A Spell for Chameleon (Xanth 1) (16 page)

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.

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.