Iers Anthony - pell For Chameleon

It did not take long. This passage slanted up to the surface; Bink could see the moon as he broke through. The storm had abated.

Abruptly he was human again-and swimming was harder. "Why did you change me back?" he asked. "We weren't to shore yet."

"When you are a turtle, you have the brain of a turtle, and the instincts of a turtle," Trent explained. "Otherwise you would not be able to survive as a turtle. Too long, and you might forget you ever were a man. If you headed out to sea, I might not be able to catch you, and so would never be able to change you back."

"Justin Tree retained his human mind," Bink pointed out.

"Justin Tree?"

"One of the men you changed into trees, in the North Village. His talent was throwing his voice."

"Oh, I remember now. He was a special ease. I made him into a sapient tree--really a man in tree form, not a true tree. I can do that when I put my mind to it. For a tree it can work. But a turtle needs turtle reflexes to deal with the ocean."

Bink didn't follow all that, but he didn't care to debate it. Obviously cases differed. Then Fanchon reappeared in human form. "Well, you honored the truce," she said grudgingly. "I didn't really think you would."

"Reality must intrude sometime," Trent said.

"What do you mean by that?" she demanded.

"I said, we are not out of danger yet. I believe that is a sea serpent on its way."

Bink saw the huge head, and there was no question: the monster had seen them. It was big; the head was a yard across. "Maybe the rocks-" Bink cried, orienting on the outcropping that marked the exit from the triton's cave.

"That thing's a huge, long snake," Fanchon said. "It could reach right down into the cave, or coil right around the rocks. We can't escape it in this form."

"I could change you into poisonous jellyfish that the serpent would not eat," Trent said. "But you might get lost in the shuffle. It also may not be wise to be transformed more than once a day; I have not been able to verify this during my exile, for obvious reasons, but I am concerned that your systems may suffer a shock each time."

"Besides which, the monster could still eat you," Fanchon said.

"You have a very quick mind," Trent agreed equably. "Therefore, I shall have to do something I dislike-transform the monster."

"You don't want to transform the sea serpent?" Bink asked, surprised. The thing was now quite close, its small red eyes fixed on the prey; saliva dripped from its giant teeth.

"It is merely an innocent creature going about its business," Trent said. "We should not enter its waters if we do not wish to participate in its mode of existence. There is a balance of nature, whether magical or mundane, that we should hesitate to interfere with."

"You have a weird sense of humor," Fanchon said sourly. "But I never claimed to understand the nuances of evil magic. If you really want to protect its life style, transform it into a little fish until we get to shore, then transform it back."

"And hurry!" Bink cried. The thing was now looming over them, orienting on its specific targets.

"That would not work," Trent said. "The fish would swim away and be lost. I must be able to identify the particular creature I mean to transform, and it must be within six feet of me. However your suggestion has merit."

"Six feet," Bink said. "We'll be inside it before we get that close." He was not trying to be funny; the monster's mouth was much longer than it was wide, so that as it opened to its full aperture the upper front teeth were a good twelve feet from the lower teeth.

"Nevertheless, I must operate within my limits," Trent said, unperturbed. "The critical region is the head, the seat of identity. When I transform that, the rest naturally follows. If I tried it when only the tail was within range, I would botch the job. So when it tries to take me in its mouth, it comes into my power."

"What if it goes for one of us first?" Fanchon demanded. "Suppose we're more than six feet from you?"

"I suggest you arrange to be within that radius," Trent said dryly.

Hastily Bink and Fanchon splashed closer to the Evil Magician. Bink had the distinct impression that even if Trent had had no magic, they would have been in his power. He was too self-assured, too competent in his tactics; he knew how to manage people.

The sea monster's body convulsed. Its head struck down, teeth leading. Spittle sprayed out from it in obscene little clouds. Fanchon screamed hysterically. Bink felt an instant and pervading terror. That sensation was becoming all too familiar; he simply was no hero.

But as the awful jaws closed on them, the sea serpent vanished. In its place fluttered a glowing, brightly colored insect. Trent caught it neatly in one hand and set it on his own hair, where it perched quiveringly.

"A lovebug," Trent explained. "They are not good fliers, and they hate water. This one will stay close until we emerge from the sea."

Now the three swam for shore. It took them some time, for the sea remained choppy and they were tired, but no other creatures bothered them. Apparently no lesser predators intruded on the fishing territory of the sea monster. An understandable attitude-but probably within hours a host of aggressive forms would converge if the sea monster did not return. As Trent had remarked, there was always a balance of nature.

The phosphorescence became stronger in the shallows. Some of it was from glowing fish, flashing in colors to communicate with their respective kinds; most of it was from the water itself. Washes of pale green, yellow, orange-magic, of course, but for what purpose? There was so much Bink saw, wherever he went, that he did not understand. At the bottom he saw shells, some lighted around the fringes, some glowing in patterns. A few vanished as he passed over them; whether they had become truly invisible or merely doused their lights he could not tell. Regardless, they were magic, and that was familiar. Belatedly he realized that he was glad to be back among the familiar threats of Xanth!

