Luck of the Draw (Xanth) (22 page)

“I need to haul on this side,” Bryce said. “If we both do, we should readily lift Lucky up. The castle guards won’t suspect this ploy, so it should be safe.”

“I will haul this side down,” Pose said. “I will cling to the weight and make myself heavy enough to haul the two of you up.”

“You can do that? What of the castle alerts?”

“I’ll be heading swiftly down way below. By the time they catch on, you should be up there.”

“But they won’t treat you kindly when they do catch you.”

“I’m a demon,” Pose reminded them. “What can they do to me other than confine me to a pentacle? Now get on that lift before we are discovered here.”

Pose was doing an undemonly decent thing, sacrificing himself for the good of the spot mission. He would surely suffer for it. “Thanks,” Bryce said. He was coming to like Pose, also.

“Okay, let’s get in there,” he told Lucky. “We’re riding to the top.”

They climbed in. There was just room for them both, hunched into nearly fetal formation. “Ready!” Bryce called.

The platform shivered. It shook. Then it started rising. Pose was on the counterweight and increasing his weight.

They accelerated. They zoomed upward so fast the air seemed to thin. Floors zipped by.

Then suddenly they stopped. Had something gone wrong? No, Bryce saw the pulley at the top. They were there.

They scrambled out. They were in the single room of the topmost turret. Naturally the fairy queen was there, wearing the Dress.

“Well, now,” she said.

They looked at her. She was absolutely beautiful, of course, as any woman in the Dress would be, but on her the effect was verging on devastating. She had flaming red hair that swirled down to her excruciatingly narrow waist. Her figure put Bryce in mind of the hourglass he had used for timing the night, only better proportioned. Her legs and feet below the skirt were perfectly shaped. Her face was so lovely that to gaze on it more than half a moment was to commence the fall into love.

“Don’t look at her!” Bryce said, tearing his eyes away though it felt as though he were peeling the lenses off them. “Just get the Dress!”

“But she’s so pretty,” Lucky protested.

He was farther gone than Bryce. The Dress made the queen’s every wish compelling. In a moment she would have them both in her thrall. She would surely be merciless in dealing with them. This would never do.

Bryce launched himself at the queen. She stepped back, but he managed to tackle her knees. “Get the Dress!” he repeated as he clung to those divine joints.

The queen fell against the wall. Bryce tried to yank her legs out from under her, to bring her all the way down, but in the process his head passed under her flaring skirt and he saw up her thighs. She wore luscious pink panties.

Then he was on the floor hanging on to one slipper. He knew he had freaked out, but recovered because his fall had removed his gaze from her underwear and jogged him back to consciousness. Lucky was trying to pull the Dress off over her head. He was succeeding, in her distraction.

But that promoted another danger. “Don’t look at her panties!” Bryce cried, slamming his eyes shut.

“Take that, miscreant!” the queen said. Bryce felt power surge. She was using some kind of spell.

Then the queen stiffened and stopped resisting. Lucky drew the Dress the rest of the way off her, though his eyes were closed. “Got it!” he said, wadding it up.

“Bleepity bleepity bleep!” the queen swore, making the window curtains curl.

“Get out of here!” Bryce said, cracking an eye open just enough to see where the dumbwaiter platform was. He lunged for it.

So did Lucky. They jammed onto it in a tangle of limbs. Their weight started it plunging down as the queen, outraged in her underwear, lifted her hands to throw another devastating spell. Fortunately they dropped out of her sight before the spell landed.

“What happened?” Bryce asked as they fell. He hoped Pose was still on the job and would slow them before they crashed.

“I happened to be standing before a full-length mirror,” Lucky said. “Her spell reflected and smacked her down.”

“You were incredibly lucky!”

“Of course.”

Ah, yes. That was the real key to this escapade: the man’s incredible luck. They had moved fast enough to stay within the two-hour limit of its potency.

Then things dissolved around them. The tall castle and its attachments were gone. They were sitting on the ground, and Pose was nearby, not buried. Beyond were Piper, still playing his piccolo without an audience, then Anna still flashing her panties before no soldiers, and Arsenal with sword uplifted without the moat monster’s mouth to balk.

And there was Mindy. “Congratulations,” she said. “I see you won the Dress.”

