Luck of the Draw (Xanth) (7 page)

Bink and Chameleon exchanged another glance. “How can you be sure of that?” Bink asked.

“Well, it just makes sense. She’ll have far more appropriate suitors. Why should she bother with me?”

Chameleon shook her head. “I am stupid now, but I can still manage Bink. Harmony may have more interest in you than you think.”

“And no Sorceress is to be trifled with,” Bink said. “You seem to have little notion of her potential.”

“So maybe she’s a nice girl,” Bryce said, nettled. “Maybe she can do magic. But I don’t see her out doing useful work like gathering puns. What use is she, really?”

Mindy seemed to choke.

Bink smiled. “Your assistant evidently knows Xanth better than you do. One does not question the use of a princess.”

“And you don’t want to annoy a Sorceress,” Chameleon said.

“I guess it’s my Mundane background,” Bryce said. “I’m just not much impressed.”

“That will change when you formally meet her,” Chameleon said.

Bryce shrugged. “I can wait.”

“We need to get on with our job,” Mindy said. “Thank you for talking with us, Bink and Chameleon.”

“It is no burden,” Bink said. “We thought it would be nice staying in a village that uses no meat, but actually it’s a bit dull.”

V Gan. There was the confirmation of the name. Vegan. Bryce suppressed a groan.

“Do tell him more about Xanth,” Chameleon said. “He needs to know, before he gets into trouble.”

“That’s why I’m along,” Mindy said. “So far we haven’t encountered any real dangers.”

“Tangible ones, you mean,” Bink said, giving her a hard look. “Keep his ignorance in mind lest he annoy you.”

“I am,” Mindy said.

They moved on. The dogs roused themselves and followed. “If I have annoyed you, I apologize,” Bryce said. “When I spoke of teen girls, I was thinking of the princess, not you. You’re twenty.”

“I understand.”

They came to a sandy spot. A number of what appeared to be human posteriors were sticking out of the sand. Rachel pointed at them. “Beach Bums,” Bryce said, perversely glad to be back in business. He opened his bag, and the posteriors floated in, though one did make a dirty noise of protest.

They came to a wall that was covered with yowling cats. “I think I’ve got it,” Mindy said. “Caterwaul.” And wall and cats dissolved and entered her bag.

A large fly buzzed them. “Have you seen my son, the flyer?” it asked them.

“A talking fly?” Bryce asked.

“Magical,” Mindy said. “And your dog is pointing.”

Then he got it. Bryce groaned. “Pop Fly.”

They encountered a copse of huge-trunked trees with patterns of tightly fitting boards. “Those look like beer barrels,” Bryce said.

“They are. Except these ones are alebarrel trees. Tap them and you get ale. But they’re standard; no pun there.”

“Still, Rachel is pointing.”

They followed the direction of the dog’s point. It looked like a small mint plant growing next to one of the trees. “I don’t recognize this,” Mindy said.

“A mint,” he said. “Next to an ale tree. An Ale Mint. Ailment?”

The plant dissolved. He had gotten it. But he remained dissatisfied. “May we take a break and talk?” he asked.

“By all means,” she agreed, settling down with her back against one of the ale trees. “What is your concern?”

“This business of five princesses, all Sorceresses. I had no idea!”

“There’s a reason. Back in the early days when Bink was young he managed to do the Demon Xanth a favor, and Xanth specified that all Bink’s descendants would be Magicians or Sorceresses. And when Bink’s son Dor married Magician King Trent’s daughter Irene, all those descendants were royal. So when Dor’s son Dolph married Electra, their daughters Dawn and Eve were both Princess Sorceresses. When Irene’s daughter Ivy married Grey Murphy, their three daughters were all Sorceress Princesses too. It’s really quite simple.”

“Simple as relativity married to quantum mechanics!” Bryce said facetiously.

“As what?”

“Mundane theories of the fundamental nature of things that make no sense to the ignorant common man or to each other. You didn’t encounter that in Mundania?”

“I guess I wasn’t paying attention that school day,” she said, blushing. “Please, tell me about them.”

“I’m a common man. But that little I understand of it is that all things are relative, and this unifies three of the four fundamental forces in the universe, but not the fourth, which is gravity. Quantum mechanics addresses the fourth, but is incompatible with relativity. So the struggle has been to find a way to reconcile the two theories and make one unified Theory of Everything. It is mind-bendingly difficult even to conceive the problem, let alone the solution.”

