Well-Tempered Clavicle (22 page)

“Not yet,” Dawn said. “So it’s time to practice our music—you especially, Picka. So that when we do catch up to it, we are good enough to hold it.”

That seemed to make sense. But Picka feared it would be no easy accomplishment, if even possible.

Nevertheless, he agreed to practice. So they moved along, playing their music. If the folk they passed wondered, well, let them wonder. The mission was important.

12

C
HAMELEON

Granola forged southward, pursuing her notion of a likely place, though they all knew it couldn’t be the first site she checked. But there wouldn’t be a next-to-last site until there was a first one.

The others tired of singing or playing music, but Dawn insisted that Picka keep practicing regardless. She was happy to explain to the others. “I love Picka, and he loves me.” She made a three-quarter smile. “It took some work in bed to convince him, and some magic, yet I finally persuaded him. But he needs to be worthy. So if he becomes the best musician in Xanth, he’ll be worthy, won’t he?”

The others, seeing the way of her thinking, agreed. So Picka continued to improvise, and had to admit to himself that he was improving. He could feel it. But would he ever be good enough? How could he or anyone else tell?

Granola came to a mountain. She found a route to climb it, carrying them upward. When they reached the top she set down the handbag so they could get out.

They were on a high level plain, a mesa, that dropped off sharply on the sides. “This is Mount Rushmost!” Dawn exclaimed. “The dragons’ retreat.”

“I just came where my muse led me,” Granola said.

“Caprice could have stopped here,” Picka pointed out.

“Woof!” Woofer was smelling something.

They looked in the direction his nose was pointing. There was a tent pitched near the brink. Someone else was here.

“Maybe we had better check this out,” Dawn said.

“Suppose they’re unfriendly?” Joy’nt asked.

“Picka will protect me,” Dawn said confidently, and started walking.

Picka hurried to catch up. “You have a lot of confidence in me.”

“You can wring the sheet of a ghost. You can surely handle ordinary folk.”

“You’re imperious!”

She glanced sidelong at him? “You just now realized that? What did you expect when you set out to love a princess?”

“I didn’t set out to—”

She kissed him on the noggin. “I’m teasing, Picka.”

There was an appreciative murmur behind them, including a woof and tweet. The others were following, of course. They could see that Dawn had already taken over Picka’s attention and existence, and was managing him in the standard manner.

A figure emerged from the tent, coming to intercept them. It looked like a girl with wings.

“Hello!” Dawn called.

“Hello,” the girl replied. “You don’t belong here. None of you do.”

Dawn paused, assessing her. “Who are you to say?”

“I am Mim Barbarian, a winged monster. This is Mount Rushmost, the sanctuary of winged monsters. No nonwinged monsters are allowed here without special dispensation. Please go away before I summon a guardian dragon.”

“We can’t do that yet,” Dawn said. “I am on a mission for the Good Magician, and it brings us here at the moment.”

“You don’t seem to understand. I see that three of you are monsters, but without wings; one has wings but is not a monster. You can’t be here.”

“
You
don’t understand,” Dawn said unevenly. “We have passing business here.”

“No, you don’t. Go, before I kick you off the mountain.”

Picka could see that Dawn was not taking this well. It was that princessly aversion she had to being balked. He tried to intercede. “We are looking for a castle. We’ll be leaving soon.”

“There are no castles here. Never have been. Probably never will be. Dragons don’t live in castles. Go.”

Dawn started to swell. Picka was afraid she would burst. “Maybe we can qualify as winged monsters,” he said quickly.

“I doubt it,” Mim said. “This is your last warning. I can change my wings into anything, including weapons. I don’t want to have to use them.” She spread her wings, and they became shining swords.

Dawn opened her mouth as if about to identify herself. That would ruin the anonymity of their group.

“Think of us as having invisible wings,” Picka said desperately. “You can’t see them, but we can fly.”

“I doubt it,” Mim repeated.

“All I need is to say the magic words to invoke them,” Picka said. “Which are, ‘Granola, be my wings. Make me fly.’”

“Ludicrous,” Mim said. She did not know that there was an invisible giantess with them. She thought granola was cereal.

Picka spread his arm bones and flapped them in the manner of a bird. Granola, standing behind him, reached down and put her fingers around his waist. She lifted, gently, and he rose into the air.

Mim stared. “It’s true!”

