it could heal anything! How about a cold? Bink sniffed-and discovered that his nose was clear. It had cured his sniffles, too.

No question about it: he could recommend this Spring of Life. A true description for a potent magic. If this Spring were a person, it would be a full Magician.

Again Bink's natural caution came into play. He still did not know the nature of the catch-or of the curse. Why could no one tell the secret of this Spring? What was the secret? Obviously not the fact of its healing properties; 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. Now that Bink was whole and well, he would be much better able to defend himself. Scratch one theory.

But this did not mean there was no danger. It merely meant the threat was more subtle than he had thought. A subtle danger was the worst of all. The man who fled from the obvious menace of a flaming dragon could succumb to the hidden menace of the peace spell of the pines.

The soldier was dying. Moments were precious, yet Bink delayed. He had to ferret this out, lest he put both the soldier and himself in greater peril than before. It was said that a person should not look a gift unicorn in the mouth, lest it prove to be enchanted, but Bink always looked.

He kneeled before the Spring and stared deep into it. Looking it in the mouth, as it were. "O Spring of Life," he murmured. "I come on a mission of mercy, seeking no profit for myself, though I have indeed benefited. I conjure you to reveal your rationale, lest I inadvertently trespass." He had little confidence in this formal invocation, since he had no magic with which to enforce it, but it was all he could think of. He just couldn't accept such a wonderful gift without trying to ascertain the payment to be exacted. There was always a price.

Something swirled deep in the Spring. Bink felt the potent magic of it. It was as if he peered through a hole into another world. Oh, yes this Spring had its own consciousness and pride! The field of its animus rose up to encompass him, and his consciousness plunged through the depths, bringing comprehension. Who imbibes of me may not act against my interest, on pain of forfeiture of all that I bring him.

Uh-oh. This was a self-preservation spell, plain and simple. But enormously complicated in its execution. Who defined what was or was not contrary to the interests of the Spring? Who but the Spring itself? There would obviously be no lumbering in this region, for cutting trees could damage the environment and change the climate, affecting rainfall. No mining, for that could lower the water table and pollute the Spring. Even the prohibition against revealing the rationale made sense, for people with minor injuries and complaints might not use the magic water if they knew the price in advance. The loggers and miners certainly wouldn't. But any action had extending if diminishing consequences, 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 its interest was threatened indirectly by some action of the distant King of Xanth, such as levying a tax on lumber that caused the lumbermen to cut more wood in order to pay it. Would the Spring force all its users to oppose the King, perhaps assassinating him? A person who owed his life to the Spring might very well do it.

It was theoretically possible for this magic Spring to change the whole society of Xanth-even to become its de facto ruler. But the interests of one isolated Spring were not necessarily the interests of the human society. Probably the magic of the Spring could not extend to such extremes, for it would have to be as strong as the massed powers of all the other entities of Xanth. But slowly, given time, it would have its effect. Which made this an ethical question.

"I cannot accept your covenant," Bink said into the deep swirl. "I hold no animosity toward you, but I cannot pledge to act only in your interest. The interest of the whole of Xanth is paramount. Take back your benefits; I go my own way."

Now there was anger in the Spring. The unfathomable depths of it roiled. The field of magic rose up again, enveloping him. He would suffer the consequence of his temerity.

But it faded like a dissipating storm, leaving him…whole. His finger remained healed, and his cold was still cured. He had called the Spring's bluff and won.

Or had he? Maybe his benefits would not be revoked until he acted specifically against the interest of the Spring. Well, his benefits were minor; he could afford the penalty. He certainly would not be deterred from doing what he felt was right by fear of that consequence.

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, though he was hardly expert in its use. Chimeras were dangerous!

But in a moment he saw that the creature was in dire straits. The tongue was bonging out of its lion's head, its goat's head was unconscious, and the snake's head at the end of the tail was dragging on the ground. The creature was scraping along on its stomach toward the Spring, trailing blood.

Bink stood aside and let it pass. He held no malice even for a chimera in this state. He had never before seen a living creature suffering like this. Except the soldier.

The chimera reached the water and plunged its lion head in, drinking desperately.

The change was immediate. The goat's head snapped erect and awake, swiveling from its neck in the middle of the back to glare at Bink. The snake head hissed.

No doubt about it: the chimera was healthy again. But now it was dangerous, for this class of monster hated all things human. It took a step toward Bink, who held his sword tightly before him with both hands, knowing that flight would be futile. If he wounded it, he might escape before it dragged itself back to the Spring for a second restoration.

But abruptly the thing turned away, without attacking. Bink sighed with relief; he had put up a front, but the last thing he wanted to do was to engage in combat with such a monster, in the presence of an unfriendly Spring.

There must be a general truce in this vicinity, Bink realized. It was contrary to the interest of the Spring to have predators lurk here, so no hunting or fighting was permitted. Lucky for him!

He scrambled up the slope and headed east. He hoped the soldier had survived.

The soldier had. He was tough, as soldiers tended to be; he refused to 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."

They walked up the hill together. "I fetched water from a magic Spring," Bink explained. He paused at the dryad's tree. "This accommodating nymph very kindly directed me to it."

"Why, thank you, nymph," the soldier said. "Any favor I can do in return-"

"Just move on," she said tightly, eyeing the sword in Bink's hands.

They moved on. "You can't act contrary to the interest of that 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 the price was worth it, for you."

"I'll say! I was doing patrol duty, guarding a patch of the King's eyeball ferns, when somebody-hey, one drink of this elixir and the King's eyes would be perfect without those ferns, wouldn't they? I should take-" He broke off.

"I can show you where the Spring is," Bink offered. "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 ought to have this water."

This simple comment had a profound impact on Bink. Did it confirm his reasoning, that the Spring's influence extended widely and selfishly? Revived health of the King might not be in the interest of the Spring, so-

But, on the other hand, if the King were cured by Spring water, then the King himself would serve the Spring's interest. Why should the Spring object to that?

Also, why had Bink himself not suffered the loss of his finger and restoration of his cold when he told the secret to the soldier? He had defied the Spring, yet paid no penalty. Was the curse a mere bluff?

The soldier extended 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 just 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, pondering. He was rather handsome in that pose. "I can tell you the direction." He closed his eyes, put out his right hand, and slowly rotated. When his pointing finger stabilized, he opened his eyes. "Magician's that way. That's my talent-direction. I can tell you where anything is."

"I already know the direction," Bink said. "West. My main problem is getting through all this jungle. There's so much hostile magic-"

"You said it," Crombie agreed heartily. "Almost as much hostile magic as there is in civilized regions. The raiders must have magicked me here, figuring I'd never get out alive and my body would never be found. My shade couldn't avenge me in the deep jungle."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Bink said, thinking of the shade Donald in the chasm.

"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 insist. I can help a lot. I'll show you." He closed his eyes again, extended his hand, and rotated. When he stopped, he continued: "That's the direction of the greatest threat to your welfare. Want to verify it?"

"No," Bink said.

"Well, I do. Danger never went away by being ignored. You have to go out and conquer it. Give me back my sword."

Bink gave it back, and Crombie proceeded in the direction he had pointed: north.

Bink followed, disgruntled. He did not want to seek out danger, but he knew it was not right to let the soldier walk into it in his stead. Maybe it was something obvious, like the Gap dragon. But that was no immediate threat, so long as Bink stayed out of the chasm. He fully intended to stay out.

When Crombie found himself balked by thick brush, he simply slashed it away with his sword. Bink noticed that some of the vegetation gave way before the blade actually struck; if providing a path was the best route to survival, these plants took it. But suppose the soldier hacked into a tangle tree? That could be the danger he had pointed out.

No-a tangler was deadly to the unwary, but it did not move from the place it had rooted. Since Bink had been going west, not north, no stationary thing was much of a threat to him unless it was west.

There was a scream. Bink jumped, and Crombie held his sword at the ready. But it was only a woman, cringing and frightened.

"Speak, girl!" Crombie roared, flourishing his wicked blade. "What mischief do you intend?"

"Don't hurt me!" she cried. "I am only Dee, lost and alone. I thought you came to rescue me."

"You lie!" Crombie exclaimed. "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 your greatest threat."

"Maybe the threat is behind her, beyond," Bink said. "She was merely in the line of sight."

Crombie paused. "Could be. I never thought of that." He was evidently a reasonable man, under the violence. "Wait, I'll verify."

The soldier withdrew somewhat, stationing himself to the east of the girl. He shut his eyes and rotated. His pointing finger came to bear squarely on Dee.

The girl burst into tears. "I mean you no harm-I swear it. Don't hurt me!"

She was a plain girl, of strictly average face and figure, no beauty. This was in contrast to the several females Bink had encountered recently. Yet there was something vaguely familiar about her, and Bink was always unnerved by feminine distress. "Maybe it's not physical danger," he said. "Does your talent differentiate?''

"No, it doesn't," Crombie admitted, a bit defensively. "It can be any kind of threat, and she may not actually mean you harm-but sure as hell, there's something."

Bink studied the girl, whose sniffles were drying up. That familiarity-where had he seen her before? She was not from the North Village, and he really had not encountered many girls elsewhere. Somewhere on his current journey?

Slowly the notion dawned on him: a Sorceress of illusion did not have to make herself beautiful. If she wanted to keep track of him, she could adopt a completely different appearance, thinking he would never suspect. Yet the illusion would be easiest to maintain if it corresponded somewhat to her natural contours. Take off a few pounds here and there, modify the voice-could be. If he fell for the ruse, he could be in dire danger of being led into corruption. Only the soldier's special magic gave it away.

But how could he be sure? Even if Dee represented some critical threat to him, he had to be sure he had identified the right danger. A man who stepped around a venom mouse could be overlooking a harpy on the other side. Snap judgments about magic were suspect.

A brilliant notion came to him. "Dee, you must be thirsty," he said. "Have a drink of water." And he proffered 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 momentarily-in her true guise. 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 exchanged glances. Scratch one bright notion. Either Dee was not Iris, or the Sorceress had better control than he had supposed. He had no way of knowing.

"Now be on your way, girl," Crombie said curtly.

"I am going to see the Magician Humfrey," she said contritely. "I need a spell to make me well."

Again Bink and Crombie exchanged glances. Dee had drunk the magic water; she was well. Therefore she had no need to see the Good Magician on that score. She had to be lying. And if she were lying, what was she concealing from them?

She must have picked this particular destination because she knew Bink was going there. Yet this was still conjecture. It could be pure coincidence-or she could be an ogre in female form-a healthy ogre!-waiting for the expedient moment to strike.

Crombie, seeing Bink's indecision, made a decision of his own. "If you let her go with you, then I'm coming too. With my hand ever on my sword. Watching her-all the time."

"Maybe that's best," Bink agreed reluctantly.

"I bear you no malice," Dee protested. "I would do nothing to hurt you, even were I able. Why don't you believe me?"

Bink found it too complicated to explain. "You can travel with us if you want to," he said.

Dee smiled gratefully, but Crombie shook his head grimly and fingered the hilt of his sword.

Crombie remained suspicious, but Bink soon discovered he enjoyed Dee's company. She had no trace of the personality of the Sorceress. She was such an average girl that he identified with her to a considerable extent. She seemed to have no magic; at least, she evaded that subject. Perhaps she was going to the Magician in the 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 were the Sorceress Iris, her ruse would quickly be exposed by the divination of the Magician. So the truth wound be known.

