"Anthony, Piers - Source of Magic, The (Xanth 2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

"Dolt!" she screamed from her hideaway. "You're attending in costume! No one will see your stinking shoes!"

Oops, that was right. He had made his trip for nothing.

"But that's all too typical of your selfishness," she continued with righteous ire. "Bugging off to the party to have a good tune while I suffer home alone, chewing on the walls." That was literal; the cheese was old and hard, but she gnawed on it when she got angry, and she was angry most of the time now.

Still, he tried to be positive. He had only been married a year, and he loved Chameleon. He had known at the outset that there would be good times bad times, and this was a bad time. A very bad . "Why don't you come to the ball too, dear?"

She exploded with cynical wrath. "Me? When I'm

:e this? Spare me your feebleminded sarcasm!"

"But as you reminded me, it's a costume party. The

leen is cloaking every attendee in a disguise of her >sing. So no one will see-"

"You utter moronic nincompoop!" she bawled ragh the wall, and he had heard something crash.

Now she was throwing things, hi a genuine temper tantrum. "How can I go to a party hi any guise- when I'm rune months pregnant?'*

And that was what was really bothering her. Not her normal smart-ugly phase, that she had lived with all her life, but the enormous discomfort and restriction of her pregnancy. Bink had precipitated that condition during her lovely-stupid phase, only to learn when she got smarter that she had not wanted such a commitment at this time. She feared her baby would be like her-or like him. She had wanted to find some spell to ensure that the child would be positively talented, or at least normal, and now it was up to blind chance. She had accepted the situation with extremely poor grace, and had not forgiven him. The smarter she got, and the more pregnant she got, the more intense her ire became.

Well, soon she would be over the hump, and getting prettier-just hi time for the baby. It was due in a week or so. Maybe the baby would be normal, perhaps even strongly talented, and Chameleon's fears would be laid to rest Then she would stop taking it out on him.

If, however, the baby were abnormal . . . but best not even think of that. "Sorry, I forgot," he mumbled.

"You forgot!" The irony in her tone cut through his sensitivities like a magic sword through the cheese of the cottage. "Imbecile! You'd like to forget, wouldn't you! Why didn't you think of that last year when you-"

"I have to go, Chameleon," he muttered, hastily retreating out the door. "The Queen gets upset when people are tardy." In fact it seemed to be the nature of women to get upset at men, and to throw tantrums. That was one of the things that distinguished them from nymphs, who looked like women but were always amenable to the idle whims of men. He supposed he should count himself lucky that his wife did not have a dangerous talent, like setting fire to people or generating thunderstorms.

"Why does the Queen have to throw her ridiculous pointless dull party now?" Chameleon demanded. "Right when she knows I can't attend?"

^Ah, the logic of women! Why bother to try to un-dferstand it. All the intelligence hi the Land of Xanth Could not make sense of the senseless, Bink closed the door behind him.

Actually, Chameleon's question had been rhetorical. They both knew the answer. Queen Iris took every Opportunity to flaunt her status, and this was the first imniversary of that status. Theoretically the ball was to honor of the King, but actually King Trent cared fittie for theatrics and would probably skip the festivities. The party was really for the Queen-and though she could not compel the King to attend, woe betide the lesser functionary who played hooky tonight! Bhik was such a functionary. *' And why was this so? he asked himself as he trod glumly on. He was supposed to be an important per-900, tile Royal Researcher of Xanth, whose duty it was to probe the mysteries of magic and report directly to the King. But with Chameleon's pregnancy, and the necessary organization of his homestead, Bink had not gotten around to any real research. For that he had only himself to blame, really. He should indeed have considered the consequence of impregnating his wife. At the time, fatherhood had been the last thing on his mind. But Chameleon-lovely was a figure to cloud man's mind and excite his-never mind!

Ah, nostalgia! Back when love was new, carefree, uncomplicated, without responsibility! Chameleon-lovely was very like a nymph-

No, that was a false feeling. His life before he met Chameleon had not been all that simple, and he had encountered her three times before he recognized her. He had feared he had no magic talent-

He shimmered-and suddenly his appearance changed. The Queen's costume had arrived. Bink was same person, mentally and physically, but now he

jked like a centaur. The Queen's illusion, so he Id play the game she had devised, in her infinite acity to generate minor mischief. Each person had

_guess the identities of as many others as possible >re making his way to the palace ballroom, and was a prize for the one who guessed the most rectly.

\

In addition, she had set up a mock-maze-hedge around Castle Roogna. Even tf he did not play the people-guessing game, he would be forced to thread his way through the giant puzzle. Damn the QueenI