Well-Tempered Clavicle (24 page)

“We fear the text misadventure has cost us our answer,” Fanchon said. “Unless you folk have it.”

Dawn looked blankly at the others. No one had an answer.

Picka made an effort. “If repeating the word backwards got you out of Text Us, could reversing the Double You put you back together?”

“The letter W backwards is the same letter,” Fanchon snapped.

“I was thinking of the opposite meaning,” Picka said. “A singlet.”

A look of wild surmise ricocheted around the group. “Do we have a singlet?” Bink asked.

“Sure,” Wynne said. “It’s just a loose-fitting jersey for when I exercise.” She delved into her purse and hauled out the garment.

“This is just crazy enough to make sense,” Fanchon said.

The two women stood together, Fanchon behind Wynne, and Bink pulled the stretchable garment over their heads and shoulders. As he did, something strange happened: their heads merged, then their necks and shoulders. As he drew the singlet down, their bodies continued to come together. They became single above, double below: the head and arms of an ordinary woman, with four legs. It was working.

Bink continued pulling the singlet down, stretching it to cover their legs. When he got it to the ground, only one woman remained. “Chameleon!” he exclaimed, hugging her.

“It’s so good to be back!” she said, kissing him.

“And it was your boneheaded idea,” Dawn murmured, kissing Picka’s skull.

“Thank you.”

Bink and Chameleon disengaged. “So our advice was correct,” he said. “Our solution was here.”

“It was just a guess,” Picka said.

“We are duly appreciative anyway,” Bink said. “What can we do for you in return?”

“There’s really no need,” Picka said.

“Let’s celebrate with a concert,” Dawn said. “Then we’ll go our separate ways.”

That seemed good. They brought out their instruments and played a round of “Ghost of Tom.” Chameleon clapped her hands, somewhat in the manner of Wynne, and even her Fanchon aspect seemed impressed.

Then they paused. Something ugly was poking its snout over the brink of the cliff.

13

M
ONSTER

“He climbed the cliff,” Dawn said, aghast. “Using his goo.”

Mim flew across to intercept the Music Monster. “You can’t come here,” she protested. “You have no wings.”

Piper ignored her. He continued to slide up and over the edge, making a right-angle turn without difficulty. He was huge and black and gelatinous, and he smelled like a putrid stink horn.

“Get off this mountain,” Mim said imperiously, hovering right above him.

The monster shot out a black pseudopod that circled her waist and drew her down toward him.

Mim’s wings became swords that lashed down. One cut off the pseudopod; the other hacked a slice off the top of the monster. Freed, she landed neatly on her feet beside Piper. “Now will you get out?” she demanded.

The two sections of monster slid along the ground and rejoined the main mass. More pseudopods shot out at her, catching her legs. She windmilled, losing her balance.

Skully ran forward, his arms becoming massive swords. He hacked off the new pseudopods, freeing Mim. “Better get back,” he advised. “This thing can’t hurt me, but might hurt you.”

“Thank you,” she said somewhat faintly. It was obvious that she did not like accepting help, but realized that she did need it.

The three pets moved toward the monster, but Dawn waved them back. “That thing is dangerous,” she said. “Stay out of harm’s way, so we don’t have to be distracted by concern for you.”

That made sense to them, and they retreated.

“This is what wants to marry you?” Bink asked Dawn.

“Yes.” She looked ill.

“That stinks,” Chameleon said.

“That too,” Dawn agreed with a third of a smile. “Literally.”

“Then we had better dissuade him,” Bink said. “In this manner we can repay the favor you have done us.”

“I’m not sure he can be dissuaded. Look at what he was doing to Mim.”

The monster completed his turn, and was wholly on the mesa. Now another figure came into view, riding his rear portion. A lovely young woman.

“Pundora!” Joy’nt cried. Picka realized that of course she would be with the monster; she was guiding him, using her friend Steel in the form of a magic mirror.

“And who are you?” Pundora asked, stepping onto the mesa.

Dawn nerved herself and stepped forward. “I am Princess Dawn, and these are my friends. We have no use for you.”

“I wasn’t asking
you,
” Pundora said arrogantly. “I know who you are, you murderess; I’ve been tracking you. You destroyed my boyfriend. For that you must pay.” She turned to face the skeletons. “But I don’t know about you freaks.”

