Chameleon hastily adjusted her dress. "Something you wouldn't understand," she said with purely female insight.
"No? It hardly matters. Sex is unimportant." The Sorceress put her hands to her mouth in a megaphone gesture. "Trent! They're over here."
Bink dived for her--and passed through her image cleanly. He took a tumble on the forest floor. "Silly boy," Iris said. "You can't touch me."
Now they heard the Evil Magician coming through the forest. Bink looked frantically for some weapon, but saw only the great boles of the trees. Sharp stones might have been used against these trees--therefore all stones had been magically eliminated. Some other area might have potential weapons, but not this highly competitive wilderness, this fringe near the farms that were always in need of more cleared land.
"I have ruined you!' Chameleon cried. "I knew I shouldn't have--"
Shouldn't have made love? True enough, in one sense. They had wasted vital time, loving instead of warring. Yet there might never be another chance. "It was worth it," Bink said. "We'll have to run."
They started to run. But the image of the Sorceress appeared in front of them. "Here, Trent!" she cried again. "Cut them off before they get away."
Bink realized that they could get nowhere so long as Iris dogged them. There was no place they could hide, no surprise they could prepare, no strategic placement possible. Inevitably Trent would run them down.
Then his eye fell on an object Chameleon still carried. It was the hypnotic gourd. If he could get Trent to look into that unwittingly--
Now the Magician came into sight. Bink gently took the gourd from Chameleon. "See if you can distract him until I get close enough to shove this in his face," he said. He held the gourd behind his back. Iris probably did not realize its significance, and she would be able to do nothing once Trent was out of commission.
"Iris," the Magician called loudly. "This is supposed to be a fair duel. If you interfere again, I shall consider our understanding terminated."
The Sorceress started to react with anger, then thought better of it. She vanished.
Trent stopped a dozen paces from Bink. "I regret this complication. Shall we start over?" he inquired gravely.
"We'd better," Bink agreed. The man was so damned sure of himself, he could give away any advantage. Maybe he wanted to wrap it up with a completely clear conscience--such as it was. But by so doing, Trent had unknowingly saved himself from possible disaster. Bink doubted he would have another opportunity to use the gourd.
They separated again. Bink and Chameleon fled deeper into the forest--and almost into the quivering arms of a tangle tree. "If only we could trick him into running into that," Bink said--but found he didn't mean it. He had somehow gotten himself into a duel he really did not want to win--and could not afford to lose. He was as dumb as Chameleon--only somewhat more complicated about it.
They spotted a noose-loop bush. The loops were up to eighteen inches in diameter, but would contract suddenly to a quarter of that when any careless animal put its head or limb through. Their fibers were so tight that only a knife or specific counterspell could alleviate the bind. Even when separated from the bush, the loops retained their potency for several days, gradually hardening in place. Careless or unlucky animals could lose feet or lives, and no creature ever bothered a noose-loop plant twice.
Chameleon shied away, but Bink paused. "It is possible to harvest and carry such loops," he said. "At the North Village we use them to seal packages tight. The trick is to touch them only on the outside. We can take some of these and lay them on the ground where Trent has to step. Or we can throw them at him. I doubt he can transform them once they're detached from the living plant. Can you throw pretty well?"
"Yes."
He walked toward the bush--and spied another wilderness threat. "Look--a nest of ant lions!" he exclaimed. "If we can put them on his scent..."
Chameleon looked at the foot-long, lion-headed ants and shuddered. "Do we have to?"
"I wish we didn't," Bink said. "They wouldn't actually eat him; he'd transform them first. But they might keep him so busy that we could overpower him. If we don't stop him somehow, he's very likely to conquer Xanth."
"Would that be bad?"
It was just one of her stupid questions; in her smart phase, or even her normal phase, she would never have asked it. But it bothered him. Would the Evil Magician really be worse than the present King? He put the question aside. "It is not for us to decide. The Council of Elders will choose the next King. If the crown starts being available by conquest or conspiracy, we'll be back in the days of the Waves, and no one will be secure. The law of Xanth must determine the possession of the crown."
