pell For Chameleon - iers Anthony

Trent arrived. "We seem to have made it," he said cheerfully. "It certainly is good to be back in Xanth, by whatever freak of fortune. Ironic that you, who sought so ardently to prevent my access, instead facilitated it!"

"Ironic," Fanchon agreed dully.

"I believe this is the coast of the central wilderness region, bounded on the north by the great Gap. I had not realized we had drifted so far south, but the contour of the land seems definitive. That means we are not yet out of trouble."

"Bink's an exile, you're banished, and I'm ugly," Fanchon muttered. "We'll never be out of trouble."

"Nevertheless, I believe it would be expedient to extend our truce until we are free of the wilderness," the Magician said.

Did Trent know something Bink didn't? Bink had no magic, so he would be prey to all the sinister spells of the deep jungle. Fanchon had no apparent magic-strange, she claimed her exile had been voluntary, not forced, yet if she really had no magic she should have been banished too; anyway, she would have a similar problem. But Trent-with his skills with sword and spell, he should have no reason to fear this region.

Fanchon had similar doubts. "As long as you're with us, we're in constant danger of being transformed into toads. I can't see that the wilderness is worse."

Trent spread his hands. "I realize you do not trust me, and perhaps you have reason. I believe your security and mine would be enhanced if we cooperated a little longer, but I shall not force my company on you." He walked south along the beach.

"He knows something," Bink said. "He must be leaving us to die. So he can be rid of us without breaking his word."

"Why should he care about his word?" Fanchon asked. "That would imply he is a man of honor."

Bink had no answer. He crawled to the shade and concealment of the nearest tree and collapsed in the downy sward. He had been unconscious during part of the last night, but that was not the same as sleep; he needed genuine rest.

When he woke it was high noon-and he was fixed in place. There was no pain, only some itching--but he couldn't lift his head or hands. They were fastened to the ground by myriad threads, as if the very lawn had-Oh, no! In the numbness of fatigue, he had been so careless as to lie in a bed of carnivorous grass! The root blades had grown up into his body, infiltrating it so slowly and subtly that it had not disturbed his sleep-and now he was caught. Once he had happened on a patch of the stuff near the North Village with an animal skeleton on it. The grass had consumed all the flesh. He had wondered how any creature could have been so stupid as to be trapped by such a thing. Now he knew.

He was still breathing, therefore he could still yell. He did so with a certain gusto. "Help!"

There was no response.

"Fanchon!" he cried. "I'm tied down. The grass is eating me up." Actually that was an exaggeration; he was not hurt, merely bound to the ground. But the tendrils continued to grow into him, and soon they would start to feed, drawing the life proteins from his flesh.

Still nothing. He realized she would not or could not help him. Probably something had put a sleep spell on her. It was obvious, in retrospect, that there were plenty of deadly threats right here at the edge of the beach; she must have fallen into another. She might be dead already.

"Help! Anybody!" he screamed desperately.

That was another mistake. All around him, in the forest and along the beach, things were stirring. He had advertised his helplessness, and now they were coming to take advantage of it. Had he struggled with the grass in silence, he might have managed in time to work his way free; he had awakened before it was ready for the kill, luckily. Maybe he had tried to turn over in his sleep, and his body had objected to the resistance strongly enough to throw off the stasis spell the grass was applying. If he struggled and failed, his demise at least would have been fairly comfortable-just a slow sinking into eternal sleep. Now by his noise he had summoned much less comfortable menaces. He could not see them, but he could hear them.

From the nearby tree came a rustle, as of meat-eating squirrels. From the beach came a scrape, as of hungry acid crabs. From the sea came a horrible kind of splashing, as of a small sea monster who had sneaked into the territory of the big sea monster Trent had transformed. Now this little one struggled to get out of the water and cross to the prey before it was gone. But the most dreadful sound of all was the pound-pound-pound of the footfalls of something deep in the forest, large and far away but moving extremely rapidly.

A shadow fell on him. "Hi!" a shrill voice cried. It was a harpy, cousin to the one he had met on the way back to the North Village. She was every bit as ugly, smelly, and obnoxious-and now she was dangerous. She descended slowly, her talons reaching down, twitching. The other harpy had seen him healthy, so had stayed well out of reach-though she might have descended had he actually drunk from the Spring of Love. Ugh! This one saw him helpless.

