Luck of the Draw (Xanth) (12 page)

“Oopsy,” Mindy murmured. “It is dangerous just to think of her. She was probably tracking you, hoping for a pretext.”

So it seemed. Well, now he could test his notion. “Yes, I am concerned about your panties,” he said.

“Coming right up.”

His second sight confirmed it. Her clothing was swirling into vapor, slowly exposing her brightly colored underwear. He sketched feverishly: a kind of doubled board.

“Ta-daa!” The last of her outer clothing dissipated. She turned grandly to present the rear aspect of her panties.

Bryce invoked his drawing. In half a moment it was in his hand. He swung it, smartly striking those panties with the flat of it. It made a loud thwack!

The demoness was so startled that she puffed into smoke, ruining any effect her overstuffed panties might have had.

“What was that?” Mindy asked.

“It’s an old mundane device called a slap stick. It makes a loud noise when it strikes, without hurting the person hit. The sound is from the second board banging into the first board.”

“And you whacked her right on her meaty bottom!” Joy’nt said. “She must have thought something was exploding, like a pineapple, and dissolved.”

“What a way to thwart a freak-out!” Skully said.

Then they all dissolved into laughter. Skeletons might not have flesh, or freak out when it stuffed panties, but they knew it when they saw it.

“Let’s try that again,” Metria said, re-forming. This time her clothing puffed off so rapidly that there was hardly time for him to draw anything. She was wearing a bright blue bra and red panties.

But Bryce’s second sight had seen it coming, and it seemed that his left eye did not freak out. He hastily sketched a tube. He invoked it as her full undergarments flashed. He squeezed the tube, hard.

A stream of white paint shot out. It splatted against her body, soaking both bra and panty, nullifying them and dripping down her legs.

“Oh, bleep!” she swore, trying to brush it off with her hands. All that did was smear it further, along with her hands themselves. That really set her off. “Bleepity bleepity BLEEP!!” The foliage in her vicinity wilted and browned, and a scorched smell rose from it. The sound might have been bleeped out, but the corrosive essence remained.

Mindy and the skeletons actually fell down laughing. Even Rachel seemed amused.

“BLOOP!!!” Metria said, and literally exploded into a roiling cloud of smoke. The local vegetation was flattened, and tongues of flame flickered.

“There’s no Adult Conspiracy for plants,” Mindy explained between gasps of laughter. “So they got the full brunt.”

“There will be another time,” the smokeball said, and floated away.

“Keep that sketch,” Joy’nt said. “It should be good against monsters, too.”

Bryce was pleased. He was learning how to use the pen effectively.

They resumed gathering puns. Then Bryce walked into something new. It was a swarm of coin-sized bugs with rounded pincers. “Are these puns?” he asked.

“Those are nickelpedes!” Mindy cried. “They gouge out nickel-sized chunks of flesh. Get away from them.”

Instead Bryce drew another sketch. He invoked a small vat of liquid tar. He poured it on the nickelpedes. They were immediately mired, unable to attack or escape.

“You are really learning to use that pen,” Mindy said admiringly.

“I want to be prepared for any danger I might encounter, at such time as I don’t have friends to look out for me.”

They continued with the puns. Then Bryce misstepped and slid into a pit he hadn’t seen. Suddenly he was in a cave whose opening was too high for him to reach.

He sketched a ladder, invoked it, and used it to climb up and out. He was really getting to like the magic pen.

But his confidence made him careless. When he came to a small river he did not carefully jump over it, but waded through it. He shouldn’t have.

The water was deeper than it looked. He sank in up to his waist, then was swept off his feet. Before he could properly react he was carried into a hole and down into the ground. He was caught in an underground river!

There was air above it so he could breathe, but the sides were smooth and slippery so that he could get no purchase. He was carried along through the darkness at what felt like breakneck speed. All he could do was hope that it would end soon. The involuntary ride seemed interminable.

Then abruptly he shot out into space. Before he could scream he plunked down into a great pool of water. Pool? This was the ocean! The river had carried him right out to sea.

“Arf!”

He looked around. “Rachel!” She had followed him. She must have dived in after him, and been carried along too. “You risked your life for me!”

“Service dogs do,” she said.

