Well-Tempered Clavicle (19 page)

So it continued, with Pundora confined by day, and released by night to share his bed. It seemed ideal to him.

But not, for some reason, to her. “You think I’m good only for one thing!” she complained.

“And very good at that,” he agreed.

“Well, I don’t like being constantly used and boxed. I want to have more of a semblance of a life, as I had before you captured me. Let me go.”

“I can’t do that,” he said reasonably. “You are a pun, and I am obliged never to release a pun.”

“At least let me stay in the castle while you go out collecting,” she wheedled.

“No. It’s against the rule.”

She sat on his lap. “Pretty please?”

“No.” But he was weakening.

She opened her blouse, showing her overflowing bra under his nose. “With honey on it?”

“No.” But it was getting hard for him to breathe.

She pulled her skirt out so that now her full panties sat on him, heating his flesh. “With kisses and squeezes on it?” She flexed her bottom.

His will broke. “Very well. But stay out of mischief while I’m out.”

“Oh, thank you!” she exclaimed, kissing him ardently. She was extremely pleased, and excellent at showing it.

After that session she had to change her blouse, skirt, bra, panties, and socks, which had become hopelessly compromised. Piper hardly noticed. He felt as if he were in danger of floating away.

So that day he left her free in the castle while he went out collecting.

When she was alone, Pundora went straight to the basement. She opened the vault, and then the box. She untied the straps that bound it closed, unlocked the lock, and pried up the lid.

The compressed puns burst out explosively. They whirled around the chamber and siphoned out of the basement. They poured out the castle windows. In no more than half an instant all of them were gone.

Except one. “Pundora!” he exclaimed. “You did it!”

“Attila the Pun!” she replied. “I had to rescue you! You are my one and only love.”

They embraced and kissed. They made love. Then they too fled the castle.

When Piper returned with a new bag of puns, he discovered the disaster. All the puns of a century’s labors had been lost. But that was not the worst of it. Demon Pundit learned of the loss.

“You have failed!” he intoned from the air. “You are banished from these premises.”

Piper fell down in supplication. “Please! I was deceived. It won’t happen again. Give me another chance.”

Pundit relented half a notch. “Here is your chance: You will be banished until you succeed in marrying a beautiful mortal princess who will come to the castle and manage it in your absence, so that never again will it be untended.”

“Thank you!”

“I’m not finished. You deserve some token punishment, so that you properly appreciate the value of what you sacrificed. Until that time, you will be a monster.”

“But then how will I ever win a lovely princess?”

“Consider it a challenge.” Then magic power flashed, and Piper became a monster. In fact, he had been changed into something vaguely resembling his instrument: musical pipes.

Castle Caprice faded, leaving Piper alone on the ground, an awful blob of foul-smelling, musical goo.

*   *   *

Dawn paused in her reading, and the picture froze again. “Challenge? What lovely princess would ever let such a monster touch her?”

“There must be some theoretical way,” Picka said. “Demons always make sure their wagers can be won, even if the chance is so unlikely as to seem worthless.”

“True,” Dawn agreed.

“Pundora’s boyfriend,” Skully said. “Did you catch that? Attila the Pun!”

“He did refer to a girlfriend,” Joy’nt agreed. “Could that still have been Pundora?”

“We know what happened to Attila,” Picka said. “I wonder whether we can track Pundora? She is certainly relevant to this History.”

“Let’s find out,” Dawn said. She returned to her reading.

*   *   *

The scene shifted to Attila and Pundora. He was shaken by his recent captivity, and not pleased by the manner she had rescued him. “You nighted with Piper? Then I’ll night with other girls, as I choose.”

“I did it to rescue you,” she pointed out.

“You should have found some other way.”

She was plainly not pleased, but she dropped the issue. “What do you plan to do now?”

“I hated being jammed in with all those abysmal puns. I’d like to be rid of all puns!”

“But you and I are—” She broke off, reconsidering. “Dating,” she concluded.

“In an open relationship.”

Again, she stifled her objection. “So let’s go somewhere far, far away and be happy.”