“It’s magic,” Picka said. “The rest of us can do it too.” He lowered his arms, and the giantess obligingly set him back on the ground. That freed her to lift someone else.

“It’s a stupid demonstration,” Dawn said. “But if it will cut short this bureaucratic hassle…” She spread her arms and sailed upward.

After that the rest of them demonstrated their ability to fly, one by one. Even Woofer and Midrange. The dog evidently enjoyed it, the cat less so.

“So you can fly,” Mim said with resignation. “But what about the bird? He can fly, but he’s no monster, as I said before.”

Now Dawn helped. She knew all about Tweeter, because of her talent. “Tweeter, I know you don’t like to show your power, but this time you’ll have to. Remember when you stomped the ground and made it shake? Monster feet? Do that now, in the name of our Granola magic.”

Picka did not know about this stomping, but evidently Dawn did, and so did Tweeter. But did Granola?

“Make the ground shake,” Dawn said encouragingly.

Tweeter stood up straight, lifted one tiny leg, and brought it down hard on the ground.

The ground shook. Granola had caught on, and stomped in time with the bird.

“Harder, Tweeter,” Dawn said.

Tweeter stomped again. This time the ground shuddered so hard it was like an earthquake. The rest of them had trouble keeping their feet.

Dawn opened her mouth to order worse.

“Okay, okay, he qualifies!” Mim said hastily.

Dawn smiled, and the sunlight seemed to brighten. “That is so nice of you, Mim.” She turned to the bird. “Try to dampen your tread now, Tweeter. We don’t want the mountain to collapse.”

Tweeter nodded amenably. They had made their point.

“Get your business done and go,” Mim said shortly. She surely suspected she had been fooled, but at this point she just wanted them gone. She went back into her tent, in effect dismissing them.

“We shall,” Dawn agreed. She glanced around. “I don’t see any castle, so I suppose we can go, now that we’ve made our point.”

They could have gone at any time, but Picka knew that Dawn had been unable to back off from a challenge to her authority, even though she was anonymous. It was a character flaw, but it came with the territory of being royal.

“Woof.”

“You smell something?” Dawn asked him.

Midrange spoke. “Meow.”

“Something significant?”

Tweeter flew up high, looking around. “Tweet!”

“Well, then, let’s go see,” Dawn agreed.

They headed on across the mesa. Soon another tent appeared, concealed before because it was the same color as the ground.

“Hello!” Dawn called.

A man emerged. “Dawn!” he exclaimed, surprised.

“Great Grandpa!” she exclaimed, running to hug him.

Great Grandpa? The man was not nearly old enough.

Then Dawn introduced him. “This is Great-grandfather Bink. He was youthened a while back. He’s actually ninety-four. He’s Grandpa Dor’s father, who was Dolph’s father, who is my father. It’s all legitimate.”

So it seemed.

Bink looked at the others. “I see you are keeping unusual company, Dawn.”

“Yes,” she said proudly. “This is Picka Bone, my fiancé.”

Bink was evidently a man of the world, but even he was surprised. “I suspect there’s an interesting story there.”

“There is,” Dawn agreed. Then she introduced the others, including Granola.

“Remarkable,” Bink agreed. He did not seem as surprised as others had been; he had evidently been around.

“But why are you here alone?” Dawn asked. “And how did you get the winged monster girl to let you stay?”

“I am not alone,” Bink said. “And I had your father Dolph introduce me.”

“He assumed dragon form!”

“Exactly. They concluded that the grandfather of a dragon qualified as a de facto dragon, at least for the time being.”

Dawn smiled, appreciating the device. Picka knew about Dolph’s shape-changing ability, because Dolph had once traveled with his own father, Marrow Bones. “So whom are you traveling with now?”

“My wife, of course.” Bink faced the tent. “Girls, come meet our great-granddaughter’s friends.”

Two women emerged. One was almost as lovely as Dawn herself. The other was breathtakingly ugly. Dawn’s pretty jaw dropped. “Great-grandma Fanchon,” she said. “Great-grandma Wynne. How is this possible?”

“Let me explain for your friends,” Bink said. “My wife Chameleon is a changeable woman. She normally has three forms: Fanchon, who is extremely smart but not pretty; Wynne, who is lovely but not smart; and Chameleon, who is a compromise, being ordinary in both respects. She cycles among forms in the course of a month. I long ago learned to live with it.” He took a breath. “But recently Chameleon had the misfortune to walk through a Double You, and got split into her two most extreme forms. We find this problematical, so are on a Quest to get her recombined. We were told that this could happen here on Mount Rushmost. We hope that is true. We are not enjoying the split.”