“Well, let’s get out of here. I doubt the deep sea is safe for ignorant Mundanes. Which way is the shore?”

She pointed with her nose. There was the cliff, with the water-spouting hole that had spewed them out. But the wall lowered to the north, where the Gap Chasm met the sea. How they had entered the river at the base of the chasm, then emerged above it he couldn’t say. “We’ll swim that way,” he said, pointing himself.

He stroked and she dog-paddled. They were making fair progress. Then a horrendous head lifted from the water between them and the shore. “A sea monster!” Bryce exclaimed, appalled. “How can we avoid it?”

“Arf!” Rachel pointed to the side. There was a tiny island with one tree and a yard of beach. That would have to do.

The sea monster oriented on them and swam swiftly toward them. But the islet was close by, and they managed to reach it just before the huge jaws snapped. They sprawled on the beach.

The monster could readily have picked them off the sand, but it simply looked at them, shook its head, and submerged. Why had it given up the chase?

“Why not us got?” he asked the dog, turning to her. And paused, for two reasons.

First, it had not been his preferred phrasing. He had spoken in a guttural growl, and he had made a stupid rhyme. Neither was his style.

Second, the dog was not with him. Instead there was a naked woman with short black hair and heavy nails.

“You’re an ogre!” she said, drawing back as far as the limited beach allowed.

He looked at his own body. He was hairy and muscular throughout. He still had his pen and pad, so he quickly sketched a hand mirror and invoked it. Yes, he was an ogre, huge and ugly. He had been somehow transformed.

Then, realizing what else must have happened, he handed the mirror to the woman. She took it and looked at herself. “Oh, ugh!” she cried, dismayed. “I’m human!”

“So true, for you,” he agreed. “Some spell, Rachel.”

They discussed it, and concluded that this was an enchanted islet. Whoever landed on it was transformed into something else: a dog to a girl, a man to an ogre. That was why the sea monster had let them go; if it touched the isle, it would have changed into something else, and it didn’t care to risk it. That had saved them—but at what price?

“Maybe it’s temporary,” Rachel said. Her vocabulary had improved along with her form. “Maybe when we leave, we’ll revert.”

“Maybe,” he agreed. “Let’s see.” He was still rhyming, which it seemed was what ogres did.

“I will try.” She slid into the water.

Two things happened. First, she reverted to canine form. Second, the sea monster’s head lifted from the water not far away. It was lurking for them the moment they left the safety of the atoll.

“Get back! No slack!” he said.

She scrambled back to the beach, and became the woman, walking on all fours. Embarrassed not so much by her nudity as by her form, she lay on the sand, doglike. “We’re stuck in these awful shapes.”

“No be sad, you not bad,” he reassured her. Indeed, she was attractive.

“But I’ve lost my fur! I look like a plucked chicken.”

He decided not to argue the case. “Maybe night, we take flight.”

“I have a better idea. You draw a gun to shoot that sea monster in the snoot.”

Draw a gun. Would it work? Everything else had. But he was not eager to kill a sea creature who was only trying to get a decent meal. He preferred to escape without harming it. Still, maybe that was feasible, if he used his imagination appropriately. “Me think, make stink.”

“Not on this little isle, please,” Rachel said, wrinkling her nose.

“Relax her; for monster,” he said, frustrated by the limitations of ogre vocabulary. He sketched a picture of a stink bomb, but did not invoke it.

“Oh. Very well.”

“Who are you?” a new voice demanded.

Bryce looked around, trying to spy the source. Rachel pointed, but her pert human nose was not very effective for that. “There,” she said, directing him with her gaze.

It was a face amidst the ripples of the water just offshore, surrounded by floating hair. It seemed to be another girl.

It seemed simplest to answer. “Bryce me, can see,” he said, thumping his big hollow chest. “Rachel she, canine be.”

The girl rose out of the water, catching on to a hanging branch of the tree. Her upper section was human, her lower section a fish or dolphin tail. As she touched the edge of the beach, her tail split into legs. She was lovely as only a nymph could be. “Well, I’m Sela Sea Nymph, and you’re on my isle. Go away.”

“Unsafe we, swim in sea.”

“We were threatened by a sea monster,” Rachel said, translating his limited explanation. “We had to escape it. We can’t leave until the monster does.”