But his thought had not finished. “In fact, I think I’ll make it my life mission to destroy puns. That way I’ll never be jammed in with those wretched things again.” Now he paused. “But it occurs to me that you and I are—”

Pundora grabbed him and kissed him. “In love!” she repeated. She proceeded to distract him most effectively, so that his thought never achieved its likely conclusion.

That was the way it was thereafter. Whenever Attila was in danger of realizing that he himself was a pun to be destroyed, or that she was, she distracted him out of it. This had the incidental advantage of keeping him too busy to pursue other girls, so he was true to her despite his shallow male nature. Thus they had an enduring relationship.

*   *   *

Dawn paused again in the reading. “Uh-oh,” she said.

“We caught up to Attila while Pundora was away,” Joy’nt said.

“And acquainted him with the paradox of his nature,” Picka said.

“And inadvertently abolished him,” Dawn concluded.

“I wasn’t there for that scene,” Skully said, “but it is my guess that Pundora will not be pleased.”

“With reason,” Dawn agreed heavily. “But what can she do?”

“She’s not exactly a woman scorned,” Joy’nt said. “But she may be equivalently dangerous.”

“True,” Dawn agreed again. “I wish I had held my tongue.”

“At least there’s a bright side,” Picka said. “It set us up to find Granola, who is really better for our mission than Attila would have been, and nicer too.”

“Thank you,” the giantess said appreciatively.

Dawn resumed reading. This time the narrative followed Piper, the banished monster. He looked like a giant mass of bubbling goo, which was not surprising because that was what he was. He traveled by blowing jets of gas out of his underside, and honked by blowing gas out of his topside. He ate by settling on anything organic, dissolving it with digestive acids, and taking it in. This process evidently generated the gas he used, and the way ordinary creatures avoided him suggested that it was a smelly process. In fact, there was a whiff of stink horn in the air as they watched the scene. He was a monster in every sense.

But he could still play music. His multiple gas vents were organ pipes, and as time passed he became increasingly proficient in blowing them. They heard the music as he practiced, and it was powerful, covering a vast range of notes. He could make phenomenal harmonies.

“Piper must be the best musician in Xanth,” Dawn murmured, impressed.

Picka could only agree. He could hardly aspire to music like that.

“More than that,” Skully said. “With that ugliness and stink, you’d think he couldn’t get close to anyone or anything. But look how he forages.”

They saw. Piper could run down plants without difficulty, but animals were trickier. Yet he developed a way. He retained his ability to musically summon, weaken, and pacify puns, only now he used it on animals. So when he was hungry, which was often, he played his irresistible music and lured them in to be consumed. It was ugly but effective.

He could impress regular people too. Sometimes he would pause at a village, and summon the villagers for a musical recital. They came and sat and listened, pacified but appreciative. It was certainly better than having him raid the village, as it was not feasible to oppose him. His music made them unable to resist. Sometimes he lured in maidens, and they half-willingly submitted to his sticky touches because of the magnetism of his music. His form was no longer human but his taste in maidens was unchanged. They were disgusted afterward as they washed and scrubbed to get the goo and stink off, but that was when the compelling music no longer sounded. Again, it was better than having him raid, and perhaps consume them. No villagers spoke of it afterward, partly from fear, partly from shame.

Princesses, however, forewarned, remained well clear. They did not want to get goo-ed, no matter how lovely and evocative the music. Only ugly princesses, trolls, ogres, or disfigured humans allowed themselves to be reluctantly courted, and they did not qualify to abate his curse. So Piper’s quest for a suitable princess was balked.

Dawn paused again, and the picture faded. “I’m not sure this actually helps us tame the castle,” she said.

“There must be more about the castle,” Granola said.

Dawn resumed reading. This time the text was about Caprice Castle. It had lost its occupant, and Demon Pundit seemed to be occupied for the moment elsewhere, so it was without direction. However, it was resourceful and set about improving its lot, as it were. What it wanted was a worthy occupant, preferably a prince or king, and a suitable plot of ground to occupy. It had never had its own ground, which was one reason it was compelled to constantly travel. So it traveled, searching somewhat randomly for these things. When it saw a nice piece of land it considered the location, but on closer inspection there was always something wrong with it. When it encountered a prospective occupant, it might allow that person to enter and spend a night, while Caprice studied that person carefully. If the person proved to be unsuitable, Caprice simply moved on, leaving him behind. There were scenes of frustrated one-night occupants standing on the ground where the castle had been. So far, no prospect had proved to be sufficiently worthy. But there was always hope.

