pell For Chameleon

"The elixir!" Fanchon cried. "I left it in the-" She dived for the flooded stem of the boat.

Bink, still choking on sea water, could not yell at her. He clung to the rock with his hands, his fingers finding purchase in a crevice, anchoring the boat with his hooked knees. He suffered a foolish vision: if a giant drowning in the ocean grabbed on to the land of Xanth for support, his fingers would catch in the chasm, the Gap. Maybe that was the purpose of the Gap. Did the tiny inhabitants of this isolated rock resent the crevice that Bink's giant fingers had found? Did they have forget spells to remove it from their awareness?

There was a distant flash of lightning. Bink saw the somber mass of ragged stone: no miniature people on it. But there was a glint, as of light reflecting from a knob in the water. He stared at it, but the lightning was long since gone, and he was squinting at the mere memory, trying to make out the surrounding shape. For it had been a highlight from something larger.

Lightning flashed again, closer. Bink saw briefly but clearly.

It was a toothy reptilian creature. The highlight had been from its malignant eye.

"A sea monster!" he cried, terrified.

Fanchon labored at an oar, finally extricating it from its lock. She aimed it at the monster and shoved.

Thunk! The end of the oar struck the armored green snout. The creature backed off.

"We've got to get away from here," Bink cried.

But as he spoke, another wave broke over them. The boat was lifted and wrenched away from his feet. He put one arm about Fanchon's ski

In the next trough the lightning showed small saillike projections moving in the water. What were they?

Then another monster broke water right beside him; he saw it in the phosphorescence that the complete darkness had attuned his eyes to. It seemed to have a single broad eye across its face, and a round, truncated snout. Huge wattles were at the sides. Bink was transfixed by terror, though he knew that most of the details were really from his imagination. He could only stare at the thing as the lightning permitted.

And the lightning confirmed his imagination. It was a hideous monster!

Bink struggled with his terror to form some plan of defense. One hand clung to the rock; the other held Fanchon. He could not act. But maybe Fanchon could. "Your oar-" he gasped.

The monster acted first. It put its hands to its face--and lifted the face away. Underneath, was the face of Evil Magician Trent "You fools have caused enough trouble! Give me the elixir, and I'll have the ship throw us a line."

Bink hesitated. He was bone weary and cold, and knew he could not hold out much longer against storm and current. It was death to stay here.

"There's a crocodile sniffing around," Trent continued. "And several sharks. Those are just as deadly as the mythical monsters you are familiar with. I have repellent-but the current is carrying it away as rapidly as it diffuses into the water, so it's not much help. On top of that, sometimes whirlpools develop around these rocks, especially during storms. We need help now-and I alone can summon it. Give me that vial!"

"Never!" Fanchon cried. She dived into the black waves.

Trent snapped the mask back over his face and dived after her. As he moved, Bink saw that the Magician was naked except for his long sword strapped to a harness. Bink dived after him, not even thinking of what he was doing.

They met in a tangle underwater. In the dark and bubbly swirl, there was nothing but mutual mischief. Bink tried to swim to the surface, uncertain as to what foolishness had prompted him to dive here but sure that he could only drown himself. But someone had a death grip on him. He had to get up, to get his head in air so he could breathe. The water had hold of them all, carrying them around and around.

It was the whirlpool-an inanimate fu

Chapter 11. Wilderness

Bink woke with his face in sand. Around him lay the inert tentacles of a green monster.

He groaned and sat up. "Bink!" Fanchon cried gladly, coming across the beach ix) him.

"I thought it was night," he said.

"You've been unconscious. This cave has magic phosphorescence, or maybe it's Mundane phosphorescence, since there was some on the rock, too. But it's much brighter here. Trent pumped the water out of you, but I was afraid-"

"What's this?" Bink asked, staring at a green tentacle.

"A kraken seaweed," Trent said. "It pulled us out of the drink, intending to consume us--but the vial of elixir broke and killed it. That's all that saved our lives. If the vial had broken earlier, it would have stopped the kraken from catching us, and we all would have drowned; later, and we would already have been eaten. As fortuitous a coincidence of timing as I have ever experienced.''

"A kraken weed!" Bink exclaimed. "But that's magic!"

"We're back in Xanth," Fanchon said.

"But-"

"I conjecture that the whirlpool drew us down below the effective level of the Shield," Trent said. "We passed under it. Perhaps the presence of the elixir helped. A freak accident-and I'm certainly not going to try to reverse that route now. I lost my breathing apparatus on the way in; lucky I got a good dose of oxygen first! We're in Xanth to stay."

"I guess so," Bink said dazedly. He had gradually become accustomed to the notion of spending the rest of his life in Mundania; it was hard to abandon that drear expectation so suddenly. "But why did you save me? Once the elixir was gone-"

"It was the decent thing to do," the Magician said. "I realize you would not appreciate such a notion from my lips, but I can offer no better rationale at the moment. I never had any personal animus against you; in fact, I rather admire your fortitude and personal ethical code. You can go your way now-and I'll go mine."

Bink pondered. He was faced with a new, unfamiliar reality. Back in Xanth, no longer at war with the Evil Magician. The more he reviewed the details, the less sense any of it made. Sucked down by a whirlpool through monster-infested waters, through the invisible but deadly Shield, to be rescued by a man-eating plant, which was coincidentally nullified at precisely the moment required to let them drop safely on this beach? "No," he said. "I don't believe it. Things just don't happen this way."

"It does seem as if we're charmed," Fanchon said. "Though why the Evil Magician should have been included..."

Trent smiled. Naked, he was fully as impressive as before. Despite his age, he was a fit and powerful man. "It does seem ironic that the evil should be saved along with the good. Perhaps human definitions are not always honored by nature. But I, like you, am a realist. I don't pretend to understand how we got here-but I do not question that we are here. Getting to land may be more problematical, however. We are hardly out of danger yet."

Bink looked around the cave. Already the air seemed close, though he hoped that was his imagination. There seemed to be no exit except the water through which they had come. In one nook was a pile of clean bones-the refuse of the kraken.

It began to seem less coincidental. What better place for an ocean monster to operate than at the exit to a whirlpool? The sea itself collected the prey, and most of it was killed on the way in by the Shield. The kraken weed had only to sieve the fresh bodies out of the water. And this highly private cave was ideal for leisurely consumption of the largest living animals. They could be deposited here on the beach, and even given food, so that they would remain more or less healthy until the kraken's hunger was sufficient. A pleasant little larder to keep the food fresh and tasty. Any that tried to escape by swimming past the tentacles--ugh! So the kraken could have dropped the human trio here, then been hit by the elixir; instead of split-second timing, it became several-minute timing. Still a coincidence, but a much less extreme one.