“Oh, that’s Semi Sea Monster,” she said dismissively. “He forages around here. I don’t care about him. I just want you off my isle so I can relax.”

That of course was not feasible at the moment. “We team, not what seem.”

“We were transformed in shape when we boarded the isle,” Rachel clarified.

“Well of course you were,” Sela said. “I enchanted it so no intruders would bother me. You’ll revert when you depart. Now get the bleep off. The only ogre I want to see is Eli.”

“You—who?”

“Don’t go calling your dim-witted friends! Just get off my isle.”

“He meant who is Eli?” Rachel said.

“He’s an ogre who lives on the moon,” Sela explained impatiently. “He makes Moon-stir cheese by stirring honey and green cheese pools. He brings me some when he visits. It’s delicious.”

“Moon-stir cheese,” Rachel repeated, groaning. Now that she had nymphly form, she could appreciate the true awfulness of the puns.

“I’m losing my limited patience,” Sela said. “Now
go,
you ludicrous excuses for creatures.”

This was not going well. “Me man. No can. She dog. No slog.”

Rachel had to translate again. “In his natural state Bryce is a human man. In mine I am a dog. Neither of us dares enter the water while the sea monster lurks.”

Sela considered. “It might be fun to have a pet dog and a pet man. A dog could bark when anyone came, and be petted.” She eyed Bryce. “A man could tell stories, and be fondled.”

Bryce did not like the way this was developing. “We no. Must go.”

“When I say so,” Sela said, as determined in her change of mind as she had been originally. “You can’t oppose my will on my isle. Kiss me.”

Why did the girls in this land always have to kiss? Yet he found himself responding, compelled by her magic. She did have power here. Somehow he knew that if he kissed her, he would be subject to her will indefinitely, regardless of who else he loved.

He got an inspiration. “Must refrain. We Mundane.”

“Mundane!” she exclaimed. “Disgusting! Get off my isle now!” And his feet started walking toward the sea.

Hastily he erased the stink bomb and sketched a toy canoe with a paddle. As his feet touched the water he invoked it, and it splashed down before him, expanding to full size. He climbed in as he reverted to his natural form. Rachel waded into the water, reverted, and jumped in too.

He stroked vigorously with the paddle. They were on their way.

Then the sea monster reappeared in his left-eye sight. He had forgotten it, but it hadn’t forgotten them. Now what were they to do? If he drew another picture and activated it, the canoe would vanish.

What could he do? “Sorry, Rachel. We’re about to be dunked.” He quickly sketched the stink bomb.

The monster appeared to his right eye. Bryce tried to dissuade it. “Go away, Semi! We don’t taste good.”

The huge head tilted back and laughed. Then it oriented and plunged down toward them.

“Invoke!”

The canoe ceased to exist. They dropped into the water. But Bryce caught the little bottle that replaced it. He braced himself in the water as well as he could, and hurled it upward into the gaping maw.

It was a clean shot. It flew right inside and fragmented against a rear tooth. Purple vapor puffed outward.

The monster choked. It tried to spit out the bomb, but it was too late. The stink was already filling its mouth. As the creature inhaled, the vapor entered its lungs.

The monster coughed. Vapor shot out of it like steam from the Gap Dragon, spreading the putrid stench. The head plunged under the water, but the miasma bubbled up from it, smirching the very sea. Indignant waves rose up, trying to wash it out. The monster forged away, trying to escape it, but of course it carried the noxious smell with it.

Bryce treaded water while he re-sketched the canoe and paddle. Fortunately the pad didn’t seem to be affected by water. “Invoke!”

The canoe reappeared, and they scrambled back in, wet but happy. The stench color had faded, since the bomb no longer existed. “Let’s hope the monster doesn’t catch on soon,” he said.

“If returns, pineapple,” Rachel said. She was back to her more limited vocabulary.

An explosive pineapple certainly would deal with the monster. But Bryce still hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He really wasn’t much for violence. He paddled desperately for land.

They made it. They reached the end of the chasm safely and stepped out on land. They were dripping wet, but satisfied. They had escaped assorted dangers; that was what counted.

Bryce sketched a recumbent trike. He got on it and started pedaling. Rachel ran along beside him. Now it was just a matter of time before they rejoined the others.