pell For Chameleon

The soldier dumped the thing into the cage, and another smoke-glass-protected soldier shoved on the lid. The remaining soldiers relaxed visibly. The basilisk scrambled around, seeking some escape, but there was none. It glared at the wire confinement, but its gaze had no effect on the metal. A third soldier dropped a cloth over the cage, cutting off the view of the little monster. Now Bink himself relaxed. The whole thing had obviously been carefully prepared and rehearsed; the soldiers knew exactly what to do.

"Bink, stand forth," Trent said, exactly as before.

Bink was terrified. But a comer of his mind protested: It's still a bluff. She's in on it. They have rigged it to make me think she was transformed, and that I'm to be next. All her arguments against Trent were merely to make her seem legitimate, preparing for this moment.

Still, he only half believed that. The omen lent it a special, awful conviction. Death hovered, as it were, on the silent wings of a moth hawk, close...

Yet he could not betray his homeland. Weak-kneed, he stepped forth.

Trent focused on him-and the world jumped. Confused and frightened, Bink scrambled for the safety of a nearby bush. The green leaves withered as he approached; then the net came down, trapping him. Remembering his escape from the Gap dragon, he dodged at the last moment, backtracking, and the net just missed him. He glared up at the soldier, who, startled, had allowed his smoked glasses to fall askew. Their gazes met-and the man tumbled backward, stricken.

The butterfly net flew wide, but another soldier grabbed it. Bink scooted for the withered bush again, but this time the net caught him. He was scooped inside, wings flapping helplessly, tail thrashing and getting its barb caught in the fabric, claws snarled, beak snapping at nothing.

Then he was dumped out. Two shakes, three, and his claws and tail were dislodged. He landed on his back, wings outspread. An anguished squawk escaped him.

As he righted himself, the light dimmed. He was in the cage, and it had just been covered, so that no one outside could see his face. He was a cockatrice.

Some demonstration! Not only had he seen Fanchon transformed, he had experienced it himself--and killed a soldier merely by looking at him. If there had been any skeptics in Trent's army, there would be none now.

He saw the curling, barbed tail of another of his kind. A female. But her back was to him. His cockatrice nature took over. He didn't want company.

Angrily he pounced on her, biting, digging in with his talons. She twisted around instantly, the muscular serpent's tail providing leverage. For a moment they were face to face.

She was hideous, frightful, loathsome, ghastly, and revolting. He had never before experienced anything so repulsive. Yet she was female, and therefore possessed of a certain fundamental attraction. The paradoxical repulsion and attraction overwhelmed him and he lost consciousness.

When he woke, he had a headache. He lay on the hay in the pit. It was late afternoon.

"It seems the stare of the basilisk is overrated," Fanchon said. "Neither of us died."

So it had really happened. "Not quite," Bink agreed. "But I feel a bit dead." As he spoke he realized something that had not quite surfaced before: the basilisk was a magical creature that could do magic. He had been an intelligent cockatrice who had magically stricken an enemy. What did that do to his theory of magic?

"Well, you put up a good fight," Fanchon was saying. "They've already buried that soldier. It is quiet like death in this camp now."

Like death-had that been the meaning of his omen? He had not died, but he had killed-without meaning to, in a ma

Bink sat up, another realization coming. "Trent's talent is genuine. We were transformed. We really were."

"It is genuine. We really were," she agreed somberly. "I admit I doubted-but now I believe."

"He must have changed us back while we were unconscious."

"Yes. He was only making a demonstration."

"It was an effective one."

"It was." She shuddered. "Bink-I-I don't know whether I can take that again. It wasn't just the change. It was-"

"I know. You made a hell of an ugly basilisk."

"I would make a hell of an ugly anything. But the sheer malignancy, stupidity, and awfulness-those things are foul! To spend the rest of my life like that--"

"I can't blame you," Bink said. But still something nagged at his mind. The experience had been so momentous that he knew it would take a long time for his mind to sift through all its aspects.

"I didn't think anyone could make me go against my conscience. But this--this--" She put her face into her hands.

Bink nodded silently. After a moment he shifted the subject. "Did you notice--those creatures were male and female."

"Of course," she said, gaining control of herself now that she had something to orient on. "We are male and female. The Magician can change our forms but not our sexes."

"But the basilisks should be neuter. Hatched of eggs laid by roosters--there are no parent basilisks, only roosters."

She nodded thoughtfully, catching hold of the problem. "You're right. If there are males and females, they should mate and reproduce their own kind. Which means, by definition, they aren't basilisks. A paradox."

"There must be something wrong with the definition,'' Bink said. "Either there's a lot of superstition about the origins of monsters, or we were not genuine basilisks."

"We were genuine," she said, grimacing with renewed horror. "I'm sure now. For the first time in my life, I'm glad for my human form." Which was quite an admission, for her.

"That means Trent's magic is all-the-way real," Bink said. He doesn't just change the form, he really converts things into other things, if you see what I mean." Then the thing that had nagged at his mind before came clear. "But if magic fades outside Xanth, beyond the narrow magic band beyond the Shield, all we would have to do--"

"Would be to go into Mundania!" she exclaimed, catching on. "In time, we would revert to our proper forms. So it would not be permanent."

"So his transformation ability is a bluff, even though it is real," he said. "He would have to keep us caged right there, or we'd escape and get out of his power. He has to get all the way into Xanth or he really has very little power. No more power than he already has as General of his army-the power to kill."

"All he can get now is the tantalizing taste of real power," she said. "I'll bet he wants to get into Xanth!"

"But meanwhile, we're still in his power."

She set out the bricks, catching the limited sunlight. "What are you going to do?" she asked.

"If he lets me go, I'll travel on into Mundania. That's where I was headed before I was ambushed. One thing Trent has shown me--it is possible to survive out there. But I'll make sure to note my route carefully; it seems Xanth is hard to find from the other direction."

"I meant about the Shieldstone."

"Nothing."

"You won't tell him?"

"No, of course not," he said. "Now we know his magic can't really hurt us worse than his soldiers can, some of the terror is gone. Not that it matters. I don't blame you for telling him."

She looked at him. Her face was still ugly, but there was something special in it now. "You know, you're quite a man, Bink."

"No, I'm nothing much. I have no magic."

"You have magic. You just don't know what it is."

"Same thing."

"I followed you out here, you know."

Her meaning was coming clear. She had heard about him in Xanth, the traveler with no spell. She had known that would be no liability in Mundania. What better match-the man with no magic, the woman with no beauty. Similar liabilities. Perhaps he could get used to her appearance in time; her other qualities were certainly commendable. Except for one thing.