"What happened to you?"
"I was flying home, after discovering the silver tree, and a storm came up. I was so excited by the thought of riches that I couldn"t wait. I risked the trip in high winds---and got blown into the Gap. The impact was so great I landed in the cave--but I was already dead."
"I didn"t see any bones."
"You didn"t see any hole in the ground, either. The dirt filled in over me, and then my body got washed away by the river."
"But---"
"Don"t you know anything? It"s the place of death that anchors the shade, not the place of the corpse."
"Oh. Sorry."
"I hung on, though I knew it was hopeless. Then you came." Donald paused. "Look, you"ve done me such a favor--I"ll share the silver with you. There"s enough on that tree for both my family and you. Only promise not to tell anyone else where it is."
Bink was tempted, but a moment"s reflection changed his mind. "I need magic, not silver. Without magic, I"ll be exiled from Xanth, so I won"t be able to share the silver. With magic---I don"t care about wealth. So if you want to share it, share it with the tree; don"t take all its leaves, but just a few at a time, and some of the silver acorns that drop, so the tree can go on living in health and perhaps reproduce itself. In the long run that will be more productive anyway."
"It was a fortunate day for me when you dropped into my cave," Donald said. He banked into a curve, going down.
Bink"s ears popped again as they descended. They dropped into a forest glade, then walked half a mile to an isolated, run-down farm. It took that much motion to completely eliminate the fingering cramps in Bink"s legs. "Isn"t it beautiful?" Donald inquired.
Bink looked at the rickety wooden fence and sagging roof. A few chickens scratched among the weeds. But to a man who had love invested here, love enough to sustain him two years after violent death, it must be the fairest of ranches. "Um," he said.
"I know it isn"t much--but after that cave, it is like heaven itself," Donald continued. "My wife and boy have magic, of course, but it isn"t enough. She cures feather fade in chickens, and he makes little dust devils. She brings in barely enough to feed them. But she"s a good wife, and lovely beyond belief."
Now they entered the yard. A seven-year-old boy looked up from the picture he was making in the dirt. He reminded Bink briefly of the werewolf boy he had left-was it only six hours ago? But that impression was destroyed when this boy opened his mouth. "Go "way!" he yelled.
"Better I don"t tell him," Donald said slowly, a bit taken aback. "Two years--that"s a long time for that age. He doesn"t recognize this body. But see how he"s grown."
They knocked on the door. A woman answered: plain, in a dingy dress, her hair swept back under a soiled kerchief. In her heyday she might have been ordinary; now hard work had made her old before her time.
She hasn"t changed a bit, Donald thought admiringly. Then, aloud: "Sally!"
The woman stared at him with uncomprehending hostility.
"Sally--don"t you know me? I"m back from the dead to wrap up my affairs."
"Don!" She exclaimed, her pale eyes lighting at last. Then Bink"s arms enfolded her, and his lips kissed hers. He saw her through Donald"s overwhelming emotion--and she was good and lovely beyond belief.
Donald drew back, staring into the splendor of her love as he spoke. "Mark this, darling: thirteen miles north-northeast of the small millpond, beside a sharp east-west ridge, there is a silver tree. Go harvest it--a few leaves at a time, so as not to damage it. Market the metal as far away as you can, or get a friend to do it for you. Tell no one the source of your wealth. Remarry--it will make a fine dowry, and I want you to be happy, and the boy to have a father."
"Don," she repeated, tears of grief and joy in her eyes. "I don"t care about silver, now that you"re back."
"I"m not back! I"m dead, returning only as a shade to tell you of the tree. Take it, use it, or my struggle has been for nothing. Promise!"
"But--" she started, then saw the look on his face. "All right, Don, I promise. But I"ll never love any other man!"
"My onus is abated, my deed is done," Donald said. "One more time, beloved." He bent to kiss her again--and dissipated. Bink found himself kissing another man"s wife.
She knew it immediately, and jerked her face away. "Oh, sorry," Bink said, mortified. "I have to go now."
She stared at him; suddenly hard-eyed. What little joy remained in her had been wrung out by the brief manifestation of her husband. "What do we owe you, stranger?"
