Luck of the Draw (Xanth) (11 page)

“What did you find?”

“A smart, sensible, lovely, occasionally naughty but somewhat innocent girl.”

“And I expected to find a crusty old Mundane in a young body, who might give me good advice. I did.”

Bryce laughed. “So it seems we understand each other.”

“Bryce, I really appreciate your perspective, if I have the word right. It is a valuable gift. You have told me things no other man would, and given me a plan to handle this darned Demon contest I never asked for or wanted. Now I have direction I lacked before. I want to give you something in return.”

“There is no need, Princess.”

“This is not need. It is—desire.”

Her term was not quite appropriate, but he got her meaning. “As you wish, Harmony.”

“What do you need?”

Bryce laughed. “Magician Trent told me to get a sword. I am not at all sure I want to do that.”

“Castle Roogna has an armory with many swords.”

“I would hardly know what to do with a sword,” he protested. “I’m no warrior. What he meant was that I need something to buttress my second sight in case of emergency.”

“Ah yes, you have that.”

How did she know? Princess Dawn must have told her. “Yes. But it may not always be enough, at such time as I get into the adventurous hinterlands.”

“Some of the swords are magical,” she said. “So that a novice can readily wield them.”

“I suppose that would help. But really my reflexes are not of that type. I’m more the cerebral type. Luck of the draw.”

“The what?”

“It’s just a Mundane expression. It derives from mundane card games, where one is dealt or allowed to draw cards to play, and some are better than others. It’s a matter of pure luck what hand a player is dealt. I meant that I have what amounts to a hand of information and skills that apply only randomly to the challenge I face here in Xanth. Some may help me, others won’t.”

“Oh. Then it’s not about drawing lucky pictures?”

“It is not,” he agreed. “Though I suppose here in Xanth, where so many things are literal, it could have been taken that way. Anyway, for me, the pen is mightier than the sword.”

“The pen?”

“A writing instrument. I meant that sometimes what a person writes with a pen is more effective than violence with a sword would be.”

“Yes.” Harmony rummaged in a chest. “Here it is.” She held up a pen and small tablet.

She had misunderstood again. “I meant—”

“Shh. I know what you meant, that time. This is a magic pen. I can’t use it effectively, but maybe you could. How good are you at drawing?”

“Well, I’m no artist, but I did take classes in mechanical drawing in my youth. I did seem to have a talent for that. I could draw an almost perfect circle without using a compass, or make other stylized little figures. Much good it did me; I never used that skill in life.”

“You can use this pen, then,” she said. “Luck of the draw.” She handed it to him, together with the tablet. “Draw something.”

“You want a little picture?”

“Yes.”

He shrugged, and drew a little sword. He showed it to her. “There.”

“Now invoke it.”

“Invoke it?”

“Say the word.”

He humored her. “Invoke.”

The sketch slid off the page. The sword bounced on the floor, expanding. In a moment it was full size.

“That’s the magic of the pen,” Harmony explained. “What it draws becomes real. I can’t draw a good sword, so mine would be warped and stunted. But yours is nice.”

“Magic,” Bryce echoed, staring at the sword. “Amazing.”

“Try something else.”

“What about the sword? I shouldn’t leave it just lying around.”

“You can revoke it, or invoke a new drawing, at which point the old one will fade.”

“Ah.” He drew an ice-cream cone. “Invoke.”

It slid off the page. He caught it as it expanded.

“Chocolate eye scream!” Harmony exclaimed. “Thank you, Bryce.” She took the cone and licked the ice cream.

“Um, is that actually edible? What happens when I revoke it?”

“It vanishes.” She licked it again. “That makes it nonfattening.”

“I see.” He decided not to eat any other drawings, because he did not want to be deceived about their food value. “Thank you for the pen, Harmony. I’m sure it will be useful.”

“You’ll need to practice with it,” she said. “Maybe set up several drawings you can do rapidly at need.”

He had another thought. “I’m not sure I should really accept this.”

She frowned, and he caught just a hint of what it might be like to anger a Sorceress. “You are rejecting my gift?”

“It’s not that. It’s a fine gift. It’s that this could be considered as you playing favorites in a contest that should be objective.”

“Then I will give gifts to the others too, when I meet them.”

“That may do,” he agreed. “I probably should go now.”