“Cover up, Anna!” Bryce called. She hastily obeyed.

They had won the Dress for Lucky. The first stage of the Demon Quest had been accomplished.

9

R
ING

“
I
think I need to get on back to the Good Magician’s Castle,” Lucky said. “Thank all of you for your help. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

That was so emphatically true that it merited no comment. “It showed us how we can work together to achieve a common objective,” Bryce said diplomatically.

“We’ll miss your luck,” Arsenal said.

“The princess will surely love the Dress,” Anna said.

Lucky nodded. “Well, I’ll be on my way. I hope all of you win your prizes.” He got on his trike. “My luck’s worn out for the day. I’ll take the enchanted path back.” He rode off.

“Now we need to decide where to go next,” Mindy said. She produced her scroll and unrolled it another notch. “The western tip of the Panhandle.”

“That’s far away!” Bryce protested.

“That, it seems, is part of our joint Challenge,” Anna said. “We have a lot of riding to do.”

“I have an idea,” Piper said. “I have traveled these parts. The Trollway passes close by here.”

“The what?” Bryce asked.

“The trolls aren’t all monsters. One tribe of them maintains a limited-access highway that runs the length of Xanth. For a nominal fee they will let others use it in perfect safety.”

“Oh, like the interstate in Mundania, or a toll road,” Bryce said. Then he caught the pun. “Tollway! Too bad we can’t store that in Caprice Castle! But it’s still a long way.”

“There’s also the Autotroll,” Piper said. “We could ride that and take our trikes along. But that costs more. We could roust up the fee for the Trollway, but not the ride.”

“They must want business,” Arsenal said. “Maybe we could make a deal.”

“We can try,” Piper agreed. “Failing that, we can cycle the distance; it will still be faster than using the enchanted paths, and safer than any shortcut.”

“Not fast enough,” Arsenal said. “Even pedaling day and night.”

“So we’ll try for the Autotroll deal.”

“Lead the way.”

They mounted their trikes and started off, following Piper. The trikes worked their magic, and they moved smartly along without being bothered by bushes, rocks, or crevices.

Until they came to a fork in the path. “I don’t remember this,” Piper said. “It must be new.”

“Take either one,” Arsenal called gruffly.

Piper took the left fork. That led to a man standing in the way. “Halt!” he cried. “This is my path. No intruders.”

Piper halted, and the others behind him. “We are merely passing through,” he said politely.

“Well, pass some other way. No one uses this path but me.”

Bryce could see that Piper was beginning to get annoyed. “No one owns a common path. Please just let us pass.”

“No. Go away.”

“And suppose we go through anyway?” Piper asked.

“Then I’ll use my talent on you.”

“And what talent is that?”

“To give anyone a toothache.”

“Oh for bleep’s sake!” Arsenal snapped, riding forward, passing around Piper. “He’s bluffing.”

The man merely glanced at him. Arsenal abruptly clapped his hand to his jaw and crashed into a tree. “Mmmmph!”

“It seems it’s not a bluff,” Piper said, unsurprised. He turned his trike around. The rest followed suit. They rode away, followed by Arsenal. Fortunately for him, his severe toothache abated once he was out of the man’s sight.

They returned to the fork, and this time tried the right turn. This brought them to a moderately sized ant mound. They paused. “What kind is that?” Arsenal asked, more cautious after his experience with the toothache man.

“I’ve seen that type before,” Anna said. “We use them to eliminate the smell in our barnyard. But it’s not safe to molest their home mound. They’re de-odor-ants.”

“I wish I was still collecting puns!” Mindy said.

“Why isn’t it safe?” Arsenal asked.

“Because they think that messing with their nest stinks. Then they set out to eliminate the smell by consuming what makes it. You won’t stink because you will have been eaten down to nothing.”

“We’ll leave this alone,” Arsenal said.

“But that eliminates both forks,” Pose protested.

“Not necessarily,” Piper said. “This is a region of high-intensity magic. Things change frequently.”

So they rode back along the left fork. Sure enough, the toothache man was no longer there. Now there was a young woman blocking the way.

They stopped again. “Who are you?” Arsenal demanded impatiently.