Dawn was coming as they reached the beach. The sun pushed up behind the clouds over the jungle and finally burst through to bounce its shafts off the water. It was a thing of marvelous beauty. Bink clung to that concept, because his body was numb with fatigue, his brain locked onto the torture of moving limbs, over and over, on and on.

At last he crawled upon the beach. Fanchon crawled beside him. "Don't stop yet," she said. "We must seek cover, lest other monsters come, from the beach or jungle..."

But Trent stood knee-deep in the surf, his sword dangling from his handsome body. He was obviously not as tired as they were. "Return, friend," he said, flicking something into the sea. The sea monster reappeared, its serpentine convolutions much more impressive in the shallow water. Trent had to lift his feet and splash back out of the way, lest he be crushed by a hugely swinging coil.

But the monster was not looking for trouble now. It was extremely disgruntled. It gave a single honk of rage or of anguish or of mere amazement and thrashed its way toward deeper pastures.

Trent walked up the beach. "It is not fun to be a defenseless love bug when you are accustomed to being the king of the sea," he said. "I hope the creature does not suffer a nervous breakdown."

He was not smiling. There was something funny, Bink thought, about a man who liked monsters that well. But of course Trent was the Evil Magician of the contemporary scene. The man was strangely handsome, mannerly, and erudite, possessed of strength, skill, and courage--but his affinities were to the monsters more than to the men. It would be disastrous ever to forget that.

Odd that Humfrey, the Good Magician, was an ugly little gnome in a forbidding castle, selfishly using his magic to enrich himself, while Trent was the epitome of hero material. The Sorceress Iris had seemed lovely and-sexy, but was in fact nondescript; Humfrey's good qualifies were manifest in his actions, once a person really got to know him. But Trent, so far, had seemed good in both appearance and deed, at least on the purely personal level. If Bink had met him for the first time in the kraken's cave and hadn't known the man's evil nature, he would never have guessed it.

Now Trent strode across the beach, seeming hardly tired despite the grueling swim. The nascent sunlight touched his hair, turning it bright yellow. He looked in that instant like a god, all that was perfect in man. Again Bink suffered fatigued confusion, trying to reconcile the man's appearance and recent actions with what he knew to be the man's actual nature, and again finding it so challenging as to be virtually impossible. Some things just had to be taken on faith.

"I've got to rest, to sleep," Bink muttered. "I can't tell evil from good right now."

Fanchon looked toward Trent. "I know what you mean," she said, shaking her head so that her ratty hair shifted its wet tangles. "Evil has an insidious way about it, and there is some evil in all of us that seeks to dominate. We have to fight it, no matter how tempting it becomes."

Trent arrived. "We seem to have made it," he said cheerfully. "It certainly is good to be back in Xanth, by whatever freak of fortune. Ironic that you, who sought so ardently to prevent my access, instead facilitated it!"

"Ironic," Fanchon agreed dully.

"I believe this is the coast of the central wilderness region, bounded on the north by the great Gap. I had not realized we had drifted so far south, but the contour of the land seems definitive. That means we are not yet out of trouble."

"Bink's an exile, you're banished, and I'm ugly," Fanchon muttered. "We'll never be out of trouble."

"Nevertheless, I believe it would be expedient to extend our truce until we are free of the wilderness," the Magician said.

Did Trent know something Bink didn't? Bink had no magic, so he would be prey to all the sinister spells of the deep jungle. Fanchon had no apparent magic-strange, she claimed her exile had been voluntary, not forced, yet if she really had no magic she should have been banished too; anyway, she would have a similar problem. But Trent-with his skills with sword and spell, he should have no reason to fear this region.

Fanchon had similar doubts. "As long as you're with us, we're in constant danger of being transformed into toads. I can't see that the wilderness is worse."

Trent spread his hands. "I realize you do not trust me, and perhaps you have reason. I believe your security and mine would be enhanced if we cooperated a little longer, but I shall not force my company on you." He walked south along the beach.

"He knows something," Bink said. "He must be leaving us to die. So he can be rid of us without breaking his word."

"Why should he care about his word?" Fanchon asked. "That would imply he is a man of honor."

Bink had no answer. He crawled to the shade and concealment of the nearest tree and collapsed in the downy sward. He had been unconscious during part of the last night, but that was not the same as sleep; he needed genuine rest.

When he woke it was high noon-and he was fixed in place. There was no pain, only some itching--but he couldn't lift his head or hands. They were fastened to the ground by myriad threads, as if the very lawn had-Oh, no! In the numbness of fatigue, he had been so careless as to lie in a bed of carnivorous grass! The root blades had grown up into his body, infiltrating it so slowly and subtly that it had not disturbed his sleep-and now he was caught. Once he had happened on a patch of the stuff near the North Village with an animal skeleton on it. The grass had consumed all the flesh. He had wondered how any creature could have been so stupid as to be trapped by such a thing. Now he knew.