"Yes," she agreed. Bink had surprised himself with an excellent statement of the situation, but of course it was beyond her present understanding.
Still, the notion of throwing Trent to the ant lions bothered him, so he went on searching. In the depths of his mind a parallel search was manifesting, concerning the morality of the present government of Xanth. Suppose Trent were right about the necessity of reopening Xanth to migration from outside? According to the centaurs, the human population had slowly declined during the past century; where had those people gone? Were new part-human monsters being formed even now, by magically enabled interbreeding? The very thought was like being entangled in a noose-loop bush; its ramifications were appalling. Yet it seemed to be so. Trent, as King, would change that situation. Was the evil of the Waves worse than the alternative? Bink was unable to form a conclusion.
They came to a large river. Bink had forded this in his sphinx stage, hardly noticing it, but now it was a deadly barrier. Little ripples betrayed the presence of lurking predators, and eerie mists played about the surface. Bink flipped a clod of mud into the water, and it was intercepted, just before it struck, by a giant crablike claw. The rest of the monster never showed; Bink was unable to determine whether it was a mercrab or a super crayfish or merely a disembodied claw. But he was sure he did not want to swim here.
There were a few round stones at the edge. The river did not have the same reason to be wary of stones that the trees did, but it was best to be careful. Bink poked at them gingerly with his staff to be sure they weren't magic lures; fortunately they weren't. He poked experimentally at a pleasant nearby water lily, and the flower snapped three inches off the tip of his pole. His caution was justified.
"All right," he said when they had a fair reserve of stones. "We'll try to ambush him. We'll arrange noose-loops across his likely path of retreat, and cover them over with leaves, and you can throw your loops at him and I'll throw stones. He'll duck the stones and loops, but he'll have to watch us both to do it, while retreating, so he may step into a hidden loop. It'll bind on his foot, and he'll be vulnerable while he tries to get it off, and maybe we can score. We'll get some material from a blanket tree to throw over his head, so he can't see us and can't transform us, or we can hold the hypno-gourd in front of his face. He'll have to yield then."
"Yes," she said.
They set it up. Their covered loops extended from a hungry tangle tree to the ant-lion nest, and their ambush was in an invisible bush they discovered by sheer accident. That was about the only way such a bush could be discovered. Such plants were harmless, but could be a nuisance when stumbled into. When they hid behind it, they became invisible too, so long as they kept the bush between them and the viewer. They settled down to wait.
But Trent surprised them. While they had been setting up the trap, he had been circling around, orienting on their sounds. Now he came at them from the north. Chameleon, like most girls, had to answer calls of nature frequently, particularly when she was excited. She went behind a harmless mock-tentacle banyan tree, gave one little gasp of alarm, and disappeared. As Bink turned, he saw a lovely young winged deer bound out.
The battle was upon him! Bink charged the tree, stone in one hand, pole in the other. He hoped to knock out the Magician before Trent could throw his spell
. But Trent wasn't there.
Had he jumped to a conclusion? Chameleon could have scared out a hiding doe--
"Now!" the Evil Magician cried from above. He was up in the tree. As Bink looked up, Trent gestured, not making a magical gesture, but bringing his hand down within six feet so as to cast the spell effectively. Bink jumped back--too late. He felt the tingle of transformation.
He rolled on the ground. In a moment he got his hands and feet under him--and discovered he was still a man. The spell had failed! He must have made it out of range in time after all, so that only one arm was in range, not his head.
He looked back at the tree--and gasped. The Evil Magician was tangled in the prickles of a candystripe rose bush.
"What happened?" Bink asked, forgetting his own peril for the moment.
"A branch of the tree got in the way," Trent said, shaking his head as if dazed. He must have had a hard fall. "The spell transformed it instead of you."
Bink would have laughed at this freak accident, but now he remembered his own position. So the Magician had tried to turn him into a rose bush. He hefted his rock. "Sorry," he apologized--and hurled it at the handsome head.
