Piers Anthony - Xanth 01 - A Spell for Chameleon

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SPELL FOR CHAMELEON
By Piers Anthony
Chapter 1. Xanth
A small lizard perched on a brown stone. Feeling threatened by the approach of human beings along
the path, it metamorphosed into a stingray beetle, then into a stench-puffer, then into a fiery
salamander.
Bink smiled. These conversions weren't real. It had assumed the forms of obnoxious little
monsters, but not their essence. It could not sting, stink, or bum. It was a chameleon, using its
magic to mimic creatures of genuine threat.
Yet as it shifted into the form of a basilisk it glared at him with such ferocity that Bink's
mirth abated. If its malice could strike him, he would be horribly dead.
Then abruptly a silent moth hawk swooped down from the sky and caught the chameleon in its beak.
There was a thin scream of anguish as the lizard convulsed; then it dangled limply as the hawk
ascended. The chameleon, despite all its pretensions, was dead. Even while trying to threaten Bink
it had been destroyed by another agency.
This retaliation continued to percolate through Bink's emotion. The chameleon was harmless - but
most of untamed Xanth was not. Was this some twisted omen, a small suggestion of a dire fate
awaiting him? Omens were serious business; they always came true, but usually were misinterpreted
until too late. Was Bink fated to die brutally---or was some enemy of his?
He had, so far as he knew, no enemies.
The golden sun of Xanth - shone through the magic shield, striking sparkles from the trees. All
plants had their enchantments, but no spell could eliminate the need for light, water, and healthy
soil. Instead, magic was used to make these necessities of the vegetable kingdom more available,
and to protect the plants from destruction, unless they were overpowered by stronger magic or
simple bad luck, like the chameleon.
Bink looked at the girl beside him as she stepped through a slanting sunbeam. He was no plant, but
he too had needs, and oven the most casual inspection of her made him aware of this. Sabrina was
absolutely beautiful---and her beauty was completely natural. Other girls managed to enhance their
appearance by cosmetics or padding or specialized spells, but beside Sabrina all other females
looked somewhat artificial. She was no enemy!
They came to Lookout Rock. This was not a particularly lofty promontory, but its situational magic
made it seem more elevated than it was, so that they could look down on a quarter slice of Xanth.
This was a land of multicolored vegetation, small pretty lakes, and deceptively quiet fields of
flowers, ferns, and crops. Even as Bink watched, one of the lakes expanded slightly, making itself
seem cooler and deeper, a better place for a swim.
Bink wondered briefly about this, as he often did. He had an unruly mind, which constantly
pestered him with questions for which there were no ready answers. As a child he had driven
parents and friends almost to distraction with his "Why is the sun yellow?" "Why do ogres crunch
bones?" "Why can't sea monsters cast spells?" and similarly infantile prattle. No wonder he had
soon been hustled away to centaur school. Now he had learned to control his mouth, but not his
brain, and so he let it run on in silence.
Animate spells he could understand, such as those of the unfortunate chameleon; they facilitated
comfort, survival, or image for living creatures. But why should inanimate things have magic? Did
a lake care who swam in it? Well, maybe so; a lake was an ecological unit, and the community of
living things within it might have a mutual interest in promoting it. Or a freshwater dragon might
be responsible, luring in prey. Dragons were the most varied and dangerous life forms of Xanth;
species occupied air, earth, and water, and a number breathed fire. One thing they all had in
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common: good appetite. Pure chance might not bring in enough fresh meat.
But what about Lookout Rock? It was bare, without even lichen, and hardly beautiful. Why should it
want company? And if it did, why not make itself more handsome, instead of remaining gray and
drab? People did not come here to admire the rock, but to admire the rest of Xanth. Such a spell
seemed self-defeating.
Then Bink stubbed his toe on a sharp fragment of stone. He was standing on a cracked-rock terrace,
formed generations ago by the breaking up of a pretty-colored boulder and--
There it was! That other boulder, which must have been close to Lookout Rock and of similar size,
had been fragmented to make this path and terrace, losing its identity. Lookout Rock had survived.
Nobody would break it up, because it would make an ugly path, and its unselfish magic made it
useful as it stood. One minor mystery solved.
Still, there were philosophical considerations, his insatiable mind insisted. How could an
inanimate thing think or have feelings? What was survival to a rock? A boulder was merely the
fragment of a prior layer of rock; why should it have a personal identity if the bedrock didn't?