“We are walking skeletons,” Picka said. “We are helping Dawn with her mission.”

“Well, forget it,” Pundora snapped. “She will soon marry Piper and be miserable ever after. That’s my revenge.”

Bink stepped forward. “And I am Bink. I owe my great-granddaughter a favor, so I will stop the monster from coming after her. I suggest you go back the way you came, and never bother her again, and save us all trouble.”

“Great-granddaughter!” Pundora said derisively. “You’re barely old enough to be her father!”

Bink didn’t debate the point. He simply went and picked her up and carried her back toward Piper. “Go. We are asking you nicely.”

Pundora made a screech of impure outrage that sounded like a cross between an injured hoot-owl and a deflated frog. The mirror appeared in her hand. It converted to a sword. She struck at Bink.

The sword somehow went askew, missing him, and Pundora almost lost her grip on it. She tried again, and again it missed. “What?” she demanded. She tried a third time, determinedly, but somehow to no better effect.

The sword became the woman Steel. “It’s no use,” she said as she dropped to the ground. “Some kind of ambiguous magic protects him.”

“The nerve!” Pundora snapped, outraged. Then she thought of another tack. She ripped open her blouse. “Look at this!” But the view did not freak him out; in fact, it seemed to have no effect. Pundora was amazed. So was Chameleon.

Bink carried Pundora to the monster and dumped her down on his back. “Go,” he repeated.

Now the monster reacted. He had evidently been as surprised as Pundora by Bink’s action and immunity. He lashed out with a pseudopod. And missed.

“It’s that bleeping magic,” Pundora said, disgusted.

Picka was standing beside Dawn. “Why didn’t her bosom freak him out?” he asked.

“He can’t be harmed by magic. Pundora is magical. If he had freaked out, he might have been vulnerable. So his talent did not let it happen.”

“Still, he might freak out if there was no threat of harm?”

“Yes. Wynne could do it.”

Or might have, if she had continued to exist separately. Still, it was an interesting distinction, confirming what Dawn had told them about her great-grandfather’s magic.

“Get off the mesa,” Bink said. He stooped, put his hands under Piper’s front section, and heaved up. But his hands slid sloppily through the jellylike flesh. He couldn’t get a grip on the monster. It was an impasse.

“Maybe if we three skeletons act together,” Skully said.

They tried it. Picka, Joy’nt, and Skully lined up before Piper and hunched down together. They braced against the ground and pushed at the gelatinous substance.

And found themselves walking into it. The substance gave way before them, and closed in around them. They were mired in it up to their neck bones.

“Uh-oh,” Skully said. “There’s acid.”

Picka felt it too. The juice was gradually eating into his bones and joints. Soon it would dissolve the joints, leaving the bones disconnected, and then it would slowly digest the bones.

“We had better get out of this,” Joy’nt said urgently.

They waded out. The flesh couldn’t hold them any more than they could hold it. It was another impasse.

“I can do it,” Granola said.

“No,” Picka said. “That acid would hurt your living flesh, unless you have protective gloves or a solid tool to push with.”

“I will find one,” the giantess said. They heard the sound of her footfalls as she hurried away.

“What is that sound?” Mim asked.

“That’s just the invisible giant,” Chameleon answered brightly.

“A giant?”

“Part of their party.”

Mim turned to Dawn. “There’s an invisible giant in your party?”

Picka realized that they were in trouble. “Well—”

“Who can pick up a person and make him seem to fly?”

“Uh—”

“So you’re not really winged monsters.”

“We confess it,” Dawn said. “We had to do our business here. We did do it. We would have been gone by now, if the monster hadn’t come.”

“I will summon the dragons,” Mim said grimly. “They will roast it and vaporize it. Then we can settle this issue of misrepresentation.” She brought out a summoning horn.

“Stun them!” Pundora cried.

Suddenly the monster was making sound. Air blew from myriad vents in his substance, and each vent was a pipe that played a single note. The notes merged in chords, and the chords formed a melody.

Mim stood still, stunned, unable to blow her horn. So did Chameleon. So did Dawn. So did the three pets. Only Bink was immune.

“It’s the stun music,” