"So maybe we should have your talent. That should be more reliable. I wish Deirdre were here."
"Who?"
"A girl I met whose talent was knowing talents. She could touch a person and know. But I haven"t seen her in years. So we"ll have to find it on our own."
"But I have no idea what it is, or if if it is." it is."
"So maybe we should discover that, before we get into something really difficult."
"But it might be a mere spot-on-the-wall talent."
"Is that what the Magician said?"
"No. He said it was generally protective in nature. Not strong, but protective."
"That"s what we need. How can we find it out?"
"I have no idea."
"Idiots," the peeve said.
Hannah glanced at it. "You have a notion, birdbrain?"
"Ask the stupid dragon."
"We have encountered only one dragon. The-" She paused. "Telepathic tunneler."
"Telepathic," Goody repeated. "Vortex can read my mind."
"And somewhere in your mind must be your talent."
"I really doubt-"
"Idiot," the peeve repeated.
Goody surrendered. "We can try it. But how can we locate the dragon? He could be anywhere on or under the ground."
"Idiot!" the bird said a third time.
"By summoning him," Hannah said. "That"s what he said."
Goody remained doubtful. "How?" Then, before the bird could call him an idiot a fourth time, he got it. "Mentally."
He focused. Vortex Dragon! This is Goody Goblin Vortex Dragon! This is Goody Goblin.
Nothing happened.
"Think louder," Hannah suggested.
He concentrated harder. Then a faint response came. I receive you. It takes a while to reach you I receive you. It takes a while to reach you.
"He answered!" Goody said. "He"s coming here."
"So the bird was right," Hannah said thoughtfully.
"You"re just now catching on, termagant?"
"Maybe the parody wants to find a good home too," Goody said. "And knows it won"t be easy."
There was a rumble and shake. Then the blue snout poked out of the ground. And a pink one. This time there were two dragons.
"Double trouble," the parody said.
The second dragon was similar in size and configuration to the first, but the colors differed: pink head, brown and green body, blue legs.
"This is my dragon lady, Vertex," Vortex said, making his thoughts sound as speech.
The parody opened its beak. Both dragons glanced at it. The bird changed its mind.
"You know what we want," Hannah said.
"Of course," Vortex said. "But this is not easy. We also want something."
"Bargaining," Hannah said. "Fair enough. What do you want?"
"This too is not easy."
"Then it"s a fair exchange. What do you want?"
"A construction robot."
Both Goody and Hannah were taken aback. "That sounds like something in Mundania," Goody said.
"It is on Robot World, among the Moons of Ida," Vortex explained. "My beloved wishes to make a safe nest, but this is a new world for us, with unfamiliar dangers, especially for little ones. We lack the resources to forage effectively and simultaneously make the nest. But a robot could make a better nest than we could, faster. When it is done, we can trade the robot to other dragons, and be well off."
"But isn"t a robot a machine?" Hannah asked. "Something mechanical?"
"Exactly. It has no feeling, just a program. It does what it is told, within its specialty."
"Like Anne," the parody said.
"Any what?" Hannah asked, then caught herself. "The girl."
"Not like Anne," Vortex said, reading Goody"s memory. "She is a living, feeling, and beautiful human girl whose smile pacifies peeves and stuns males. A robot is dead matter, without emotions or expressions, and neuter."
"Not so, dear," Vertex said. "The robots of Robot World have gender, the males designed for brutework and the females for cutework, and their programs may have programmed feeling. They may have positive can-do and negative can"t-do indications on their face-plates. We shall need a female construction robot so she won"t mess it up."
"Just so," Vortex agreed, disgruntled. "That"s what we require."
This was becoming complicated. "Where can we find these robots?"
"He told you, BB brain! Ida"s moons."
"I don"t think I am familiar with those."
"Magician Grey Murphy"s wife"s sister Ida has a moon, and the moon has moons," Vortex explained patiently. "Each one farther into alternate dimensionality than the last, where all creatures who exist or might exist reside. One of these is Dragon World, our origin; another is Robot World."
"Go to Castle Roogna and ask for Princess Ida," Vertex said. "She will get you there."
Goody remained borderline confused, but at least now knew where to go. "I will try," he said. "And bring back a female construction robot for you, if this is feasible."
"That seems adequate," Vortex said. "Now I shall fathom your magic talent. This may require deep reading and invocation of buried memories, which could be uncomfortable."
"So hold his hand, heathen vixen! Haw haw haw."
A wisp of steam curled above Hannah"s head.
"We shall have to silence that interference," Vertex said. She glanced at the parody, and it stiffened into something like a statue.