She had a human face and human breasts, so was in that sense female, like the mermaids. But in lieu of arms she had great greasy wings, and her body was that of a gross bird. And she was a dirty bird; not only were her face and breasts grotesquely shaped, grime was caked on them. It was a wonder she could fly at all. Bink had not had the opportunity-or desire--to appreciate the qualifies of the prior harpy at close range; now he had a really excellent nether view. Double agh! The mermaids had represented much that was lovely in the female form; this harpy was the ugly aspect. She made Fanchon look halfway decent in comparison; at least Fanchon was clean.

She dropped on him, claws clutching and unclutching in air, in anticipation of the glob of entrails they were about to rip out of his exposed gut. Some of the nails were broken and jagged. He caught the odor of her, a stink like none he remembered. "Oooh, you big handsome hunk of meat!" she screeched. "You look good enough to eat. I can hardly choose what to take first." And she burst into maniacal laughter.

Bink, absolutely horrified, put forth the supreme effort of his life and wrenched one arm free of the grass. Little roots trailed from it, and the separation was painful. He was lying partly on his side, one cheek anchored, so he had a very limited field of vision, but his ears continued to bring him the dreadful news of the threats about him. He struck at the harpy, scaring her off for the moment. She was of course a coward; her character matched her appearance.

Her wings fluttered heavily. A soiled feather drifted down. "Oooh, you naughty boy!" she screeched. She seemed to be unable to converse in anything less than a screech; her voice was so harsh as to be almost incomprehensible. "I'll goozle your gizzard for that." And she emitted her horrible cackle again.

But now a shadow fell on Bink, from something he could not see-but the outline was awful. He heard heavy breathing, as of some great animal, and smelled its carrion-coated breath, which for the moment overrode the stench of the harpy. It was the thing from the sea, its feet dragging as it hunched forward. It sniffed him-and the other creatures stopped moving in, afraid to stand up to this predator.

All except the harpy. She was ready to heap vilification on anything, from the safety of the air. "Get away, argus!" she screeched. "He's mine, all mine, especially his gizzard." And she dropped down again, forgetting Bink's free arm. For once Bink didn't mind. He could fight off the dirty bird, but this other thing was too much for him. Let her interfere all she wanted.

The unseen thing snorted and leaped, passing right over Bink's body with amazing agility. Now he saw it: body and tail of a large fish, four stout short legs terminating in flippers, tusked head of a boar, no neck. Three eyes were set along its torso, the middle one set lower than the others. Bink had never seen a monster quite like this before--a land-walking fish.

The harpy flew up out of the way just in time, narrowly missing being gored by the thing's semicircular horns. Another stinking feather fell. She screeched some really disgusting insults in her ire, and let fly with a gooey dropping, but the monster ignored her and turned to concentrate on Bink. It opened its mouth, and Bink made a fist to punch it in the snout-for what little good that might do-when abruptly it paused, gazing balefully over Bink's shoulder.

"Now you'll get it, argus," the harpy screeched gleefully. "Even a fishy lout like you can't ignore catoblepas."

Bink had never heard of either argus or catoblepas, but another quake of deep misgiving went through him. He felt the muzzle of the hidden monster nudge him. It was oddly soft-but such was its power that it ripped him half out of the grass.

Then the pig-snouted argus charged, furious that its meal should be taken away. Bink dropped flat again, letting the slimy flippers pass over him--and their impact dislodged more of his body. He was getting free!

The two brutes collided. "Sic 'em, monsters!" the harpy screeched, hovering overhead. In her excitement over this mischief she let fall another large squishy dropping, which just missed Bink's head. If only he had a rock to throw at her!

He sat up. One leg remained anchored-but now he had anchorage to rip out of the clutch of the demon weed. It didn't even hurt this time. He looked at the battling monsters-and saw the snakelike hair of the catoblepas twined around the head of the argus, gripping it by horns, ears, scales, and eyeballs-anything available. The body of the catoblepas was covered with reptilian scales, from its gorgon head to its cloven hooves, invulnerable to the attack of the argus. In overall shape it was like any quadruped, not all that remarkable; but that deadly writhing prehensile head hair-what a horror!

Had he really wanted to return to magic Xanth? He had so conveniently forgotten its uglier aspect. Magic had as much evil as good. Maybe Mundania would really have been better.

"Fools!" the harpy cried, seeing Bink loose. "He's getting away." But the monsters were now enmeshed in their own struggle, and paid her no attention. No doubt the winner would feast on the loser, and Bink would be superfluous.

