pell For Chameleon

"To the senile has-been who exiled you?" Iris demanded. "He can't even raise a dust devil any more. He's sick now; he'll soon be dead anyway. That's why the time to act is now. The throne must go to a Magician."

"To a good Magician!" Bink retorted. "Not to an evil transformer, or a power-hungry, sluttish mistress..." He paused, tempted to end it there, but knew that wouldn't be entirely honest. "Of illusion."

"You dare address me thus?" Iris screamed, sounding much like a harpy. She was so angry that her image wavered into smoke. "Trent, change him into a stinkbug and step on him."

Trent shook his head, suppressing a smile. He obviously had no emotional attachment to the Sorceress, and shared a masculine appreciation for the insulting pause Bink had made. Iris had, just now, shown them all how ready she was to sell her illusion-enhanced body for power. "We operate under truce."

"Truce? Nonsense!" Her smoke now became a column of fire, signifying her righteous wrath. "You don't need him any more. Get rid of him."

Again, Bink saw how she would have treated him after he had helped her achieve power and she no longer needed him.

Trent was adamant. "If I were to break my word to him, Iris, how could you trust my word to you?"

That sobered her-and impressed Bink. There was a subtle but highly significant difference between these two magic-workers. Trent was a man, in the finest sense of the word.

Iris was hardly pleased. "I thought your truce was only until you got out of the wilderness."

"The wilderness is not defined solely by the jungle," Trent muttered.

"What?" she demanded.

"That truce would be worthless if I abridged its spirit thus suddenly," Trent said. "Bink and Chameleon and I will part company, and with luck we shall not meet again."

The man was being more than fair, and Bink knew he should accept the situation and depart-now. Instead, his stubbor

"Now, Bink;" Trent said reasonably. "I never deceived you about my ultimate objective. We always knew our purposes were divergent. Our truce covered only our interpersonal relation during the period of mutual hazard, not our long-range plans. I have pledges to fulfil, to my Mundane army, to Castle Roogna, and now to the Sorceress Iris. I am sorry you disapprove, for I want your approval very much, but the conquest of Xanth is and always was my mission. Now I ask you to part from me with what grace you can muster, for I have high respect for your motive, even though I feel the larger situation places you in error."

Again Bink felt the devastating allure of Trent's golden tongue. He could find no flaw in the reasoning. He had no chance to overcome the Magician magically, and was probably outclassed intellectually. But morally-he had to be right. "Your respect means nothing if you have no respect for the traditions and laws of Xanth."

"A most telling response, Bink. I do have respect for these things-yet the system seems to have gone astray, and must be corrected, lest disaster overtake us all."

"You talk of disaster from Mundania; I fear the disaster of the perversion of our culture. I must oppose you, in whatever way I can."

Trent seemed perplexed. "I don't believe you can oppose me, Bink. Whatever your strong magic is, it has never manifested tangibly. The moment you acted against me, I should have to transform you. I don't want to do that."

"You have to get within six feet," Bink said. "I could strike you down with a thrown rock."

"See?" Iris said. "He's within range now, Trent. Zap him!"

Yet the Magician desisted. "You actually wish to fight me, Bink? Directly, physically?"

"I don't wish to. I have to."

Trent sighed. "Then the only honorable thing to do is to terminate our truce with a formal duel. I suggest we define the locale of combat and the terms. Do you wish a second?"

"A second, a minute, an hour-whatever it takes," Bink said. He tried to quell the shaking he felt in his legs; he was afraid, and knew he was being a fool, yet he could not back down.

"I meant another person to back you up, to see that the terms are honored. Chameleon, perhaps."

"I'm with Bink!" Chameleon said immediately. She could comprehend only a fraction of the situation, but there was no question of her loyalty.

"Well, perhaps the concept of seconds is foreign here," Trent said. "Suppose we establish an area along the wilderness border, a mile deep into the forest and a mile across. One square mile, approximately, or as far as a man might walk in fifteen minutes. And it shall be until dark today. Neither of us shall leave this area until that time, and if the issue is undecided by then, we shall declare the contest null and separate in peace. Fair enough?"

The Evil Magician seemed so reasonable-and that made Bink unreasonable. "To the death!" he said-and immediately wished he hadn't. He knew the Magician would not kill him unless he were forced to; he would transform Bink into a tree or other harmless form of life and let him be. First there had been Justin Tree; now there would be Bink Tree. Perhaps people would come to rest under his shade, to have picnic lunches, to make love. Except that now it had to be death. He had a vision of a fallen tree.

"To the death," Trent said sadly. "Or surrender." Thus he nearly abated Bink's exaggeration without hurting his pride; he made it seem as if the Magician arranged the loophole for himself, not for Bink. How was it possible for a man so wrong to seem so right?

"All right," Bink said. "You go south, I'll go north, into the forest. In five minutes we'll stop and turn and start."

"Fair enough," the Magician agreed. He held out his hand again, and Bink shook it.

"You should get out of the duel zone," Bink told Chameleon.

"No! I'm with you," she insisted. She might be stupid, but she was loyal. Bink could no more blame her for that than he could blame Trent for pursuing power. Yet he had to dissuade her.

"It wouldn't be fair," he said, realizing that it would be futile to try to scare her by thought of the consequences. "Two against one. You have to go."

She was adamant. "I'm too dumb to go by myself." Ouch! How true.

"Let her go with you," Trent said. "It really will make no difference."

And that seemed logical.

Bink and Chameleon set out, angling into the jungle to the northwest. Trent angled southwest. In moments the Magician was out of sight. "We'll have to figure out a plan of attack," Bink said. "Trent has been a perfect gentleman, but the truce is over, and he will use his power against us. We have to get him before he gets us,"

"Yes."

"We'll have to collect stones and sticks, and maybe dig a pit for a deadfall."

"Yes."

"We have to prevent him from getting close enough to use his power of transformation."

"Yes."

"Don't just say yes!" he snapped. "This is serious business. Our lives are at stake."

"I'm sorry. I know I'm awful dumb right now."

Bink was immediately sorry. Of course she was stupid now-that was her curse. And he might be exaggerating the case; Trent might simply avoid the issue by departing, making no fight at all. Thus Bink would have made his stand, and have a moral victory-and have changed nothing. If so, Bink was the dumb one.

He turned to Chameleon to apologize--and rediscovered the fact that she was radiantly beautiful. She had seemed lovely before, in comparison with Fanchon and Dee, but now she was as he had first met her, as Wy

"But I can't help you plan. I can't do anything. You don't like stupid people."

"I like beautiful girls," he said. "And I like smart girls. But I don't trust the combination. I'd settle for an ordinary girl, except she'd get dull after a while. Sometimes I want to talk with someone intelligent, and sometimes I want to-" He broke off. Her mind was like that of a child; it really wasn't right to impose such concepts on her.