Bink heard the explosion and came running. Chameleon, quite pretty now, was huddling in a corner of the kitchen. "What happened?" Bink demanded, looking about for hostile magic.
"Oh, Bink!" she cried, turning to him with woeful relief. Her homemade dress was in disarray, exposing her finely formed b.r.e.a.s.t.s above and her firm round thighs below. What a difference a few days made! She was not at the height of her loveliness, but she was quite adequate to the need.
The need? Bink found her in his arms, aware that she was eager to do any bidding he might make. It was difficult indeed to steel himself against the obvious, for she also had much of Dee in her--the aspect he had liked before he understood her nature. He could take her now, make love to her--and neither her stupid phase nor her smart phase would condemn him.
But he was not a casual lover, and he did not want to make any such commitment at this time, in this situation. He pushed her away gently, the action requiring far more effort than he cared to show. "What happened?" he asked again.
"It--it banged," she said.
He had to remind himself that her diminishing mentality was the other face of her curse. Now it was easier to hold off her lush body. A body without a mind did not appeal to him. "What banged?"
"The cherry."
"The cherry?" This was the first he had heard about the new fruit. But after patient questioning, he elicited the story.
"Those are cherry bombs!" he exclaimed, comprehending. "If you had actually eaten one--" : She was not yet so stupid as to misunderstand that. "Oh, my mouth?"
"Oh, your head! Those things are powerful. Didn"t Milly warn you?" Milly was the chambermaid ghost.
"She was busy."
What would a ghost be busy with? Well, this was no time to explore that. "After this don"t eat anything unless a ghost tells you it"s okay."
Chameleon nodded dutifully.
Bink picked up a cherry cautiously and considered it. It was just a hard little red ball, marked only where its stem had broken off. "Old Magician Roogna probably used these bombs in warfare. He didn"t like war, as I understand it, but he never let his defenses grow soft. Any attackers--why, one man on the ramparts with a slingshot could decimate an army, lobbing these cherry bombs down. No telling what other trees there are in the a.r.s.enal. If you don"t stop fooling around with strange fruits--"
"I could blow up the castle," she said, watching the dissipating smoke. The floor was scorched, and a table had lost a leg.
"Blow up the castle ..." Bink echoed, suddenly thinking of something. "Chameleon, why don"t you bring in some more cherry bombs? I"d like to experiment with them. But be careful, very careful; don"t knock or drop any."
"Sure," she said, as eager to please as any ghost. "Very careful."
"And don"t eat any." That was not quite a joke.
Bink gathered cloth and string, and made bags of a.s.sorted sizes. Soon he had bag-bombs of varying power. He planted these strategically around the castle. One bag he kept for himself.
"I think we are ready to depart Castle Roogna," he said. "But first I have to talk with Trent. You stand here by the kitchen door, and if you see any zombies, throw cherries at them." He was sure no zombie had the coordination to catch such a bomb and throw it back; wormy eyes and rotting flesh necessarily had poor hand-eye integration. So they would be vulnerable. "And if you see Trent come down, and not me, throw a cherry into that pile. Fast, before he gets within six feet of you." And he pointed to a large bomb he had tied to a major support column. "Do you understand?"
She didn"t, but he drilled her on it until she had it straight. She was to throw a cherry at anything she saw--except Bink himself.
Now he was ready. He went up to the library to speak with the Evil Magician. His heart beat loudly within him, now that the moment of confrontation had come, but he knew what he had to do.
A ghost intercepted him. It was Milly, the chambermaid, her white sheet arranged to resemble her working dress, her black-hole eyes somehow having the aspect of once-sultry humanity. The ghosts had become shapeless from sheer neglect and carelessness in the course of the past few centuries of isolation, but now that there was company they were shaping up into their proper forms.
Another week would have them back into people outlines and people colors, though of course they would still be ghosts. Bink suspected Milly would turn out to be a rather pretty girl, and he wondered just how she had died. A liaison with a castle guest, then a stabbing by the jealous wife who discovered them?
"What is it, Milly?" he asked, pausing. He had mined the castle, but he bore no malice toward its unfortunate denizens. He hoped his bluff would be effective, so that it would not be necessary to destroy the home of the ghosts, who really were not responsible for its grandiose mischief.
"The King--private conference," she said. Her speech was still somewhat windy, as it was hard for an ent.i.ty with so little physical substance---hardly any ectoplasm--to enunciate clearly. But he could make it out.
"Conference? There"s n.o.body here but us," he objected. "Or do you mean he"s on the pot?"
