Bink wondered about that. He believed in the soldier's sincerity, and the location magic was obviously functional. Had it malfunctioned in Dee's case, or was she really a bad if obscure threat? If so, what kind? He could not believe she meant him harm. He had suspected her of being Iris the Sorceress, but now he didn't believe that; she showed no sign of the temperament of the mistress of illusion, and personality was not something that magic could conceal for very long.
'Why didn't your magic warn you of the stab in the back?' Bink asked the soldier, making another attempt to ascertain what was reliable and what was not.
'I didn't ask it,' Crombie said. 'I was a damned fool. But once I see you safely to your Magician, I'll sure as hell ask it who stabbed me, and then?' He fingered the blade of his sword meaningfully.
A fair answer. The talent was not a warning signal; it merely performed on demand. Crombie had obviously had no reason to suspect danger, any more than Bink had reason to feel threatened now. Where was the distinction between natural caution and paranoia?
The storm continued. None of them were willing to sleep, because they did not trust the tree to that extent, so they sat and talked. Crombie told a tough story of ancient battle and heroism in the days of Xanth's Fourth Wave. Bink was no military man, but he found himself caught up in the gallantry of it, and almost wished he had lived in those adventurous times, when men of no magic were considered men.
By the end of that story, the storm had eased off, but the hail was piled so high that it didn't seem worthwhile to go out yet. Usually the meltoff from a magic storm was quite rapid once the sun came out again, so it was worth waiting for.
'Where do you live?' Bink asked Dee.
'Oh, I'm just a country girl, you know,' she said. 'No one else was going to travel through the wilderness.'
'That's no answer,' Crombie snapped suspiciously.
She shrugged. 'It's the only answer I have. I can't change what I am, much as I might like to.'
'It's the same answer I have, too,' Bink said. 'I'm just a villager, nothing special. I hope the Magician will be able to make me into something special, by finding out that I have some good magic talent no one ever suspected, and I'm willing to work for him for a year for that.'
'Yes,' she said, smiling appreciatively at him. Suddenly he felt himself liking her. She was ordinary- like him. She was motivated-like him. They had something in common.
'You're going for magic so your girl back home will marry you?' Crombie asked, sounding cynical.
'Yes,' Bink agreed, remembering Sabrina with sudden poignancy. Dee turned away. 'And so I can stay in Xanth.'
'You're a fool, a civilian fool,' the soldier said kindly.
'Well, it's the only chance I have,' Bink replied. 'Any gamble is worthwhile when the alternative-'
'I don't mean the magic. That's useful. And staying in Xanth makes sense. I mean marriage.'
'Marriage?'
'Women are the curse of mankind,' Crombie said vehemently. 'They trap men into marriage, the way this tangle tree traps prey, and they torment them the rest of their lives.'
'Now that's unfair,' Dee said. 'Didn't you have a mother?'
'She drove my worthy father to drink and loco,' Crombie asserted. 'Made his life hell on earth-and mine too. She could read our minds-that was her talent.''
A woman who could read men's minds: hell indeed for a man! If any woman had been able to read Bink's mind-ugh!
'Must have been hell for her, too,' Dee observed.
Bink suppressed a smile, but Crombie scowled. 'I ran off and joined the army two years before I was of age. Never regretted it.'
Dee frowned. 'You don't sound like God's gift to women, either. We can all be thankful you never touched any.'
'Oh, I touch them,' Crombie said with a coarse laugh. 'I just don't marry them. No one of them's going to get her hooks into me.'
'You're disgusting,' she snapped.
'I'm smart. And if Bink's smart, he'll not let you start tempting him, either.'
'I wasn't!' she exclaimed angrily.
Crombie turned away in evident repugnance. 'Ah, you're all the same. Why do I waste my time talking with the likes of you? Might as well argue ethics with the devil.'
'Well, if you feel that way, I'll go!' Dee said. She jumped to her feet and stalked to the edge.
Bink thought she was bluffing, for the storm, though abating, was still in force with occasional flurries. Colored hailstones were mounded up two feet high, and the sun was not yet out.
But Dee plunged out into it.
'Hey, wait!' Bink cried. He ran after her.
Dee had disappeared, hidden by the storm. 'Let her go, good riddance,' Crombie said. 'She had designs on you; I know how they work. I knew she was trouble from the start.'
