The professor paused. "Do I hear a mush-skull?"

"It's your bloated behind that's filled with mush, freak."

There was an awed hush. No one dared speak to the fearsome Grossclout like that!

The professor peered around, spotting the bird. "One more peep out of you, featherhead, and I'll banish you to h.e.l.l!"

The peeve let out something slightly louder and considerably smellier than a peep. There was a gasp, not just of shock.

That did it. Grossclout gestured, and the bird found itself in h.e.l.l.

h.e.l.l was not the nicest place to be. There were a number of brutish creatures there, and it was too hot. But mainly it was boring, because nothing ever changed, except for the arrival and departure of individuals. No one could be insulted, because all of them were d.a.m.ned anyway.

The parody had plenty of time to think. It realized that it had made a mistake that had resulted in its getting sent here. It resolved to correct that error, so as never to be sent here again, a.s.suming it ever got out.

The mistake was in the way it had insulted people. It had been crude about it, and finally one of them had gotten the parody back. That was no good.

So it decided to fix that problem. Instead of insulting others using its own voice, which wasn't very good anyway, it would insult them using its companion's voice. That way the other person would get the blame, leaving the peeve in the clear.

Satisfied, it practiced emulating the voices of others. When it got good enough to promote face-breaking fights between friends, it knew it had perfected the ploy. Of course soon enough they caught on, and started ignoring its taunts. But that was a problem of familiarity, rather than competence. New territory would ameliorate it.

Yet the bird remained in h.e.l.l, unable to insult innocent folk, as none here were innocent. That was the heck of it.

Some time later the Gorgon visited h.e.l.l and took pity on it. She had a thing for animals, especially snakes, because her hair was snaky. The bird sounded snaky when it perched on her coils. She took the parody out and left it at the Good Magician's castle. That was fun at first, but then the Magician, his five and a half wives, and other members of his household got savvy, and could no longer be riled.

And so it came to the present. Goody was glad to have the peeve's personal history, as it explained a lot.

Then it was Goody's turn. He rehea.r.s.ed his early, middle, and late history, seeing it animate in the theater.

Was it enough? Goody was nervous as the scene faded, revealing the empty sphere.

"Here is your program," the goblin robot said, handing him a small flat package. "a.s.semble the tools, place it beside them, and it will proceed on its own. It is self-activating."

That seemed almost too simple, but he had to trust that it would work as represented.

"Are we ready to return?" he asked Hannah.

"More than ready," she agreed. "This mechanical world gives me the creeps."

"And you are already too creepy, Barby doll."

They took hands and released their hold on Robot World. Immediately they puffed into demonlike smoke, expanding hugely, and floated right off the planet.

They expanded past moon after moon, each one larger, until at last they came to the largest of all: so big that all they could see were several reposing giants. Two were human women; one was a goblin man. One was a desultory green bird.

Those were themselves!

Their diffuse soul substances sank into their gross bodies. Goody suffered a moment of panic as he seemed to be suffocating; then he got control of his body and looked out.

"You're back," Princess Ida said.

"No thanks to you, royal pain!"

"We're back," Goody agreed. He found the package in his hand, its substance thickening as it gathered material into itself. "Thank you."

In due course they were on their way back to meet with the dragons. "A question," Hannah said. "Do we need to trek all the way back to where we were? Why not summon the dragons here?"

"Because you're too stupid to think of the obvious, bawdy babe."

"Let's find a convenient spot and do it," Goody said.

They followed the enchanted path until they were clear of the castle area, then found a peaceful glade.

Vortex! Vertex! Goody thought.

Very soon the dragons appeared. "We were tuning in on the castle environs," Vortex said. "We see you have a program."

"Yes. I'm not sure it's enough, but it's what they offered."

"Let's find out," Hannah said. "First we need to a.s.semble the required things. A lever, wheel, heat, lens, copper powder, iron, and something else."

"Input/output module, dummy," Goody's voice said.

"That's it, whatever it is."

"I know where one is," Vertex said. She slithered into the ground and disappeared.

"I can make a lever," Hannah said, drawing her sword and hacking a twig from a small poet tree, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g its poem leaves off to make a miniature pole. Goody saw the poems fall to the ground and was sorry for the waste; a good poet tree was a creative thing that could answer questions written in verse on leaves with new poems.

"All that work to make a toothpick!"

"I can make a wheel," Goody said, and set about fashioning one from an old rim of a small branch of a defunct beerbarrel tree. He fashioned a little stand for it so that it could turn on its axle.

"And a spinner," the peeve said contemptuously.

Vortex located a hotbox for heat, and Hannah picked a lens from a spectacle tree. Goody found a cache of copper powder by the roots of a copper plant. Vertex returned with the module, which looked like a metal bird dropping with wires poking out of the sides. Hannah hacked a branch off an ironwood tree and added it to the collection.

"What a mess of junk!"