“It sounds like Demon magic.”

“Maybe it is; that would explain a lot.”

“Xanth gets its gravity via a cable connected to Mundania. Mundania gets its magic similarly from Xanth.”

“There is magic in Mundania?”

“Very little actually. Things like the Rainbow.”

“Oh, yes. Princess Dawn told me about that.”

“Each Demon associates with a particular force. For example Demon Earth has Gravity, and Demon Xanth has Magic. So Mundanes don’t know about Magic, but they ought to know about Gravity.”

“Mundanes refuse to ascribe a magical basis for it.”

“That must be their problem. What else could it be, except a kind of magic?”

“What else, indeed,” he agreed wryly. He took a breath. “There’s another thing.”

“I’m here to help you as much as I can.”

“One of the things I am skeptical about, as a nonmagic Mundane, is coincidence. I don’t believe in unlikely things working out conveniently. There’s generally a reason.”

“A reason?” she asked innocently.

“Caprice Castle travels randomly about Xanth, and we collect puns wherever it lands. We have not yet encountered anything dangerous, like a dragon or evil magic. So we go out in the country, and just happen to meet the helpful and informative great-grandparents of Princess Dawn, at whose castle I am staying, and of Princess Harmony, whom I am supposed to court. I doubt that was really coincidence.”

Mindy gazed at him assessingly. “You’re pretty savvy.”

“It’s just common sense. You led me to them, via a safe route.”

She nodded. “Dawn told me to give you the Tour of Xanth without making a formal thing of it and without putting you in danger. Because there’s a lot you need to know before you can hope to win the princess. It wouldn’t be fair to throw you into that competition unprepared. You’d get killed, or flub it. I think that’s why the Demon Earth arranged for you to go to Caprice Castle. He knew Dawn would take care of you.”

“The Demon Earth arranged this? I suspect that does make sense. Certainly someone set it up, with the smelly message and all, and the way I landed right at Caprice instead of in a bog. But there must be a considerable random element, because I am hardly the ideal Mundanian for this quest.”

“We are not equipped to comprehend the motives of Demons. They wager on the most devious and inconsequential things. They do what they do, and we just hope they don’t mess us up too badly.”

“So maybe I was selected
because
I’m an unlikely prospect? Too old and ignorant. Maybe that too makes sense.”

“I don’t think you’re ignorant.”

“Of magic,” he said. “In that respect I’m an absolute dunce.”

“But you are learning. You caught on about the guided tour.”

“Even magic has to have some common sense. And Rachel,” he said, and the dog’s ears perked up. “She was selected too?”

“She must have been. To help you cope.”

He reached out and patted the dog. “She does help.”

“Woofer likes her too.”

“Woofer’s originally from Mundania,” he said, remembering. “So he would naturally like a—a female dog from Mundania.”

“A bitch,” she agreed. “It’s not a bad word here. Otherwise it would come out bleep.”

“Bleep?”

“Try saying a bad word. Like if you dropped a rock on your toe.”

“Bleep!” he said. And paused, surprised. “That wasn’t what I said.”

“There’s a girl and two nice dogs present. That’s why the Adult Conspiracy cut in.”

“But they’re adults and you’re no child.”

“I’m two days shy of twenty. Or was, before I came to Xanth. But you’re right: I’m old enough. The Conspiracy extends only to age eighteen. So we don’t know why it struck.”

There had to be a reason. Bryce filed the minor mystery away for future reference. He had too many important things to learn without struggling with incidentals. “Well, let’s get back to work, before any puns escape. I’m trying to earn my keep.”

“Yes.”

They resumed pun collecting. They soon encountered a stag walking disconsolately along the path. Rachel pointed.

Bryce approached the stag. “Why so sad?”

“My name is John,” the stag said. “I try to court the does, but all I get is sad letters. It’s depressing.”

There had to be a pun here. What was it? “May I see one of the letters?”

“Here.” The stag lifted a forefoot, and in the split of his hoof was a letter. Bryce took it, opened it, and read the first line.
DEER JOHN.

Bryce groaned again. “It’s a Dear John letter!”

The stag dissolved into vapor and entered the pun bag.

