'But the piles of dirt-'
'I had forgotten about that,' Chester said. 'I should have recognized the castings before. They eject the dirt from their tunnels behind them, and where they touch the surface it forms into a pile. As they tunnel on, the further castings plug up the hole, so there is nothing left except the pile.'
'But what do they do?'
'They move about, make piles of earth. That's all.'
'But why are they following me? I have nothing to do with squiggles.'
'Could be coincidence,' Humfrey said. He addressed the mirror. 'Is it?'
The mirror's unhappy baby face showed.
'Someone or something is setting the squiggle to spy on us, then,' Humfrey said, and the mirror smiled. 'The question is, who?'
The mirror turned dark. 'The same as the source of magic?' Humfrey demanded. The mirror denied it. 'Bink's enemy, then?' And the smiling baby returned.
'Not the same as the fiends of the lake?' Bink asked.
The baby smiled.
'You mean it is the same?'
'Don't confuse the mirror with your illogic,' the Magician snapped. 'It agreed it was not the same!'
'Uh, yes,' Bink said. 'Still, if our route takes us past the fiends, we have a problem. With the enemy spying on us all the way, and throwing obstacles in our way, he's sure to excite the fiends into something dire.'
'I believe you are correct,' Humfrey said. 'It may be time for me to expend some more of my magic.'
'Glory be!' Chester exclaimed ironically.
'Quiet, horserear!' Humfrey snapped. 'Now let me see. Do we have to pass the fiends of the lake to reach our destination?' The mirror smiled.
'And the fiends have curse-magic sufficient to blast forests?'
The mirror agreed.
'What's the most convenient way to pass without trouble?'
The mirror showed a picture of Bink watching a play.
Humfrey looked up. 'Can any of you make sense of this?'
Crombie squawked. 'Where am I?' Grundy translated.
'Let me rephrase that question,' Humfrey said quickly. 'Where is Crombie while Bink is watching the play?'
The mirror showed one of the Magician's vials. The griffin went into an angry medley of squawks. 'Oh come off it, beakbrain!' the golem said. 'You know I can't repeat words like that in public. Not if I want to become real.'
'Beakbrain's concern is understandable,' Chester said. 'Why should he be banished to a bottle? He might never get out.'
'I'm supposed to do the translations!' Grundy complained, forgetting his prior reluctance.
Humfrey put away the mirror. 'If you won't pay attention to my advice,' he informed Crombie, 'then do it your own way.'
'You temperamental real people are at it again,' Grundy said. 'The rational thing to do is listen to the advice, consider the alternatives, discuss them, and form a consensus.'
'The little imp is making uncommon sense,' Chester said.
'Which little imp?' Grundy demanded.
'I suspect,' the Magician said grimly, 'that the garrulous golem would be best off in a bottle.'
'We're fighting again,' Bink said. 'If the mirror says we can pass the fiends most conveniently' by traveling in bottles, I'd rather gamble on that than on the sort of thing we've just been through.'
'You don't have to gamble,' Grundy pointed out. 'You have to go watch a dumb play.'
'I have faith in my mirror,' Humfrey said, and the mirror blushed so brightly there was a faint glow through his jacket. 'To prove it, I will submit to bottling myself. I believe the one Beauregard used is pleasantly upholstered and huge enough for two. Suppose Crombie and Grundy and I enter that bottle and give it to Bink to carry? Then he can ride Chester to the play.'
'I'm willing,' Bink said. He wondered privately whether the Good Magician would take all his other bottles with him into the bottle. That seemed a bit paradoxical, but no doubt was possible. 'But I don't know exactly where the fiends are, and I'd rather not barge in on them unexpectedly. If we approach carefully, circumspectly, they may be less fiendish.'
Crombie pointed to the lake.
'Yes, I know. But where at the lake? At the edge? On an island? I mean, before I innocently walk into a tree-blasting curse-'