Following instructions, they set up the lever on a cleared spot of ground beside the wheel with the lens mounted on it, and hotbox, iron, and module, then sprinkled copper powder so that it dusted the dirt between objects. Finally they laid the square program in the center; it was somewhat floppy but settled down well enough.

"Now what? This will never work."

The lever moved, poking the wheel, which turned. A beam of light from the sun shone through the lens and focused on the iron, which heated and began to melt. The hotbox melted the copper powder, which formed into copper rivulets that networked the site. Some connected to the module, which seemed to animate though it did nothing they could see. Melted iron flowed into a pattern of wires, levers, and wheels that emulated the original ones. This spread to encompa.s.s the module, which disappeared into the innards of the tangle.

"Does anyone have any idea what is happening?" Hannah asked.

"The thing is mindless, so we can't fathom it," Vortex said. "But we presume it is a.s.sembling itself into a construction robot."

"Ludicrous!" But even the parody seemed impressed by this particular magic, which was unlike any other they had seen.

At last the tangle extended sticklike legs and walked around the site. It had small iron arms, and a head dome with a face-plate. It squatted and ejected the module. Then it walked to a clear patch of ground and used a limb to scratch a little picture: a blob, an arrow, and a circle.

"What does it mean?" Goody asked.

"That's akin to barbarian symbol language," Hannah said. "It means 'take me to your site.' That must be the finished construction robot."

"But it's so small!"

"Size matters less than proficiency," Vortex said. "We shall take it to our nest site and see how well it works."

"If you are satisfied," Goody said dubiously.

"We have no reason to doubt the competence of the machines of Robot World," Vortex said. "They must have seen our requirement in the experience renditions you made there, and devised a program to make what we need. Certainly you have done your part, Goody Goblin."

"Fat chance of that!" his voice said.

"We regard our deal as consummated," Vortex said. He put a foot on the little robot and nosed into the ground. In four-fifths of a moment plus a trice both dragons were gone.

"Good riddance!"

"That was interesting, taken as a whole," Hannah said. "What next, for us?"

"Now we head back into the Region of Madness to see if we can find a good home for the peeve."

"You'll never succeed, lamebrain."

"The odds do seem to be against success," Goody agreed. "But what else is there?"

"Nothing else," Hannah said. "Only a madman would adopt this abominable bird."

They set off south again. Goody glanced back, and saw activity at the construction site. At least the wheel was turning. Maybe the device was taking itself apart, now that its job was done.

Hannah saw his glance, and followed it with one of her own. "Machines give me the creeps," she said. "They're so un-barbarian. You never know what they're up to. I'll take regular garden-variety magic any day."

"You would, illiterate skirt."

"I didn't see you you reading that robot message, fowl-mouth." reading that robot message, fowl-mouth."

"I'm a bird bird, caveman cretin! Why should I read?"

"It would be better if you didn't talk, either, b.o.o.by beak." The parody let loose a torrent of expletives that toasted the air around them. The barbarian had evidently scored. It was good to see the two getting along.

But Goody felt uneasy, for no reason he could fathom at the moment. It didn't help that he had the feeling that he was missing something obvious.

Chapter 7: Go-Go.

There was no doubt they were entering the Region of Madness. While it was possible to encounter almost anything anywhere in Xanth, the oddities were thicker and odder here.

They discovered a tower that turned out to be made entirely of watches, their faces looking out, each showing a different time. They saw a tribe of hands, severed from their bodies, running around on their fingers. The largest one, evidently the leader, was labeled KER. He was the hand Ker Chief. "Handkerchief," Hannah muttered.

They navigated a kind of network of walkways through a field of tall corn. "A maze of corn stalks," Goody said.

"Maize," Hannah agreed, not seeming much amused.

They camped by a stream and settled for the night. "I don't like this region," Hannah said. "I can feel the magic intensifying. It's weird."

Goody had to agree. Even the parody seemed cowed by the environment. "Maybe it's a bad idea."

"But I really hate to be driven off by any nameless threat."

"And maybe lose a chance to place the bird."

"You fools never had a chance anyway."

"Let's consider overnight," Hannah said, "and if we don't change our minds by morning, we'll go back."

That seemed like a reasonable compromise.

As they ate supper from their supplies, they heard something odd. Hannah put her hand on her sword.

Something vaguely like a monstrous caterpillar came into sight. Each segment was a book with two little feet. It spied them, and lifted its book-head. On it was printed THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE TOME.

"Get out of here, you ridiculous bookworm!" the peeve cried.

Goody exchanged a glance with Hannah. A bookworm!

The print changed. LIBRARY ANN WOULD NOT SAY THAT.

"Librarian," Hannah muttered.

"Ann's not here, joker!"

Disappointed, the bookworm moved on.

"Are we decided yet?" Hannah asked.

"Yes. Tomorrow we get out of here."

"About time you fledgling freaks saw the light."

They slept somewhat uneasily.