He had gambled and won. He had been almost certain, but his body still trembled in reaction, for none of his senses had doubted the illusion. Only his brain had defended him, preventing him from being reduced to quivering acquiescence to the will of the Sorceress, or from being herded into some genuine hazard. Illusions could kill-if one heeded them.
Bink moved out again, with more confidence. If there were a real dragon in the vicinity, there would have been no need for an illusory one; therefore all dragons here were illusion.
He stumbled. Illusion could hurt him another way, though-by covering up dangerous breaks in the terrain, forcing him to misstep or fall or drop into a well. He would have to watch his step-literally.
As he concentrated on the region near his feet, he was able to penetrate the illusion with greater facility. Iris's talent was phenomenal, but in covering the entire island it was necessarily thinly spread. His will could oppose hers in a localized area while her attention was distracted. Behind the facade of the flower gardens was the weedy wilderness of the island. The palace was a rickety shack, first cousin to the farmhouses he had met along the way. Why build a good house when illusion could do it so much easier?
His borrowed clothing, too, had changed. Now he wore a crude feminine shawl and-he verified with dismay-panties. Lacy silk girl-style panties. His fancy handkerchief was exactly what it appeared to be. Apparently the Sorceress did indulge herself in some reality, and lace hankies were what she could afford. And panties.
He hesitated. Should he go back for his own clothing? He didn't want to encounter Iris again, but to travel in the wilderness or meet people in this outfit-He had a vision of walking up to the Good Magician Humfrey to ask for his boon of information,
BINK: Sir, I have come across Xanth at great peril to ask-MAGICIAN: For a new dress? A bra? Ho, ho, ho!
Bink sighed, feeling his face redden again. He turned back.
Iris spotted him as soon as he reentered the shack. A flicker of hope lighted her face-and that briefly honest expression had more compulsion than all her illusion. Human values moved Bink. He felt like the supreme heel.
"You changed your mind?" she asked. Suddenly her voluptuous youth was back, and a section of the glittering palace formed around her.
That dashed it. She was a creature of artifice, and he preferred reality-even the reality of a shack among weeds. Most of the farmers of Xanth had nothing better, after all. When illusion became an essential crutch to life, that life lost value. "Just want my own clothes," Bink said. Though his decision was firm, he still felt like a heel for interfering with her splendid aspirations.
He proceeded to the bathroom-which he now saw was an attached outhouse. The fabulous toilet was merely the usual board with a hole sawed in it, and flies buzzed merrily below it. The bathtub was a converted horse-watering trough. How had he taken a shower7 He saw a bucket; had he dumped water on his own head, not knowing it? His clothing and pack were in a pile on the floor.
He started to change-but found that the facility was really only an opening in the back wall of the shack. Iris stood watching him, Had she watched him change before? If so, he had to take it as a compliment; her approach had become much more direct and physical thereafter.
His eye fell on the bucket again. Someone had dumped water on him, and he was sure now that he had not done it himself. The only other person who could have done it--ouch!
But he was not about to display himself so freely to her again, though it was obvious that he had no physical secrets remaining! He picked up his things and headed for the door.
"Bink-"
He paused. The rest of the house was dull wood, with flaking paint, straw on the floor, and light showing through the cracks. But the Sorceress herself was lovely. She wore very little, and she looked a lush eighteen.
"What do you want in a woman?" she asked him. "Voluptuousness?" She became extremely well ell-dewed, with an exaggerated hourglass figure. "Youth?" Suddenly she looked fourteen, very slender, lineless and innocent. "Maturity?" She was herself again, but better dressed. "Competence?" Now she was conservatively dressed, about twenty-five, quite shapely but of a businesslike mien. "Violence?" The Amazon again, robust but still lovely.
"I don't know," Bink said. "I'd really hate to choose. Sometimes I want one thing, sometimes another."
"It can all be yours," she said. The alluring fourteen-year-old reappeared. "No other woman can make this promise."
