A Spell for Chameleon (Xanth 1) (7 page)

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

"So it was. Of course, there were other Waves, but none so critical. The effective dominance of human beings in Xanth dates from that Fourth Wave. Other invasions killed many and drove more into the backwoods, but the continuity was never broken. Just about every truly intelligent or magical person traces his ancestry to the Fourth Wave; I'm sure you do too."

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

"The institution of the Magic Shield finally stopped the Waves. It kept all Mundane creatures out and all Xanth creatures in. It was hailed as the salvation of Xanth, the guarantor of utopia. But somehow things didn't improve much. It is as if the people exchanged one problem for another--a visible threat for an invisible one. In the past century Xanth has been entirely free from invasion--but other threats have developed."

"Like the fireflies and the wiggles and Bad Magician Trent," Bink agreed. "Magical hazards."

"
Trent was not a bad Magician," Cherie corrected him. "He was an Evil Magician. There's a distinction--a crucial one."

"Urn, yes. He was a good Evil Magician. Lucky they got rid of him before he took over Xanth."

"Certainly. But suppose another Evil Magician appears? Or the wiggles manifest again? Who will save Xanth this time?"

"I don't know," Bink admitted.

"Sometimes I wonder whether the Shield was really a good idea. It has the net effect of intensifying the magic in Xanth, preventing dilution from outside. As if that magic were building up toward an explosion point. Yet I certainly wouldn't want to return to the days of the Waves!"

Bink had never thought of it that way. "Somehow I find it hard to appreciate the problems of the concentration of magic in Xanth," he said. "I keep wishing there were just a little more. Enough for me, for my talent."

"You might be better off without it," she suggested. "If you could just obtain a dispensation from the King--"

"Ha!" Bink said. "I'd be better off living like a hermit in the wilderness. My village won't tolerate a man without a talent."

"Strange inversion," she murmured.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing. I was just thinking of Herman the Hermit. He was exiled from our herd some years back for obscenity."

Bink laughed. "What could be obscene to a centaur? What did he do?"

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

Bink realized that he had said the wrong thing. "I didn't mean to offend--I apologize for whatever--"

Cherie relaxed. "You couldn't know. The odor of these flowers makes centaurs do crazy things; I have to stay clear except in real emergencies. I believe Magician Humfrey's castle is about five miles south. Keep alert for hostile magic, and I hope you find your talent.''

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

Cherie accepted it, then leaned forward to kiss him--a motherly kiss on his forehead. Bink wished she had not done that, but he smiled mechanically and started walking. He heard her hooves cantering back through the forest, and suddenly he felt lonely. Fortunately, his journey was nearly over.

But still he wondered: what had Herman the Hermit done that the centaurs considered obscene?

Bink stood at the brink, appalled. The path had been sundered by another trench--no, not a trench, but a mighty chasm, half a mile across and seemingly of bottomless depth. Cherie the centaur could not have known of it, or she would have warned him. So it must be of very recent formation--perhaps within the past month.

Only an earthquake or cataclysmic magic could have formed such a canyon so rapidly. Since there had been no earthquakes that he knew of, it had to be magic. And that implied a Magician--of phenomenal power.

Who could it be? The King in his heyday might have been able to fashion such a chasm by using a rigidly controlled storm, a channeled hurricane--but he had no reason to, and his powers had faded too much to manage anything like this now. Evil Magician Trent had been a transformer, not an earthmover. Good Magician Humfrey's magic was divided into a hundred assorted divinatory spells; some of those might tell him how to create such a gross channel, but it was hardly conceivable that Humfrey would bother to do it. Humfrey never did anything unless there was a fee to be earned from it. Was there another great Magician in Xanth?

Wait--he had heard rumors of a master of illusion. It was far easier to make an apparent chasm than a genuine one. That could be an amplification of Zink's pretend-hole talent. Zink was no Magician, but if a real Magician had this type of talent, this was the kind of effect he might create. Maybe if Bink simply walked out into this chasm, his feet would find the path continuing on...

He looked down. He saw a small cloud floating blithely along, about five hundred feet down. A gust of cool dank wind came up to brush him back. He shivered; that was extraordinarily realistic for an illusion! He shouted: "Hallooo!"

He heard the echo following about five seconds after: "Allooo!"

He picked up a pebble and flipped it into the seeming chasm. It disappeared into the depths, and no sound of its landing came back.

At last he kneeled and poked his finger into the air beyond the brim. It met no resistance. He touched the edge, and found it material and vertical.

He was convinced, unwillingly. The chasm was real.

There was nothing to do but go around it. Which meant he was not within five miles of his destination, but within fifty--or a hundred, depending on the extent of this amazing crevice.

Should he turn back? The villagers certainly should be advised of this manifestation; On the other hand, it might be gone by the time he brought anyone else back here to see it, and he would be labeled a fool as well as a spell-less wonder. Worse, he would be called a coward, who had invented a story to explain his fear of visiting the Magician and gaining absolute proof of his talentlessness. What had been created magically could be abolished magically. So he had better try to get around it.

Bink looked somewhat wearily at the sky. The sun was low in the west. He had an hour or so of diminishing daylight left. He'd better spend it trying to locate a house in which to spend the night. The last thing he wanted was to sleep outside in unfamiliar territory, at the mercy of strange magic. He had had a very easy trip so far, thanks to Cherie, but with this emergency detour it would become much more difficult.

