Chameleon followed. Now that it was light, they had no fear of pitfalls, though Bink knew there could be magic ones. There was a grandly curving stone staircase beyond a palatial room. They charged up this.

Suddenly a ghost loomed up. "Ooooo!" it moaned, its great eye holes staring like holes in a dark coffin.

"Get out of my way!" Bink snapped, swinging his pole at it. The ghost, nonplused, phased out. Bink ran through its remnant, feeling the momentary chill of its presence. Trent was right: there was no need to fear the insubstantial.

Every step he took was solid; apparently there were no illusions in this old castle, just its harmless resident spooks. That was a relief after the way they had been herded into it last night.

But now there was silence upstairs. Bink and Chameleon picked their way through surprisingly opulent and well-preserved chambers, searching for their companion. At another time Bink would have admired the arrangements and tapestries of the rooms and halls at leisure, and been glad of the tight roof that had protected them from rain and weathering and rot, but right now his attention was preempted by concern. What had happened to Trent? If there were some monster lurking in this castle, summoning its victims by magic- Then they found a kind of upstairs library. Fat old books and coiled scrolls were filed on shelves along the walls. In the center, at a polished wood table, sat Trent, poring over an open tome.

"Another peephole spell's got him!" Bink cried.

But Trent lifted his head. "No, merely the thirst for knowledge, Bink. This is fascinating."

A bit abashed, they halted. "But the crash--" Bink started.

Trent smiled. "My fault. That old chair gave way under my weight." He pointed to a tangle of wood. "Much of the furniture here is fragile. I was so interested in this library that I was thoughtless." He rubbed his backside reminiscently. "I paid for it."

"What's so fascinating about the books?" Chameleon asked.

"This one is a history of this castle," Trent explained. "It is not, it seems, just another artifact. This is Castle Roogna."

"Roogna!" Bink exclaimed. "The Magician King of the Fourth Wave?"

"The same. He ruled from here, it seems. When he died and the Fifth Wave conquered Xanth, eight hundred years ago, his castle was deserted, and finally forgotten. But it was a remarkable structure. Much of the King's nature imbued the environs; the castle had an ident.i.ty of its own."

"I remember," Bink said. "Roogna's talent--"

"Was the conversion of magic to his own purposes," Trent said. "A subtle but powerful a.s.set. He was the ultimate tamer of the forces around him. He cultivated the magic trees around here, and he built this fine castle. During his reign Xanth was in harmony with its populace. It was a kind of Golden Age."

"Yes," Bink agreed. "I never thought I'd see this famous historical place."

"You may see more of it than you want to," Trent said. "Remember how we were guided here?"

"It seems like only yesterday," Bink said wryly.

"Why were we herded here?" Chameleon demanded.

Trent glanced at her, his gaze lingering. "I believe this locale behooves you, Fanchon."

"Never mind that," she said. "I'll be a lot prettier before I'm through, more's the pity."

"She is Chameleon," Bink said. "She shifts from ugly to pretty and back again---and her intelligence varies inversely. She left Xanth to escape that curse."

"I would not regard that as a curse," the Magician commented. "All things to all men--in due time."

"You're not a woman," she mapped. "I asked about this castle."

Trent nodded. "Well, this castle requires a new resident. A Magician. It is very selective, which is one reason it has lain dormant for so many centuries. It wants to restore the years of its glory; therefore it must support a new King of Xanth."

"And you're a Magician!" Bink exclaimed. "So when you came near, everything shoved you this way."

"So it would seem. There was no malign intent, merely an overwhelming need. A need for Castle Roogna, and a need for Xanth--to make this land again what it could be, a truly organized and excellent kingdom."

"But you're not King," Chameleon said.

"Not yet." There was a very positive quality to the statement.

Bink and Chameleon looked at each other in developing comprehension. So the Evil Magician had reverted to form--a.s.suming he had ever changed his form. They had discussed his human qualifies, his seeming n.o.bility, and been deceived. He had planned to invade Xanth, and now- "Not ever!" she flared. "The people would never tolerate a criminal like you. They haven't forgotten--"

"So you do have prior knowledge of my reputation," Trent said mildly. "I had understood you to say you had not heard of me." He shrugged. "However, the good citizens of Xanth may not have much choice, and it would not be the first time a criminal has occupied a throne," he continued calmly. "With the powers of this castle--which are formidable--added to mine, I may not need an army."

