Two to the Fifth

Chapter One CYRUS "Get the lead out of your ass." Cyrus jumped, almost falling off his donkey. "Who said that?" "Get thee to a nunnery." This time he placed the source. "You¿re talking!" he said to the donkey. "Who said that?" the animal said. "You¿re talking." "You¿re repeating whatever you have heard most recently," Cyrus said, catching on. "That voice unit was supposed to be for braying. How can you speak words?" "Defective workmanship," the donkey said. "You installed the wrong unit." Cyrus sighed. So using lead instead of iron wasn¿t his only error when he constructed the donkey. When the mechanical animal was too heavy to function effectively, Cyrus¿s father Roland had given him blunt advice: remove the lead. So he had done so, and had a robot animal he could ride. "Who said the other?" he asked. "About the nunnery. That¿s like a monastery, isn¿t it?" "Your barbarian mother said it," the donkey answered. "You weren¿t paying attention. She was not referring to nuns." "Not?" "Not. According to my defective data bank, it¿s old Mundanian slang for a house of ill repute." "What is that? I never heard of an ill house." "Naturally you wouldn¿t know. You were created halfway innocent, for some obscure reason. But she thought it would make a man of you." "I¿m not a man," Cyrus protested. "I¿m a cyborg. Half robot, half human. I will never be fully human." "That¿s what comes of getting yourself delivered to a humanoid robot and a barbarian. If you wanted to be normal you should have selected a normal couple for parents." "I didn¿t have a choice, you nutty and bolty contraption. They signaled the stork, not me." "Neither did I have a choice, half-breed." "Had you had one, you should have chosen a more competent builder," Cyrus said with a halfway metallic smile. "Indubitably. But since I¿m stuck with you, how about giving me a name?" "You¿re an ass. An equine breed. So suppose I call you-" "Forget it, cogbrain!" Cyrus reconsidered. "Donkey won¿t do?" "Let¿s abbreviate it. Don will do." "Don Donkey. Not phenomenally original." "Neither are you, cyborg." "It will do," Cyrus agreed with resignation. He rode on, careful not to remark on the animal¿s jerky gait, lest he get another sour reminder of his clumsiness in assembling it. The varied terrain of the Land of Xanth passed, becoming less familiar as they got farther away from home. They were following one of the enchanted paths, so there was no danger. Cyrus got thirsty, so fished a can of tsoda pop from a saddlebag. He was about to open it when it slipped out of his hand, fell to the ground, and rolled off the enchanted path. "Bleep," he said. Because he had been assembled adult, he was able to use that term. It signaled spot disaffection with the situation. There was a golden streak. Something zipped after the can, caught it in its mouth, and brought it back, holding it up. It was a dog made from pure gold. "Thank you," Cyrus said, accepting the can. The dog zipped away again. "I wonder what kind of creature that was?" "A golden retriever, dummy," Don said. "Check your memory bank." The donkey was right: the information was there. Cyrus simply hadn¿t made the connection. "Thank you," he said again. "I¿m low on fuel," Don complained. Cyrus considered. Chances of getting where they were going today were small, so there was no point in pushing it. "We¿ll stop at the next grazing area we see," he said. "We¿d better." They came to a small glade strewn with sticks and tufts of old dry grass. "And this is it," Cyrus said, diAnthony, Piers is the author of 'Two to the Fifth', published 2008 under ISBN 9780765319357 and ISBN 0765319357.