Luck of the Draw

  “It is true,” Dawn agreed. She wasn’t eating, as it seemed skeletons did not need to, but was tending to the babies. They were assuming human form for a gulp of milk from a bottle, then turning skeletal while the other took the bottle. They seemed to have the system worked out well. “When you feel fully conversant, you can go out punning with them, as practice in Xanth.”

  “Punning?”

  “Collecting puns,” Picka explained. “This is what we do here at Caprice Castle. Xanth has entirely too many puns, so it is our job to fetch them in and store them safely so they can’t escape and infest more terrain. It’s a challenge.”

  What next? “I will do my best,” he said bravely, and Rachel wagged her tail. And wondered what other surprises awaited him in this odd new land. Very little seemed to be as he might have expected.

  “That will surely be good enough,” Dawn said.

  Bryce hoped so.

  2

  PUNFEST

  In the morning after breakfast Bryce and Rachel reported for duty. “We have no idea how to proceed,” he admitted.

  “A couple of weeks of pun duty should have you more than ready to visit the Good Magician Humfrey,” Dawn said brightly. She was in flesh again, radiantly beautiful, which seemed to be her normal state. Picka Bone stood nearby in his skeletal mode.

  “I am not clear on this. Exactly why do I need to see this magician?”

  “He will enable you to define your Heroic Quest,” Dawn explained patiently.

  Bryce smiled. “I’m no hero.” He was distracted by a vision of her doing something he didn’t understand. It was his left-eye future vision. So he closed that eye.

  “You don’t have to be,” she was saying. “You simply have to tackle the Quest, so as to become worthy of the hand and heart of Princess Harmony.”

  “Oh, that,” he agreed. “The teen girl. I think I should simply leave her to a more worthy suitor.”

  An expression hovered in the vicinity of Dawn’s face that was deceptively similar to mischief. “You do not wish to pursue her?”

  “Apart from the magic love spell, which I assume will wear off in due course, no. She’s younger than my youngest granddaughter.”

  Dawn took his hand in hers. Hers was like a caress of an angel, wondrously cool and delicate. “If she holds your hand like this, and beseeches you to reconsider?”

  “No. It simply makes no, if you’ll excuse the term, mundane sense.”

  “And if she embraces you like this,” Dawn asked, putting her arms around him, “will you still deny her?”

  He was abruptly conscious of her formidable feminine appeal. Never in his life had he held a woman as lovely as this. “Common sense says I must.” His unbelievable left-eye vision was coming true. He determinedly tuned it out, but he couldn’t stop the following reality.

  “And if she kisses you like this?” She kissed him on the mouth. Pastel-colored light shone and music sounded. He seemed to be floating, conscious mainly of her divine lips on his.

  It took him two and a half moments—it seemed that such things could be quantified in this magic realm—to recover his physical footing and his emotional equilibrium. He realized that he had not imagined the music; the skeleton had removed his clavicles and was using them to play the “Wedding March” on his ribs. These folk kept surprising him! “I will politely explain why it would not be fair to either of us.”

  Her features seemed to shift, coming to resemble those of the princess he had seen in the mirror, complete with big brown eyes, lustrous brown hair, and a cute little crown. It was of course another illusion, but an effective one. “Please, Bryce dear, marry me.”

  He steeled himself, playing the role. He felt he had to, to make his point. “Princess, I can’t do that.”

  Big tears ran down her cheeks. “But I love you!”

  The love spell smote him. He felt himself melting. He wanted to hold her, reassure her, agree to anything she wanted. That would doom his resolve. Only the fact that he knew this was an act, and that it wasn’t really Harmony, prevented him from capitulating. “But she’s unlikely to choose me,” he said somewhat lamely.

  Dawn reappeared. “But now you know you must do your best to win her, and not merely to secure your place in Xanth. That love spell will not relinquish its hold until you complete your Quest. If she selects another suitor, then the spell will dissipate and you will be free.”

  “Then I will be free,” he agreed, accepting that he was truly bound. The Demon had not brought him here and given him a magic talent without making sure he would perform. Meanwhile he focused on what his right eye saw, to avoid further confusion. He was getting better at that.