“I am Miss Teak,” she answered with a voice that fairly oozed mystery.

“Mistake?”

“Miss Teak. Come fathom my mystery.” She stepped toward Arsenal.

“Oh, Mystique,” he agreed. “Feminine mystique. But why the pun on wood?”

“I don’t trust this,” Anna said. “I think she’s one-sided.”

“One sided?” Bryce asked.

“Turn around,” Anna told Teak. “Let’s see the other side of you.”

But the woman did not turn. She stepped in to Arsenal, putting her arms around him. He did not seem loath, but neither did he respond.

“Kiss her,” Anna said. “Turn her around.”

Arsenal kissed her and turned her around.

Miss Teak’s backside was hollow. She had no flesh there at all, merely the space within a shell. She was literally half a woman—the front half.

“I knew it!” Anna said. “She’s a woodwife.”

“So she is,” Mindy agreed. “I knew one of those once. She was Wenda Woodwife, actually a good person. She married Prince Charming and became whole.”

“That doesn’t mean that
this
woodwife is a good person,” Pose said. “She could be setting us up for an ambush, the way that nymph did.”

Arsenal remained in the creature’s embrace. “
Are
you?” he asked her.

“You will never know unless you love me,” Teak said. “And my sisters.”

“Now I
really
don’t trust this,” Anna said. “All woodwives want to become real by snaring human men. If they have their way, we’ll never get on with our Quest.”

“I agree,” Arsenal said. He disengaged from the woodwife.

“You can’t pass here without satisfying me and my sisters,” Teak said.

Now the other woodwives were appearing, looking seductively eager. From the front they were phenomenally desirable, but now that Bryce had seen the back of one, he was hardly tempted. All they were was wooden forms without internal substance. They formed a tight phalanx across the path.

And some of them were male, eying Anna and Mindy. They were quite robust and handsome from the front. So it seemed there were wood-husbands too.

What would happen if the group tried to barge on through? Bryce suspected that the wooden aspect of the woodfolk would manifest, and they would become very difficult to escape. This was a confrontation best avoided.

Arsenal evidently came to the same conclusion. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

They retreated. The woodfolk did not pursue them, evidently being territorial. That was a relief.

They returned to the right fork. This too had changed. Now instead of an anthill there was a graveyard. The path went right across it. There did not seem to be a way around it, as brambles grew thickly right up to the edges.

They paused to consider it.

“I don’t like this,” Arsenal said. “We shouldn’t desecrate someone’s cemetery.”

“Uh-oh,” Piper said.

For a zombie had appeared. His clothing was ragged, his flesh rotten, and worms wriggled where his face should be.

“Whaaash ooo doingg heere?” he demanded of them.

It was not a garden-variety burial place. It was a zombie graveyard. That was more challenging.

“We need to cross your cemetery,” Arsenal said.

“Ovverr mmy deead boody!” the zombie said. “Wee haave espreet de corpse.”

“Oh, for my pun bag!” Mindy moaned.

Arsenal was frustrated. “We have to do it, otherwise we’ll never get beyond those paths, with their constantly changing impediments. But this is ugly business. They might put a rotting curse on us.”

The others agreed. They had to get past this challenging region. But at what price?

Then Bryce thought of something. “How can a long-settled graveyard appear where there was an anthill before? Those ants would have consumed the zombies to get rid of the smell. A new impediment could have replaced the prior one, but a cemetery doesn’t travel. One or the other has to be an illusion.”

“Or both,” Pose said. “Illusions are the easiest magic. All the things balking us may be illusions.”

“My toothache was no illusion,” Arsenal said.

“That was a live man, not a setting,” Bryce said. “But the principle remains: things are being sent to balk us.”

“Sent by whom?” Arsenal asked.

“That is an interesting question,” Piper said thoughtfully. “Could some party be trying to stop us?”

“Who would dare try to interfere with a Demon contest?” Anna asked.

“Maybe another Demon?” Pose suggested.

“I doubt it,” Arsenal said. “The Demons are surely watching our progress, to be sure that none of them cheat. There can be no interference by any of them.”

“Then it must be simply the ordinary mischief of the region,” Piper said. “A routine challenge to us all.”

Bryce wasn’t sure of that, but let it be.