Still, the same question could be asked of a man: he had been formed from the tissues of the
plants and animals he consumed, yet he had a separate--.
"What did you wish to talk to me about, Bink?" Sabrina inquired demurely.
As if she didn't know. But as his mind formed the necessary words, his mouth balked. He knew what
her answer had to be. No one could remain in Xanth after his twenty-fifth birthday unless he
demonstrated a magic talent. Bink's own critical birthday was barely a month away. He was no child
now. How could she marry a man who was so soon to be exiled?
Why hadn't he thought of that before bringing her out here? He could only embarrass himself. Now
he had to say something to her, or suffer further embarrassment, making it awkward for her as well
"I just wanted to see your - your"
"See my what?" she inquired with an arch lift of eyebrow.
He felt the heat starting up his neck. "Your holograph,'' he blurted. There was much more of her
he longed to see, and to touch, but that could come only after marriage. She was that sort of
girl, and it was part of her appeal. The girls who had it didn't need to put it on casual display.
Well, not quite true. He thought of Aurora, who certainly had it, yet who--
"Bink, there is a way," Sabrina said.
He glanced sidelong at her, then quickly away, confused. She couldn't be suggesting-
"The Good Magician Humfrey," she continued blithely.
"What?" He had been on quite a different track, no credit to his willful mind.
"Humfrey knows a hundred spells. Maybe one of them--I'm sure he could find out what your talent
is. Then everything would be all right."
Oh. "But he charges a year's service for a single spell," Bink protested. "I have only a month."
But that was not quite accurate; if the Magician identified a talent for Bink, then he would not
be exiled, and he would have a year available. He was deeply touched by Sabrina's faith in him.
She did not say what others said: that he had no magic. She did him the immense courtesy of
choosing to believe that his magic merely remained undiscovered.
Perhaps it was that faith that had first attracted him to her. Certainly she was beautiful and
intelligent and talented, a prize by any definition. But she could have been much less in all
categories and still been his--
"A year is not so long," Sabrina murmured. "I would wait."
Bink stared down at his hands, pondering. His right hand was normal, but he had lost the middle
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finger of his left hand in a childhood accident. It had not even been the result of inimical
magic; he had been playing with a cleaver, holding down a stalk of coilgrass while he chopped,
pretending it was the tail of a dragon. After all, a boy could not start to practice too early for
the serious side of life. The grass had twitched out of grip as he swung, and he had grabbed for
it, and the cleaver had come down hard on his extended finger.
It had hurt, but the worst of it was that because he was not supposed to play with the cleaver, he
had not dared scream or tell of his injury. He had controlled himself with extreme effort and
suffered in silence. He had buried the finger, and managed to hide his mutilation by keeping his
hand closed for several days. When the truth finally came out, it was too late for a restorative
spell; the finger was rotted and could not be reattached. A strong-enough spell could have
attached it--but it would have remained a zombie finger.
He had not been punished. His mother, Bianca, believed he had learned his lesson--and he had, he
had! Next time he played with a cleaver on the sly he would watch where his fingers were. His
father seemed privately pleased that Bink had shown so much courage and tenacity in adversity,
even in his wrongdoing. "The lad's got nerve," Roland had said. "Now if only he had magic---"
Bink jerked his eyes away from the hand. That had been fifteen years ago. Suddenly a year seemed
short indeed. One year of service---in exchange for a lifetime with Sabrina. It was a bargain.
Yet - suppose he had no magic? Was he to pay a year of his life to verify the certainty of being
thrust into the drear realm of the null-talented? Or would it be better to accept exile,
preserving the useless hope that he did have a latent talent?
Sabrina, respecting his flurry of contemplation, began her holograph. A haze of blue appeared
before her, hanging over the slope. It expanded, thinning at the edges, intensifying in the
center, until it was two feet in diameter. It looked like thick smoke, but did not dissipate or
drift.
Now she began to hum. She had a good voice--not a great one, but right for her magic. At the
sound, the blue cloud quivered and solidified, becoming roughly spherical. Then she changed her
pitch, and the outer rim turned yellow. She opened her mouth, singing the word "girl," and the
colors assumed the shape of a young lass in a blue dress with yellow frills. The figure was three-
dimensional, visible from all sides with differing perspective.