They stopped at the Spring of Life to refill their canteen, traveled half a day, then got caught by a technicolor hailstorm. It was magic, of course, or magic-augmented. The colors gave it away. Which meant that there would not be any great melting or runoff. All they had to do was take shelter from it until it passed.

But they happened to be on a barren ridge: no trees for miles around, no caves, no houses. The land went up and down, cut away by erosion gullies, strewn with bounders-but there was nothing to shield them effectively from the storm.

Pelted by increasingly large hailstones, the three scurried in the direction Crombie's magic pointed: the route to safe shelter. It came into view behind a bounder: a monstrously spreading tentacular tree.

"That's a tangler!" Bink exclaimed in horror. "We can't go there."

Crombie was brought up short, peering through the hail. "So it is. My talent never pointed wrong before."

Except when it accused Dee, Bink thought. He wondered just how reliable the soldier's magic really was. For one thing, why hadn't it pointed out the soldier's danger to himself, before he got stabbed in the back and left to die? But Bink did not say that out loud. There were often complexities and confusion in magic, and he was sure Crombie meant well.

"There's a hephalumph there," Dee cried. "Half eaten."

Sure enough, the huge carcass lay near the trunk orifice of the tree. Its posterior was gone, but the front end was untouched. The tree had evidently caught it and consumed as much as it could-but a hephalumph was so big that even a tangle tree could not polish it off in one meal. Now the tree was sated, its tentacles dangling listlessly.

"So it's safe after all," Bink said, wincing as an egg-sized red hailstone just missed his head. The hail was puffy and light, but it still could hurt. "It will be hours before the tree revives enough to become aggressive. Maybe even days-and even then, it'll start on the lumph first."

Still Crombie balked, understandably. "Could be an illusion, that carcass," he warned. "Be suspicious of all things-that's the soldier's motto. A trap to make us think the tree's docile. How do you think it tempted the hephalumph in there?"

Telling point. Periodic hailstorms on the ridge to drive prey to cover, and seemingly ideal cover waiting-beautiful system. "But we'll be knocked silly by hail if we don't get to cover soon," Bink said.

"I'll go," Dee said. Before Bink could protest, she plunged into the territory of the tree.

The tentacles quivered, twitching toward her-but lacked the imperative to make a real effort. She dashed up and kicked the hephalumph in the trunk-and it was solid. "No mirage," 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 its clutches-"

The man was paranoid. Perhaps this was another useful quality for soldiers-though again, it didn't seem to have kept him out of trouble before. "I don't believe it," Bink said. "But I do believe this hailstorm! I'm going in." And he went.

He passed the outer fringe of tentacles nervously, but they remained quiescent. A hungry tangler was not a subtle plant; it normally grabbed the moment its prey was grabable.

Finally Crombie followed. The tree shuddered slightly, as if irritated by its inability to consume them, and that was all, "Well, I knew my talent told the truth. It always does," he said, somewhat weakly.

It was actually very nice here. The hailstones had grown to the size of clenched fists, but they bounced off the tree's upper foliage and piled up in a circle around it, caught by a slight depression. Predator trees tended to sit in such depressions, formed by the action of their tentacles while cleaning brush and rocks out of the way in order to have an attractive lawn for passing creatures. The refuse was tossed beyond in a great circle, so that in the course of years the land surface rose. The tangle was a highly successful type of tree, and some of them formed wells whose rims were fashioned from buried bones of past prey. They had been cleaned out near the North Village, but all children were instructed in this menace. Theoretically, a man pursued by a dragon could skirt a tangler, leading the dragon within range of the tentacles-if he had both courage and skill.

Within the shielded area there was a fine greensward rising in soft hillocks, rather like the torso of a woman. Sweet perfume odors wafted through, and the air was pleasantly warm. In short, this was a seemingly ideal place to seek shelter-and that was by design. It had certainly fooled the hephalumph. Obviously this was a good location, for the tangler had grown to enormous girth. But right now they were here rent-free.

"Well, my magic was right all the time," Crombie said. "I should have trusted it. But by the same token…" He glanced meaningfully at Dee.

Bink wondered about that. He believed in the soldier's sincerity, and the location magic was obviously functional. Had it malfunctioned in Dee's case, or was she really a bad if obscure threat? If so, what kind? He could not believe she meant him harm. He had suspected her of being Iris the Sorceress, but now he didn't believe that; she showed no sign of the temperament of the mistress of illusion, and personality was not something that magic could conceal for very long.

"Why didn't your magic warn you of the stab in the back?" Bink asked the soldier, making another attempt to ascertain what was reliable 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 merely performed on demand. Crombie had obviously had no reason to suspect danger, any more than Bink had reason to feel threatened now. Where was the distinction between natural caution and paranoia?

The storm continued. None of them were willing to sleep, because they did not trust the tree to that extent, so they sat and talked. Crombie told a tough story of ancient battle and heroism in the days of Xanth's Fourth Wave. Bink was no military man, but he found himself caught up in the gallantry of it, and almost wished he had lived in those adventurous times, when men of no magic were considered men.

By the end of that story, the storm had eased off, but the hail was piled so high that it didn't seem worthwhile to go out yet. Usually the meltoff from a magic storm was quite rapid once the sun came out again, so it was 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 suspiciously.

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, too," 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 some good magic talent no one ever suspected, and I'm willing to work for him for a year for that."

"Yes," she said, smiling appreciatively at him. Suddenly he felt himself liking her. She was ordinary-like him. She was motivated-like him. They had something in common.

"You're going for magic so your girl back home will marry you?" Crombie asked, sounding cynical.

"Yes," Bink agreed, remembering Sabrina with sudden poignancy. Dee turned away. "And so I can stay in Xanth."

"You're a fool, a civilian fool," the soldier said kindly.

"Well, it's the only chance I have," Bink replied. "Any gamble is worthwhile when the alternative-"

"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 vehemently. "They trap men into marriage, the way this tangle tree traps prey, and they torment them the rest of their lives."

"Now that's unfair," Dee said. "Didn't you have a mother?"

"She drove my worthy father to drink and loco," Crombie asserted. "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 observed.

Bink suppressed a smile, but Crombie scowled. "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 you never touched any."

"Oh, I touch them," Crombie said with a coarse laugh. "I just don't marry them. No 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, either."

"I wasn't!" she exclaimed angrily.

Crombie turned away in evident repugnance. "Ah, you're all the same. Why do I waste my time talking with the likes of you? Might as well argue ethics with the devil."

"Well, if you feel that way, I'll go!" Dee said. She jumped to her feet and stalked to the edge.

Bink thought she was bluffing, for the storm, though abating, was still in force with occasional flurries. Colored hailstones were mounded up two feet high, and the sun was not yet out.

But Dee plunged out into it.

"Hey, wait!" Bink cried. He ran after her.

Dee had disappeared, hidden by the storm. "Let her go, good riddance," Crombie said. "She had designs on you; I know how they work. I knew she was trouble from the start."

Bink put his arms up over his head and face against the hail and stepped out. His feet slid out from under, skidding on hailstones, and he fell headlong into the pile. Hailstones closed in over his head. Now he knew what had happened to Dee. She was buried somewhere out here.

He had to close his eyes, for powder from crushed stones was getting into them. This was not tree ice, but coalesced vapor, magic; the stones were dry and not really cold. But they were slippery.

Something caught his foot. Bink kicked violently, remembering the sea monster near the island of the Sorceress, forgetting that it had been an illusion and that there could hardly be a sea monster here. But its grip was tight; it dragged him into an enclosure.

He scrambled to his feet as it let go. He leaped on the troll shape he saw through the film of dust,

Bink found himself flying through the air. He landed hard on his back, the creature drawing on his arm. Trolls were tough! He squirmed around and tried to grab its legs-but the thing dropped on top of him and pinned him firmly 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, considering his position, and recognized the soldier.

Crombie let him up. "I knew you'd never find your way out of that mess, so I hauled you out by the one part I could reach, your foot. You had magic dust in your eyes, so you couldn't recognize me. Sorry I had to put you down."

Magic dust-of course. It distorted the vision, making men seem like trolls, ogres, or worse-and vice versa. It was an additional hazard of such storms, so that people could not see their way out of them. Probably many victims had seen the tangle tree as an innocent 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, signifying an idea. "I'll show you how to do it; it's a nonmagical talent you can use."

"Dee!" Bink cried. "She's still out there!"

Crombie grimaced. "Okay. I made her walk out; if it means so much to you, I'll help you find her."

So the man did have some decency, even with regard to women. "Do you really hate them all?" Bink asked as he girded himself to wrestle with the hail again. "Even the ones who don't read minds?"

"They all read minds," Crombie asserted. "Most of them do it without magic, is all. But I won't swear as there's no girl in the whole of Xanth for me. If I found a pretty one who wasn't mean or nagging or deceitful…" He shook his head. "But if any like that exist, they sure as hell wouldn't marry me."

So the soldier rejected all women because he felt they rejected him. Well, it was a good enough rationale.

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, dissipating rapidly now that their magic imperative was spent.

What caused such storms? Bink wondered. They had to be inanimate-but the course of this journey had convinced him that dead objects did indeed have magic, often very strong magic. Maybe it was in the very substance of Xanth, and it diffused slowly into the living and nonliving things that occupied the land. The living things controlled their shares of magic, channelizing it, focusing it, making it manifest at will. The inanimate things released it haphazardly, as in this storm. There had to be a lot of magic here, gathered from a large area. All wasted in a pointless mass of hailstones.

Yet not all pointless. Obviously the tangle tree benefited from such storms, and probably there were other ways in which they contributed to the local ecology. Maybe the hail culled out the weaker creatures, animals less fit to survive, facilitating wilderness evolution. And other inanimate magic was quite pointed, such as that of Lookout Rock and the Spring of Life-its magic distilled from water percolating through the entire region, intensifying its potency? Perhaps it was the magic itself that made these things conscious of their individuality. Every aspect of Xanth was affected by magic, and governed by it. Without magic, Xanth would be-the very notion filled him with horror-Xanth would be Mundane.

The sun broke through the clouds. Where the beams struck, the hailstones puffed into colored vapor. Their fabric of magic could not withstand the heat of direct sunlight. That made Bink wonder again: was the sun antipathetic to magic? If the magic emanated from the depths, the surface of the land was the mere fringe of it. If someone ever delved down deep, he might approach the actual source of power. Intriguing notion!

In fact, Bink wished that he could set aside his quest for his own personal magic and make that search for the ultimate nature of reality in Xanth. Surely, way down deep, there was the answer to all his questions.

But he could not. For one thing, he had to locate 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, rotated, and pointed down the south side of the ridge.

They trotted down-and found her tracks in the soft earth at the fringe of the jungle. They followed them and soon caught up.

"Dee!" Bink cried gladly. "We're sorry. Don't risk the jungle alone."

She marched on determinedly. "Leave me alone," Dee said. "I don't want to go with you."

"But Crombie didn't really mean-" Bink said.

"He meant. You don't trust me. So keep away from me. I'd rather make it on my own."

And that was that. She was adamant. Bink certainly wasn't going to force her. "Well, if you need help or anything, call-or something-"

She went on without answering.

"She couldn't have been very much of a threat," Bink said forlornly.

"She's a threat, all right," Crombie insisted. "But no threat's as much of a threat when it's somewhere else."

They ascended the ridge again and traveled on. In another day they came in sight of the Magician's castle, thanks to the soldier's unerring magic directional sense and ability to avoid the dangers of the wilderness. He had been a big help.