"Nothing. Donald saved my life by flying us away from the Gap dragon in the chasm. The silver is all yours. I will never see you again-"
She softened, comprehending that he was not going to take away the silver. "Thank you, stranger." Then, on obvious impulse: "You could share the silver, if you wanted. He told me to remarry--"
Marry her? "I have no magic," Bink said. "I am to be exiled." It was the kindest way he could think of to decline. Not all the silver of Xanth could make this situation attractive to him, on any level.
"Will you stay for a meal?"
He was hungry, but not that hungry. "I must be on my way. Do not tell your son about Donald; he felt it would only hurt the boy. Farewell"
"Farewell," she said. Momentarily he saw a hint of the beauty Donald had seen in her; then that too was lost.
Bink turned and left. On the way out of the farm he saw a whirling dust devil coming toward him, product of the boy"s minor malice toward strangers. Bink dodged it and hurried away. He was glad he had done this favor for the prospector, but also relieved that it was done. He had not properly appreciated before what poverty and death could mean to a family.
Chapter 4: Illusion.
Bink resumed his journey---on the wrong side of the chasm. If only Donald"s farm had been to the south!
Strange, how everyone here knew about the chasm and took it for granted--yet n.o.body in the North Village did. Could it be a conspiracy of silence? That seemed unlikely, because the centaurs didn"t seem to know about it either, and they were normally extremely well informed. It had been present for at least two years, since the shade had been there that long, and probably much longer, since the Gap dragon must have spent its whole life there.
It must be a spell--an ignorance spell, so that only those people in the immediate vicinity of the chasm were aware of it. Those who departed--forgot. Obviously there had never been a clear path from the north to the south of Xanth--not in recent years.
Well, that was not his concern. He just had to get around it. He was not going to attempt to cross it again; only a phenomenal series of coincidences had saved his skin. Bink knew that coincidence was an untrustworthy ally.
The land here was green and hilly, with head-high candy-stripe ferns sprouting so thickly that it was impossible to see very far ahead. He had no beaten trail now. He got lost once, apparently thrown off by an aversion spell. Some trees protected themselves from molestation by causing the traveler to veer aside, so as to pa.s.s some distance from them. Maybe that was how the silver oak had remained undiscovered so long. If someone got into a patch of such trees, he could be bounced far afield, or even routed in a perpetual circle. It could be difficult indeed to break out of that sort of trap, because it was not at all obvious; the traveler thought he was going where he wanted to go.
Another time he encountered a very fine path going right his way, so fine that natural caution made him avoid it. There were a number of wilderness cannibal plants that made access very attractive, right up until the moment their traps sprung.
Thus it was three days before he made significant progress--but he remained in good form, apart from his cold. He found a few nosegays that helped clear his nose, and a pillbox bush with headache pills. At irregular intervals there were colorfruit trees, bearing greens, yellows, oranges, and blues. He had fair luck finding lodging each night, for he was obviously a fairly harmless type, but he also had to spend some hours in labor, earning his board. The people of this hinterland were minimally talented; their magic was of the "spot on a wall" variety. So they lived basically Mundane lives, and always needed ch.o.r.es done.
At last the land wound down to the sea. Xanth was a peninsula that had never adequately been mapped--obviously! the unmarked chasm proved that!--so its precise dimensions were unknown, perhaps unknowable. In general, it was an oval or oblong stretching north-south, connected to Mundania by a narrow bridge of land on the northwest. Probably it had been an island at one time, and so evolved its distinct type of existence free from the interference of the outside world. Now the Shield had restored that isolation, cutting off the land bridge by its curtain of death and wiping out the personnel of invading ships. If that weren"t enough, there was said to be a number of ferocious sea monsters. Offsh.o.r.e. No, Mundania did not intrude any more.
Bink hoped the sea would permit him to get around the chasm. The Gap dragon probably could not swim, and the sea monsters should not come too close to land. There should be a narrow section where neither dragon nor sea monster prevailed. Maybe a beach he could walk across, plunging into the water if the terror of the chasm charged, and onto land if magic threatened from the sea.
There it was: a beautiful thread of white sand stretching from one side of the chasm to the other. No monsters were in sight. He could hardly believe his luck--but he acted before it could change.
Bink hit the beach running. For ten paces everything was fine. Then his foot came down on water, and he fell into the brine.
The beach was illusion. He had fallen for a most elementary trap. What better way for a sea monster to catch its prey than a vanishing beach converting to deep water?
