pell For Chameleon

"I just wanted to introduce you to this lovely lady, Sabrina," Bink said. "She does a very nice holograph in air." He turned to Sabrina. "Crombie is a good man and able soldier, favored by the King, but he doesn't quite trust women. I think he's just never met the right one. I believe you two should get to know each other better."

"But I thought-" she began.

Crombie was looking at her with a certain cynical interest, and she returned the glance. He was observing her physical charms, which were excellent; she was pondering his position at the palace, which was also excellent. Bink wasn't sure whether he had just done a beautiful thing or dropped a bagful of cherry bombs into the hole of a privy. Time would tell.

"Good-bye, Sabrina," Bink said, and turned away.

King Trent summoned Bink to a royal audience. "Sorry about the delay in getting back to you," he said when they were alone. "There were some necessary preliminaries."

"The coronation. The marriage," Bink agreed.

"Those too. But mainly a certain emotional readjustment. The crown landed on my head rather suddenly, as you know."

Bink knew. "If I may ask, Your Majesty-"

"Why I did not desert Chameleon and flee into the wilderness? For you alone, Bink, I will make an answer. Setting aside the moral considerations-which I did not-I performed a calculation that in Mundania is called figuring the odds. When you took flight for the castle of the Good Magician, I judged your chances of success to be about three to one in your favor. Had you failed, I would have been safe anyway; there was no point in deserting Chameleon. I knew Xanth stood in need of a new King, for the Storm King by all accounts was failing rapidly. The chances against the Elders finding any Magician more competent for the position than I were also about three to one. And so on. Altogether, my chances of obtaining the throne by sitting tight were nine in sixteen, with only a three-in-sixteen chance of execution. These were better odds than survival alone in the wilderness, which I would rate at one chance in two. Understand?"

Bink shook his head. "Those figures--I don't see--"

"Just take my word that it was a practical decision, a calculated risk. Humfrey was my friend; I was sure he would not betray me. He knew I had figured the odds--but it didn't make any difference, because that is the kind of schemer Xanth needs in a King, and he knew it. So he went along. Not that I didn't have some serious worries at the time of the trial; Roland certainly made me sweat."

"Me too," Bink agreed.

"But had the odds been otherwise, I would still have acted as I did." Trent frowned. "And I charge you not to embarrass me by revealing that weakness to the public. They don't want a King who is unduly swayed by personal considerations."

"I won't tell," Bink said, though privately he thought it was not much of a failing. After all, it was Chameleon he had saved.

"And now to business," the King said briskly. "I shall of course grant you and Chameleon royal dispensation to remain in Xanth without penalty for your violations of exile. No, this has nothing to do with your father; I never even realized you were the son of Roland until I saw him again and recognized the family resemblance; he never said a word about you. Fine avoidance of conflict of interest there; Roland will be an important man in the new administration, I assure you. But that's beside the point. There will not be any more exiles for anyone, or restrictions on immigration from Mundania, unless there is violence connected. Of course, this means you are released from having to demonstrate your magic talent. In all Xanth, only you and I comprehend its specific nature. Chameleon was present at the discovery, but was not in condition to assimilate it. Humfrey knows only that you have Magician-class magic. So it will remain our secret"

"Oh, I don't mind.-."

"You don't quite understand, Bink. It is important that the precise nature of your talent remain secret. That is its nature; it must be a private thing. To reveal it is to vitiate it. That is why it protects itself so carefully from discovery. Probably I was permitted to learn of it only to help protect it from others, and that I intend to do. No one else will know."

"Yes, but-"

"I see you still don't follow. Your talent is remarkable and subtle. It is in its totality a thing of Magician rank; equivalent to any magic in Xanth. All other citizens, whether of the spot-on-wall variety or of Magician class, are vulnerable to those types of magic they don't themselves practice. Iris can be transformed, I can be stunned, Humfrey can be harassed by illusion-you get the point. Only you are fundamentally secure from all other forms of magic. You can be fooled or shamed or grossly inconvenienced, but never actually physically hurt. That is exceedingly broad protection."

"Yes, but-"