my ass is brass. That's the way it is in the City of Brass. What does that have to do with being eaten?'
'Monsters don't eat brass here,' Tandy explained.
'I can't be eaten?' Biythe asked, sounding disappointed.
'Oh, you could try,' John said. 'When the first dragon comes, you could volunteer to be the first eaten.
But I think you alone among us are secure from that fate.'
'I wonder,' the brassie said thoughtfully.
Already the first dragon was arriving. It was a huge eight-legged land rover, snorting smoke. Smash strode forward to meet it, knowing it would have been too much for him even when he had his full strength. It wasn't the dragon's size so much as its heat; it could roast him long before he hurt it. But the dragon would attack regardless of whether he fought, and it was an ogre's way to fight. Maybe he could hurl some boulders at it and score a lucky conk on its noggin.
Then Biythe ran past him, intercepting the dragon. The dragon exhaled, bathing her in flame, but brief heat could not hurt her. She continued right on up to its huge snout. 'Eat me first, dragon!' she cried.
The dragon did not squat on ceremony. It opened its monstrous jaws and took her in in one bite.
And broke half a dozen teeth on her hard metal.
Biythe frowned amidst the smoke and piled fragments of teeth. 'You can do better than that, dragon!' she urged indignantly.
The dragon tried again-and broke six more teeth. 'Come on, creature!' Biythe taunted. 'Show your mettle on my metal. I've received worse dents just from being dropped-but I won't say where.'
Now several more dragons arrived. They paused, curious about the holdup. Another snatched Biythe away, crunching down hard on her body-and it, too, lost six teeth.
The brass girl was insulted. 'Is that all there is to it? What kind of experience is that? Here I visit this great big, soft, slushy, living world at great inconvenience, and you monsters aren't doing a thing!'
Abashed, the dragons stared at her. She still looked like a clothed flesh person. Finally a third one tried-and lost its quota of teeth.
'If you dumb dragons can't eat one little girl when she's cooperating, what good are you?' Biythe demanded, disgusted. She shook tooth fragments off her body, marched up to one of the largest
monsters, and yanked at a whisker. 'You-eat me or else!'
The dragon exhaled a horrendous belch of flame. It burned Biythe's remaining flypaper to ashes, but didn't hurt her. Seeing that, the monster backed off, dismayed. If a thing couldn't be chomped or scorched, it couldn't be handled.
'You know, I think we have had a stroke of luck,' the Siren said. 'The dragons naturally assume we are all like that.'
'Luck?' John asked. 'Biythe knows what she's doing! She knows she needs us to get her back to her world. She's helping us get out of a fix.'
Smash's Eye Queue operated. 'Maybe we can benefit further. We need a nice, steady stream of steam to melt off the flypaper.'
'A steam bath,' the Siren agreed. 'But very gentle.'
Biythe tried it. She approached a big steam-turbine dragon. 'Bathe me, monster, or I'll make you eat me,' she said imperiously.
Cowed, the dragon obeyed. It jetted out a wash of rich white steam and vapor. In a moment the brass girl stood shining clean, well polished, the fly ash all sogged off.
'Now my friends,' Biythe ordered. 'A little lower on the heat; they're tougher than I am and don't need so much.'
She was playing it cool! Nervously the others stood in place while the dragon sent forth a cooler blast.
Smash and the girls stepped into it. The vapor was as hot as John could stand, but since she had already lost her wings, it didn't hurt her. The others had no trouble. All the flypaper was steamed off.
Smash also became aware that his .fleas were gone. Now that he thought about it, he realized that he hadn't been scratching since entering the Kingdom of the Flies. Those fly-repellent leaves must have driven off the fleas, too!
Now a dragon approached with an elf on a leash. 'Do any of you freaks speak human?' the elf asked.
Smash exchanged glances with the others. Biythe Brassie had been speaking to these monsters all along, and they had understood. Didn't this elf know that? Better to play it stupid. 'Me freak, some speak,' he said, emulating his former ogre mode.
The elf considered him. The little man's expression ran a brief gamut from fear of a monster to contempt for the monster's wit. 'What are you doing here with these six females?'
'Me anticipate girls taste great,' Smash said, slurping his tongue over his chops.
Again the fearful contempt. 'I know ogres eat people. But what are you doing here in Dragonland?'
Smash scratched his hairy head as if confused. 'Me criticize buzzing flies.'
'Oh. They booted you.' The elf made crude growls at his dragon, and Smash realized he was translating, much as Grundy the Golem did for the King of Xanth. Maybe Biythe had gotten through to the dragons mainly by force of personality.
The dragon growled back. 'You'll have to check in with the Dragon Lady.'
'Dragon Lady not afraidy?' Smash asked stupidly. The elf sneered. 'Of the like of you? Hardly. Come on now, ignoramus.'
Ignoramus? Smash smiled inwardly. Not while he remained cursed with the Eye Queue! But he shuffled behind the dragon, gesturing the girls to follow.
The Siren fell in beside Smash as they walked. 'I've been listening to the Ear,' she murmured. 'The voice that talked about us before was the elf's; the Dragon Lady knows about us already. Now the Ear is roaring like a terrible storm. I don't know what that means.'
'Maybe we have to get to that storm,' Smash whispered. Then the elf turned, hearing him talk, and the conversation had to end.
They came to a huge tent fashioned of dragonet. Inside the net was the Dragon Lady-a scintillatingly regal Queen of her species. She reclined, half supine, in her huge nest of glittering diamonds; whenever she twitched, the precious stones turned up new facets, like the eyes of the Lord of the Flies, reflecting spots of light dazzlingly. She switched her barbed, blue tail about restlessly, growling, and arched her bright red neck. It was really quite impressive. She had been reading a book of Monster Comics, and seemed not too pleased to be interrupted.
'Her Majesty the Illustrious Dragon Lady demands further information, oaf,' the elf said, becoming imperious in the reflected glory of his mistress.
Oaf, eh? Smash played stupider than ever. 'Me slow, no know,' he mumbled.
'Is it true you are impossible to eat?'
Smash held out a gauntleted fist. The Dragon Lady reached delicately forward with her snout and took a careful nip. The metal balked her gold-tinted teeth, and she quickly desisted. She growled.
'If you aren't edible, what use are you. Her Majesty wants to know?' the elf demanded.
'What a question!' Tandy cried indignantly. 'People-creatures rule Xanth!'
'Dragon-creatures rule Xanth,' the elf retorted. 'Dragons tolerate other creatures only as prey.'
Nonetheless, the Dragon Lady's growl was muted. Smash suspected that she was not eager to incite a war with the Transformer-King of the human folk.
In response to another growl from his mistress, the elf turned again to Smash. 'What are we to do with you?' he demanded.
Smash shrugged. 'Me only distrust place where me rust.' Actually, neither his stainless steel gauntlets nor Biythe's brass rusted; water was more likely to cause trouble with the fires of the dragons. But he was mindful of the Ear's storm-signal; if he could trick the Dragon Lady into casting them into the storm, their chances should be better than they were here.
'Metal-rust,' the elf mused as the Dragon Lady growled. 'True, our iron-scaled dragons do have a problem in inclement weather.' He glanced suspiciously at Smash. 'I don't suppose you could be fooling us?' 'Me ghoul, big fool,' Smash said amiably. 'Obviously,' the elf agreed with open contempt. So the Dragon Lady ordered the inedible party dumped into the Region of Air, since the Region of Water did not border Dragonland. An abrupt demarcation established the border; the near side was green turf and trees, the far side a mass of roiling stormcloud. Smash