It was a fine talent, Sabrina could sculpt anything--but the images vanished the moment her
concentration stopped, and never had any physical substance. So this was, strictly speaking,
useless magic. It did not improve her life in any material fashion.
Yet how many talents really did help their people? One person could make a leaf of a tree wither
and die as he looked at it. Another could create the odor of sour milk. Another could make insane
laughter bubble up from the ground. These were all magic, no question about it--but what use were
they? Why should such people qualify as citizens of Xanth while Bink, who was smart, strong, and
handsome, was disqualified? Yet that was the absolute rule: no nonmagical person could remain
beyond his quarter-century mark.
Sabrina was right: he had to identify his talent. He had never been able to find it on his own, so
he should pay the Good Magician's price. Not only would this preserve him from exile---which
really might be a fate worse than death, since what was the point in life without magic?--and win
him Sabrina, a fate considerably better than death. It would also redeem his battered self-
respect. He had no choice.
"Oh!" Sabrina exclaimed, clapping her hands to her pert derriere. The holograph dissolved, the
blue-dressed girl distorting grotesquely before she vanished. "I'm on fire!"
Bink stepped toward her, alarmed. But even as he moved, there was loud juvenile laughter. Sabrina
whiffed furiously. "Numbo, you stop that!" she cried. She was one of those girls who was as
appealing in anger as in joy. "It's not funny."
It was, of course, Numbo who had given her a magical hotseat, a fiery pain in the posterior. Talk
about a useless talent! Bink, his fists clenched so tightly that his thumb jammed into the stub of
his missing finger, strode toward the grinning youth standing behind Lookout Rock. Numbo was
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fifteen, cocky and annoying; he needed a lesson.
But Bink's foot struck a loose rock, which turned his ankle long enough to cost him his balance.
It didn't hurt, but it interrupted his forward progress. His hand swung forward---and his fingers
touched an invisible wall.
There was another shout of laughter. Bink hadn't crashed headlong into the wall, thanks to the
providential stone under his foot, but evidently someone thought he had.
"You too, Chilk" Sabrina said. That was Chilk's talent: the wall. It was a kind of complement to
Sabrina's talent; instead of being visible without substance, it had substance without visibility.
It was only six feet square; and, like so many talents, it was strictly temporary--but it was hard
as steel in the first few moments.
Bink could dodge around it and run the kid down--but he was sure to get caught several times by
that re-manifesting wall, and suffer more damage than be could do to the boy. It wasn't worth it.
If only he had a talent of his own, such as Numbo's hotseat, he could make the joker sorry
regardless of the wall But he didn't, and Chilk knew it. Everyone knew it. That was Bink's big
problem. He was fair game for all the pranksters, because he couldn't strike back--not magically,
and it was deemed crass to do it physically. Right now he was quite ready to be crass, however.
"Let's get out of here, Bink," Sabrina said. There was disgust in her voice, nominally directed at
the intruders, but Bink suspected part of it applied to him. An impotent kind of rage began
building up--one he had felt many times before, and had never gotten used to. He had been balked
from proposing to her by the lack of a talent, and he could not stay here, for the same reason.
Not here at Lookout Rock or here in Xanth. Because he didn't fit.
They walked back down the path. The jokers, getting no further rise from their prey, went in
search of other mischief. The landscape no longer seemed so lovely. Maybe he'd be better off away
from here. Maybe he should take off now, not waiting to be officially exiled. If Sabrina really
loved him, she'd come with him---even Outside, into Mundania.
No, he knew better than that. Sabrina loved him--but she loved Xanth, too. She had such a sweet
shape, such kissable lips, that she could find another man much more easily than she could adjust
to the rigors of life among the nonmagical. For that matter, he could find another gift more
easily than . . . what he faced. So probably, objectively, he'd be better off going alone. So why
didn't his heart agree?
They passed the brown stone where the chameleon had perched, and he shuddered.
"Why don't you ask Justin?" Sabrina suggested as they approached the village. It was dusk, closing
in faster here than up at Lookout Rock. The village lamps were coming on.