She darted down at Bink, forgetting all caution. But he was on his feet now, and able to fight. He reached up and caught her by one wing, trying to get his hands around her scrawny throat. He would gladly have strangled her, in a sense strangling all the meanness of Xanth. But she squawked and fluttered so violently that all he got was a handful of gummy feathers.

Bink took advantage of his luck and ran away from the fray. The harpy fluttered after him for a moment, screeching such hideously foul insults that his ears burned, but soon gave up. She had no chance of overcoming him by herself. Harpies were basically carrion feeders and thieves, not hunters. It was their fashion to snatch food from the mouths of others. There was now no sign of the other creatures that had rustled and scraped toward him; they too were predators only of the helpless.

Where was Fanchon? Why hadn't she come to help him? She surely must have heard his cries for help--if she still lived. There was no way she could have been unaware of the recent fracas. So this must mean-No! She had to be somewhere. Maybe down by the sea, catching fish, out of hearing. She had been invaluable during the past two days, and unswervingly loyal to the welfare of Xanth. Without her he could never have escaped the power of the Evil Magician. For intelligence and personality she had it all over the other girls he had met. Too bad she wasn't-He saw her, resting against a tree. "Fanchon?" he cried gladly.

"Hello, Bink," she said.

Now his worry and speculation translated into ire. "Didn't you see me being attacked by those monsters? Didn't you hear?"

"I saw, I heard," she said quietly.

Bink was baffled and resentful. "Why didn't you help me? You could at least have grabbed a stick or thrown rocks. I was almost eaten alive!"

"I'm sorry," she said.

He took another step toward her. "You're sorry! You just rested here doing nothing and--" He cut off, losing the words to continue.

"Maybe if you moved me from the tree," she said.

"I'll dump you in the sea!" he cried. He strode up to her, leaned over to grab her roughly by the arm, and felt a sudden wash of weakness.

Now he understood. The tree had put a lethargy spell on her, and was starting in on him. As with the carnivorous grass, it took time to take full effect; she must have settled here to sleep, as careless in her fatigue as he had been in his, and was now far gone. There was no actual discomfort to alert potential prey, just a slow, insidious draining of vitality, of strength and will, until it all was gone. Very similar to the grass, actually, only this was less tangible.

He fought it off. He squatted beside her, sliding his arms under her back and legs. He really wasn't too weak, yet; if he acted fast-He started to lift her-and discovered that his squatting posture had given him a false sense of well-being. He could not raise her up; in fact, he wasn't sure he could stand alone. He just wanted to lie down and rest a moment.

No! That would be the end. He dared not yield to it. "Sorry I yelled at you," he said. "I didn't realize what you were in."

"That's all right, Bink. Take it easy." She closed her eyes.

He let go of her and backed away on his hands and knees. "Good-bye," she said listlessly, reopening one eye. She was almost done for.

He took hold of her feet and pulled. Another surge of weakness came, making the job seem impossible. It was as much emotional as physical. There was no way he could haul her weight. He tried anyway, his stubbornness prevailing over even this magic. But he failed. She was too heavy for him here.

He backed farther away-and as he left the environs of the tree his energy and will returned. But now she was beyond his reach. He stood up and took another step toward her-and lost his strength again, so that he fell to the ground. He would never make it this way.

Again he hauled himself back, sweating with the effort of concentration. Were he less stubborn, he would not have gotten this far. "I can't get you out, and I'm only wasting time," he said apologetically. "Maybe I can loop you with a rope."

But there was no rope. He walked along the trees of the edge of the jungle and spied a dangling vine. That would do nicely if he could get it loose.

He grabbed it in one hand-and screamed. The thing writhed in his grasp and looped about his wrist, imprisoning it. More vines dropped from the tree, swinging toward him. This was a land kraken, a variant of the tangle tree! He was still being fatally careless, walking directly into traps that should never have fooled him.

Bink dropped, yanking on the vine with his full weight. It stretched to accommodate him, twining more tightly about his arm. But now he spied a pointed bit of bone on the ground, remnant of prior prey; he swept it up with his free hand and poked at the vine with it, puncturing it.

Thick orange sap welled out. The whole tree shivered. There was a high keening of pain. Reluctantly the vine loosened, and he drew his arm free. Another close call.

He ran on down the beach, searching for whatever would help him. Maybe a sharp-edged stone, to cut off a vine-no, the other vines would get him. Give up that idea. Maybe a long pole? No, similar problem. This peaceful-seeming beach was a morass of danger, really coming alive; anything and everything was suspect.