“Yes, Piper and Granola are done now.” She laughed at his expression. “No, I can’t see what they’re doing. For one thing, she’s invisible.”

That had not been the precise focus of his surprise, but he let it go. “Then farewell, Princess, until such time as we meet again.”

“Oh, don’t be stuffy!” She flung her arms about him and kissed him again. Once more there was the pastel heart and the floating. She was lovely and that love spell was potent.

Then he found himself outside, walking away from the castle. He must have walked down the stairs and through the halls and out, but he remembered none of it. Princess Harmony might be only a girl, but what a girl!

He realized belatedly that he had seen no other people in the castle, after Harmony’s triplet sisters left. That must have been by design. There was so much magic, in so many guises!

Piper was waiting for him. “Was it a good meeting?”

“It was amazing,” Bryce said. “She’s a remarkable person.”

“Sorceresses are. Did she enchant you?”

“Yes. Figuratively and literally.”

“They do.”

They got on the trikes and the invisible giantess picked them up and bore them swiftly to Caprice Castle. What a day he had had!

5

P
EN

N
ext day Caprice Castle looked out on a remarkable landscape. It was ordinary immediately around the castle, but not far distant a towering cliff rose up. Two cliffs.

“We’re in the Gap Chasm!” Bryce exclaimed. “Piper told me about it.”

“We are,” Mindy agreed. “Just be glad we’re not in the Gas Chasm; it really stinks. Rogue puns are everywhere. You will have to meet the Gap Dragon before you start, though, so he won’t steam you.”

“Steam me?”

“There are several fundamental types of dragons, chiefly the fire-breathers, the smokers, and the steamers. Stanley is a steamer.”

“Stanley Steamer,” he agreed, amused.

“It’s not funny. He’s dangerous.”

“I didn’t mean to imply that he’s not. It was a private thought.”

In due course they exited the castle and stood before the front gate. Bryce heard an odd whomping sound. Then he saw puffs of steam rising in the distance. Then the dragon hove into view: a green six-legged creature with vestigial wings and a great ugly head. The steamer.

Dawn stepped forward. She hugged the dragon’s hot snout. “Stanley, we are here to forage for puns today. We have a new member of our household: Bryce, from Mundania.”

The dragon eyed Bryce as if he wanted to steam him. Nervous, Bryce quickly sketched an ice cube. Could he control its size? He tried.

“And Rachel Service Dog, also from Mundania,” Dawn continued. Rachel stayed close beside Bryce, ready to defend him in whatever way she could.

The dragon did not seem to like her much either. He puffed up a lungful of steam. Bryce knew that steam could cook them both in place.

“Invoke, large,” he murmured. The cube slid off the page and expanded to a yard square. The dragon’s steam would have to vaporize that to get at him, giving him and Rachel time to get away.

The Gap Dragon considered the cube. He breathed out a seething jet of steam. It exploded into a cloud of vapor as it struck the cube. In barely a moment the cube was gone, but so was the steam. There was only a roiling rising cloud of vapor. The dragon nodded, satisfied, then lifted an eyebrow.

“Princess Harmony gave me this magic pen,” Bryce explained. “I am learning how to use it.”

The dragon nodded again, then turned and whomped away. “He likes you,” Mindy said.

Or did not care to admit he had been balked. “Because of Princess Harmony, maybe,” Bryce said, relieved.

“Perhaps,” Dawn agreed, with one of her obscure smiles. “Harmony’s mother, King Ivy, befriended him long ago. He wouldn’t hurt any of her children, or their friends.”

“That is reassuring to know.” If the dragon had merely been testing them, it had been a dangerous test.

“Now we will split up and go pun questing,” Dawn said. “We’ll meet at noon here at Caprice for lunch and storage, then go out again. It should be routine.” She glanced at Bryce. “Mindy will accompany you and the dogs, of course. But because there may be unforeseen dangers, Skully and Joy’nt will also be with you.”

“Who?” Bryce asked.

Two more figures emerged from the castle: walking skeletons he hadn’t seen before. “They are part of the household. They’ve been foraging for puns elsewhere.” She hugged the female. “Joy’nt Bone, Picka’s sister, and her friend Skully Knucklehead. They will help you practice with your pen.”