"Wait, we can"t hurt the peeve," Goody said.
"It is merely in a state of suspended awareness," Vortex said. "Vertex will release it when my business with you is done."
Oh. "Thank you." He lifted the inert bird from his shoulder and set it carefully on a low branch of a nondescript tree, where it remained without protest. "It should be safe here, out of danger," he said.
The dragon approached. "Now make yourself comfortable, for you may lose consciousness of your surroundings."
Goody found a tree trunk to lean against and settled down. "Ready, I suppose, I think. This is comfortable and convenient, and I am relaxed and at ease."
"You"re repeating yourself," Hannah said.
"I am? Am I?"
The barbarian stared at the tree. "No wonder! That"s a tautolotree. It makes you repeat needlessly, or say what"s already obvious."
"Tautology," Goody agreed. "Repet.i.tion."
"Stop it!"
"It doesn"t matter, for this purpose," Vortex said. "Just sit there and let your mind go blank."
"I am blank," Goody agreed. "My mind is either empty or not empty." He let his gaze go unfocused, twice.
Nothing changed. But he had seen that phenomenon in No Man"s Land, so knew better than to a.s.sume that nothing was happening. He was merely resting here, thinking.
Then the scene faded, to be replaced by the interior of what he recognized as a goblin mound. Huge goblins were running here and there, doing mysterious things. No, they were normal goblin size; he was small. He was a goblet, a baby goblin.
His nurse was busy at the moment, changing his diaper, so he cast about for mischief. He saw a little fire ant in a niche, so he caught it on a piece of cloth and dropped it on the nurse"s toe.
"Eee-yow!" she screeched, almost smacking her head on the ceiling as she leaped. The fire ant had given her a hotfoot! Gory giggled so hard he almost fell off the table.
Of course he got away with it. Even if the nurse suspected, she couldn"t punish him, because he was the chief"s son. He could cuss her out in language that made her faint, when he got old enough to learn how to talk.
So he was a normal goblin male originally.
And the son of a chief.
Locate the time he changed.
He was a chief"s son? So he was; now he remembered. He had buried that memory because he was ashamed.
The scene shifted. Now he was older but still a goblet, able to walk and talk but not to do anything manly, like punching out a visitor. There was tension in the air; the adults were afraid. That made Gory afraid too.
An invisible hand took his. An adult was lending him strength, somehow. The fear receded, and he was able to study the situation as if separated from his small body.
The mound was being raided! The goblin guards were being killed, and the women were being hauled into closed chambers where they screamed piercingly. Gory found it hilarious, the way they sounded. The goblets were being rounded up separately.
"They"re after loot, rapine, and hostages," Gory"s nurse said.
"We"ve got to hide you, because you"re worth more than all the others combined."
Of course. He was the chief"s son.
"There"s no escape; the mound is surrounded. Only one ploy remains. We"ll have to fix it so they won"t recognize you."
Not recognize the chief"s son? Impossible! He was the meanest goblet in the mound, and everyone was proud of him.
She fetched a packet from a high shelf and emptied its powder into a cup of water. "Quick, drink this, Gory," she said.
"Why, you dopey cow?" he demanded rebelliously. He didn"t like anyone telling him what to do, even for his own safety.
She didn"t argue with him. She pinched his nose, tilted his head back, and when he opened his mouth to breathe, poured in the fluid. He choked, but swallowed most of it.
Whet she released him, he opened his mouth to cuss her out properly, but the words wouldn"t come. "If you please," he said politely, "what was in that water?"
"Powdered reverse wood. That makes you behave the opposite of your nature. You are now the meekest goblin in the mound. Remove your clothes."
Ordinarily he would have told her where she could go with such a directive. Not that he objected to the act; he liked to run through the girls" dorm naked, freaking them out. Once he was grown, that should be twice as much fun. But now he was unaccustomedly modest. "Please, I would rather not, lest it be unseemly."
"Then conceal yourself and change into these," she said, handing him a pile of clothing.
He obliged, for it would not have been nice to disobey the nurse, who meant only the best for him. The clothing was horrible: panties, slippers, and a dress. But he donned it meekly enough.
Then the nurse redid his hair, putting a ribbon into it. "You are no longer Gory Goblin, chief"s son," she said. "You are Goody Gobliness, a common girl. Remember that; your safety depends on it."
Then foreign goblin men burst into the chamber. "Haa!" they cried. "A wench and a brat!"
They hauled the nurse into another room, where she duly screamed. Goody they hustled to a chamber with other children, then ignored them all.