Which way to turn--east or west? The chasm seemed to run interminably in both directions. But the lay of the land was slightly less rugged to the east, making a gradual descent; maybe it would approach the bottom of the chasm, enabling him to cross it. Farmers tended to build in valleys rather than on mountains, so as to have ready sources of water and be free of the hostile magic of high places. He would go east.

But this region was sparsely settled. He had seen no human habitations along the path so far. He walked increasingly swiftly through the forest. As dusk came, he saw great black shapes rising out of the chasm: vastly spreading leathery wings, cruelly bent beaks, glinting small eyes. Vultures perhaps, or worse. He felt horribly uneasy.

It was now necessary to conserve his rations, for he had no way of knowing how far they would have to stretch. He spotted a breadfruit tree and cut a loaf from it, but discovered the bread was not yet ripe. He would get indigestion eating it. He had to find a farmhouse.

The trees became larger and more gnarled of trunk. They seemed menacing in the shadows. A wind was rising, causing the stiff, twisted branches to sigh. Nothing ominous about that; these effects weren't even magical. But Bink found his heart beating more rapidly, and he kept glancing back over his shoulder. He was no longer on the established trail, so his comparative security was gone. He was going deeper into the hinterland, where anything could happen. Night was the time of sinister magic, and there were diverse and potent kinds. The peace spell of the pines was only an example; there were surely fear spells and worse. If only he could find a house!

Some adventurer he was! The moment he had to go a little out of his way, the instant it got dark, he started reacting to his own too-creative imagination. The fact was, this was not the deep wilderness; there would be few real threats to a careful man. The true wilds were beyond the Good Magician's castle, on the other side of the chasm.

He forced himself to slow down and keep his gaze forward. Just keep walking, swinging the staff over to touch anything suspicious, no foolish--

The end of the staff touched an innocuous black rock. The rock burst upward with a loud whirring noise. Bink scrambled back, falling on the ground, arms thrown up protectively before his face.

The rock spread wings and flapped away. "Koo!" it protested reproachfully. It had been only a stone dove, folded into its rock shape for camouflage and insulation during the night. Naturally, it had reacted when poked--but it was quite harmless.

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

Because he was foolishly terrified of being alone at night, he answered himself. If only he had some magic, then he would feel more secure. Even a simple confidence spell would serve.

He spied a light ahead. Relief! It was a yellow square, nearly certain indication of human habitation. He was almost tearfully pleased. He was no child, no adolescent, but he might as well be, here in the forest and off the bounds of his map. He needed the comfort of human companionship. He hurried toward the light, hoping it would not turn out to be some illusion or trap sponsored by an inimical being!

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

It opened grudgingly to show a homely woman in a soiled apron. She peered at him suspiciously. "I don't know you," she grumped, edging the door closed again.

"I am Bink of the
North
Village
," he said quickly. "I have traveled all day, and was balked by the chasm. Now I need lodging for the night. I will perform some reasonable service for the favor. I'm strong; I can chop wood or load hay or move rocks--"

"You don't need magic to do those things," she said.

"Not with magic! With my hands. I--"

"How do I know you're not a wraith?" she demanded.

Bink held out his left hand, wincing. "Prick me; I bleed." It was a standard test, for most nocturnal supernatural creatures had no blood, unless they had recently fed on some living creature. Even then they had none that would flow.

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

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

Now Bink saw the farm's guardian animal: a small werewolf, probably one of their children. There were no true werewolves or other weres that he knew of; all were humans who had developed the talent. Such changelings were increasingly frequent, it seemed. This one had the large head and flattish face typical of the type. A real werewolf would have been indistinguishable from a canine until it changed; then it would have been a wolfish man. Bink put out a hand as it slunk up to sniff him, then patted it on the head.

The creature metamorphosed into a boy about eight years old. "Did I scare you, huh?" he begged.

"Terrified," Bink agreed.

The lad turned toward the man. "He's clean, Paw," he announced. "No smell of magic on him."

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

"No magic?" the man inquired as the woman poured Bink a steaming bowl of stew. The farmer was in his mid-thirties, as homely as his wife, but possessed of a few deep smile-lines around his mouth and eyes. He was thin, but obviously sturdy; hard physical labor made for tough men. He flexed purple as he talked, then green, his whole body changing color smoothly: his talent. "How'd you make it all the way from
North
Village
in one day, then?"

"A lady centaur gave me a lift."

"A filly! I'll bet she did! Where'd you hang on to when she jumped?"

Bink smiled ruefully. "Well, she said she'd drop me in a trench if I did it again," he admitted.

"Haw! Haw! Haw!" the man brayed. Farmers, being relatively uneducated, tended to have an earthy sense of humor. Bink noticed that the homely wife wasn't laughing, and the boy merely stared uncomprehendingly.

Now the farmer got down to business. "Listen, I don't need no hand labor nowsabout. But I've got a part in a hearing coming up, and I don't want to go. Upsets the missus, you know."

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

"So if you want to work off your lodging, you can stand in for me," the farmer continued. "Won't only take 'bout an hour, no work to it 'cept to agree to anything the bailiff says. Softest job you can find, and easy for you, too, 'cause you're a stranger. Playing opposite a cute young thing--" He caught the grim look of his wife and aborted that line. "How 'bout it?"

"Anything I can do," Bink said uncertainly. What was this about playing opposite a cute young thing? He'd never find out while the wife was present. Would Sabrina object?

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