"We'll stop you," Chameleon said grimly.

Trent's gaze touched her again, appraisingly. "Are you terminating the truce?"

That gave her pause. The end of the truce would put the two of them directly in Trent's power, if what he said about this castle was true. "No," she said. "But when it does end ..."

There was no hint of malignancy in Treat's smile. "Yes, it seems there will have to be a settlement. I had thought if I allowed you to go your way, you would extend the same courtesy to me. But when I said the people of Xanth would not necessarily have a choice, I did not mean it precisely the way you seem to have taken it. This castle may not permit us to do other than its will. For centuries it has endured here, hanging on against inevitable deterioration, waiting for a Magician of sufficient strength to qualify. Perhaps the magic-sniffer we encountered in the forest was one of its representatives. Now it has found not one but two Magicians. It will not lightly yield them up. From here we may be bound to glory--or extinction, depending on our decision."

"Two Magicians?" She asked.

"Remember, Bink has almost as much magic as I do. That was the verdict of the sniffer, and I am not certain it was mistaken. That would place him comfortably in the Magician cla.s.s."

"But I have no talent," Bink protested.

"Correction," Trent said. "To have an unidentified talent is hardly synonymous with having no talent. But even if you are talentless, there is strong magic a.s.sociated with you. You may be magic, as is Fanchon."

"Chameleon," she said. "That's my real name; the others are merely phases."

"I beg your pardon," Trent said, making a little sitting bow to her. "Chameleon."

"You mean I'll change somehow?" Bink asked, half hopeful, half-appalled.

"Perhaps. You might metamorphose into some superior form--like a p.a.w.n becoming a Queen." He paused. "Sorry--that's another Mundane reference; I don't believe chess is known in Xanth. I have been too long in exile."

"Well, I still won't help you try to steal the crown," Bink said stoutly.

"Naturally not. Our purposes differ. We may even be rivals."

"I'm not trying to take over Xanth!"

"Not consciously. But to prevent an Evil Magician from doing so, would you not consider ... ?"

"Ridiculous!" Bink said, disgruntled. The notion was preposterous, yet insidious. If the only way to prevent Trent from-no!

"The time may indeed have come for us to part," Trent said. "I have appreciated your company, but the situation seems to be changing. Perhaps you should attempt to leave this castle now. I shall not oppose you. Should we manage to separate, we can consider the truce abated. Fair enough?"

"How nice," Chameleon said. "You can relax over your books while the jungle tears us up."

"I do not think anything here will actually hurt you," Trent said. "The theme of Castle Roogna is harmony with man." He smiled again. "Harmony, not harm. But I rather doubt you will be permitted to depart."

Bink had had enough. "I'll take my chances. Let's go."

"You want me to come along?" Chameleon asked hesitantly.

"Unless you prefer to stay with him. You might make a very pretty Queen in a couple of weeks."

Trent laughed. Chameleon moved with alacrity. They walked to the stairs, leaving the Magician poring over his book again.

Another ghost interrupted them. This one seemed larger than the others, more solid. "Waarrningg," it moaned.

Bink stopped. "You can speak? What is your warning?"

"Dooom beeyonnd. Staay."

"Oh. Well, that's a chance we've already decided to take," Bink said. "Because we are loyal to Xanth."

"Xaaanth!" the spirit repeated with a certain feeling.

"Yes, Xanth. So we must leave."

The ghost seemed nonplused. It faded.

"It almost seems they're on our side," Chameleon commented. "Maybe they're just trying to make us stay in the castle, though."

"We can't afford to trust ghosts," Bink agreed.

They could not exit through the front gate, because the portcullis was firm and they did not understand the mechanism for lifting it. They poked through the downstairs rooms, searching for an alternate exit.

Bink opened one promising door--and slammed it shut as a host of leather-winged, long-toothed creatures stirred; they looked like vampire bats. He cracked the next open more carefully and a questing rope twined out, more than casually reminiscent of the tree vines.

"Maybe the cellar," Chameleon suggested, spying stairs leading down.