Bink stroked for the real sh.o.r.eline, which he now saw was a rocky waste upon which the waves broke and spumed. Not a safe landing at all, but his only choice. He could not go back on the "beach" he had come along; it no longer seemed to exist even in illusion. Either he had somehow been borne across the water or he had been swimming without knowing it. Either way, it was not magic he cared to get tangled up in again. Better to know exactly where he was.
Something cold and flat and immensely powerful coiled around one ankle. Bink had lost his staff when the Gap dragon ran him down, and had not yet cut a new one; all he had was his hunting knife. It was a puny resource against a sea monster, but he had to try.
He drew the knife from its sheath, held his breath, and lashed in the vicinity of his ankle. What held him felt like leather; he had to saw at it to sever it. These monsters were tough all over!
Something huge and murky loomed at him under the water, reeling in the tongue he sawed at. Yard-long teeth flashed as the giant jaws opened.
Bink lost what little nerve he had left. He screamed.
His head was underwater. The scream was a disaster. Water rushed into his mouth, his throat.
Firm hands were pressing his back rhythmically, forcing the water out, the air in. Bink choked and hacked and coughed. He had been rescued! "I--I"m okay!" he gasped.
The hands eased off. Bink sat up, blinking.
He was on a small yacht. The sails were of brightly colored silk, the deck of polished mahogany. The mast was gold.
Gold? Gold plate, maybe. Solid gold would have been so heavy as to overbalance the ship.
Belatedly, he looked at his rescuer, and was amazed again. She was a Queen.
At least, she looked like a Queen. She wore a platinum crownlet and a richly embroidered robe, and she was beautiful. Not as lovely as Wynne, perhaps; this woman was older, with more poise. Precise dress and manner made up for the sheer voluptuous innocence of youth that Wynne had. The Queen"s hair was the richest red he had ever seen---and so were the pupils of her eyes. It was hard to imagine what a woman like this would be doing boating in monster-infested surf.
"I am the Sorceress Iris," she said.
"Uh, Bink," he said awkwardly. "From the North Village." He had never met a Sorceress before, and hardly felt garbed for the occasion.
"Fortunate I happened by," Iris remarked. "You might have had difficulties."
The understatement of the year! Bink had been finished, and she had given him back his life. "I was drowning. I never saw you. Just a monster," he said, feeling inane. How could he thank this royal creature for sullying her delicate hands on something like him?
"You were hardly in a position to see anything," she said, straightening so that her excellent figure showed to advantage. He had been mistaken; she was in no way inferior to Wynne, just different, and certainly more intelligent. More on a par with Sabrina. The manifest mind of a woman, he realized, made a great deal of difference in her appeal. Lesson for the day.
There were sailors and servants aboard the yacht, but they remained un.o.btrusively in the background, and Iris adjusted the sails herself. No idle female, she!
The yacht moved out to sea. Soon it bore upon an island--and what an island it was! Lush vegetation grew all around it, flowers of all colors and sizes: polka-dot daisies the size of dishes, orchids of exquisite splendor, tiger lilies that yawned and purred as the boat approached. Neat paths led from the golden pier up toward a palace of solid crystal, which gleamed like a diamond in the sun.
Like a diamond? Bink suspected it was a diamond, from the way the light refracted through its myriad faces. The largest, most perfect diamond that ever was.
"I guess I owe you my life," Bink said, uncertain as to how to handle the situation. It seemed ridiculous to offer to chop wood or pitch animal manure to earn his keep for the night; there was nothing so crude as firewood or animal refuse on this fair island! Probably the best favor he could do her was to remove his soaking, bedraggled presence as rapidly as possible.
"I guess you do," she agreed, speaking with a surprising normality. He had somehow expected her to be more aloof, as befitted pseudo-royalty.
"But my life may not be worth much. I don"t have any magic; I am to be exiled from Xanth."
She guided the yacht to the pier, flinging a fine silver chain to its mooring post and tying it tight.
Bink had thought his confession would disturb her; he had made it at the outset so as not to proceed under false pretenses. She might have mistaken him for someone of consequence. But her reaction was a surprise. "Bink, I"m glad you said that. It shows you are a fine, honest lad. Most magic talents aren"t worthwhile anyway. What use is it to make a pink spot appear on a wall? It may be magic, but it doesn"t accomplish anything. You, with your strength and intelligence, have more to offer than the great majority of citizens."
