pell For Chameleon

The fire closed in on the original wiggle hive. There was a deafening groan. "AAOOGAAH!" Something stirred invisibly.

"Bigfoot!" Trent exclaimed. "He's still alive in there."

"I thought he was dead," Herman said, horrified. "We've already closed the circle; we can't let him out."

"He was riddled through the legs, so he fell-but he wasn't dead," Trent said. "The fall must have knocked him out for a while." He stared into the leaping flames, now outlining the form of a gargantuan man lying prone, stirring at the peripheries. The odor was of roasting garbage. "Too late now."

The doomed giant thrashed about. Flaming branches flew wide. Some landed in the jungle beyond the circle. "Catch those flames!" the centaur cried. "They can start a forest fire."

But no one could quench or move or even contain the flames. No one except Herman himself, with his weed net. He dumped Bink out and galloped toward the nearest, which was dangerously close to an oilbarrel tree.

Trent gestured hastily, and Bink was his human self again. He leaped out of the smoldering ground where his salamander self had touched. What power the Evil Magician had; he could destroy Xanth any time just by making a dozen salamanders.

Bink blinked-and saw Chameleon chasing a wiggle between the prongs of magic fire formed by thrown brands. She was too intent or too stupid to realize the danger!

He ran after her. "Chameleon! Turn back!" She paid no heed, faithful to her chore. He caught up and spun her about. "The fire's getting the wiggles. We have to get out of here."

"Oh," she said faintly. Her once-fancy dress was ragged, and dirt smudged her face, but she was excruciatingly lovely.

"Come on." He took her by the hand and drew her along.

But a determined tongue of fire had crossed behind them. They were trapped in a closing island.

The omen! Now at last it struck-at both Chameleon and him.

Herman leaped over the tongue, a splendid figure of a centaur. "Up on my back," he cried.

Bink wrapped his arms about Chameleon and heaved her up onto the Hermit's back. She was wondrously supple, slender of waist and expansive of thigh. Not that he had any business noticing such things at the moment. But his position behind her as she slid on her belly onto the centaur made the thoughts inevitable. He gave her graceful posterior one last ungraceful shove, getting her balanced, then scrambled up himself.

Herman started walking, then ru

Zzapp! A wiggle, close by.

The centaur staggered. "I'm hit!" he cried. Then he righted himself, made a convulsion of effort, and leaped.

He fell short. His front legs buckled, and the rear ones were in the flame. Bink and Chameleon were thrown forward, landing on either side of the human torso. Herman grabbed each by an arm, and with a surge of centaur strength shoved both on beyond the danger zone.

Trent charged up. "Hermit, you're burning!" he cried. "I will transform you-"

"No," Herman said. "I am holed through the liver. I am done for. Let the clean fire take me." He grimaced. "Only, to abate the agony quickly-your sword, sir." And he pointed at his neck.

Bink would have temporized, pretending misunderstanding, trying to delay the inevitable. The Evil Magician was more decisive. "As you require," Trent said. Suddenly his blade was in his hand, flashing in an arc--and the centaur's noble head flew off the body, to land upright on the ground just beyond the flame.

Bink stared, aghast. He had never before witnessed such a cold-blooded killing.

"I thank you," the head said. "You abated the agony most efficiently. Your secret dies with me." The centaur's eyes closed.

Herman the Hermit had really wanted it that way. Trent had judged correctly and acted instantly. Bink himself would have bungled it.

"There was a creature I would have been proud to have taken for a friend," Trent said sadly. "I would have saved him had it been within my power."

Little lights danced in close, centering on that dead head. At first Bink supposed they were sparks, but they did not actually burn. "The will-o'-the-wisps," Trent murmured. "Paying their last respects."

The lights dispersed, taking with them their vague impression of wonders barely glimpsed and joys never quite experienced. The fire consumed the body, then the head, and swept on into an already-burned area. Most of the remaining flame was now in the center of the circle, where the invisible giant no longer thrashed.

Trent raised his voice. "All creatures silent, in respect for Herman the Hermit, wronged by his own kind, who has died in defense of Xanth. And for Bigfoot and all the other noble creatures who perished similarly."

A hush fell on the throng. The silence became utter; not even an insect hummed. One minute, two minutes, three--no sound. It was a fantastic assemblage of monsters pausing with bowed heads in deference to the ones who had labored so valiantly against the common enemy. Bink was profoundly moved; never again would he think of the creatures of the magic wild as mere animals.

At last Trent lifted his eyes again. "Xanth is saved, thanks to Herman-and to you all," he a

"But some wiggles may have escaped," Bink protested in a whisper.

"No. None escaped. The job was well done."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I heard no zaps during the silence. No wiggle sits still longer than three minutes."

Bink's mouth dropped open. The silence of respect and mourning, sincere as it had been, had also been the verification that the menace had indeed been abated. Bink would never have thought of that himself. How competently Trent had assumed the difficult and demanding chore of leadership, when the centaur died. And without betraying his secret.

The assorted monsters dispersed peaceably, operating under the tacit truce of this effort. Many were wounded, but they bore their pain with the same dignity and courage Herman had, and did not snap at one another. The great land serpent slithered by, and Bink counted half a dozen holes along its length, but it did not pause. The serpent, like the others, had come to do what had to be done-but it would be as dangerous as ever in future encounters.

"Shall we resume our journey?" Trent inquired, glancing for the last time across the flat bare disk of ashes.

"We'd better," Bink said. "I think the fire is dying out now."

Abruptly he was the sphinx again, half as tall as the invisible giant and far more massive. Apparently Trent had decided multiple transformations were safe. Trent and Chameleon boarded, and he retraced the path to their cache of supplies. "And no more comfort breaks," Bink muttered in a boom. Someone chuckled.