"Well, that's it," Crombie said. "I have seen you to this point safely, and I think that about squares us. I have business of my own elsewhere before I report to the King for reassignment. 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 a lot more before they'll really serve. Sorry I got the girl mad at you. Maybe my talent was wrong about her after all."

Bink didn't care to discuss that aspect, so he just shook hands and headed for the castle of the Good Magician.

Chapter 6.

Magician

The castle was impressive. It was not large, but it was tall and well designed. It had a deep moat, a stout outer wall, and a high inner tower girt with parapets and embrasures. It must have been built by magic, because it would have taken an army of skilled craftsmen a year to build it by hand.

Yet Humfrey was supposed to be a Magician of information, not of construction or illusion. How could he have magicked such an edifice?

No matter; the castle was here. Bink walked down to the moat. He heard a horrible kind of galloping splash, and around from behind the castle came a horse, running on the water. No, not a horse-a hippocampus, or seahorse, with the head and forefeet of a horse and the tail of a dolphin. Bink knew the dolphin only from old pictures; it was a kind of 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 pulverize him in water. How was he 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 obviously was the way to go. The Magician did not want his time wasted by anyone who wasn't serious. If he lacked the nerve to ride the seahorse, he didn't deserve to see Humfrey. It made perverse sense.

Did Bink really want the answer to his question? At the price of a year's service?

The picture of beautiful Sabrina came to his mind, so real, so evocative that all else became meaningless. He walked up to the hippocampus, waiting at the edge of the moat expectantly, and climbed onto its saddle.

The creature took off. It neighed as it sped around the moat, instead of across it. The steed was jubilant, using the water as a veritable racetrack, while Bink clung desperately to the saddle horn. The powerful front legs of the hippocampus terminated in flippers rather than hooves, scooping gouts of water back on either side, drenching him with the spray. The tail, curled in a muscular loop when the creature was stationary, uncoiled and threshed the water with such vigor that the saddle whipped back and forth, threatening to dislodge the rider momentarily.

"Neigh! Ne-ei-igh!" the monster sounded gleefully. It had him where it wanted him: right in the saddle, ripe for bucking off. The moment he hit the water, it would turn and devour him. What a fool he had been! Wait-so long as he remained in the saddle, it could not get at him All he had to do was hang on, and in time it would tire.

Easier thought than done. The hippocampus bucked and plunged, first lifting him above the moat, then immersing him in the frothing water. It curled its tail into a spiral and rolled, dunking him again and again. Bink was afraid it would stop with him on the bottom, forcing him to let go or drown. But the saddle was firmly fixed on its backside, and its horse's head projected the same direction Bink's head did, so it had to hold its breath when he held his. The monster was exercising, while Bink was merely hanging on; it was using more energy than he, and so it had to breathe sooner. Hence it could not drown him-once he had figured this out.

In fact, all he 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 inner gate and lay still while Bink dismounted. He had conquered the first hurdle.

"Thank you, Hip," he said, making a little bow to the seahorse. 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, and the sound was minimized: dink-dink-dink!

He drew his knife and rapped with the handle, since he had lost his new staff in the moat-with no better result. If a hollow partition made the most noise, this was indubitably solid. There was no way to force it.

Maybe the Magician was out? There should still be servants attending to the castle.

Bink was getting angry. He had made a long, hazardous journey to get here, and he was ready to pay the exorbitant price for one piddling bit of information-and the damned Good Magician lacked the courtesy even to answer the door.

Well, he would get in despite the Magician. Somehow. He would demand his audience.

He studied the door. It was a good ten feet tall and five feet wide; it seemed to have been made of hand-hewn eight-by-eight posts. The thing must weigh a ton-literally. It had no hinges, which meant it had to open by sliding to one side-no, the portals were solid stone. Lifted out of the way? There were no connecting ropes to haul it up, no pulleys that he could see. There might be hidden screws set into the wood, but that seemed a lot of trouble and somewhat risky. Screws sometimes let go at inopportune moments. Maybe the whole door dropped into the floor? But that, too, was stone. So it seemed the whole mass simply had to be removed every time someone wanted access.

Ridiculous! It had to be a phony, a dummy. There would be a more sensible aperture for routine use, either magical or physical. All he had to do was find it.

In the stone? No, that would be unmanageably heavy; if it were not, it would represent a weakened place where an enemy could force entry. No point in building a substantial castle with such a liability. 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. Yes. 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 his entry.

Bink wasted no time. He climbed through the hole.

Inside was a dimly illuminated hall. And another monster.

It was a manticora-a creature the size of a horse, with the head of a man, body of a lion, wings of a dragon, and tail of a scorpion. One of the most ferocious magical monsters known.

"Welcome to lunch, little morsel," the manticora said, arching its segmented 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 fashion but difficult to comprehend.

Bink whipped out his knife. "I am not your lunch," he said, with a good deal more conviction than he felt.

The manticora laughed, and now its tones were the sour notes of irony. "You are not anyone else's lunch, mortal. You have climbed nimbly into my trap."

He had indeed. But Bink was fed up with these pointless obstacles, and also suspected that they were not pointless, paradoxical as it might seem. If the Magician's monsters consumed all callers, Humfrey would never have any business, never obtain any fees. And by all accounts the Good Magician was a grasping man who existed principally to profit himself; he needed those exorbitant fees to increase his wealth. So probably this was another test, like those of the seahorse and the door; all Bink had to do was figure out the solution.

"I can walk back out of this cage any time I want to," Bink said boldly. He willed his knees not to knock together with his shivering. "It isn't made to hold people my size; it holds in monsters your size. You're the prisoner, molar-face."

"Molar-face!" the manticora repeated incredulously, showing about sixty molars in the process. "Why, you pipsqueak mortal, I'll sting you into a billion-year suffering sleep!"

Bink made for the square portal. The monster pounced, its tail stabbing forward over its head. It was horribly fast.

But Bink had only feinted; he was already ducking forward, directly at the lion's claws. It was the opposite direction from that which the monster had expected, and the thing could not reverse in midair. Its deadly tail stabbed into the wood of the door, and its head popped through the square hole. Its lion's shoulders wedged tightly against it, unable to fit through the hole, and its wings fluttered helplessly.

Bink could not resist. He straightened 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 on the creature's posterior, just under the lifted tail.

There was a fluted howl of rage and anguish from the door. Then Bink was away, running down the hall, hoping that there was a man-sized exit. Otherwise-

The door seemed to explode. There was a thump behind as the manticora fell free and rolled back to its feet. It was really angry now! If there were no way out-

There was. The challenge had been to get around the monster, not to kill it; no man could kill such a creature with a knife. Bink scrambled through the barred gate as the manticora charged down the hall too late, splinters of wood falling from it's tail.

Now Bink was in the castle proper. It was a fairly dark, dank place, with little evidence of human habitation. Where was the Good Magician?

Surely there would be some way to announce his presence, assuming that the ruckus with the manticora had not sufficed. Bink looked around and spied a dangling cord. He gave it one good yank and stepped back lest something drop on him. He did not quite trust this adorable castle.

A bell sounded. DONG-DONG, DONG-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 quest for a magical talent."

"And what recompense do you offer for the invaluable 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 gouges the public horrendously."

The elf considered. "The Magician is occupied at the moment; can you comeback tomorrow?"

"Come back tomorrow!" Bink exploded, thinking of what the hippocampus and manticora 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 interior of the castle lightened with elevation and became more ornate, more residential.

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 through the defenses of this castle. What makes you think your service is worth the old gouging buggers while?"

Bink started to make an angry exclamation-but cut himself off as he realized that this was the Good Magician Humfrey. He was sunk!

All he could do now was give a straight answer before he got kicked out. "I am strong and I can work. It is for you to decide whether that is worth your while."

"You are oink-headed and doubtless have a grotesque appetite. You'd no doubt cost me more in board than I'd ever get from you."

Bink shrugged, knowing it would be futile to debate such points. He could only antagonize the Magician further. He had really walked into the last trap: the trap of arrogance.

"Perhaps you could carry books and turn pages for me. Can you read?"

"Some," Bink said. He had been a reasonably apt pupil of the centaur instructor, but that had been years ago.

"You seem to be a fair hand at insult, too; maybe you could talk intruders out of intruding with their petty problems."

"Maybe," Bink agreed grimly. Obviously, he had really done it this time-and after coming so close to success.

"Well, come on; we don't have all day," Humfrey snapped, bouncing out of his chair. Bink saw now that he was not a tree elf, but a very small human being. An elf, of course, being a magical creature, could not be a Magician. That was part of what had put him off at first-though increasingly he wondered about the accuracy of that conjecture. Xanth continued to show him ramifications of magic he had not thought of before.

Apparently the Magician had accepted the case. Bink followed him to the next room. It was a laboratory, with magical devices cluttering the shelves and piled on the floor, except for one cleared area.

"Stand aside," Humfrey said brusquely, though Bink hardly had room to move. The Magician did not have an endearing personality. 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 tiny bottle from the shelf, shook it, and set it on the floor in the middle of a pentagram-a five-sided figure. Then he made a gesture with both hands and intoned something in an arcane tongue.

The lid of the bottle popped off. Smoke issued forth. It expanded into a sizable cloud, then coalesced into the shape of a demon. Not a particularly ferocious demon; this one's horns were vestigial, and his tail had a soft tuft instead of a cutting barb. Furthermore, he wore glasses, which must have been imported from Mundania, where such artifacts were commonly used to shore up the weak eyes of the denizens there. Or so the myths had it. Bink almost laughed. Imagine a near-sighted demon!

"0 Beauregard," Humfrey intoned. "I conjure thee by the authority vested in me by the Compact, tell us what magic talent this lad, Bink of the North Village of Xanth, possesses."

So that was the Magician's secret: he was a demon-summoner. The pentagram was for containing the demons released from their magic bottles; even a studious demon was a creature of hell.

Beauregard focused his lenscovered eyes on Bink "Step into my demesnes, that I may inspect you properly," he said.

"Nuh-uh!" Bink exclaimed.

"You're a tough nut," the demon said.

"I didn't ask you for his personality profile," Humfrey snapped. "What's his magic?"

The demon concentrated. "He has magic-strong magic-but-"

Strong magic! Bink's hopes soared.

"But I am unable to fathom it," Beauregard said. He grimaced at the Good Magician. "Sorry, fathead; I'll have to renege on this one."

"Then get ye gone, incompetent," Humfrey snarled, clapping his hands together with a remarkably sharp report. Evidently he was used to being insulted; it was part of his life style. Maybe Bink had lucked out again.

The demon dissolved into smoke and drained back into his bottle. Bink stared at the bottle, trying to determine what was visible within it. Was there a tiny figure, hunched over a miniature book, reading?

Now the Magician contemplated Bink. "So you have strong magic that cannot be fathomed. 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 evidence of it. I hoped-but I feared I had none."

"Is there anything you know of that could account for this opacity? A counterspell, perhaps?"

Evidently Humfrey was far from omnipotent. But now that Bink knew he was a demon-conjurer, that explained it. Nobody summoned a demon without good reason. The Magician charged heavily for his service 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 deceived by that. He's a pretty savvy demon, a real scholar of magic. 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 grimaced thoughtfully. "Standard formula," he said. "It doesn't bollix up informational or divinatory magic. I've got a keg of similar stuff in my cellar. Brewed it myself. Mine is free of the Spring's self-interest geis, of course. But keep this; it can be useful."

