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All he heard was nothing.
    “Yet—”
    Dolph returned to boy form, waiting.
    “—there may be other modes of assessment, other means of measurement, that some other type of creature might use to discover the undiscovered,” Marrow concluded.
    Had the skeleton lost what little wits he had in his hollow cranium? That was gibberish! But Dolph refrained from making the proper retort, still hoping against hope that there might be a good idea hiding somewhere. “What do you mean?”
    “I am accustomed to the various devious chambers of the realm of the gourd,” Marrow explained. “It seems to me mat if there is anything remaining to be found here, it must be in such a chamber of the castle, undiscoverable by normal means.”
    “A secret chamber?” This intrigued Dolph. “Where?”
    Marrow shrugged. “Wherever no one has looked before, assuming it exists.”
    “But how could we find it? We looked everywhere there is to look.”
    “I'm not sure. I thought perhaps one of your alternate forms could measure and discover whether—”
    Dolph became a huge measuring worm. He traversed the castle, measuring every step. And discovered that the measurements did not add up.
    They discussed it, and concluded that there was indeed a discrepancy in the middle of the castle. The rooms and stairs and walls formed a complex mosaic, so that it was almost impossible to tell what added up to what, but the measuring worm found the difference. There was room for a small hidden chamber. It might be merely a solid foundation of stones, but it could be a secret room.
    Dolph was elated. They had made a discovery that no one else had made! Now all they had to do was get into the chamber and see what was there.
    The stones of the castle were big and heavy: far too much so for a nine-year-old boy or a walking skeleton to move. But Dolph could handle that. “I'll become an ogre and bash my way in!” he said zestfully.
    “I am not certain—”
    “Yeah, you're right,” Dolph agreed reluctantly. “Mustn't damage someone else's castle. But maybe if you could become a pry bar, the ogre could use it to move just a few blocks out of the way, and put them back after.”
    “Kick me,” Marrow said.
    Dolph gave him a good swift kick in the rear. Marrow flew apart, and fell together as a long, solid bar of bones with the skull forming a knob on the end.
    Dolph became an ogre. Now he was so big he hardly fit in the room, and he had monstrously hairy muscles. He gazed dully around, and spied a small spider spinning a web; the spider took one look at his ugly puss and fainted. Ogres were the strongest, ugliest, and stupidest creatures of Xanth, which was why they were so much fun.
    He reached for the bone pole—and another ogre tromped into the room. Dolph paused, surprised. “Who you?” he demanded in typical ogre style.
    “Who you?” the other responded in the same tone.
    “Me ask he mask,” Dolph said. Ogres typically spoke in inane rhymes, which was pretty limiting for anybody but an ogre. What he meant was that he had asked first: that the other should unmask himself.
    “Me ask he mask,” the other repeated.
    “Me bash he ash!” Dolph declared, angry at this mimicry. He raised a huge hamfist.
    “Me bash he ash,” the other said, raising a similar hamfist.
    “Perhaps—” the skull-knob began
    Suddenly there was a second bone pole. “Perhaps—” its skull-knob said.
    Dolph reverted to boy form. “What's going on?”
    Another boy appeared before him. “What's going on?”
    “—we have another challenge," Marrow's skull said.
    “—we have another challenge,” the second skull said, reappearing as the boy vanished.
    “This thing is copying whatever we do!” Dolph exclaimed.
    The boy reappeared. “This thing is copying whatever we do!”
    “A mimic-dog, I think,” Marrow's skull said, immediately echoed by the other.
    “What's that?” Dolph and the creature asked.
    “A creature who mimics whatever it sees and hears,”