Amazed and pleased by this gratuitous and probably unjustified praise, Bink could make no answer. She was correct about the uselessness of spot-on-wall magic, certainly; he had often thought the same thing himself. Of course, it was a standard remark of disparagement, meaning that a given person had picayune magic. So this really was not a sophisticated observation. Still, it certainly made him feel at ease.
"Come," Iris said, taking him by the hand. She guided him across the gangplank to the pier, then on along the main path to the palace.
The smell of flowers was almost overwhelming. Roses abounded in all colors, exhaling their perfumes. Plants with sword-shaped leaves were even more common; their flowers were like simplified orchids, also of all colors. "What are those?" he inquired.
"Irises, of course," she said.
He had to laugh. "Of course!" Too bad there was no flower named "Bink."
The path pa.s.sed through a flowering hedge and looped around a pool and fountain to the elaborate front portico of the crystal palace. Not a true diamond after all. "Come into my parlor," the Sorceress said, smiling.
Bink"s feet balked, before the significance penetrated to his brain. He had heard about spiders and flies! Had she saved his life merely to- "Oh, for G.o.d"s sake!" she exclaimed. "Are you superst.i.tious? Nothing will hurt you."
His recalcitrance seemed foolish. Why should she revive him, then betray him? She could have let him choke to death instead of pumping the water out of him; the meat would have been as fresh. Or she could have tied him up and had the sailors bring him ash.o.r.e. She had no need to deceive him. He was already in her power--if that was the way it was. Still ...
"I see you distrust me," Iris said. "What can I do to rea.s.sure you?"
This direct approach to the problem did not rea.s.sure him very much. Yet he had better face it---or trust to fate. "You--you are a Sorceress," he said. "You seem to have everything you need. I--what do you want with me?"
She laughed. "Not to eat you, I a.s.sure you!"
But Bink was unable to laugh. "Some magic--some people do get eaten." He suffered a vision of a monstrous spider luring him into its web. Once he entered the palace....
"Very well, sit out there in the garden," Iris said. "Or wherever you feel safe. If I can"t convince you of my sincerity, you can take my boat and go. Fair enough?"
It was too fair; it made him feel like an ungrateful lout. Now it occurred to Bink that the whole island was a trap. He could not swim to the mainland--not with the sea monsters there--and the yacht"s crew might grab him and tie him up if he tried to sail across.
Well, it wouldn"t hurt to listen. "All right."
"Now, Bink," she said persuasively--and she was so lovely in her intensity that she was very persuasive indeed. "You know that though every citizen of Xanth has magic, that magic is severely limited. Some people have more magic than others, but their talents still tend to he confined to one particular type or another. Even Magicians obey this law of nature."
"Yes." She was making sense--but what was the point?
"The King of Xanth is a Magician--but his power is limited to weather effects. He can brew a dust devil or a tornado or a hurricane, or make a drought or a ten-day downpour--but he can"t fly or trans.m.u.te wood into silver or light a fire magically. He"s an atmospheric specialist."
"Yes," Bink agreed again. He remembered Donald the shade"s son, who could make dust devils, those evanescent swirls of dust. The boy had an ordinary talent; the King had a major one--yet they differed in degree, not type.
Of course, the King"s talent had faded with age; perhaps all he could conjure now would be a dust devil. It was a good thing the Shield protected Xanth!
"So if you know a citizen"s talent, you know his limitations," Iris continued. "If you see a man make a storm, you don"t have to worry about him forming a magical pit under you or changing you into a c.o.c.kroach. n.o.body has multiple fields of talent."
"Except maybe Magician Humfrey," Bink said.
"He is a powerful Magician," she agreed. "But even he is restricted. His talent is divination, or information; I don"t believe he actually looks into the future, just the present. All his so-called hundred spells relate to that. None of them are performance magic."
Bink did not know enough about Humfrey to refute that, but it sounded correct. He was impressed with how the Sorceress kept up with the magic of her counterpart. Was there professional rivalry among those of strong magic? "Yes---talents run in schools. But--"
"My talent is illusion," she said smoothly. "This rose--" She plucked a handsome red one and held it under his nose. What a sweet smell! "This rose, in reality, is..." The rose faded. In her hand was a stalk of gra.s.s. It even smelled gra.s.sy.