Bink moved. He ran along the path to the west. Usually a fractured timestone took half an hour or so to heal-but it varied somewhat with the quality of the stone, the surrounding temperature, and assorted unknown factors. Maybe it was inherent in the original piece, because the two fragments always changed color together, precisely, even if one were in the sunshine and the other buried in a well But, again, what use to seek a rationale for magic? What was, was.
And would be no more-for him. None of this had meaning in Mundania.
He hove in sight of the Shield-or rather, its effect. The Shield itself was invisible, but there was a line of dead vegetation where it touched the ground, end the corpses of animals that had been so foolish as to try to cross that line, Sometimes jumpdeer got confused and sprang through to the safe ground on the other side--but they were already dead. The Shield was invisibly thin, but absolute.
Occasional Mundane creatures blundered into it. A detail walked the line each day on the Xanth side, checking for corpses, hauling them out of the Shield when they were partway across, giving them safe burial. It was possible to handle something that lay across the Shield, so long as the living person did not touch it himself. Nevertheless, it was a grisly chore, sometimes assigned as punishment. There were never any human Mundanes, but there was always the fear that there might one day be some, with all the complications that would entail.
Ahead was the spreading beechnut tree. One branch reached out toward the Shield-and the tip of that branch was dead. Wind must have made it sway across. It helped identify the spot where he should cross.
There was an odor associated with this line of death, too. Probably it was the decay of many tiny creatures: worms in the earth, bugs flying through the Shield, rotting where they fell. This was the region of death.
Bink glanced down at the stone he held-and sucked in his breath in shock. It was red!
Had it just now changed-or was he already too late? His life depended on the answer.
Bink launched himself at the Shield. He knew the sensible thing to do was return to the Shield tender and explain why he had balked-but he wanted this done with. Maybe it had been the actual change of the stone's color that had attracted his attention, in which case he did have time. So he took the foolish course, and tried for it.
One second. Two. Three. He'd better have the whole five, because he wasn't there yet. The Shield seemed close, but it took time to make the supposedly instant decision and abolish inertia and get up speed. He was passing the beechnut tree at a dead run-maybe literally dead-going too fast to stop. Four seconds-he was crossing the line of death. If it closed on his trailing leg, would all of him die, or just the leg? Five-he felt a tingle. Six-no, time was up, stop counting, start panting. He was through; was he alive?
He rolled in the dirt, kicking up dry leaves and small bones. Of course he was alive! How could he worry about it otherwise? As with the manticora, concerned about his soul: if he had none, he wouldn't-Bink sat up, shaking something dead out of his hair. So he had made it. That tingle must have been an effect of the turned-off Shield, since it hadn't hurt him.
Now it was done. He was free of Xanth forever. Free to make his own life, without being ridiculed or mothered or tempted. Free to be himself.
Bink put his face in his hands and cried.
After a time he got up and walked on, into the dread world of the Mundanes. It really did not look much different: the trees were similar, the rocks unchanged, and the ocean shore he paralleled was exactly like an ocean shore. Yet an intense nostalgia gripped him. His prior euphoria had been but the swing of the pendulum, providing a false buoyancy. Better if he had died in the crossing.
Well, he could still go back. Just step across the line. Death would be painless, and he could be buried in Xanth. Was that what other exiles had done?
He revolted against the notion. He had called his own bluff. He loved Xanth and missed it terribly already-but he did not want to die. He would simply have to make his way among the Mundanes. Others had surely done it before him. Maybe he would even be happy there.
The isthmus was mountainous. Bink sweated as he climbed the steep pass. Was this the counterpart to the chasm, a ridge that rose as high above the land as the chasm sank beneath it? Did a ridge dragon run along the heights? No, not in Mundania. But possibly such geography did have something to do with the magic. If the magic quality washed down from the height, concentrating in the depth-no, that didn't seem to make much sense. Most of it would have washed into the ocean and been hopelessly diluted.