Milly blushed as well as she was able to. Though as chambermaid she had been accustomed to the ch.o.r.e of collecting and emptying out the chamberpots, she felt that any reference to a person"s actual performance on them was uncouth. It was as if the substance were completely divorced from the function. Perhaps she liked to believe that the refuse appeared magically overnight, untouched by human intestine. Magic fertilizer! "No."
"Well, I"m sorry, but I"ll have to interrupt him," Bink said. "You see, I don"t recognize him as King, and I am about to depart the castle."
"Oh." She put one foggily formed hand to her vague face in feminine misgiving. "But seee."
"Very well." Bink followed her to the little chapel room adjacent to the library. It was actually an offshoot from the master bedroom, with no direct access to the library. But it had, as it turned out, a small window opening onto the library. Since the gloom of the unlit chapel was deeper than that of the other room, it was possible to see without being seen.
Trent was not alone. Before him stood a woman of early middle age, still handsome though the first flush of beauty had faded. Her hair was tied back and up in a functional, fairly severe bun, but there were smile lines around her mouth and eyes. And beside her was a boy, perhaps ten years old, who bore a direct resemblance to the woman, and had to be her son.
Neither person spoke, but their breathing and slight shifts of posture showed that they were alive and solid, not ghosts. How had they come here, and what was their business? Why hadn"t Bink or Chameleon seen them enter? It was almost impossible to approach this castle un.o.bserved; it was designed that way, to be readily defensible in case of attack. And the portcullis remained down, blocking off the front entry. Bink had been down by the kitchen entrance, fashioning his bombs.
But, granting that they obviously had come, why didn"t they speak? Why didn"t Trent speak? They all just looked at each other in eerie silence. This whole scene seemed to make no sense.
Bink studied the odd, silent pair. They were vaguely reminiscent of the widow and son of Donald the shade, the ones he had told about the silver oak so that they would not have to live in poverty any more. The similarity was not in their physical appearance, for these were better-looking people who had obviously not suffered poverty; it was in their atmosphere of quiet loss. Had they lost their man, too? And come to Trent for some kind of help? If so, they had chosen the wrong Magician.
Bink drew away, disliking the feeling of snooping. Even Evil Magicians deserved some privacy. He walked around to the hall and back to the top of the stairs. Milly, her warning completed, vanished. Apparently it required some effort for the ghosts to manifest and speak intelligibly, and they had to recuperate in whatever vacuum they occupied when off duty.
He resumed his march to the library, this time stepping heavily so as to make his approach audible. Trent would have to introduce him to the visitors.
But only the Magician was there as Bink pushed open the door. He was seated at the table, poring over another tome. He looked up as Bink entered. "Come for a good book, Bink?" he inquired.
Bink lost his composure. "The people! What happened to them?"
Trent frowned. "People, Bink?"
"I saw them. A woman and a boy, right here--" Bink faltered. "Look, I didn"t mean to peek, but when Milly said you were in conference, I looked in from the chapel."
Trent nodded. "Then you did see. I did not intend to burden you with my private problems."
"Who are they? How did they get here? What did you do to them?"
"They were my wife and son," Trent said gravely. "They died."
Bink remembered the story the sailor had told of the Evil Magician"s Mundane family, killed by Mundane illness. "But they were here. I saw them."
"And seeing is believing." Trent sighed. "Bink, they were two roaches, transformed into the likenesses of my loved ones. These were the only two people I ever loved or ever shall love. I miss them. I need them--if only to gaze on their likenesses on occasion. When I lost them, there was nothing left for me in Mundania." He brought an embroidered Castle Roogna handkerchief to his face, and Bink was amazed to see that the Evil Magician"s eyes were bright with tears. But Trent retained his control. "However, this is not properly your concern, and I prefer not to discuss it. What is it that brings you here, Bink?"
Oh, yes. He was committed, and had to follow through. Somehow the verve had gone out of it, but he proceeded: "Chameleon and I are leaving Castle Roogna."
The handsome brow wrinkled. "Again?"
"This time for real," Bink said, nettled. "The zombies won"t stop us."
"And you find it necessary to inform me? We already have our understanding about this, and I am sure I would become aware of your absence in due course. If you feared I would oppose it, it would have been to your advantage to depart without my knowledge."
Bink did not smile. "No. I feel it behooves me, under our truce, to inform you."
Trent made a little wave of one hand. "Very well. I will not claim I am glad to see you go; I have come to appreciate your qualities, as shown in the precision of your ethic that caused you to notify me of your present action. And Chameleon is a fine girl, of like persuasion, and daily more pretty. I would much prefer to have you both on my side, but since this cannot be, I wish you every fortune elsewhere."