Bink glanced across at the unique tree she indicated. There were many kinds of trees in Xanth, a
number of them vital to the economy. Beerbarrel trees were tapped for drink, and oilbarrel trees
for fuel, and Bink's own footwear came from a mature shoe tree east of the village. But Justin
Tree was something special, a species never sprouted from seed. Its leaves were shaped like flat
hands, and its trunk was the hue of tanned human flesh. This was scarcely surprising, since it had
once been human.
In an instant that history flashed across Bink's mind--part of the dynamic folklore of Xanth.
Twenty years ago there had been one of the greatest of the Evil Magicians: a young man named
Trent. He had possessed the power of transformation--the ability to change any living thing into
any other living thing, instantly. Not satisfied with his status of Magician, granted in
recognition of the awesome strength of his magic, Trent had sought to use his power to preempt the
throne of Xanth. His procedure had been simple and most direct: he transformed anyone who opposed
him into something that could not oppose him. The worst threats he converted to fish---on dry
land, allowing them to flop until they died. The mere nuisances he changed to animals or plants.
Thus several intelligent animals owed their status to him; though they were dragons, two-headed
wolves, and land-octopi, they retained the intelligence and perspective of their human origins.
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Trent was gone now--but his works remained, for there was no other transformer to change them
back. Holographs, hotseats, and invisible wails were qualifying talents, but transformation was of
a different order. Only once in a generation did such power manifest in an individual, and it
seldom manifested twice in the same form. Justin had been one of Magician Trent's annoyances--no
one remembered exactly what he had done--so Justin was a tree. No one had the ability to change
him back into a man.
Justin's own talent had been voice projection--not the parlor trick that was ventriloquism, or the
trivial talent of insane laughter, but genuine comprehensible utterance at a distance without the
use of vocal cords. He retained this talent as a tree, and as he had a great deal of time for
thought, villagers often came to this tree for advice. Often it was good advice. Justin was no
genius, but a tree had greater objectivity about human problems.
It occurred to Bink that Justin might actually be better off as a tree than he had been as a man.
He liked people, but it was said that in his human form he had not been handsome. As a tree he was
quite stately, and no threat to anyone.
They veered to approach Justin. Suddenly a voice spoke directly in front of them: "Do not
approach, friends; ruffians are lurking."
Bink and Sabrina drew up short. "Is that you, Justin?'' she asked. "Who is lurking?"
But the tree could not hear as well as it could speak, and did not answer. Wood did not seem to
make the best ears.
Bink, angry, took a step toward it. "Justin is public scenery," he muttered. "Nobody has a right
to--"
"Please, Bink!" Sabrina urged, pulling back on arm. "We don't want any trouble."
No, she never wanted any trouble. He would not go so far as to call this a fault in her, but at
times it became annoyingly inconvenient Bink himself never let trouble bar him from a matter of
principle. Still, Sabrina was beautiful, and he had caused her trouble enough already tonight. He
turned to accompany her away from the tree.
"Hey, no fair!" a voice exclaimed. "They're going away."
"Justin must've tattled," another cried.
"Then let's chop down Justin."
Bink halted again. "They wouldn't!" he said.
"Of course they wouldn't," Sabrina agreed. "Justin is a village monument. Ignore them."
But the voice of the tree came again, a bit misplaced in relation to Bink and Sabrina---evidence
of poor concentration. "Friends, please fetch the King quickly. These ruffians have an axe or
something, and they've been eating locoberries."
"An axe!" Sabrina exclaimed in sheer horror.
"The King is out of town," Bink muttered. "Anyway, he's senile."
"And he hasn't summoned more than a summer shower in years," Sabrina agreed. "Kids didn't dare
make so much mischief when he had his full magic."
"We certainly didn't," Bink said. "Remember the hurricane flanked by six tornadoes he summoned to
put down the last wiggle spawning? He was a real Storm King then. He--"
There was the ringing sound of metal biting into wood. A scream of sheer agony erupted from the
air. Bink and Sabrina jumped.
"That's Justin!" she said. "They're doing it."
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file:///F|/rah/Piers%20Anthony/Anthony,%20Piers%20-%20Xanth%2001%20-%20Spell%20For%20Chameleon.txtSPELLFORCHAMELEONByPiersAnthonyChapter1.XanthAsmalllizardperchedonabrownstone.Feelingthreatenedbytheapproachofhumanbeingsalongthepath,itmetamorphosedintoastingraybeetle,thenintoastench-puffer,thenint...

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