They tried it. But at the foot, huge, baleful rats scurried into place, and they were facing, not fleeing, the intruders. The beasts looked too hungry, too confident; they surely had magic to trap any prey that entered their territory.

Bink poked his staff at the nearest, experimentally. "Scat!" he exclaimed. But the rat leaped onto the pole, climbing up toward Bink's hands. He shook it, but the creature clung, and another jumped to the staff. He thunked it against the stone floor, hard--but still they hung on, and still they climbed. That must be their magic---the ability to cling.

"Bink! Above!" Chameleon cried.

There was a chittering overhead. More rats were crowding the beams, bracing themselves to leap.

Bink threw the staff away and backed hastily up the stairs, holding on to Chameleon for support until he could get turned around. The rats did not follow.

"This castle is really organized," Bink said as they emerged on the main floor. "I don't think it intends to let us go peacefully. But we've got to try. Maybe a window."

But there were no windows on the ground floor; the outer wall had been built to withstand siege. No point in jumping from an upper turret; someone would surely break a bone. They moved on, and found themselves in the kitchen area. Here there was a back exit, normally used for supplies, garbage, and servants. They slipped out and faced a small bridge across the moat: an ideal escape route.

But there was motion on the bridge already. Snakes were emerging from the rotten planking. Not healthy, normal reptiles, but tattered, discolored things whose bones showed through oozing gaps in the sagging flesh.

"Those are zombie snakes!" Chameleon cried with genuine horror. "Waked from the dead."

"It figures," Bink said grimly. "This whole castle is waked from the dead. Rats can thrive anywhere, but the other creatures died out when the castle died, or maybe they come here to die even now. But zombies aren't as strong as real living things; we can probably handle them with our staffs." But he had lost his own staff in the cellar.

Now he smelled the stench of corruption, worse than that of the harpy. Waves of it rose from the festering snakes and the putrescent moat. Bink's stomach made an exploratory heave. He had seldom encountered genuine, far-advanced decay; usually either creatures were living or their bones were fairly neat and clean. The stages in between, of spoilage and maggot infestation and disintegration, were a part of the cycle of life and death he had chosen not to inspect closely. Hitherto.

"I don't want to try that bridge," Chameleon said. "We'll fall through--and there are zombie crocs in the water."

So there were: big reptiles threshing the slimy surface with leather-covered bones, their worm-eaten eyes gazing up.

"Maybe a boat," Bink said. "Or a raft--"

"Uh-uh. Even if it weren't rotten and filled with zombie bugs, it would--well, look across the water."

He looked. Now came the worst of all, walking jerkily along the far bank of the moat: human zombies, some mummified, others hardly more than animate skeletons.

Bink watched the awful things for a long moment, fascinated by their very grotesqueness. Fragments of wrappings and decayed flesh dropped from them. Some dribbled caked dirt left from their over-hasty emergence from their unquiet graves. It was a parade of putrefaction.

He thought of fighting that motley army, hacking apart already-destroyed bodies, feeling their rotting, vermin-riddled flesh on his hands, wrestling with those ghastly animations, saturated with the cloying stink of it all. What loathsome diseases did they bear, what gangrenous embraces would they bestow on him as they fell apart? What possible attack would make these moldering dead lie down again?

The spell-driven things were closing in, coming across the ragged bridge. Surely this was even worse for the zombies, for they could not voluntarily have roused themselves. They could not retire to the pleasant seclusion of the castle interior. To be pressed into service in this state, instead of remaining in the bliss of oblivion--"I--don't think I'm ready to leave yet," Bink said.

"No," Chameleon agreed, her face somewhat green. "Not this way."

And the zombies halted, giving Bink and Chameleon time to reenter Castle Roogna.

Chapter 13: Rationale.

Chameleon was now well through her "normal" phase, which Bink had known before as Dee, and moving into her beauty phase. It was not identical to the prior Wynne; her hair was lighter in color, and her features subtly different. Apparently she varied in her physical details each cycle, never exactly repeating herself, but always proceeding from extreme to extreme. Unfortunately, she was also becoming less intelligent, and was no help on the problem of escaping the castle. She was much more interested now in getting friendly with Bink--and this was a distraction he felt he could not afford at the moment.