The Magician set up a pointer attached to a string, beside a wall chart with pictures of a smiling cherub and a frowning devil. "Let's play Twenty Questions."

He moved his hands, casting a spell, and Bink realized that his prior realization had been premature. Humfrey did do more than demon-summoning-but he still specialized in information. "Bink of the North Village," he intoned. "Have you oriented on him?"

The pointer swung around to indicate the cherub.

"Does he have magic?"

The cherub again.

"Strong magic?"

Cherub.

"Can you identify it?"

Cherub.

"Will you tell me its nature?"

The pointer moved to cover the devil.

"What is this?" Humfrey demanded irritably. "No, that's not a question, idiot! It's an exclamation. I can't figure why you spirits are balking." Angry he cast the release 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, muttered a vile-sounding incantation-and suddenly Bink felt strange. He had never experienced this odd type of magic before, with its gestures, words, and assorted apparatus; he was used to inherent talents that worked when they were willed to work. The Good Magician seemed to be something of a scientist-though Bink hardly understood that Mundane term, either.

"What is your identity?" Humfrey demanded.

"Bink of the North Village." It was the truth-but this time Bink said it because the spell compelled him to, 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 exiled from Xanth and can marry-"

"Enough. I don't care about the sordid details." The Magician shook his head. "So you were telling the truth all along. The mystery deepens, the plot thickens. Now-what is your talent?"

Bink opened his mouth, compelled to speak-and there was an animal roar.

Humfrey blinked. "Oh-the manticora is hungry. Spell abate; wait here while I feed him." He departed.

An inconvenient time for the manticora to get hungry! But Bink could hardly blame the Magician for hastening to the feeding chore. If the monster should break out of its cage-

Bink was left to his own devices. He walked around the room, stepping carefully to avoid 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. Bink jumped. Then he realized: this was a magic mirror; it had shown him the fairest one of all-the fairest toad.

"I mean, the fairest female human being," he clarified.

Now Sabrina looked out at him. Bink had been joking at first, but he should have realized that the mirror would take him seriously. Was Sabrina really the fairest girl of all? Probably not, objectively. The mirror showed her because, to Bink's prejudiced eye, she was the one. To some other man-

The picture changed. Now the girl Wynne looked out. Yes, she was pretty too, though too stupid to be worthwhile. Some men would like that very well, however. On the other hand-

Now the Sorceress Iris looked out, in her most beguiling illusion. "Well, it's about time you got around to me, Bink," she said. "I can still enable you to-"

"No!" Bink cried. And the mirror went blank.

He calmed himself, then faced the mirror again. "Can you answer informational questions too?" Of course it could; otherwise it wouldn't be here.

The mirror clouded and cleared. A picture of the cherub appeared, meaning yes.

"Why are we having so much trouble discovering my talent?"

The picture that formed this time was that of a foot, a paw-a monkey's paw.

Bink looked at it for some time, trying to figure out its meaning, but it eluded him. The mirror must have gotten confused and thrown in an irrelevant image. "What is my talent?" he asked at last. And the mirror cracked.

"What are you doing?" Humfrey demanded behind him.

Bink jumped guiltily. "I-seem to have broken your mirror," he said. "I was just-"

"You were just asking stupidly direct questions of an instrument designed for subtlety," Humfrey said angrily. "Did you actually think the mirror could reveal what the demon Beauregard balked at?"

"I'm sorry," Bink said lamely.

"You're a lot more trouble than you're worth. But you are also a challenge. Let's get on with it." The Magician made his gesture and incantation again, restoring the truth spell "What is your-"

There was a crash. The glass had fallen out of the cracked mirror. "I wasn't asking you!" Humfrey yelled at it. He returned to Bink. "What-"

There was a shudder. The castle shook "Earthquake!" the Magician exclaimed. "Everything happens at once."

He crossed the room and peered out an embrasure. "No, it's only the invisible giant passing by."

Humfrey returned once more to Bink. This time he squinted at him, hard. "It's not coincidence. Something is preventing you-or anything else-from giving that answer. Some very powerful, unidentified magic. Magician-caliber enchantment. I had thought there were only three persons of that rank alive today, but it seems there is a fourth."

"Three?"

"Humfrey, Iris, Trent. But none of these have magic of this type."

"Trent! The Evil Magician?"

"Perhaps you call him evil. I never found him so. We were friends, in our fashion. There is a kind of camaraderie at our level-"

"But he was exiled twenty years ago."

Humfrey looked slantwise at Bink. "You equate exile with death? He resides in Mundania. My information does not extend beyond the Shield, but I am sure he survives. He is an exceptional man. But without magic now."

"Oh." Bink had equated exile with death, emotionally. This was a good reminder; there was life beyond the Shield. He still did not want to go there, but at least it diminished the specter.

"Though it galls me exceedingly, I dare not push the question further. I am not properly protected against interference magic."

"But why would anyone try to prevent me from knowing my own talent?" Bink asked, bewildered.

"Oh, you know it. You just can't tell it-even to yourself. The knowledge is buried deep inside you. And there, it seems, it is going to remain. I simply am not prepared to take the risk involved for a mere one-year service; I'd almost certainly take a loss on that contract."

"But why would a Magician-I mean, I'm nobody! How could it benefit anybody else to stop me from-"

"It might not be a person at all, but a thing placing a geis on you. A geis of ignorance."

"But why?"

Humfrey grimaced. "Lad, you grow repetitive. Your talent could represent some threat to some powerful special interest. As a silver sword is a threat to a dragon, even though it may not be near that dragon. So that entity protects itself by blocking off your knowledge of your talent."

"But-"

"If we knew that, we'd know your talent," Humfrey snapped, answering the unformed question.

Still Bink persisted. "How can I demonstrate my talent, then, so I can stay in Xanth?"

"You do seem to have a problem," Humfrey remarked, as if it were of only academic importance. 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 complete it. I will send a note with you. Perhaps the King will allow you to remain after all. I believe the bylaws specify that each citizen shall be possessed of magic, not that he actually has to demonstrate it in public. On occasion the demonstration is suspended. I remember one young man who was able to change the color of his urine at will, for example. An affidavit was accepted in lieu of public display."

Failure seemed to have mellowed the Magician considerably. He served Bink a pleasant meal of brown bread and milk-from his private breadfruit orchard and deerfly stable, respectively-and chatted almost sociably. "So many people come here and waste their questions," he confided. "The trick is not necessarily 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 develop a really superior plant for greens and grain, so he could feed his family better, and bring in a little income for the comforts of life. I located 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 indistinguishable from the real thing." The Magician pulled out a drawer and brought out a special loaf. "See, this has no stem; it was baked, not budded." He broke off a chunk for Bink, who was glad to accept it. "Now that was the kind of question to ask. The answer benefited the whole country of Xanth as well as the individual. Too many desires are of the monkey's-paw variety, in contrast."

"The monkey's paw!" Bink exclaimed. "When I asked the magic mirror, it showed me-"

"It would. The image derives from a Mundane story. They thought it was fiction. But here in Xanth there is magic like that."

"But what…?"

"Do you want to invest a year's service after all?"

"Uh, no, not for that." Bink concentrated on chewing the new bread. It was tougher than true bread.

"Then have it free. It simply means a type of magic that brings you more grief than good, though it grants what you technically ask. Magic you are better off without."

Was Bink better off not knowing his talent? That was what the mirror had seemed to tell him. Yet how could exile, which would deprive him of it entirely, be better than knowledge? "Do many people come with questions, stupid or otherwise?"

"Not so many now that I built this castle and hid it. Only the really determined find their way here now. Like you."

"How did you build it?" So long as the Magician was talking

"The centaurs built it. I told them how to rid themselves of a local pest, and they served me for a year. They are very skilled craftscreatures, and did a fine job. Periodically I foul up the routes here, applying spells of misdirection, so as not to be pestered by casual querists; it's a good location."

"The monsters!" Bink exclaimed. "The hippocampus, the manticora-they're serving their year's service, discouraging idle questioners?"

"Of course. Do you think they'd stay here for the mere pleasure of it?"

Bink wondered. He remembered the unholy glee with which the seahorse had flung itself about. Still, it would naturally prefer the open sea to a mere moat.

He had finished the bread. It had been almost as good as real bread. "With your powers of information, you could-why, you could be King."

Humfrey laughed, and there was nothing whining or bitter about it. "Who in his right mind would want to be King? It's a tedious, strenuous job. I am not a disciplinarian, but a scholar. Most of my labor is in making my magic safe and specific, refining it for greater applicability. Much remains to be done, and I am getting old. I can't waste time with diversions. Let those who wish the crown take it."

Disconcerted, Bink cast about for someone who wanted to rule Xanth. "The Sorceress Iris-"

"The trouble with dealing in illusion," Humfrey said seriously, "is that one begins to be deluded 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 has powers you have not yet glimpsed. She requires a man she can respect-one who has stronger magic than she does. In all Xanth, only I have more magic than she-and I'm of another generation, really too old for her, even if I had any interest in marriage. And of course we would be a mismatch, for our talents are opposite. I deal in truth, she in illusion. I know too much, she imagines too much. So she conspires with lesser talents, convincing herself that it can somehow work out" He shook his head. "It is too bad, really. With the King fading, and no Heir Apparent, and this alternate requirement that the crown go only to a full Magician, it is entirely possible that the throne will be subject to her machinations. Not every young man has your integrity or loyalty to Xanth."

Bink felt a chill. Humfrey knew about Iris's offer, about their encounter. The Magician did not merely answer questions for a fee, he kept track of what was going on in Xanth. But he did not, it seemed, bother to interfere. He just watched. Maybe he investigated the background of specific seekers while the seahorse, wall, and manticora delayed them, so that by the time one won through, Humfrey was ready. Maybe he saved the information, in case someone came to ask "What is the greatest danger facing Xanth?", whereupon 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, and for the good of Xanth-"

"You pose a question almost as awkward as the one that brought you here," the Good Magician said ruefully. "I do have a certain modicum of patriotism, but I also have a policy against interfering with the natural scheme of things. There is some substance to the concept of the monkey's paw; magic does have its price. I suppose if there were absolutely no alternative I would accept the crown-but first I would search most diligently for some superior Magician to assume the chore. We have not had a top talent appear in a generation; one is overdue." He gazed speculatively at Bink, "There seems to be magic of that caliber associated with you-but we cannot harness it if we cannot define it. So I doubt you are the heir to the throne."

Bink exploded with incredulous, embarrassed laughter. "Me? You insult the throne."

"No, there are qualities in you that would honor the throne-if you only had identified, controllable magic. The Sorceress may have chosen better than she knew, or intended. But evidently there is countermagic that balks you-though I am not sure the source of that countermagic would make a good King either. It is a strange matter, most intriguing."

Bink was tempted by the notion of being a potent Magician, becoming King, and ruling Xanth. Oddly, it quickly turned him off. He knew, deep inside, that he lacked the qualities required, despite Humfrey's remarks. This was not merely a matter of magic, but of basic life style and ambition. He could never sentence a man to death or exile, however justified that sentence might be, or lead an army into battle, or spend all day deciding the altercations of citizens. The sheer responsibility would soon weigh him down. "You're right. No sensible person would want to be King. All I want is to marry Sabrina and settle down."