  “You can control your second sight,” Dawn said, understanding his thought because she was still in contact with him. “Simply utter a spot personal spell: Second Sight Tune Out. You will have to do that once each morning, and it will not bother you for that day. When you expect to need it, merely tell it to Tune In.”

  “It’s that easy?” he asked, surprised.

  “For you, yes. But you should practice with it, become comfortable with it, because it can save your life.”

  “When I have time,” he agreed. He concentrated on his left eye. “Second Sight, Tune Out.” The shadowy image faded. His eyesight was normal again.

  “Tune it in whenever you are in any kind of new or challenging situation,” Dawn said. “So as to have its full benefit.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  “Now for your first day collecting puns,” she said, immediately businesslike. “This will be perplexing at first, so I will assign a castle maid to assist you.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to be any trouble.”

  “She finds castle housework supremely boring. She is more than glad to go with you.” She made a moue. “Also, there are dragons, and other dangers for the unwary.”

  Because this was a magic land. “Oh. In that case, yes, I’m sure I can use the help.”

  “Mindy,” Dawn said without raising her voice.

  A young woman entered the chamber, evidently alert for just such a summons. “Yes, ma’am?” She was of average height but somewhat pudgy. Her hair was blond, and she wore glasses, the first glasses he had seen in Xanth.

  “This is Melinda, or Mindy to her friends.” Dawn turned to the girl. “You will go out with Bryce here, and assist him in punning, and in adapting to the Land of Xanth.”

  “Adapting?” Mindy asked, glancing shyly at Bryce.

  “He is Mundane, and unfamiliar with our ways, so will need constant guidance at first.”

  “Mundane!” Mindy exclaimed.

  “Sorry about that,” Bryce said apologetically.

  “I’m Mundane!” Mindy said, suddenly friendly. “Or I was, until I came to Xanth a few months ago. I know all the tricks Xanth has for a newcomer, because I walked into them myself.” Then she looked embarrassed. “Was I talking too much? Sometimes I do that.”

  “No, no Melinda!” Bryce said. “You’re ideal. When I blunder, you will understand.” Also, he realized, she was not a beautiful princess, so he would be more comfortable and feel free to ask her questions and talk with her.

  “I sure will,” she agreed, smiling. She had a nice smile that began with her eyes and extended down to her mouth. “Call me Mindy.”

  “Mindy,” he agreed.

  She turned to Dawn. “Thank you, Princess, for giving me this chance. I promise to keep him as safe as possible.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Dawn said, with a faintly obscure expression. Bryce hoped there were not severe penalties for errors that ordinary servants might make.

  “We will leave you to it,” Picka said. He and Dawn departed, leaving Bryce alone with Mindy and the two dogs.

  The girl was silent, shy again. That was understandable, because she didn’t know him. He looked like a twenty-one-year-old young man who might be thoughtless or aggressive. He needed to ameliorate that.

  “I may not look it, but I am eighty ye
ars old,” he said. “It seems that magic made me young again. Think of me as someone’s grandfather, essentially harmless. Because I am.”

  “Oh, they youthened you,” Mindy said.

  “Youthened, yes. It seems I am supposed to be a suitor for the hand of Princess Harmony, and my real age wouldn’t do. It’s not a role I sought or am comfortable with, but I seem to be obliged to fulfill it to the best of my ability. So perhaps you can appreciate the awkwardness of my position.”

  Mindy smiled. “I never was a grandfather, but I guess I can see it. I wouldn’t like being a grandmother and having to court a teenaged prince.”

  “Exactly. So Princess Dawn was not fooling about my needing guidance.”

  “I guess not. I’ll help you all I can.” She smiled. “And I’m twenty. You really are of my grandfather’s generation.”

  “Thank you.” She seemed to be more at ease now. “But before we start, there’s something I’d like to do, if you don’t mind,” he said. “I rode my trike here, but it didn’t make it inside the castle. I’m afraid it wrecked outside the wall. I’d like to check it, and repair it if I can. I might be able to use it here, and if I can’t, at least I can give it a decent retirement as a loyal machine.” Then he paused as Mindy had. “I’m foolish that way. I personalize things. I don’t like to mistreat objects any more than animals or people.”