They came to a small cave. Rachel pointed, so they entered it. It seemed to be an animal’s lair, with straw on the floor and blocks of metal stacked at the back. What was odd was that everything was yellow.

“A gold den!” Mindy exclaimed. “Golden.”

The cave dissolved into her bag.

So it continued. When they got hungry they paused by a pie tree and ate fresh hot pies and drank milk from milkweed pods. By day’s end they had full bags. “Do you know,” Bryce said as they walked back toward the castle. “This may be an arranged tour, and the puns are egregious, but I find I am rather enjoying the scenery and the challenge. And your company. You are answering my questions without becoming impatient or superior.”

“Thank you,” she said, coloring. “I wanted to get away from the castle. I like adventure.”

“This must be rather tame adventure for you, with the only challenge being the unriddling of puns.”

“I like your company too,” she confessed.

“You told me you committed suicide. Forgive me if this is not a question you wish to answer. Did you have a reason?”

“Not really. One of my friends did it, and then another, and I was depressed, and I just did it. Looking back now, I wish I had had more patience. Things weren’t as bad as they seemed at the time, and if I had thought about the likely effect on others, such as my family and friends, I wouldn’t have done it. I just wasn’t thinking straight.”

“Your situation differed from mine,” Bryce said. “I didn’t have many real family or friends left, so there weren’t many to hurt. All I faced was increasing discomfort, pain, and certain death anyway. But it wasn’t something I wanted to do.”

“And here we both are in Xanth,” she said. “It’s better for me, and maybe for you too.”

“Definitely better for me,” he agreed. “Despite this foolishness with the princess.”

They reached the castle, got their bags of puns processed in, and relaxed. Another day was done. Bryce hadn’t gotten nauseous. He was adapting.

*   *   *

The next day there was an elegant castle in sight, with many turrets and flags. “That’s Castle Maidragon, that the triplets made,” Mindy said. “I understand King Trent and Queen Iris are visiting there now. They are the other great-grandparents.”

“What’s their magic?”

“He is a transformer. He can change any living thing into some other living thing. She’s the mistress of Illusion. They ruled Xanth for a long time before retiring.”

“They want to check me out, just in case?”

“Just in case,” she agreed. “I think the way the other princesses found their partners was unsettling, so they are watching the last one more carefully.” She looked around. “Where are the dogs?”

The dogs appeared. “We stay home,” Rachel said. “If okay.”

“Woof,” Woofer agreed.

This was unusual. “You sure?” Bryce asked Rachel.

“No. But Dawn says.”

“She wants me to get more experience on my own?”

“Yes.” Rachel was obviously uneasy about this, but Princess Dawn’s word was evidently law, here in Caprice.

Bryce shrugged. “So be it.”

He and Mindy went out with their pun bags. “What’s this experience I am supposed to get today?”

“I think you are supposed to learn to use your talent effectively.”

“Oh, that. Then I’d better turn it on.” He focused, as it were, on his left eye. “Second Sight, Tune In.”

Immediately he saw a tree about twenty paces closer than it was. That was where he would be in ten seconds. He closed his left eye, then reopened it cautiously, schooling his mind to orient on the vision of his right eye. The alternate vision of the left eye remained, but now he ignored it. Only if it showed real danger would he take it seriously. Most of the time he neither needed nor wanted future vision. Ten seconds was after all pretty limited.

He saw a large yellow flower. No, it was a cup filled with butter. “Buttercup,” he said, plucking it.

The cup dissolved, its pun expended. But now two of his fingers, actually his finger and thumb, the ones that had touched the cup, had become bars of butter. He could not use them in the normal manner.

“Oh, no, you’ve got butter fingers!” Mindy said.

The butter dissipated, and his normal digits returned. She had fathomed the second pun.

They walked on toward the other castle. There was a gully, which became a cleft in the land, deep and dark. They paused at the brink. “I’ve seen something like this before,” Mindy said. “But I can’t remember exactly what it was.”

“That’s because you’re duller than an ogress, and almost as pretty,” a voice called from the depth.

“Now I remember,” she said. “It’s a sar chasm.”

The chasm evened out, becoming a mere dip in the ground. But now several monkeylike creatures appeared, evidently evicted from their home in the depth. “What a bag!” one cried. “That’s not a bag, that’s her face,” another said. “And look at the idiot who’s with her,” a third said. “He gives ugly a bad name.”