"You are a most sensible lad. Stay the night, and on the morrow I will show you a direct route home, with protections against the hazards on the way."

"Nickelpede repellent?" Bink asked hopefully, remembering the trenches Cherie the centaur had hurdled.

"Precisely. You will still have to keep your wits about you; no route is safe for a stupid man. But two days' travel on foot will suffice."

Bink stayed the night. He found he rather liked the castle and its denizens; even the manticora was affable now that the Magician had given the word. "I would not really have eaten you, though I admit to being 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 confined." It pushed against the bars, and the inner gate swung open. "My year is almost up, anyway; I'll almost be sorry to have it end."

"What question did you bring?" Bink inquired somewhat nervously, trying not to brace himself too obviously for flight. In an open space, he was no possible match for the manticora.

"I asked whether I have a soul," the monster said seriously.

Again Bink had to control his reaction. A year's service for a philosophical question? "What did he tell you?"

"That only those who possess 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. Possession of a soul means that I can never truly die. My body may slough away, but I shall be reborn, or if not, my shade will linger to settle unfinished accounts, or I shall reside forever in heaven or hell. My future is assured; I shall never suffer oblivion. There is no more vital question or answer. Yet that answer had to be in the proper form. A simple yes or no answer would not have satisfied me; it could be a blind guess, or merely the Magician's offhand opinion. A detailed technical treatise would merely have obfuscated the matter. Humfrey phrased it in such a way that its truth was self-evident. Now I need never doubt again."

Bink was moved. Considered that way, it did make sense. Humfrey had delivered good value. He was an honest Magician. He had shown the manticora-and Bink himself-something vital about the nature of life in Xanth. If the fierce conglomerate monsters had souls, with all that implied, who could condemn them as evil?

Chapter 7.

Exile

The path was broad and clear, with no impinging magic. Only one thing chilled Bink: a region with small wormlike holes in the trunks of trees and surrounding rocks. Holes that wiggled straight from one side to another. The wiggles had been here! But he calmed himself. The wiggles had not passed recently, of course; that menace had been abolished. But where they had infested, it was horrible, for the little flying worms had drilled magically through anything that got in their way, including animals and people. A tree could survive a few neat holes, but a person could bleed to death, assuming he did not die outright from the holing of some vital organ. The mere thought made Bink wince. He hoped the wiggles never spawned again in Xanth-but there was no certainty about that. There was no certainty about anything where magic was involved.

He walked faster, made nervous by the old wiggle scars. In half an hour Bink reached the chasm-and there, sure enough, was the impossible bridge the Good Magician had told him of. He verified its existence by tossing a handful of dirt and observing the pattern of its fall into the depths; it guided around one section. Had he known of this on the way over-but of course that was the thing about information, Without it, a person suffered enormous complications. Who would have thought there was an invisible bridge all the way across?

Yet his long detour had not been an entire loss. He had participated in the rape hearing, and helped the shade, and witnessed some fantastic illusions, and rescued Crombie the soldier, and generally learned a lot more about the land of Xanth. He wouldn't care to do it all over again, but the experience had made him grow.

He stepped out onto the bridge. There was one thing about it, the Magician had warned him: once he started across, he could not turn back, or it would dematerialize, dropping him into the chasm. It was a one-way ramp, existing only ahead of him. So he walked across boldly, though the gulf opened out awesomely beneath him. Only his hand on the invisible rail reassured him.

He did risk a look down. Here the base of the chasm was extremely narrow-a virtual crack rather than a valley. The Gap dragon could not run here. But there seemed to be no way to climb down the steep cliff-slope; if the fall did not kill a person, starvation and exposure would. Unless he managed to straddle the narrowest part of the crack and walk east or west to a better section-where the dragon could then catch him.

Bink made it across. All it took was knowledge and confidence. His feet safely on land, he looked back. There was no sign of the bridge, of course, and no obvious approach to it. He was not about to risk another crossing.

The nervous release left him 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 chasm, and there was no path. Oh-it led away from the bridge, not toward it. Routine one-way magic. He proceeded to the spring. He had water in his canteen, but it was Spring of Life water, which he avoided drinking, saving it for some future emergency.

A driblet of water emerged from the spring to flow along a winding channel and finally trickle down into the chasm. The channel was richly overgrown with strange plants, species that Bink had never observed before: a strawberry runner bearing beechnuts, and ferns with deciduous leaves. Odd, but no threat to his welfare. Bink looked around carefully for predator beasts that might lurk near a water hole, then lay down to put his mouth to the waiting pool.

As he lowered his head, he heard a fluting cry above him. "You'll be sooorry!" it seemed to say.

He glanced up into the trees. A birdlike thing perched there, possibly a variety of harpy. She had full woman-breasts and a coiled snake tail. Nothing to concern him, so long as she kept her distance.

He bent his head again-and heard a rustle, too close. He jumped up, drew his knife, moved a few paces, and through the trees sighted an incredible thing. Two creatures were locked in combat: a griffin and a unicorn. One was male, the other female, and they were-they were not fighting, they-

Bink retreated, profoundly embarrassed. They were two different species! How could they!

Disgusted, he returned to the spring. Now he noted the recent tracks of the creatures: both unicorn and griffin had come to drink here, probably within the hour. Maybe they had crossed the invisible bridge, as he had, and seen the spring, so conveniently located. So the water could hardly be poisoned-

Suddenly he caught on. This was a love spring. Anyone who drank of this water would become compellingly enamored of the first creature he encountered thereafter, and-

He glanced over at the griffin and unicorn. They were still at it, insatiably.

Bink backed away from the spring. If he had drunk from it-

He shuddered. He was no longer remotely thirsty. "Aw, go take a drink," the harpy fluted.

Bink swept up a rock and hurled it at her. She squawked and fluttered higher, laughing coarsely. 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 entirely free of problems. This spring must be one of the details Humfrey hadn't thought important enough for specific mention. Once Bink was back on the trail along which he had originally come, the hazards would be familiar, such as the peace pines-

How would he get through them? He needed an enemy to travel with, and he had none.

Then he had a bright idea. "Hey you-birdbrain!" he called up into the foliage. "Stay away from me, or I'll stuff your tail down your filthy throat!"

The harpy responded with a withering torrent of abuse. What a vocabulary she had! 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 privately. Now he had a suitable companion.

He hiked on, dodging the occasional droppings the harpy hurled at him, hoping her fury would carry her through the pines. After that-well, first things first.

Soon the path merged with the one he had taken south. Curious, he sighted along the main path both ways; it was visible north and south. He looked back the way he had just come-and there was only deep forest. He took a step back along where he knew he had passed-and found himself knee-deep in glow-briers. The weeds sparkled as they snagged on his legs, and only by maneuvering with extreme caution did he manage to extricate himself without getting scratched. The harpy laughed so hard she almost fell from her perch.

There was simply no path here, this direction. But the moment he faced about again, there it was, leading cleanly through the briers to join the main route. Ah, well-why did he even bother to question such things? Magic was magic; it had no rationale except its own. Everyone knew that. Everyone except 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 enchantment, and reviled him with double fury; the peace pines- "Have a nap, harpy!"; and the trench with the nickelpedes-"I'll fetch you something to eat, harpy!'-but actually he used the repellent the Good Magician had provided, and never even saw a nickelpede.

At last he stopped at a farmhouse in the centaur territory for the night. The harpy finally gave up her chase; she dared not come within range of a centaur bow. These were older centaurs, unaggressive, interested in the news of the day. They listened avidly to the narration of his experiences across the chasm and considered this to suffice for his room and board. Their grandchild colt was staying with them, a happy-go-lucky prancing tyke of barely twenty-five years-Bink's age, but equivalent to a quarter that in human terms. Bink played with him and did handstands for him; that was a trick no centaur could do, and the colt was fascinated.

Next day he traveled north again, and there was no sign of the harpy. What a relief; he would almost have preferred to risk the peace pines alone. His ears felt indelibly soiled after the day of her expletives. He passed through the remainder of the centaur area without encountering anyone. As evening approached, he reached the North Village.

"Hey! The Spell-less Wonder is back," Zink cried. A hole appeared at Bink's feet, causing him to stumble involuntarily. Zink would have made a wonderful companion for the pines. Bink ignored the other holes and proceeded toward his house. He was back, all right. Why had he bothered to hurry?

The examination was held next morning, in the outdoor amphitheater. The royal palms formed colonnades setting off the stage area. The benches were formed from the projecting convoluted knees of a giant dryland cypress tree. The back was braced by four huge honey-maple trees. Bink had always liked this formation-but now it was a place of discomfort. His place of trial.

The old King presided, since this was one of his royal offices. He wore his jewel-encrusted royal robe and his handsome gold crown and carried the ornate scepter, symbols of his power. All citizens bowed as the fanfare sounded. Bink could not help feeling a shiver of awe as the panoply of royalty manifested.

The King had an impressive white mane and a long beard, but his eyes tended to drift aimlessly. Periodically a servitor would nudge him to prevent him from falling asleep, and to remind him of the ritual.

At the start, the King performed his ceremonial magic by generating a storm. He held his palsied hands high and mumbled his invocation. At first there was silence; then, just as it seemed the magic had failed entirely, a ghostly gust of wind passed through the glade, stirring up a handful of leaves.

No one said anything, though it was evident that this manifestation could have been mere coincidence. It was certainly a far cry from a storm. But several of the ladies dutifully put up umbrellas, and the master of ceremonies quickly proceeded to the business at hand.

Bink's parents, Roland and Bianca, were in the front row, and so was Sabrina, fully as lovely as he had remembered her. Roland caught Bink's eye and nodded encouragingly, and Bianca's gaze was moist, but Sabrina's eyes were downcast. They were all afraid for him. With reason, he thought.

"What talent do you proffer to justify your citizenship?'' the master of ceremonies asked Bink. He was Munly, a friend of Roland's; Bink knew the man would do everything he could to help, but he was duty-bound to follow the forms.

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 trembling hand.

The man took it, glanced at it, and passed it to the King. The King squinted, but his eyes wore so watery that he evidently could not read it.

"As Your Majesty can see," Munly murmured discreetly, "it is a message from Magician Humfrey, bearing his magic seal." This was a picture of a flippered creature balancing a ball on its snout. "It states that this person possesses an undefined magical talent."

Something like fire lighted the old monarch's ashy eye momentarily. "This counts for naught," he mumbled. "Humfrey is not King; I am!" He let the paper drop to the ground.

"But-" Bink protested.

The master of ceremonies glanced at him warningly, and Bink knew it was hopeless. The King was foolishly jealous of the Magician Humfrey, whose power was still strong, and would not heed the message. But, for whatever reason, the King had spoken. Argument would only complicate things.

Then he had an idea. "I have brought the King a present," Bink said. "Water from a healing Spring."

Munly's eyes lighted. "You have magic water?" He was alert to the possibilities of a fully functional King.

"In my canteen," Bink said. "I saved it-see, it healed 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 mention the attached obligation.

Munly's talent was the conjuration of small objects. "With your permission-"

"Granted," Bink said quickly.

The canteen appeared in the man's hand. "This is it?"

"Yes." For the first time, Bink had real hope.

Munly approached the King again. "Bink has brought a gift for Your Majesty," he announced. "Magic water."

The King took the canteen. "Magic water/" he repeated, hardly seeming to comprehend.

"It heals all ills," Munly assured him.

The King looked at it. One swallow, and he would be able to read the Magician's message, to brew decent storms again-and to make sensible judgments. This could reverse the course of Bink's demonstration.