  “That’s all right,” Mindy said. “Machines have feelings too, here in Xanth. Some of them are characters. Like Com Pewter. Some things, too, like Fracto the malignant cloud.”

  Bryce decided not to ask about the odd entities she mentioned; he would surely pick up such information in due course if it was relevant to his situation. “So if we can perhaps walk around the castle to see if my tricycle is there…”

  “Oh, yes,” she agreed. “Just follow Woofer.”

  Woofer seemed to have been chatting in canine language with Rachel. Now he jumped up and led the way out of the chamber. They followed him through a minor labyrinth of halls, stairways, and rooms, and soon emerged from the castle.

  “If it is here, it should be near the dungeon door,” he said. “The door loomed so quickly I crashed right into it. Or through it. I don’t really understand what happened, as I don’t seem to be bruised, and neither does Rachel.”

  “Caprice Castle admitted you,” Mindy explained. “It is very choosy, and no one can enter unless it wishes it. It must have known you were sent by a Demon.”

  “There’s that capital again. Is that significant?”

  “Oh, yes! Regular demons are mainly nuisances, like Metria, but Demons are vastly more powerful.”

  A puff of smoke appeared before them, roiling restlessly. “Did I hear my cognomen?”

  “Your what?” Bryce asked, startled. He was talking to an animated cloud?

  “Appellation, nomenclature, personage, denomination, alias—”

  He got the gist. “Name?”

  “Whatever,” the cloud agreed irritably. It expanded and formed into the shape of a marvelously sultry woman whose scanty clothing was two sizes too tight. “I am the Demoness Metria, just now summoned. Who are you?”

  He tried not to stare, with imperfect success, as this new young body was highly attuned to feminine charms. Two of those charms seemed about to burst out from her overtaxed halter. “Bryce, from Mundania. I just arrived here.”

  “That explains that,” the demoness agreed. She turned to Mindy. “And who are you?”

  “I am Melinda, also from Mundania, six months ago. I work here.”

  Metria shook her head so that her long hair flung out and dissipated into smoke at the fringe. “I should check Caprice more often, but it keeps me out except by invitation. But naming me is an implore.”

  “A what?” Bryce asked.

  “Beseech, appeal, supplicate, entreat, plead, petition—”

  “Invitation?”

  “Whatever. So I got an avenue. What’s your business here?”

  “That’s not your business, Metria,” Mindy said sharply.

  The demoness eyed her appraisingly. “So you have been warned about me.”

  “Yes. I wasn’t supposed to say your name, but I forgot. Now go away before you get me in trouble.”

  “Nuh-uh, girl. You can’t get rid of me as readily as you can invoke me. Now that I’m here, I mean to fathom all coverts.”

  Bryce opened his mouth. “Don’t ask her!” Mindy snapped. “She uses her speech impediment to draw innocent people in.”

  “Her what?”

  “Undisclosables,” the demoness said. “Undivulgeables, clandestine, hidden, hush-hush, confidential—”

  “Secrets?” Bryce asked.

  “Whatever,” Metria agreed crossly.

  “He wasn’t asking you about your word,” Mindy said.

  “That’s right,” Bryce agreed. “I was asking about your speech impediment. You seem to have a considerable vocabulary. Why can’t you get the right word on your own?”

  “I got stepped on by a sphinx eons ago,” Metria said. “It fractured me into three parts: D Mentia who’s a little crazy—” She re-formed into an even more provocative form, a demoness wearing a tight polka-dot bodice whose dots lacked material, and no skirt.

  Bryce heard a snap by his ear, and found a hand before his eyes. “What happened?” he asked, confused.

  “She flashed you with her naughty panties and you freaked out,” Mindy said. “I just brought you out of it. It happens to men, not usually women. Don’t look directly at her.”

  Bryce obediently gazed over the demoness’s head. “Seeing panties does that?”