But it bounced off the tough shell of a purple tortoise. Trent had converted the rose to the armored animal and was hidden behind it.
Bink acted without thinking. He aimed the pole like a lance, ran halfway around the tortoise, and thrust it at the Magician. But the man dodged, and again Bink felt the tingle of enchantment.
His momentum carried him beyond his enemy. He was still a man. He retreated to the invisible bush, marveling at his escape. The spell had bounced, convening the tortoise to a werehornet. The insect buzzed up angrily, but decided on escape rather than attack.
Now Trent was hot on Bink's trail. The bush became a woman-headed serpent that slithered away with an exclamation of annoyance, and Bink was exposed again. He tried to run--but was caught a third time by the magic.
Beside him a yellow toad appeared. "What is this?" Trent demanded incredulously. "I struck a passing gnat instead of you. Three times my spell has missed you. My aim can't be that bad!"
Bink scrambled for his staff. Trent oriented on him again, and Bink knew he could neither get out of range nor bring his weapon to bear in time. He was finished, despite all his strategy.
But the winged deer charged from the side, threatening to bowl over the Magician. Trent heard her coming, and spun to focus on her. As she reached him she became a lovely iridescent butterfly, then a very pretty wyvern. "No problem there," Trent remarked. "She's good-looking in whatever form I put her, but my spells are registering perfectly."
The small winged dragon turned on him, hissing, and suddenly she was the winged doe again. "Scat!" Trent told her, clapping his hands. Startled, the deer bounded away. She was not overly bright.
Meanwhile, Bink had taken advantage of the distraction to retreat. But he had gone toward his own carefully fashioned trap, and now he did not know precisely where the noose loops lay hidden. If he tried to cross that line, he would either trap himself or give away its presence to Trent--assuming the Magician was not already aware of it.
Trent strode toward him. Bink was cornered, victim of his own machinations. He stood unmoving, knowing the Magician would turn on him the moment he tried to act. He cursed himself for not being more decisive, but he simply did not know what to. He obviously was no duelist; he had been outmaneuvered and outmagicked from the outset of this contest. He should have left the Evil Magician alone--yet he still could not see how he could have stood by and yielded Xanth up without even token protest. This was that token.
"This time, no error," Trent said, stepping boldly toward Bink. "I know I can transform you, for I have done it many times before without difficulty. I must have been overhasty today." He stopped within range, while Bink stood still, not deigning to run again. Trent concentrated--and the magic smote Bink once more, powerfully.
A flock of funnelbirds manifested around Bink. Hooting derisively, they jetted away on their fixed wings.
"The very microbes surrounding you!" Trent exclaimed. "My spell bounced right off you--again. Now I know there is something strange."
"Maybe you just don't want to kill me," Bink said.
"I was not trying to kill you--only to transform you into something harmless, so that never again could you oppose me. I never kill without reason." The Magician pondered. "Something very strange here. I don't believe my talent is misfiring; something is opposing it. There has to be some counterspell operating. You have led a rather charmed life, you know; I had thought it was mere coincidence, but now--"
Trent considered, then snapped his fingers ringingly. "Your talent! Your magic talent. That's it. You cannot be harmed by magic!"
"But I've been hurt many times," Bink protested.
"Not by magic, I'll warrent. Your talent repels all magical threats."
"But many spells have affected me. You transformed me--."
"Only to help you--or to warn you. You may not have trusted my motives, but your magic knew the truth. I never intended to harm you before, and so my spells were permitted. Now that we are dueling and I am trying to change your status for the worse, my spells bounce. In this respect your magic is more powerful than mine--as certain prior signals have indicated indirectly.''
Bink was amazed. "Then--then I have won. You cannot hurt me."
"Not necessarily so, Bink. My magic has brought yours to bay, and forced its unveiling, and thereby rendered it vulnerable." The Evil Magician drew his gleaming sword. "I have other talents than magic. Defend yourself--physically!"