''You imply 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 precious fluid pour out on the ground.

It was as if Bink's life blood were spilling out, not mere water. He saw his last chance ruined, by the very senility he had thought to alleviate. On top of that, now he had no healing water for his own emergencies; he could not be cured again.

Was this the retribution of the Spring of Life for his defiance of it? To tempt him with incipient victory, then withdraw it at the critical moment? Regardless, he was lost.

Munly knew it too. He stooped to pick up the canteen, and it vanished from his hand, returned to Bink's house. "I am sorry," he murmured under his breath. Then, loudly: "Demonstrate your talent."

Bink tried. He concentrated, willing his magic, whatever it might be, to break its geis and manifest. Somehow. But nothing happened.

He heard a sob. Sabrina? No, it was his mother, Bianca. Roland sat with stony face, refusing by his code of honor to let personal interest interfere. Sabrina still would not look at him. But there were those who did: Zink, Jama, and Potipher were all smirking. Now they had reason to feel superior; none of them were spell-less wonders.

"I cannot," Bink whispered. It was over.

Again he hiked. This time he headed westward, toward the isthmus. He carried a new staff and a hatchet and his knife; and his canteen had been refilled with conventional water. Bianca had provided more excellent sandwiches, flavored by her tears. He had nothing from Sabrina; he had not seen her at all since the decision. Xanth law did not permit an exile to take more than he could conveniently carry, and no valuables, for fear of attracting unwanted attention from the Mundanes. Though the Shield protected Xanth, it was impossible to be too safe.

Bink's life was essentially over, for he had been exiled from all that he had known. He was in effect an orphan. Never again would he experience the marvels of magic. He would be forever bound, as it were, to the ground, the colorless society of Mundania.

Should he have accepted the offer of the Sorceress Iris? At least he could have remained in Xanth. Had he but known…He would not have changed his mind. What was right was right, and wrong was wrong.

The strangest thing was that he did not feel entirely despondent. He had lost citizenship, family, and fiance, and faced the great unknown of the Outside-yet there was a certain quixotic spring to his step. Was it a counter reaction buoying his spirit so that he would not 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-caliber. Humfrey had told him so, and he believed it. He merely was unable to utilize it. Like a man who could make a colored spot on the wall-when there was no wall handy. Why he should be magically mute he did not know-but it meant that he was right, the decision of the King wrong. Those who had not stood by him were better off apart from him.

No-not that either. His parents had refused to compromise the law of Xanth. They were good, honest people, and Bink shared their values. He had refused a similar compromise when tempted by the Sorceress. Roland and Bianca could not help him by accompanying him into an exile they did not deserve-or by trying to help him stay by cheating the system. They had done what they felt was right, at great personal sacrifice, and he was proud of them. He knew they loved him, but had let him go his own way without interference. 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 to principle. She would have cheated, had she had sufficient reason. Her surface integrity was because she had not been moved strongly by Bink's misfortune. Her love had not been deep enough. She had loved him for the magic talent she had been convinced he had, as the son of strongly talented parents. The loss of that potential talent had undercut that love. She had not really wanted him as a person.

And his love for her was now revealed as similarly shallow. Sure, she was beautiful-but she had less actual personality than, say, the girl Dee. Dee had walked off because she had been insulted, and stuck by her decision. Sabrina would do the same, but for a different reason. Dee had not been posturing; she had really been angry. With Sabrina it would have been more contrived, with more art and less emotion-because she had less emotion. She cared more about appearances than the reality.

Which reminded Bink of the Sorceress Iris again-the ultimate creature of appearances. What a temper she had! Bink respected temper; it was a window to the truth at times when little else offered. But Iris was too violent. That palace-destruction scene, complete with storm and dragon

Even stupid whatshername-the lovely girl of the rape hearing-Wynne, that was her name-she had feelings. He had, he hoped, enabled her to escape from the Gap dragon. There had not been much artifice in her. But Sabrina was the perfect actress, and so he had never really been sure of her love. She had been a picture in his mind, to be summoned in time of need, just to look at. He had not actually wanted to marry her.

It had taken exile to show him his own motives. Whatever it was that he wanted in a girl, ultimately, Sabrina lacked. She had beauty, which he liked, and personality-which was not the same as character-and attractive 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 averted. That said it all. Crombie the soldier had spoken truly: Bink would have been a fool to marry Sabrina.

Bink smiled. How would Crombie and Sabrina have gotten along together? The ultimately demanding and suspicious male, the ultimately artful and protean female. Would the soldier's inherent ferocity constitute a challenge to the girl's powers of accommodation? Would they, after all, have fashioned an enduring relationship? It almost seemed they might. They would either have an immediate and violent falling out or a similarly spectacular falling in. Too bad they couldn't meet, and that he could not be present to observe such a meeting.

The whole of his Xanth experience was passing glibly through his mind now that he was through with it. Nor 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 aimlessly roving eye spotted a tiny dark spot on a tree. He experienced a sudden shudder. Was it a wiggle wound? No, just a discoloration. He felt relief-and realized that he had been fooling himself, at least to this extent. If he no longer needed Xanth, he would not care about things like the wiggles. He did need Xanth. It was his youth. But-he could not have it.

Then he approached the station of the Shield man, and his uncertainty increased. 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 pale features. But he was part of the vital net of magic that formed the barrier to outside penetration of Xanth. No living creature could pass the Shield, either way-but since no inhabitant of Xanth wanted to depart, its net 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 exiled," Bink said. "You have to let me through the Shield." He would not, of course, attempt to cheat; he would leave as directed. Had he been inclined to try to avoid exile, it would not have worked; one villager's talent was spot location of individuals, and he was now tuned to Bink. He would know if Bink remained on this side of the Shield today.

The youth sighed. "Why do all the complications have to come in my shift? Do you know how difficult it is to open up a man-sized hole without bollixing the whole damn Shield?"

"I don't know anything about the Shield," Bink admitted. "But I was exiled by the King, so-"

"Oh, very well. Now look-I can't go with you to the Shield; I have to stay here at my station. But I can make an opening spell that will cancel out one section for five seconds. You be there, and you step through on schedule, because if it closes on you, you're dead."

Bink gulped. For all his thoughts about death and exile, now that it had come to the test, he did want to live. "I know."

"Right. The magic stone doesn't care who dies." Meaningfully the youth tapped the boulder he leaned against.

"You mean that dingy old stone is it?" Bink asked.

"Shieldstone. Sure. The Magician Ebnez located it nearly a century ago, and tuned it to form the Shield. Without it, we'd still be subject to invasion by the Mundanes."

Bink had heard of the Magician Ebnez, one of the great historical figures. 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 a section of window-frame. Whatever existed became whatever was needed-within certain limits. He could not adapt air into food, for example, or make a suit of clothing out of water. But it had been amazing what he could do. So he had adapted a potent deathstone into the Shieldstone, killing at a set distance instead of up close, and thereby he had fashioned the salvation of Xanth. What a proud achievement!

"Okay, now" the youth said. "Here's a timestone." He tapped it against the larger rock, and the small piece fractured into two segments, each fading from the original red to white. He handed one fragment to Bink. "When this goes red, you step across; they're synched. 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 fractured timestone took half an hour or so to heal-but it varied somewhat with the quality of the stone, the surrounding temperature, and assorted unknown factors. Maybe it was inherent in the original piece, because the two fragments always changed color together, precisely, even if one were in the sunshine and the other buried in a well But, again, what use to seek a rationale for magic? What was, was.

And would be no more-for him. None of this had meaning in Mundania.

He hove in sight of the Shield-or rather, its effect. The Shield itself was invisible, but there was a line of dead vegetation where it touched the ground, end the corpses of animals that had been so foolish as to try to cross that line, Sometimes jumpdeer got confused and sprang through to the safe ground on the other side-but they were already dead. The Shield was invisibly thin, but absolute.

Occasional Mundane creatures blundered into it. A detail walked the line each day on the Xanth side, checking for corpses, hauling them out of the Shield when they were partway across, giving them safe burial. It was possible to handle something that lay across the Shield, so long as the living person did not touch it himself. Nevertheless, it was a grisly chore, sometimes assigned as punishment. There were never any human Mundanes, but there was always the fear that there might one day be some, with all the complications that would entail.

Ahead was the spreading beechnut tree. One branch reached out toward the Shield-and the tip of that branch was dead. Wind must have made it sway across. It helped identify the spot where he should cross.

There was an odor associated with this line of death, too. Probably it was the decay of many tiny creatures: worms in the earth, bugs flying through the Shield, rotting where they fell. This was the region 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 launched himself at the Shield. He knew the sensible thing to do was return to the Shield tender and explain why he had balked-but he wanted this done with. Maybe it had been the actual change of the stone's color that had attracted 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, because he wasn't there yet. The Shield seemed close, but it took time to make the supposedly instant decision and abolish inertia 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-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 manticora, 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 ridiculed or mothered or tempted. Free to be himself.

Bink put his face in his hands and cried.

Chapter 8.

Trent

After a time he got up and walked on, into the dread world of the Mundanes. It really did not look much different: the trees were similar, the rocks unchanged, and the ocean shore he paralleled was exactly like an ocean shore. Yet an intense nostalgia gripped him. His prior euphoria had been but the swing of the pendulum, providing a false buoyancy. 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 other exiles had done?

He revolted against the notion. He had called his own bluff. He loved Xanth and missed it terribly already-but he did not want to die. He would simply have to make his way among the Mundanes. Others had surely done it before him. Maybe he would even be happy there.

The isthmus was mountainous. Bink sweated as he climbed the steep pass. Was this the counterpart to the chasm, a ridge that rose as high above the land as the chasm sank beneath it? Did a ridge dragon run along the heights? No, not in Mundania. But possibly such geography did have something to do with the magic. If the magic quality washed down from the height, concentrating in the depth-no, that didn't seem to make much sense. Most of it would have washed into the ocean and been hopelessly diluted.

For the first time he wondered what Mundania was really like. Was it actually possible to survive without magic? It would not be nearly as nice as Xanth, but the absence of spells should represent a formidable challenge, and there should be some decent places in it. The people should not be evil; after all, his ancestors had come from Mundane stock. Indications were that language and many customs were the same.

He heaved himself over the rise of the pass, braced for his first real glimpse of the new world-and suddenly he was surrounded by men. An ambush!

Bink whirled to run. Maybe he could trick them into plunging into the Shield, and be rid of them the easy way-not that he wanted to be responsible for their death. Anyhow, he had to try to escape them.

But as he turned, his body responding somewhat slower than his thoughts, he found a man behind him, blocking the way with drawn sword.

The sensible thing to do was to give up. They had him outnumbered and surrounded, and they could have put an arrow into his back if they had wanted to kill him outright. If all they wanted to do was rob him, he had almost nothing to lose.

But being sensible had never been Bink's strong point. Not when he was under pressure, or surprised. Reflecting after the fact, he was very sensible and intelligent, but that wasn't much use at this stage. 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 ail his crises to better advantage-

Bink charged 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 the dirt, and he took a mouthful. Still he fought, twisting about to get at the man who held him.

Then they were all on him, bearing him down. Bink had no chance; in moments he was tied and gagged.

A man thrust his tough face close to Bink's eyes as two others held him erect. "Now get this, Xanth- you try any magic, we'll knock you out and carry you."

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 and to a military camp on the mainland beyond the isthmus.