Bink found this increasingly awkward. "This is not exactly a social leave-taking. I"m sorry." He wished now that he hadn"t observed Trent"s wife and son, or learned their identifies; those had obviously been good people, undeserving of their fate, and Bink was wholly in sympathy with the Magician"s grief. "The castle won"t let us go voluntarily. We have to force it. So we have planted bombs, and--"
"Bombs!" Trent exclaimed. "Those are Mundane artifacts. There are no bombs in Xanth--and shall be none. Never, while I am King."
"It seems there were bombs in the old days," Bink said doggedly. "There"s a cherry-bomb tree in the yard. Each cherry explodes on impact, violently."
"Cherry bombs?" Trent repeated. "So. What have you done with the cherries?"
"We have used them to mine the castle supports. If Roogna tries to stop us, we will destroy it. So it is better if it lets us go in peace. I needed to tell you, so you could disarm the bombs after we"re gone."
"Why tell me this? Don"t you oppose my designs, and those of Castle Roogna? If Magician and castle were destroyed, you would be the clean victor."
"Not clean. It"s not the kind of victory I want," Bink said. "I--look, you could do so much good in Xanth, if you only--" But he knew it was useless. It simply was not the nature of an Evil Magician to devote himself to Good. "Here is a list of the bomb locations," he said, setting a piece of paper on the table. "All you have to do is pick up the packages and bags very carefully and take them outside."
Trent shook his head. "I don"t believe your bomb threat will work to effect your escape, Bink. The castle is not intelligent per se. It only reacts to certain stimuli. It might let Chameleon go, but not you. In its perception, you are a Magician, therefore you must remain. You may have out-thought Roogna, but it will not comprehend the full nature of your ploy. Thus the zombies will balk you, as before."
"Then we shall have to bomb it."
"Exactly. You will have to set off the cherries, and all of us will be destroyed together."
"No, we"ll get outside first, and heave a cherry back. If the castle cannot be bluffed--"
"It can"t be bluffed. It is not a thinking thing. It merely reacts, you will be forced to destroy it--and you know I can"t permit that. I need Roogna!"
Now it was getting tough. Bink was ready. "Chameleon will set off the bombs if you transform me," he said, feeling the chill of challenge. He didn"t like this sort of power play, but had known it would come to this. "If you interfere in any way--"
"Oh, I would not break the truce. But--"
"You can"t break the truce. Either I rejoin Chameleon alone or she heaves a cherry into a bomb. She"s too stupid to do anything but follow directions."
"Listen to me, Bink! It is my given word that prevents me from breaking the truce, not your tactical preparations. I could transform you into a flea, and then transform a roach into your likeness and send that likeness down to meet Chameleon. Once she set down the cherry--"
Bink"s face reflected his chagrin. The Evil Magician could void the plan. Chameleon-stupid would not catch on until too late; that nadir of intelligence worked against him as well as for him.
"I am not doing this," Trent said. "I tell you about the possibility merely to demonstrate that I, too, have ethics. The end does not justify the means. I feel that you have allowed yourself to forget this temporarily, and if you will listen a moment you will see your error and correct it. I cannot allow you to destroy this marvelous and historically significant edifice, to no point."
Already Bink was feeling guilty. Was he to be talked out of a course he knew was right?
"Surely you realize," the Evil Magician continued persuasively, "that the entire area would erupt in vengeful wrath if you did this thing. You might be outside the castle, but you would remain in the Roogna environs, and you would die horribly. Chameleon, too."
Chameleon, too--that hurt. That beautiful girl devoured by a tangle tree, ripped apart by zombies ... "It is a risk I must take," Bink said grimly, though he realized the Magician was correct. The way they had been herded to this castle--there would be no escaping the savagery of the forest. "Maybe you will be able to persuade the castle to let us go, rather than set off that chain of events."
"You are a stubborn one!"
"Yes."
"At least hear me out first. If I cannot persuade you, then what must be must be, though I abhor it."
"Speak briefly." Bink was surprised at his own temerity, but he felt he was doing what he had to. If Trent tried to approach within six feet, Bink would take off, to avoid transformation. He might be able to outrun the Magician. But even so, he could not wait too long; he was afraid that Chameleon would tire of waiting and do something foolish.
"I really don"t want to see you or Chameleon die, and of course I value my own survival," Trent said. "While I love n.o.body alive today, you two have been as close to me as anyone. It is almost as if fate has decreed that like types must be banned from the conventional society of Xanth. We--"
"Like types!" Bink exclaimed indignantly.
"I apologize for an invidious comparison. We have been through a great deal together in a short time, and I think it is fair to say we have saved each other"s lives on occasion. Perhaps it was to a.s.sociate with your like that I really returned to Xanth."
