Iers Anthony - pell For Chameleon

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 fianc e, and faced the great unknown of the Outside--yet there was a certain quixotic spring to his step. Was it a counterreaction 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.