What was an army doing here? If it were an invasion of Xanth, it could not succeed; the Shield would kill a thousand men as readily as one.

They brought him to the main tent. Here, in a screened enclosure, sat a handsome man in his forties, wearing some sort of green Mundane uniform, a sword, a neat mustache, and an emblem of command. "Here is the spy, General," the sergeant said respectfully.

The General glanced at Bink, appraising him. There was dismaying intelligence in that cool study. This was no bandit thug. "Release him," he said quietly. "He is obviously harmless."

"Yes, sir," the sergeant said respectfully. He untied Bink and removed his gag.

"Dismissed," the General murmured, and without a word the soldiers were gone. They were certainly disciplined.

Bink chafed at his wrists, trying to rub the pain out, 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 escape.

Bink crouched, ready to jump at the man and knock him down. Suddenly the General's sword was in his hand, pointing at Bink. The man's draw had been a blur; the weapon had jumped to his hand as if by magic, but that obviously could not be the case here. "I would not advise it, 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 as his chest bore on that blade, the sword retreated, returning to its scabbard. The General, now on his feet, caught Bink by his elbows and stood him back upright. There was such precision and power in the action that Bink knew he had grossly underestimated this man; he had no chance to overcome him; with or without the sword.

"Be seated," the General said mildly.

Cowed, Bink moved awkwardly to the wooden chair and sat on it. Now he was conscious of his own dirty face and hands, the disorganization of his apparel, in contrast to the impeccable nearness of the General. "Your name?"

"Bink." He did not give his village, since he was no longer affiliated with it. What was the purpose of this question, anyway? He was a nonentity regardless of his name.

"I am the Magician Trent. Perhaps you know of me."

It took a moment for the import to register. Then Bink didn't believe it. "Trent? He's gone. He was-"

"Exiled. Twenty years ago. Precisely."

"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 harass the centaurs. The opponents who had been transformed to water forms and left to die on land. "You-he was a power-hungry spell-caster who tried to usurp the throne of Xanth when I was but a child. An evil man whose evil still lives after him."

Trent nodded. "This is a kinder repute than is normally accorded the loser in a political contest. I was about your present age when I was banished. Perhaps 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 render an enemy harmless by other means."

"A fish on land still dies!"

"Oh, so that is how they put it. That would indeed be murder. I did transform enemies to fish-but always in water. On land I utilized only land forms. Possibly some subsequently died, but that was the doing of predators in 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 eyebrow lifted expressively. "No magic? Everybody in Xanth has magic."

"Because they exile those who don't have it," Bink said, with a flash of bitterness.

Trent smiled, and it was a surprisingly winning expression. "Nevertheless, our interests may be parallel, Bink. How would you like to return with me to Xanth?"

For an instant wild hope flared in his breast. Return! But immediately he quashed it. "There is no return."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. To every act of magic there is a countermagic. It is merely a matter of invoking it. You see, I have developed a counter to the Shield."

Again Bink had to take stock of his reactions. "If you had that, you could have gone into Xanth already."

"Well, there is a certain small problem of application. You see, what I have is an elixir distilled from a plant that grows on the very fringe of the magical zone. The magic extends somewhat beyond the Shield, you understand-otherwise the Shield itself wouldn't work, for it is magic and cannot operate beyond the magic demesnes. This plant, which seems to be of basically Mundane stock, competes at the fringe with the magical plants of Xanth. It is very difficult to compete with magic, so it evolved a very special property: it suppresses magic. Do you appreciate the significance?"

"Suppresses magic? Maybe that's what happened to me"

Trent studied him with that disquieting calculation. "So you feel you were wronged by the present administration? We do have something in common."

Bink wanted no common ground with the Evil Magician, however winning the man's aspect might be. He knew that Evil could put on an extremely fair face; otherwise how would Evil ever have survived in the world so long? "What are you getting at?"

"The Shield is magic. Therefore the elixir should nullify 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 precisely where that stone is now, and there is not enough elixir to blanket the entire peninsula of Xanth, or even a significant fraction 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, with a sufficient range to 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 a container of elixir on the Shieldstone-if we only had the precise coordinates."

Now Bink understood. "The Shield would collapse!"

"And my army would overrun Xanth. Of course, the magic-damping effect would be temporary, for the elixir dissipates readily-but a mere ten minutes would suffice to get the bulk of my army across the line. I have been drilling the men in swift short-range maneuvers. After that it would be merely a matter of time until the throne was mine."

"You would return us to the days of conquest and ravage," Bink said, horrified. "The Thirteenth Wave, worse than all the rest."

"By no means. My army is disciplined. We shall exert precisely that force that is necessary, no more. My magic will probably eliminate most resistance anyway, so there need be very little violence. I do not wish to ruin the kingdom I am to rule."

"So you haven't changed," Bink said. "You're still hungry for illicit power."

"Oh, I have changed," Trent assured him. "I have become less naive, more educated and sophisticated. The Mundanes have excellent educational facilities and a broader world view, and they are ruthless politicians. I will not this time underestimate the determination of my opposition or leave myself foolishly vulnerable. I have no doubt I will make a better King than I would have twenty years ago."

"Well, count me out."

"But I must count you in, Bink. You know where the Shieldstone is located." The Evil Magician leaned forward persuasively. "It is important that the shot be precise; we have only a quarter pound of elixir, and that is the labor of two years' work. We have virtually denuded the fringe region of the source plants; our supply is irreplaceable. We dare not guess at the location of the Shieldstone. We require a precise map-a map that only you can draw."

So there it was. Trent had posted his men to ambush any travelers from Xanth, so that they could update him on the precise position of the Shieldstone. That was the only piece of information the Evil Magician needed to initiate his wave of conquest. Bink had merely happened to be the first exile to walk into the trap. "No, I won't tell you. I won't help overthrow the legitimate government of Xanth."

"Legitimacy is commonly defined after the fact," Trent remarked. "Had I been successful twenty years ago, I would now be the legitimate King, and the present monarch would be a reviled outcast noted for drowning people irresponsibly. I presume the Storm King still governs?"

"Yes," Bink said shortly. The Evil Magician might try to convince him that it all was merely palace politics, but he knew better.

"I am prepared to make you a very handsome offer, Bink. Virtually anything you might desire in Xanth. Wealth, authority, women-"

He had said the wrong thing. Bink turned away. He would not want Sabrina on that basis anyway, and he had already turned down what amounted to a similar offer by the Sorceress Iris.

Trent steepled his fingers. Even in that minor mannerism there was implied power and ruthlessness. The Magician's plans were too finely meshed to be balked by a willful exile. "You may wonder why I choose to return to Xanth, after two decades and evident success in Mundania. I have spent some time analyzing that myself."

"No," Bink said.

But the man only smiled, refusing to be ruffled, and again Bink had the uneasy feeling that he was being skillfully maneuvered, that he was about to play into the hands of the Magician no matter how he tried to fight it. "You should wonder, lest you allow your outlook to be unconscionably narrow-as mine was when I emerged from Xanth. Every young man should go abroad into the Mundane world for a period of a year or two at least; it would make him a better citizen of Xanth. Travel of any type tends to broaden one." Bink could not argue with that; he 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 continued, "when I assume power I shall institute such a policy. Xanth cannot prosper cut off from the real world; in isolation is only stagnation."

Bink could not restrain his morbid curiosity. The Magician had intelligence and experience that appealed insidiously to Bink's own intellect. "What is it like out there?"

"Do not speak with such distaste, young man. Mundania is not the evil place you may imagine. That is part of the reason the citizens of Xanth need more exposure to it; the ignorance of isolation breeds unwarranted hostility. Mundania is in many respects more advanced, more civilized than Xanth. Deprived of the benefits of magic, the Mundanes have had to compensate in ingenious ways. They have turned to philosophy, medicine, and science. They now have weapons called guns that can kill more readily than an arrow or even a deadly spell; I have trained my troops in other weapons, because I do not wish to introduce guns into Xanth. They have carriages that carry them across the land as fast as a unicorn can run, and boats that row across the sea as swiftly as a sea serpent can swim, and balloons that take them as high in the air as a dragon can fly. They have people called doctors who heal the sick and wounded without the use of a single spell, and a device consisting of little beads on columns that multiplies figures with marvelous speed and accuracy."

"Ludicrous!" Bink said. "Even magic can't do figures for a person, unless it is a golem, and then it has really become a person."

"This is what I mean, Bink. Magic is marvelous, but it is also limited. In the long run, the instruments of the Mundanes may have greater potential. Probably the basic life style of the Mundanes is more comfortable than that of many Xanths."

"There probably aren't as many of them," Bink muttered. "So they have no competition for good land."

"On the contrary. There are many millions of people there."

"You're never going to convince me of anything, telling such tall stories," Bink pointed out. "The North Village of Xanth has about five hundred people, counting all the children, and that's the largest one. There can't be more than two thousand people in the whole 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, carrying people, 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-don't even believe it exists. They don't believe in magic, so-"

"Don't believe in magic!" The humor had never been very funny, and it was getting worse.

"The Mundanes never did know very much about magic," Trent said seriously. "It appears a great deal in their literature, but never in their daily lives. The Shield has closed off the border, as it were, so no truly magic animal has been seen in Mundania in about a century. And it may be to our interest to keep them ignorant," he continued, frowning. "If they ever get the notion Xanth is a threat to them, they might use a giant catapult to lob in firebombs-" He broke off, shaking his head as though at some horrible thought. Bink had to admire the perfection of the mannerism, which was as apt as any his father, Roland, employed. He could almost believe there was some fantastic threat lurking. "No," the Magician concluded, "the location of Xanth must remain secret-for now."

"It won't remain secret if you send all Xanth youths out into Mundania for two years."

"Oh, we would put an amnesia spell on them first, and revoke it only after they returned. Or at least a geis of silence, so no Mundane could learn from them about Xanth. Thus they would acquire Mundane experience to augment their Xanth magic. Some trusted ones would be permitted to retain their memories and freedom of speech Outside, so they could act as liaisons, recruiting qualified colonists and keeping us informed. For our own safety and progress. But overall-"

"The Fourth Wave again," Bink said. "Controlled colonization."

Trent smiled. "You are an apt pupil. Many citizens choose not to comprehend the true nature of the original colonizations of Xanth. Actually, Xanth never was very easy to locate from Mundania, because it seems to have no fixed geographic location. Historically, people have colonized Xanth from all over the world, always walking across the land bridge directly from their own countries-and all would have sworn that they migrated only a few miles. Furthermore, all comprehended one another's speech in Xanth, though their original languages were entirely different. So it would appear that there is something magical about the approach to Xanth. Had I not kept meticulous notes of my route, I would never have found my way back this far. The Mundane legends of the animals that departed from Xanth in bygone centuries show that they appeared all over the world, rather than at any specific site. So it seems to work in reverse, too." He shook his head as if it were a great mystery-and Bink was hard put to it not to become hopelessly intrigued by the concept. How could Xanth be everywhere at once? Did its magic extend, after all, beyond the peninsula, in some peculiar fashion? 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 from temptation by focusing on the Magician's contradictions.

"I don't like Mundania," Trent said, frowning. "I merely point out that it is not evil, and that it has considerable potential and must be reckoned with. If we do not keep aware of it, it may become aware of us-and that could destroy us. Right along with itself. Xanth represents a haven, like none other known to man. A provincial, backward haven, to be sure-but there is no other place quite like it. And I-I am a Magician. I belong in my land, with my people, protecting them from the horrors arising, which you are not equipped even to imagine…" He lapsed into silence.