  “You bet it does, chump,” Mentia said. “You really are new here, aren’t you!”

  “I really am. You were telling me about the sphinx.”

  “And to the young Woe Betide,” Mentia said, and formed into a cute little girl. “Who honors the Adult Conspiracy.”

  “The what?”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” the child said. “It’s the Adult Conspiracy to Keep Interesting Things from Children. I’m not allowed to know any bad words, or exactly how people signal the stork, or anything else interesting. It’s unfair!” Her little face screwed up into tears, which danced before her before splatting into the ground.

  “Get on with it,” Mindy said with resignation.

  “And to Metria, whose vocabulary caught the brunt of it,” Metria said, reappearing. “It’s always the right word that’s lost. Anything else you want to apprehend?”

  “No!” Mindy said sharply before Bryce could ask. “No, he doesn’t. Now go, or I’ll call Princess Dawn.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” Metria said.

  Mindy opened her mouth and inhaled.

  “Oh, bleep,” the demoness said, and faded out.

  “Woofer, is she really gone?” Mindy asked.

  Woofer sniffed the air. “Woof!”

  “No,” Rachel translated.

  “That’s what I thought. You can’t trust that demoness any which way. I’m calling Princess Dawn.” She took another breath.

  “Woof.”

  “Now gone,” Rachel said.

  Bryce was learning things almost too rapidly to assimilate. Treacherous demonesses who flashed panties, the Adult Conspiracy, suspicious speech impediments. This truly was a different realm.

  “We were looking for your tricycle,” Mindy said.

  Woofer, reminded, resumed motion. They walked around the outside of the castle. And there, before the big wood dungeon door, lay the trike, overturned.

  Bryce greeted it like an old friend. “Are you all right?” he asked, setting it back on its three wheels. “Let me try you.” He settled down on the seat and put his feet to the pedals. The machine rolled forward.

  It was working! He pedaled on around the next curve of the castle wall.

  And charged into a patch of sand and brush he hadn’t seen. He was about to wreck again. Right when he could have used his future vision, he had suppressed it, and been caught by
surprise. He needed to learn to manage it better. “Tune in,” he muttered belatedly. The slightly out-of-sync left eye came on. He ignored it, except for a low-level awareness in case it should show anything alarming.

  But the trike continued on through the brush without pause. It was handling it! It should have stalled in the sand and foliage, but it moved on as if still on pavement. He steered it around and pedaled back to where Mindy and the two dogs waited. “Amazing,” he exclaimed. “Not only is it undamaged, it can handle off-road terrain.”

  “It must have caught some of the magic you and Rachel did,” Mindy said. “So you could use it here.”

  “That Demon must really want me to succeed!”

  “Demons can do magic ordinary folk can’t,” she agreed.

  “So I’ll use it in the field,” he said. “It’s really nice to have this bit of Mundania with me.”

  “Let me fetch a carpet, and we will head out punning,” Mindy said. “Wait here.” She hurried back into the castle.

  “What use would a castle carpet be out in the field?” Bryce asked.

  “Woof.”

  “You will see,” Rachel translated, amused. There must have been an explanatory paragraph in that single woof.

  In three and a half moments Mindy was back, floating about a yard above the ground. She was sitting on a small carpet that seemed to move under its own power. Tweeter Bird was perched on her shoulder.

  “A magic flying carpet!” Bryce exclaimed.

  “I’m Mundane,” Mindy reminded him. “I don’t have magic of my own. Maybe eventually I will, but for now I have to borrow magic to get along. Princess Dawn lets me use it for punning.”

  “I see,” Bryce said, impressed anew.

  “You will need a pun bag,” she said, handing him a cloth bag with a drawstring closure. There were several more piled on the carpet.

  “Thank you.” He put the bag in one of the panniers at the rear of the trike.

  “Show the way, Tweeter,” Mindy said.

  “Tweet.” The bird flew up, spiraled several times, then oriented on a distant patch of trees.

  “You don’t know where the puns are?” Bryce asked. “I thought you had been doing this before.”