First, his priority was to get away from here; second, he was not at all sure he wanted to a.s.sociate himself in any permanent way with so changeable an ent.i.ty. If only she were beautiful and bright--but no, that would not work either. He realized now why she had not been tempted by Trent's offer to make her beautiful, when they were first captured outside the Shield. That would merely have changed her phase. If she were beautiful when she was smart, she would be stupid when she was ugly, and that was no improvement. She needed to be free of the curse entirely. And even if she could be fixed permanently at the height of both beauty and brains, he would not trust her, for he had been betrayed by that type too. Sabrina--he choked off that memory. Yet even an ordinary girl could get pretty dull if she had no more than ordinary intelligence or magic ...

Castle Roogna, now that they were not actively opposing it, was a fairly pleasant residence. It did its best to make itself so. The surrounding gardens provided a rich plenitude of fruits, grains, vegetables, and small game; Trent practiced his archery by bringing down rabbits, shooting from the high embrasures, using one of the fine bows in the castle armory. Some of the creatures were false rabbits, projecting images of themselves a bit apart from their actual locations, causing him to waste arrows, but Trent seemed to enjoy the challenge. One he nabbed was a stinker, whose magic aroma was such that there was nothing to do but bury the carca.s.s in a hurry, very deep. Another was a shrinker; as it died it diminished in size until it was more like a mouse, hardly usable. Magic always had its little surprises. But some were good.

The kitchen did need some attention; otherwise the zombies would come in to do the cooking. Rather than permit that, Chameleon took over. a.s.sisted by advice from the lady ghosts, who were very particular about Castle Roogna cuisine, she made creditable meals. She had no trouble with the dishes, since there was an everlasting magic fountain with aseptic properties; one rinse, and everything sparkled. In fact, having a bath in that water was quite an experience; it effervesced.

The inner part.i.tions of the castle were as solid as the roof; there seemed to be weatherproofing spells in operation. Each person had an opulent private bedroom with costly draperies on the walls, moving rugs on the floors, quivering goose-down pillows and solid-silver chamberpots. They all lived like royalty. Bink discovered that the embroidered tapestry on the wall opposite his bed was actually a magic picture: the little figures moved, playing out their tiny dramas with intriguing detail. Miniature knights slew dragons, tiny ladies sewed, and in the supposed privacy of interior chambers those knights and ladies embraced. At first Bink closed his eyes to those scenes, but soon his natural voyeurism dominated, and he watched it all. And wished that he could--but no, that would not be proper, though he knew that Chameleon was willing.

The ghosts were no problem; they even became familiar. Bink got to know them individually. One was the gatekeeper, who had looked in on them that first night when the portcullis crashed down; another was the chambermaid; a third was the cook's a.s.sistant. There were six in all, each of whom had died inappropriately and so lacked proper burial rites. They were shades, really, but without proper volition; only the King of Xanth could absolve them, and they could not leave the castle. So they were doomed to serve here forever, unable to perform their accustomed ch.o.r.es. They were basically nice people who had no control over the castle itself, and const.i.tuted only an incidental part of its enchantment. They helped wherever they could, pitifully eager to please, telling Chameleon where to search for the new foods and telling Bink stories of their lives here in the Grand Old Days. They had been surprised and chagrined by the intrusion of living people at first, for they had been in isolation for centuries. But they realized it was part of the imperative of the castle itself, and now they had adjusted.

Trent spent most of his time in the library, as if seeking to master all of its acc.u.mulated knowledge. At first Chameleon spent some time there too, interested in intellectual things. But as she lost intelligence, she lost interest. Her researches changed; now she looked avidly for some spell to make her normal. When the library did not provide that, she left it, to poke around the castle and grounds. So long as she was alone, no untoward things manifested: no rats, no carnivorous vines, no zombies. She was no prisoner here, only the men. She searched for sources of magic. She ate things freely, alarming Bink, who knew how poisonous magic could be. But she seemed to lead a charmed existence---charmed by Castle Roogna.

One of her discoveries was serendipitous: a small red fruit growing plentifully on one of the garden trees. Chameleon tried to bite into one, but the rind was tough, so she took it to the kitchen to chop it in half with a cleaver. No ghosts wore present; they generally appeared now only when they had business. Thus Chameleon did not have warning about the nature of this fruit. She was careless, and dropped one of the fruits on the floor.