pell For Chameleon

Their noise had alerted others in the jungle. That was always the background threat here. There was a bellow, and the sound of big paws striking the ground. All too soon a huge fire-snorting dragon hove into view. It charged right through the sneeze glade, but the bees left it strictly alone. They knew better than to provoke any fire sneezes that would burn up their flowers.

"Change it! Change it!" Chameleon cried as the dragon oriented on her. Dragons seemed to have a special taste for the fairest maidens.

"Can't," Trent muttered. "By the time it gets within six feet, its fire will have scorched us all into roasts. It's got a twenty-foot blowtorch."

"You aren't much help," she complained.

"Transform me!" Bink cried with sudden inspiration.

"Good idea." Abruptly Bink was a sphinx. He retained his own head, but he had the body of a bull, wings of an eagle, and legs of a lion. And he was huge-he towered over the dragon. "I had no idea sphinxes grew this big," he boomed.

"Sorry-I forgot again," Trent said. "I was thinking of the legendary sphinx in Mundania."

"But the Mundanes don't have magic."

"This one must have wandered out from Xanth a long time ago. For thousands of years it has been stone, petrified."

"Petrified? What could scare a sphinx that size?" Chameleon wondered, peering up at Bink's monstrous face.

But there was business to attend to. "Begone, beastie!" Bink thundered.

The dragon was slow to adapt to the situation. It shot a jet of orange flame at Bink, scorching his feathers. The blast didn't hurt, but it was a

Bink circled around carefully, hoping he hadn't stepped on anyone. "Why didn't we think of this before?" he bellowed. "I can give you a ride, right to the edge of the jungle. No one will recognize us, and no creature will bother us!"

He squatted as low as possible, and Chameleon and Trent climbed up his tail to his back. Bink moved forward with a slow stride that was nevertheless faster than any man could run. They were on their way.

But not for long. Chameleon, bouncing around on the sphinx's horny-ski

Trent took advantage of the break to stretch his legs. He walked around to Bink's huge face. "I'd transform you back, but it's really better to stick with the form until finished with it," he said. "I really have no concrete evidence that frequent transformations are harmful to the recipient, but it seems best not to gamble at this time. Since the sphinx is an intelligent life form, you aren't suffering intellectually."

"No, I'm okay," Bink agreed. "Better than ever, in fact. Can you guess this riddle? What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three in the evening?"

"I shall not answer," Trent said, looking startled. "In all the legends I've heard, some sphinxes committed suicide when the correct answers to their riddles were given. Those were the smaller type of sphinx, a different species-but I seem to have muddled the distinctions somewhat, and would not care to gamble on the absence of affinity."

"Uh, no," Bink said, chagrined. "I guess the riddle was from the mind of the sphinx, not me. I'm sure all sphinxes had a common ancestor, though I don't know the difference between one kind and another."

"Odd. Not about your ignorance of Mundane legends. About your riddle memory. You are the sphinx. I didn't move your mind into an existing body, for the original creatures have all been dead or petrified for mille

"There must be ramifications of your magic you don't comprehend," Bink said. "I wish I understood the real nature of magic-any magic."

"Yes, it is a mystery. Magic exists in Xanth, nowhere else. Why? What is its mechanism? Why does Xanth seem to be adjacent to any Mundane land, in geography, language, and culture? How is this magic, in all its multiple levels, transmitted from the geographic region to the inhabitants?"

"I have pondered that," Bink said. "I thought perhaps some radiation from the rock, or nutritional value of the soil-"

"When I am King I shall initiate a study program to determine the true story of Xanth's uniqueness."

When Trent was King. The project was certainly worthwhile--in fact, fascinating-but not at that price. For a moment Bink was tempted: with the merest swipe of his mighty forepaw he could squash the Evil Magician flat, ending the threat forever.

No. Even if Trent were not really his friend, Bink could not violate the truce that way. Besides, he didn't want to remain a monster all his life, physically or morally.

"The lady is taking her sweet time," Trent muttered. Bink moved his ponderous head, searching for Chameleon. "She's usually very quick about that sort of thing. She doesn't like being alone." Then he thought of something else. "Unless she went looking for her spell-you know, to make her normal. She left Xanth in an effort to nullify her magic, and now that she's stuck back in Xanth, she wants some kind of counter-magic. She's not very bright right now, and-"

Trent stroked his chin. "This is the jungle. I don't want to violate her privacy, but-"

"Maybe we'd better check for her."

"Umm. Well, I guess you can stand one more transformation,'' Trent decided. "I'l1 make you a bloodhound. That's a Mundane animal, a kind of dog, very good at sniffing out a trail. If you run into her doing something private--well, you'll only be an animal, not a human voyeur."

Abruptly Bink was a keen-nosed, floppy-eared, loose-faced creature, smell-oriented. He could pick up the lingering odor of anything-he was sure of that. He had never before realized how overwhelmingly important the sense of smell was. Strange that he had ever depended on any lesser sense.

Trent concealed their supplies in a mock tangle tree and faced about. "Very well, Bink; let's sniff her out." Bink understood him well enough, but could not reply, as this was not a speaking form of animal.

Chameleon's trail was so obvious it was a wonder Trent himself couldn't smell it. Bink put his nose to the ground-how natural that the head be placed so close to the primary source of information, instead of raised foolishly high as in Trent's case-and moved forward competently.

The route led around behind a bush and on into the wilderness. She had been lured away; in her present low ebb of intelligence, almost anything would fool her. Yet there was no consistent odor of any animal or plant she might have followed. That suggested magic. Worried, Bink woofed and sniffed on, the Magician following. A magic lure was almost certainly trouble.

But her trace did not lead into a tangle tree or guck-tooth swamp or the lair of a wyvern. It wove intricately between these obvious hazards, bearing generally south, into the deepest jungle. Something obviously had led her, guiding her safely past all threats-but what, and where-and why?

Bink knew the essence, if not the detail: some will-o'-the-wisp spell had beckoned her, tempting her ever forward, always just a little out of reach. Perhaps it had seemed to offer some elixir, some enchantment to make her normal-and so she had followed. It would lead her into untracked wilderness, where she would be lost, and leave her there. She would not survive long.

Bink hesitated. He had not lost the trail; that could never happen. There was something else.