Picka could see why not. Two wives, one with all the brains, the other with all the looks?

“But isn’t it twice the fun to have two wives?” Dawn asked.

“For whom?” Fanchon asked, frowning. She frowned well. “This ignorant ignoramus has no romantic interest in me. All he can look at is Window-head here.”

“Thank you,” Wynne said. It seemed she was not smart enough to realize that the pun on her name was insulting rather than flattering. “I like his interest.” She hugged Bink, and kissed him.

Bink did seem to like her attention. Wynne was very shapely in the fleshly manner. His hands stroked her body in the human male fashion.

“I think I’m going to vomit,” Fanchon muttered. “It’s the triumph of matter over mind.”

“I am beginning to see the problem,” Dawn said. “Men can be frustrating to deal with, because all they are interested in is one thing.”

“And that thing is not intelligence,” Fanchon said.

“Actually, my favorite is the compromise,” Bink said. “The midpoint, Chameleon, who is neither too smart nor too pretty, but a perfect meld. She does not repulse me with her attitude or her body. And there’s only one of her, so her components can’t quarrel.”

“Your two halves quarrel?” Dawn asked the two, surprised.

“She’s such an idiot,” Fanchon said.

“She’s so ugly,” Wynne said.

“But you’re both parts of one woman,” Dawn protested, “who changes with the tides of the moon. This way, you can offer your husband beauty
and
brains.”

“We’d rather merge and be the way we were,” Fanchon said. “Then we won’t have to talk to each other.”

“Or see each other,” Wynne agreed.

Picka was beginning to see why Bink wanted them reunited.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Joy’nt said, “how did you get here? This is a pretty remote and dangerous spot for a regular man and two women. It’s not on an enchanted path, and there are monsters.”

“Oh, we’re safe enough,” Wynne said. “Thanks to Bink’s magic.”

“Nuh-uh, dummy,” Fanchon warned, too late.

“He has magic?” Joy’nt asked.

Dawn exchanged a glance with her great-grandfather. “Can I tell them? They’re good friends.”

Bink shrugged. “Try it and see.”

“I’m not sure about this,” Fanchon said. “Bad policy.”

“If it’s harmful, she won’t be able to do it,” Bink reminded her.

There was something odd about this. What was there to tell? Picka had always understood that Bink had strong magic, but no one knew what it was.

Dawn faced the others. “Bink cannot be harmed by magic.” She paused, as if almost startled, then continued. “Part of it is that if anyone else knowing that would harm him, they won’t be allowed to know. So few people know. I know, because of my talent. But I would not be able to tell, if it was not all right. So it seems it is all right.”

“Or perhaps such knowledge by this group will help him,” Fanchon said. “This is interesting indeed.”

“So if there’s bad magic, Bink blocks it off,” Wynne said. “And we’re safe.”

“I don’t understand,” Joy’nt said.

“Say there’s a hostile dragon charging one of us,” Fanchon said. “A dragon is a magic creature, so can’t hurt Bink. So Bink steps in between, and deflects the dragon, and we’re safe.”

“But suppose something nonmagical threatens?” Joy’nt asked. “Like a swordsman?”

“That’s why his talent normally needs to be concealed,” Fanchon said, “so that enemies won’t focus on nonmagical means. If there is magic in the revelation, that magic is blocked. So normally enemies don’t know, and his talent is effective.”

“We’re not enemies,” Picka said. “We won’t tell.”

“But your actions might give it away,” Dawn said.

“It remains curious why Dawn was allowed to tell
you,
” Fanchon said. “I have never seen this before.”

“Why are you here?” Wynne asked.

“That’s a complicated story,” Dawn said, “but we’ll tell you a simplified form. I am on a mission for the Good Magician to tame Caprice Castle, which is also Pundora’s Box, which can hold all the abysmal puns so they won’t infest Xanth anymore. But to do that I need to marry Picka, and he needs to become Xanth’s finest musician. So we’re working on that while chasing the castle. But meanwhile the castle’s former occupant, Piper, was changed into a monster, and he can only be redeemed if he marries me. So he’s chasing us, with the help of his mistress, Pundora.”