"We need to get to Fort Campbell. How do we get there?"

It was not exactly a destination Frederick thought he'd ever see again. Or had any desire to. "Hey man, that is not a cool place to go."

"Good. We like warm places," said the dragon happily. "Got any food?"

"Besides you, that is," said the other dragon. "You smell funny. Like those Lotophagi."

"Wouldn't want to eat him then," said the first one. "They made my tummy feel odd. Like it was flying without me."

"We could nibble a bit and see." One of the dragons licked his small but very sharp-looking teeth with his forked tongue. He took Carl's arm into his mouth and the grower of the green product felt the illusion's teeth. Carl shrieked and pulled his arm away. "Hey man, you can't eat me!"

One of the dragons looked at the other, wrinkling his forehead. The other looked equally puzzled. "Why not?" they asked in unison. It was, plainly, a serious question.

There is nothing like the blood trickling down one's arm from a number of razorlike teeth to focus even the most stoned of minds. Even if they were hallucinations, he'd still better humor them. "Because… because I won't be able to show you the way to Fort Campbell."

"Hmm, true. But I'm still hungry. Can't we just eat half?" said the first dragon.

His companion agreed eagerly. "I'll have the left half, you have the right."

"But two halves make a whole," protested Carl.

The dragon nodded. "I hope it'll fill the hole where my tummy used to be."

"But, but that's the whole of me," said Carl. "I'd be the whole that you ate."

"No you wouldn't. I'd only have eaten half," said the dragon with impeccable logic. "Half a whole would only half fill the hole."

"And if you were a whole," said the other dragon professorially, "there'll be no point in eating you because you can't fill a hole with hole."