"Well, no Mundane tales are going to make me tell you how to get into Xanth," Bink said firmly.

The Magician's eyes focused on Bink as if only now was he becoming aware of his presence. "I would prefer not to have to employ coercion," Trent said softly. "You know my talent."

Bink felt a shiver of extremely ugly apprehension. Trent was the transformer-the one who changed men into trees-or worse. The most potent Magician of the past generation-too dangerous to be allowed to remain in Xanth.

Then he felt relief. "You're bluffing," he said. "Your magic can't work outside Xanth-and I'm not going to let you into Xanth."

"It is not very much of a bluff," Trent said evenly. "The magic, as I mentioned, extends slightly 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 notion of losing his lifelong body without actually dying had an insidious horror. It 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 voluntarily. I offer you the chance to get your own back."

"Not that way."

Trent sighed, with seemingly genuine regret. "You are loyal to your principles, and I cannot fault 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 combat than to become a toad.

A soldier entered, reminding Bink faintly of Crombie-mainly a matter of bearing, not appearance-and stood at attention. "What is it, Hastings?" Trent inquired mildly.

"Sir, there is another person through the Shield."

Trent hardly showed his elation. "Really? It seems we have another source of information."

Bink felt a new emotion-but hardly a comfortable one. If there were another exile from Xanth, the Magician could get his information without Bink's help. Would he let Bink go or turn him into a toad anyway, as an object lesson? Remembering Trent's reputation of past times, Bink had little confidence that he would be freed. Anyone who balked the Evil Magician, in whatever trifling manner, was in for it.

Unless Bink gave him the information now, redeeming himself. Should he? Since it could make no difference to the future of Xanth

He saw Trent pausing, looking at him expectantly. Suddenly Bink caught on. This was a setup, a fake announcement, to make him talk. And he had almost fallen for it.

"Well, you won't he needing me, then," Bink said. One thing about being turned into a toad-he couldn't tell the Magician anything at all in that form. He imagined a potential dialogue between man and toad:

MAGICIAN: Where is the Shieldstone?

TOAD: Croak!

Bink almost smiled. Trent would transform him only as a last resort.

Now Trent returned to the messenger. "Bring the other one here; I will question him immediately,"

"Sir-it is a woman."

A woman! Trent seemed mildly surprised, but Bink was amazed. This was not what he expected in a bluff. There was certainly no woman being exiled-and no 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 exile 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 complex ruse on the part of the Magician.

"Very well," Trent said. "Bring her in."

It couldn't be a bluff, then. Not if they actually brought her in. And if it were Sabrina-it couldn't be, he was quite absolutely positively certain of that-or was he projecting, attributing his own attitudes to her? How could he really know what was in her heart? If she had followed him, he couldn't let her be changed into a toad. Yet with all of Xanth at stake-

Bink threw up his hands, mentally. He would just have to play it as it came. If they had Sabrina, he was lost; if it were an ingenious bluff, he had won. Except that he would he a toad.

Perhaps being a toad would not he 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 ambush detail arrived, half carrying a struggling woman. Bink saw with relief that it was not Sabrina, but a marvelously ugly female he had never seen before. Her hair was wild, her teeth gnarled, her body sexually shapeless.

"Stand," Trent said mildly, and she stood, responsive to his easy air of command. "Your name?"

"Fanchon," she said rebelliously. "Yours?"

"The Magician Trent."

"Never heard of you."

Bink, caught by surprise, had to cough to conceal his snort of laughter. But Trent was unperturbed. "This puts us on an even footing, Fanchon. I regret the inconvenience my men have caused you. If you will kindly inform me of 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 bulbous nose. "What do I care about Xanth?" She squinted at Trent. "I could tell you-but how do I know I can trust you? You might kill me as soon as you had your information."

Trent tapped his long, aristocratic fingers together. "This is a legitimate concern. You have no way of knowing whether my given word is good. Yet it should be obvious that I should bear no malice to those who assist me in the pursuit of my objectives."

"All right," she said. "Makes sense. The Shieldstone is at-"

"Traitor!" Bink screamed.

"Remove him," Trent snapped.

Soldiers entered and grabbed him and hustled him out. He had accomplished nothing except to make it harder for himself.

But then he thought of another aspect. What were the chances of another exile coming from Xanth within an hour after him? There couldn't be more than one or two exiles a year; it was big news when anyone left Xanth. He had heard nothing about it, and no second trial had been scheduled.

So-Fanchon was not an exile. She was probably not from Xanth at all. She was an agent, planted by Trent, just as Bink had first suspected. Her purpose was to convince Bink that she was telling Trent the location of the Shieldstone, tricking him into confirming it.

Well, he had figured out the scheme-and so he had won. Do what he might, Trent would not get into Xanth.

Yet there was a nagging uncertainty

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 barren and bleak indeed. The walls were of some stonelike substance, too hard to dig into with his bare hands, too sheer to climb; the floor was packed earth.

He walked around it. The wall was solid all around, and too high for him to surmount. He could almost touch the top when he jumped and reached up-but a lattice of metal bars across the top sealed him in. He might, with special effort, get high enough to catch hold of one of those bars-but then all he would be able to do would be to hang there. It might represent exercise, but it wouldn't get him out. So the cage was tight.

He had hardly come to this conclusion before soldiers came to stand at the grate, shaking rust onto him. They stood in the shade of the roof while one of them squatted down to unlock the little door set in that grate and swing it up and open. Then they dropped a person through. It was the woman Fanchon.

Bink jumped across, 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.

"Now, I know my beauty didn't overwhelm you," she remarked as they disentangled.

"I was afraid you'd break a leg," Bink said defensively. "I almost did, when they threw me in here."

She glanced down at her knobby knees, showing beneath her dull skirt. "A break couldn't hurt the appearance of either leg."

Not far off the mark. Bink had never seen a more homely girl than this one.

But what was she doing here? Why should the Evil Magician throw his stooge in the den with his prisoner? This was no way to trick the captive into talking. The proper procedure would be to tell Bink she had talked, and offer him his freedom for confirming the information. Even if she were genuine, she still should not have been confined with him; she could have been imprisoned separately. Then the guards would tell each one that the other had talked.

Now, if she had been beautiful, they might have thought she could vamp him into telling. But as she was, not a chance. It just didn't seem to make sense.

"Why didn't you tell him about the Shieldstone?" Bink inquired, not certain with what irony he intended it. If she were a fake, she could not have told-but she also should not have been dumped in here. If she were genuine, 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 had told him? Now Bink hoped she was phony.

"Yes," she said, looking him straight in the eye. "I told him how it was set under the throne in the King's palace in the North Village."

Bink tried to assess the ramifications of this statement. It was the wrong location-but did she know this? Or was she trying to trick him into a reaction, a revelation of its real location-while the guards listened? Or was she a true exile, who knew the location and had lied about it? That would account for Trent's reaction. Because if Trent's catapult lobbed an elixir bomb on the palace of Xanth, not only would it fail to disrupt the Shield, it would alert the King-or at least the more alert ministers, who were not fools-to the nature of the threat. The damping out of magic in that vicinity would quickly give it away.

Had Trent actually lobbed his bomb-and had he now lost all hope of penetrating Xanth? The moment the threat was known, they would move the Shieldstone to a new, secret location, so that no information from exiles would be valid. No-if that had happened, Trent would have turned Fanchon into a toad and stepped on her-and he would not have bothered to keep Bink prisoner. Bink might have been killed or released, but not simply kept. So nothing that drastic had happened. Anyway, there had not been time for all that.

"I see you don't trust me," Fanchon said.

A fair analysis. "I can't afford to," he admitted. "I don't want anything to happen to Xanth."

"Why should you care, since you got kicked out?"

"I knew the rule; I was given a fair hearing."

"Fair hearing!" she exclaimed indignantly. "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 authenticated your magic, but the King-"

"Okay, okay," Bink said. Obviously 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-and hadn't told it. Unless she had told it-and Trent didn't believe her, so was waiting for corroboration from Bink? But she had announced the wrong location; no purpose in that, regardless. Bink could challenge her on it, but that would still not give away the right location; there were a thousand potential spots. So probably she meant what she said: she had tried to fool Trent, and had not succeeded.

So the balance in Bink's mind shifted; now he believed she was from Xanth and she had not betrayed it. That was what the available evidence suggested. How complex could Trent's machinations become? Maybe he had a Mundane machine that could somehow pick up news from inside the Shield. Or-more likely!-he had a magic mirror set up in the magic zone just outside the Shield, so he could learn interior news. No-in that case he could have ascertained the location of the Shieldstone directly. Bink felt dizzy. He didn't know what to think-but he certainly wasn't going to mention the key location.

"I wasn't exiled, if that's what you're thinking," Fanchon said. "They don't yet ban people for being ugly. I emigrated voluntarily."

"Voluntarily? Why?"

"Well, I had two reasons."

"What two reasons?"

She looked at him. "I'm afraid you would not believe either one."

"Try me and see."

"First, the Magician Humfrey told me it was the simplest solution to my problem."

"What problem?" Bink was hardly in a good mood.

She gave him another straight look that mounted to a stare. "Must I spell it out?"

Bink found himself reddening. Obviously her problem was her appearance. Fanchon was a young woman, but she was not plain, not homely, but ugly-the living proof that youth and health were not necessarily beauty. No clothing, no makeup could help her nearly enough; only magic could do it. Which seemed to make her departure from Xanth nonsensical. Was her judgment as warped as her body?

Faced with the social necessity of changing the subject, he fixed on another objection, an aspect of his thought: "But there's no magic in Mundania."

"Precisely."

Again his logic stumbled. Fanchon was as difficult to talk with as to look at. "You mean-magic makes you-what you are?" What a marvel of tact he demonstrated!

But she did not chide 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?"

"That I shall not tell you 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. Typically female logic.

"Well, we seem to be prisoners together," Bink said, glancing around the pit again. It remained as dismal as ever. "Do you think they're going to feed us?"

"Certainly," 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 increasingly difficult to turn him down as time passes."

"You have a gruesomely quick comprehension."

"I am gruesomely 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 get out of here?"

"No, I don't think escape is possible," she said, shaking her head in a definite yes.

"Oh," Bink said, taken aback. Her words said no, her gesture said yes. Was she crazy? No-she knew the guards were listening, though they were out of sight. So she sent them one message while sending Bink another. Which meant she had figured out an escape already.

It was now afternoon. A shaft of sunlight spilled through the grate, finding its route past the edge of the roof. Just as well, Bink thought; it would get unbearably dank in here if the sun never reached the bottom.

Trent came to the grate. "I trust you two have made your acquaintance?" he said pleasantly. "Are you hungry?''

"Now it comes," Fanchon muttered.

"I apologize for the inconvenience of your quarters," Trent said, squatting down with perfect aplomb. It was as if he were meeting them in a clean office. "If you both will give me your word not to depart these premises or interfere with our activities in any way, I shall arrange a comfortable tent for you."

"Therein lies subversion," Fanchon said to Bink. "Once you start accepting favors, you become obligated. Don't do it."

She was making extraordinary sense. "No deal," Bink said.

"You see," Trent continued 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 would imperil my source of information. So it is vital that I have you confined by one means or another. By word or bond, as it were. This pit has the sole virtue 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.