female insight.
'No? It hardly matters. Sex is unimportant.' The Sorceress put her hands to her mouth in a megaphone gesture. 'Trent! They're over here.'
Bink dived for her-and passed through her image cleanly. He took a tumble on the forest floor. 'Silly boy,' Iris said. 'You can't touch me.'
Now they heard the Evil Magician coming through the forest. Bink looked frantically for some weapon, but saw only the great boles of the trees. Sharp stones might have been used against these trees- therefore all stones had been magically eliminated. Some other area might have potential weapons, but not this highly competitive wilderness, this fringe near the farms that were always in need of more cleared land.
'I have ruined you!' Chameleon cried. 'I knew I shouldn't have-'
Shouldn't have made love? True enough, in one sense. They had wasted vital time, loving instead of warring. Yet there might never be another chance. 'It was worth it,' Bink said. 'We'll have to run.'
They started to run. But the image of the Sorceress appeared in front of them. 'Here, Trent!' she cried again. 'Cut them off before they get away.'
Bink realized that they could get nowhere so long as Iris dogged them. There was no place they could hide, no surprise they could prepare, no strategic placement possible. Inevitably Trent would run them down.
Then his eye fell on an object Chameleon still carried. It was the hypnotic gourd. If he could get Trent to look into that unwittingly-
Now the Magician came into sight. Bink gently took the gourd from Chameleon. 'See if you can distract him until I get close enough to shove this in his face,' he said. He held the gourd behind his back. Iris probably did not realize its significance, and she would be able to do nothing once Trent was out of commission.
'Iris,' the Magician called loudly. 'This is supposed to be a fair duel. If you interfere again, I shall consider our understanding terminated.'
The Sorceress started to react with anger, then thought better of it. She vanished.
Trent stopped a dozen paces from Bink. 'I regret this complication. Shall we start over?' he inquired gravely.
'We'd better,' Bink agreed. The man was so damned sure of himself, he could give away any advantage. Maybe he wanted to wrap it up with a completely clear conscience-such as it was. But by so doing, Trent had unknowingly saved himself from possible disaster. Bink doubted he would have another opportunity to use the gourd.
They separated again. Bink and Chameleon fled deeper into the forest-and almost into the quivering arms of a tangle tree. 'If only we could trick him into running into that,' Bink said-but found he didn't mean it. He had somehow gotten himself into a duel he really did not want to win-and could not afford to lose. He was as dumb as Chameleon-only somewhat more complicated about it.
They spotted a noose-loop bush. The loops were up to eighteen inches in diameter, but would contract suddenly to a quarter of that when any careless animal put its head or limb through. Their fibers were so tight that only a knife or specific counterspell could alleviate the bind. Even when separated from the bush, the loops retained their potency for several days, gradually hardening in place. Careless or unlucky animals could lose feet or lives, and no creature ever bothered a noose-loop plant twice.
Chameleon shied away, but Bink paused. 'It is possible to harvest and carry such loops,' he said. 'At the North Village we use them to seal packages tight. The trick is to touch them only on the outside. We can take some of these and lay them on the ground where Trent has to step. Or we can throw them at him. I doubt he can transform them once they're detached from the living plant. Can you throw pretty well?'
'Yes.'
He walked toward the bush-and spied another wilderness threat. 'Look-a nest of ant lions!' he exclaimed. 'If we can put them on his scent?'
Chameleon looked at the foot-long, lion-headed ants and shuddered. 'Do we have to?'
'I wish we didn't,' Bink said. 'They wouldn't actually eat him; he'd transform them first. But they might keep him so busy that we could overpower him. If we don't stop him somehow, he's very likely to conquer Xanth.'
'Would that be bad?'
It was just one of her stupid questions; in her smart phase, or even her normal phase, she would never have asked it. But it bothered him. Would the Evil Magician really be worse than the present King? He put the question aside. 'It is not for us to decide. The Council of Elders will choose the next King. If the crown starts being available by conquest or conspiracy, we'll be back in the days of the Waves, and no one will be secure. The law of Xanth must determine the possession of the crown.'
'Yes,' she agreed. Bink had surprised himself with an excellent statement of the situation, but of course it was beyond her present understanding.
Still, the notion of throwing Trent to the ant lions bothered him, so he went on searching. In the depths of his mind a parallel search was manifesting, concerning the morality of the present government of Xanth. Suppose Trent were right about the necessity of reopening Xanth to migration from outside? According to the centaurs, the human population had slowly declined during the past century; where had those people gone? Were new part-human monsters being formed even now, by magically enabled interbreeding? The very thought was like being entangled in a noose-loop bush; its ramifications were appalling. Yet it seemed to be so. Trent, as King, would change that situation. Was the evil of the Waves worse than the alternative? Bink was unable to form a conclusion.
They came to a large river. Bink had forded this in his sphinx stage, hardly noticing it, but now it was a deadly barrier. Little ripples betrayed the presence of lurking predators, and eerie mists played about the surface. Bink flipped a clod of mud into the water, and it was intercepted, just before it struck, by a giant crablike claw. The rest of the monster never showed; Bink was unable to determine whether it was a mercrab or a super crayfish or merely a disembodied claw. But he was sure he did not want to swim here.