Bink brought up his staff as Trent lunged. He barely parried the blade in time.
He was vulnerable--physically. Suddenly past confusions unraveled. He had never directly been harmed by magic. Embarrassed, humiliated, yes, especially in childhood. But it was evidently physical harm he was protected against. When he had ran a race with another boy, and the boy had charged through trees and barriers to win, Bink had not suffered any physical damage, merely chagrin. And when he had chopped off his own finger, nonmagically, nothing had aided him there. Magic had healed that, but magic could not have made the injury. Similarly, he had been threatened by magic many times, and been terrified--but somehow had never had those threats materialize. Even when he had taken a lungful of Potipher's poison gas, he had been saved just in time. He had indeed led a charmed life--literally.
"Fascinating aspects to your magic," Trent said conversationally as he maneuvered for another opening. "Obviously it would be scant protection if its nature were widely known. So it arranges to conceal itself from discovery, by acting in subtle ways. Your escapes so often seemed fortuitous or coincidental." Yes, as when he escaped the Gap dragon. He had also been benefited by countermagic, coincidentally--as when he had been taken over by Donald the shade, enabling him to fly up out of the Gap safely.
"Your pride was never salvaged, merely your body," Trent continued, obviously taking his time about the fight while he worked out all the details, just in case. He was a meticulous man. "Maybe you suffered some discomfort, as in our entry into Xanth, whose purpose was to conceal the fact that nothing serious had happened to you. Rather than reveal itself, your talent allowed you to be exiled--because that was a legal or social matter, not really magical. Yet you were not hurt by the Shield--"
He had felt the tingle of the Shield as he dived through on his way out, and thought he had gotten safely through the opening. Now he knew he had taken the full force of the Shield--and survived. He could have walked through it at any time. But, had he known that, he might have done it--and given away his talent. So it had been concealed--from himself.
Yet now it had been revealed. And there was a flaw. "You were not hurt by the Shield either," Bink cried, striking hard with his staff.
"I was in direct contact with you when we entered," Trent said. "So was Chameleon. You were unconscious, but your talent still operated. To allow the two of us to die while you survi
ved unscathed--that would have given it away. Or possibly a small field surrounds you, enabling you to protect those you touch. Or your talent looked ahead, and knew that if the magic of the Shield eliminated us at that time, you would be cast into the den of the kraken weed alone, and be unable to escape, and die there. You needed me and my power of transformation to survive the magical threats--so I was spared. And Chameleon, because you would not have worked with me if she had not done so. So we all survived, in order to promote your survival, and we never suspected the true cause. Similarly, your magic protected us all during our trek through the wilderness. I thought I needed you to protect me, but it was the other way around. My talent became a mere aspect of yours. When you were threatened by the wiggles and the invisible giant, you drew on my transformation of you to abate that threat, still without revealing..."
Trent shook his head, still parrying Bink's clumsy attacks easily. "Suddenly it becomes less amazing--and your talent more impressive. You are a Magician, with not merely the overt complex of talents but the ramifying aspects too. Magicians are not merely more powerfully talented people; our enchantments differ in quality as well as quantity, in ways seldom appreciated by normal citizens. You are on a par with Humfrey and Iris and myself. I'd really like to know your power's full nature and extent."
"So would I," Bink gasped. His efforts were winding him, without effect on the Magician. This was true frustration.
"But alas, it seems I cannot become King while a talent like that opposes me. I sincerely regret the necessity of sacrificing your life, and want you to know this was not my intent at the outset of this encounter. I would have much preferred to transform you harmlessly. But the sword is less versatile than magic; it can only injure or kill."
Bink remembered Herman the centaur, his head flying from his body. When Trent decided that killing was necessary--
Trent made a deft maneuver. Bink flung himself aside. The point of the sword touched his hand. Blood flowed; with a cry of pain, Bink dropped his staff. He could be hurt by Mundane means, obviously. Trent had aimed for that hand, testing, making absolutely sure.