'Sneeze bees!' the Magician exclaimed between paroxysms.
'Transform them!' Bink cried.
'I can't-achoo!-focus on them, my eyes are watering so. Achoo! Anyway, they are innocent creatures of the ah, aahh, ACHOOO!'
'Run, you dopes!' Chameleon cried.
They ran. As they cleared the glade, the bees left off and the sneezes stopped. 'Good thing they weren't choke bees!' the Magician said, wiping his flowing eyes.
Bink agreed. A sneeze or two was okay, but a dozen piled on top of one another was a serious matter. There had hardly been time to breathe.
Their noise had alerted others in the jungle. That was always the background threat here. There was a bellow, and the sound of big paws striking the ground. All too soon a huge fire-snorting dragon hove into view. It charged right through the sneeze glade, but the bees left it strictly alone. They knew better than to provoke any fire sneezes that would burn up their flowers.
'Change it! Change it!' Chameleon cried as the dragon oriented on her. Dragons seemed to have a special taste for the fairest maidens.
'Can't,' Trent muttered. 'By the time it gets within six feet, its fire will have scorched us all into roasts. It's got a twenty-foot blowtorch.'
'You aren't much help,' she complained.
'Transform me!' Bink cried with sudden inspiration.
'Good idea.' Abruptly Bink was a sphinx. He retained his own head, but he had the body of a bull, wings of an eagle, and legs of a lion. And he was huge-he towered over the dragon. 'I had no idea sphinxes grew this big,' he boomed.
'Sorry-I forgot again,' Trent said. 'I was thinking of the legendary sphinx in Mundania.'
'But the Mundanes don't have magic.'
'This one must have wandered out from Xanth a long time ago. For thousands of years it has been stone, petrified.'
'Petrified? What could scare a sphinx that size?' Chameleon wondered, peering up at Bink's monstrous face.
But there was business to attend to. 'Begone, beastie!' Bink thundered.
The dragon was slow to adapt to the situation. It shot a jet of orange flame at Bink, scorching his feathers. The blast didn't hurt, but it was annoying. Bink reached out with one lion's paw and swiped at the dragon. It was a mere ripple of effort, but the creature was thrown sideways into a tree. A shower of rock nuts dropped on it from the angry tree. The dragon gave a single yelp of pain, doused its fire, and fled.
Bink circled around carefully, hoping he hadn't stepped on anyone. 'Why didn't we think of this before?' he bellowed. 'I can give you a ride, right to the edge of the jungle. No one will recognize us, and no creature will bother us!'
He squatted as low as possible, and Chameleon and Trent climbed up his tail to his back. Bink moved forward with a slow stride that was nevertheless faster than any man could run. They were on their way.
But not for long. Chameleon, bouncing around on the sphinx's horny-skinned back, decided she had to go to the bathroom. There was nothing to do but let her go. Bink hunched down so she could slide safely to the ground.
Trent took advantage of the break to stretch his legs. He walked around to Bink's huge face. 'I'd transform you back, but it's really better to stick with the form until finished with it,' he said. 'I really have no concrete evidence that frequent transformations are harmful to the recipient, but it seems best not to gamble at this time. Since the sphinx is an intelligent life form, you aren't suffering intellectually.'
'No, I'm okay,' Bink agreed. 'Better than ever, in fact. Can you guess this riddle? What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three in the evening?'
'I shall not answer,' Trent said, looking startled. 'In all the legends I've heard, some sphinxes committed suicide when the correct answers to their riddles were given. Those were the smaller type of sphinx, a different species-but I seem to have muddled the distinctions somewhat, and would not care to gamble on the absence of affinity.'
'Uh, no,' Bink said, chagrined. 'I guess the riddle was from the mind of the sphinx, not me. I'm sure all sphinxes had a common ancestor, though I don't know the difference between one kind and another.'
'Odd. Not about your ignorance of Mundane legends. About your riddle memory. You are the sphinx. I didn't move your mind into an existing body, for the original creatures have all been dead or petrified for millennia. I transformed you into a similar monster, a Bink-sphinx. But if you actually have sphinx memories, true sphinx memories-'
'There must be ramifications of your magic you don't comprehend,' Bink said. 'I wish I understood the real nature of magic-any magic.'
'Yes, it is a mystery. Magic exists in Xanth, nowhere else. Why? What is its mechanism? Why does Xanth seem to be adjacent to any Mundane land, in geography, language, and culture? How is this magic, in all its multiple levels, transmitted from the geographic region to the inhabitants?'
'I have pondered that,' Bink said. 'I thought perhaps some radiation from the rock, or nutritional value of the soil-'
'When I am King I shall initiate a study program to determine the true story of Xanth's uniqueness.'
When Trent was King. The project was certainly worthwhile-in fact, fascinating-but not at that price.