"Maybe so," Bink said stiffly, suppressing the mixed feelings he was experiencing. "But that does not justify your conquering Xanth and probably killing many entire families."
Trent looked pained, but controlled himself. "I do not pretend that it does, Bink. The Mundane tragedy of my family was the stimulus, not the justification, for my return. I had nothing remaining in Mundania worth living for, so naturally my orientation shifted to Xanth, my homeland. I would not try to harm Xanth; I hope to benefit it, by opening it up to the contemporary reality before it is too late. Even if some deaths occur, this is a small price to pay for the eventual salvation of Xanth."
"You think Xanth won"t survive unless you conquer it?" Bink tried to put a sneer in his tone, but it didn"t register very well. If only he had the verbal control and projection of the Evil Magician!
"Yes, actually, I do. Xanth is overdue for a new Wave of colonization, and such a Wave would benefit it as the prior ones did."
"The Waves were murder and rapine and destruction! The curse of Xanth."
Trent shook his head. "Some were that, yes. But others were highly beneficial, such as the Fourth Wave, from which this castle dates. It was not the fact of the Waves but their mismanagement that made trouble. On the whole they were essential to the progress of Xanth. But I don"t expect you to believe that. Right now I"m merely trying to persuade you to spare this castle and yourself; I"m not trying to convert you to my cause."
Something about this interchange was troubling Bink increasingly. The Evil Magician seemed too mature, too reasonable, too knowledgeable, too committed. Trent was wrong--he had to be--yet he spoke with such verisimilitude that Bink had difficulty pinpointing that wrongness. "Try to convert me," he said.
"I"m glad you said that, Bink. I"d like you to know my logical rationale. Perhaps you can offer some positive critique."
That sounded like a sophisticated intellectual ploy. Bink tried to perceive it as sarcasm, but he was sure it was not. He feared the Magician was more intelligent than he, but he also knew what was right. "Maybe I can," he said guardedly. He felt as if he were walking into the wilderness, picking the most likely paths, yet being inevitably guided to the trap at the center. Castle Roogna----on the physical and intellectual levels. Roogna had lacked a voice for eight hundred years, but now it had one. Bink could no more fence with that voice than he could with the Magician"s keen sword--yet he had to try.
"My rationale is dual. Part of it relates to Mundania, and part to Xanth. You see, despite certain lapses in ethics and politics, Mundania has progressed remarkably in the past few centuries, thanks to the numbers of people who have made discoveries and spread information; in many respects it is a far more civilized region than Xanth. Unfortunately, the Mundanes" powers of combat have also progressed. This you will have to take on faith, for I have no way to prove it here. Mundania has weapons that are easily capable of eradicating all life in Xanth, regardless of the Shield."
"That"s a lie!" Bink exclaimed. "Nothing can penetrate the Shield!"
"Except perhaps the three of us," Trent murmured. "But the main restriction of the Shield is against living things. You could charge through the Shield--your body would penetrate it quite readily--but you would be dead when you got there."
"Same thing."
"Not the same thing, Bink! You see, there are big guns that throw missiles which are dead to begin with, such as powerful bombs, like your cherry bombs but much worse, preset to explode on contact. Xanth is a small area, compared to Mundania. If the Mundanes were determined, they could saturate Xanth. In such an attack, even the Shieldstone would be destroyed. The people of Xanth can no longer afford to ignore the Mundanes. There are too many Mundanians; we can"t remain undiscovered forever. They can and will one day wipe us out. Unless we establish relations now."
Bink shook his head in disbelief and incomprehension.
But Trent continued without rancor. "Now, the Xanth internal aspect is quite another matter. It poses no threat to Mundania, since magic is not operative there. But it does pose an insidious but compelling threat to life as we know it in Xanth itself."
"Xanth poses a threat to Xanth? This is nonsense on the face of it."
Now Trent"s smile was a bit patronizing. "I can see you would have trouble with the logic of recent Mundanian science." But he sobered before Bink could inquire about that. "No, I am being unfair to you. This internal threat of Xanth is something I learned just in the past few days from my researches in this library, and it is important. This aspect alone justifies the necessity of preserving this castle, for its acc.u.mulated ancient lore is vital to Xanth society."
Bink remained dubious. "We"ve lived without this library for eight centuries; we can live without it now."
"Ah, but the manner of that life?" Trent shook his head as if perceiving something too vast to be expressed. He got up and moved to a shelf behind him. He took down a book and riffled carefully through its creaking old pages. He set it down before Bink, open. "What is that picture?"