“Thank you,” Bryce said, taken aback. There were so many people to get to know! But his session with Magician Trent and Sorceress Iris, working on his second sight, had satisfied him that he did need practice handling magic things. The second sight had turned out to be considerably stronger than he had supposed. Maybe the pen would too.

The group split, with Dawn, Picka, Woofer, and Tweeter going west, and Bryce, Mindy, Joy’nt, Skully, and Rachel going east. They spread out and searched the brush.

Rachel pointed, and Bryce went to pick up two linked sticks. “I’m not sure what these are,” he said. “They look like nunchaku, a mundane weapon. I don’t see the pun.”

“I don’t know either,” Mindy said. “Weapons aren’t my specialty.”

“Those are none-chucks,” Skully said. “They will prevent a mortal person from vomiting, should you feel the need.”

“Ouch! None chucks. A pun, sure enough.” He put them into his bag. Then, since Skully was near, he asked the skeleton a question. “How did you come to be in Caprice?”

“I was stranded on a sunken ship until Dawn’s party rescued me. Then I fell for Joy’nt’s nice bones, so I stayed with her party. When Picka won Caprice, we all moved in and helped out. Puns don’t bother skeletons as much as they do mortals, maybe because we can’t get nauseous.”

“Eeek!” Mindy exclaimed. She had come up against a boulder that turned out to have eyes and whiskers.

Skully’s arms became swords as he went to her rescue. “What is it?”

“It—I think it’s a monstrous mouse.”

Bryce got it. “An enor-mouse,” he said, bagging it.

They continued bagging puns. Meanwhile Bryce tried to practice with the pen, which he kept with its tablet pad in a breast pocket. He realized that if it was to be useful for him, he would need to have a number of sketches rehearsed that he could draw and animate rapidly, in under ten seconds if possible, so as to coordinate with his second sight. Yet without more experience of Xanth’s dangers, it was hard to do.

“Skully can help,” Mindy murmured, fathoming his thought. “You saw how he can make his limbs into weapons.”

He had indeed. “Skully, could I ask a favor?”

“You need someone to pretend to attack you with a weapon,” Skully said immediately. These folk were evidently attuned to his needs.

“Yes, so I can figure out how to deflect it. If you could make a sword or two, and come at me slowly, maybe I’ll figure it out.”

The two swords formed again. Skully approached him with measured steps, slowly waving the swords.

Bryce got a notion. Quickly he sketched a crude shield. “Invoke.” The shield slid off the page, expanding. He put his left arm through the holding straps behind it and held it up just in time to block Skully’s slow attack. Both swords clanged off the edge of the shield.

“You’d have been skewered in real life,” Mindy said. “You took too long.”

“I did,” Bryce agreed. “Also I’m not sure this shield is my best defense. It’s heavy, and it doesn’t disarm him, merely balks him momentarily.”

“True,” Skully agreed. “Had I swooped over or under the shield instead of striking directly at it, I could have lopped off your head or feet.”

“Let’s try again,” Bryce said. “Revoke.” The shield disappeared.

This time the skeleton approached faster, and Bryce drew faster. The shield was not metal, but cork. The swords bit into it and stuck.

“Well, now,” Skully said. Then he yanked harder, and got his swords free. “That is better, but not perfect.”

“Let me try another.” He revoked the shield, because he needed his left hand to hold the pad so he could draw the new one.

The third time he drew a shield made of taffy. He found he could define some of the details mentally, as he drew, which helped.

Both swords stuck in the taffy and would not come loose; the shield merely deformed and stretched as the skeleton yanked. “That will do,” Skully said.

Bryce revoked the shield, and the skeleton’s arms were freed. “I wonder whether I can draw something in advance, ready to be invoked when I need it? That would save me time.”

“But suppose you turn out to need something else?” Mindy asked.

That was a good point. “I’d better practice different drawings, so I can do any rapidly, rather than be precommitted to any single drawing.”

They searched out more puns, routinely bagging them, while Bryce mentally rehearsed several more sketches. They had to be simple, yet accurate enough to be effective. Suppose, for example, the Demoness Metria appeared and tried to freak him out again with her panties?

A ball of smoke formed before him. “Did I hear my nomenclature?”

“No, you did not hear your name, Metria,” he snapped.

“Odd. I was sure I heard a thought about me and panties.” Her voluptuous figure formed.