“We’re prospects!” Dawn exclaimed, interrupting her reading. “It’s watching us!”

“Well, you
are
a pretty princess,” Joy’nt said. “You should qualify.”

“It wants a couple,” she said. “I will have to marry Picka first.”

Picka had given up trying to dissuade her. He shrugged.

“It doesn’t want just
any
couple,” Granola reminded them. “Does it consider Picka worthy?”

“How can we know?” Dawn asked.

“Maybe there’s more in the History,” Joy’nt suggested.

Dawn resumed reading. This time there was a surprise: the scene seemed to be contemporary. It was of Pundora, returning to discover Attila gone.

“What happened here?” she demanded. “Did some hussy steal him away from me?”

There was an answer from a potato lying on the ground. “You might say that,” it said.

She glared at it. “You’re a common tater, aren’t you?”

“Commentator,” it agreed. “My eyes see everything.”

“So what happened here?”

“Princess Dawn saved me from getting baked.”

“I mean, what happened to Attila?”

“I am getting to that,” the potato said. “Attila was destroying puns at a great rate, and was about to do the same to me. But Princess Dawn distracted him just in time, as she tried to recruit him to join her Quest. She certainly saved my peel. I’d have been chips for sure.”

Pundora inflated dangerously. “Was she pretty?”

“Luscious,” the potato said with a certain relish.

“So did she take him away?”

“Not exactly.”

“Stop teasing me, or I’ll mash you!”

Cowed, the potato let her have it: “She told him he was a pun, and he destroyed himself.”

“The female dog! After all my work to distract him from that realization. The nerve!”

“Too bad for you,” the potato said with scant sympathy.

“So Princess Dawn cost me my man,” Pundora raged. “I’m going to make her pay!”

*   *   *

Dawn paused. “So it seems I have made an enemy.”

“You had better stay away from her,” Joy’nt said.

“We had better find out what she plans to do,” Skully said.

Dawn resumed reading in the remarkable tome. The picture reanimated.

Pundora pondered a good three moments, then hit upon a nasty plan. They could tell it was nasty, because a mean little cloud formed over her head and rumbled menacingly.

She went to Piper. “A word, monster.”

He was surprised. He honked, then played a series of notes.

“Wait a moment,” she said. “I have a spell here somewhere that can enable me to understand monster talk, at least for a little while.” She found it and invoked it. There was a small flash. “Now try it again.”

He played the same notes over, but this time she heard them as words. “You’re Pundora! I haven’t seen you since you betrayed me and cost me everything. You were foolish to come within range of my music.” He played a deadly chord, stunning her where she stood.

“Wait!” she squeaked. “Don’t wipe me out! I came to help you!”

“You can never make up for what you cost me, you treacherous traitor! I’m going to goozle out your gizzard.” He slid toward her on a carpet of goo.

“Yes, I can!” she cried desperately. “I can help you capture a beautiful princess!”

Piper paused, interested despite his ire. “How so?”

“Princess Dawn,” she said. “I’ve been spying on her. She’s trying to capture Caprice Castle. She might marry a walking skeleton and do it.”

The monster was taken aback, as were those watching the image. “Why should a walking skeleton be considered worthy to occupy that supremely choosy castle?”

“Because he’s musical! He’s really good. And the castle seeks a musical master, so it can resume its original job. He might qualify.”

Piper considered. “Good enough to master the key melodies?”

“I don’t know. But it’s possible, isn’t it? Do you want to gamble that he isn’t?”

Piper came to his decision. “I will destroy him and marry her. Then the castle will be mine, and I’ll be handsome again, and have a princess to play with endlessly.”

“And it will be even better for you than before,” Pundora agreed. “See, I am helping you.”