shaft.'
Dor jerked back his foot. 'How do we get past this monster?' he asked, staring into the moat.
'I'm not allowed to tell you that,' the water replied apologetically. 'The old gnome's got everything counterspelled.'
'He would,' Grundy grumbled. 'You can't out-gnome a gnome in his own home.'
'But there is a way,' Dor said. 'We just have to figure it out. That's the challenge.'
'While the Magician chortles inside, waiting to see if we'll make it or get speared. He's got a sense of humor like that of a tangle tree.'
Dor made as if to dive into the moat. The triton raised his trident again. The merman's arm was muscular, and as he supported his body well out of the water the points of his weapon glinted in the sun. Dor backed off again.
'Maybe there's a tunnel under the moat,' Grundy suggested.
They walked around the moat. At one point there was a metallic plaque inscribed with the words TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.
'I don't know what that means,' Dor complained.
'Til translate,' Grundy said. 'It means: keep out.'
'I wonder if it means more?' Dor mused. 'Why should Humfrey put a sign out here, when there's no obvious way in anyway? Why say it in language only a golem understands? That doesn't seem to make sense- which means it probably makes a lot of sense, if you interpret it correctly.'
'I don't know why you're fulminating about a stupid sign, when you need to be figuring out how to cross the moat.'
'Now, if there were a tunnel that the Magician could use without running afoul of his own hazards, he'd need a marked place for it to emerge,' Dor continued. 'Naturally he wouldn't want anyone else using it without his permission. So he might cover it over and put a stay-away spell on it. Like this.'
'You know, I think you've got a brain after all,' Grundy admitted. 'But you'd have to have a counter- spell to get it open, and it's not allowed to tell you that secret.'
'But it's only a stone. Not too bright. We might be able to trick it.'
'I get you. Let's try a dialogue, know what I mean?' They had played this game before.
Dor nodded, smiling. They stepped up close to the plaque. 'Good morning, plaque,' Dor greeted it.
'Not to you, it ain't,' the plaque responded. 'I ain't going to tell you nothing.'
'That's because you don't know nothing,' Grundy said loudly, with a fine sneer in his voice.
'I do not know nothing!'
'My friend claims you have no secrets to divulge,' Dor told the plaque.
'Your friend's a dumdum.'
'The plaque says you're a dumdum,' Dor informed Grundy.
'Yeah? Well the plaque's a dumdum.'
'Plaque, my friend says you're a-'
'I am not!' the plaque retorted angrily. 'He's the dumdum.' What feelings objects had tended to be superficial. 'He doesn't have my secret.'
'What secret, dodo?' Grundy demanded, his voice even more heavily freighted with sneer than before.
'My secret chamber, that's what! He doesn't have that, does he?'
'Nobody has that,' Grundy cried, scowling. 'You're just making that up so we won't think you're the granitehead you really are!'
'Is that so? Well look at that, dumdum!' And the face of the plaque swung open to reveal an interior chamber. Inside was a small box.
Dor reached in and snatched out the box before the plaque caught on to its mistake. 'And what have we here?' he inquired gleefully.
'Gimme that back!' the plaque cried. 'It's mine, all mine!'
Dor studied the box. On the top was a button marked with the words DON'T PUSH. He pushed it.
The lid sprang up. A snakelike thing leaped out, startling Dor, who dropped the box. 'HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!' it bellowed.
The snake-thing landed on the ground, its energy spent. 'Jack, at your service,' it said. 'Jack in the box. You sure look foolish.'
'A golem,' Grundy said. 'I should have known. Golems are insufferable.'
'You oughta know, pinhead,' Jack retorted. He reached into a serpentine pocket and drew out a shiny disk. 'Here is an achievement button to commemorate the occasion.' He held it up.
Dor reached down and took the button. It had two faces. On one side it said TRESPASSER. On the other it said PERSECUTED.
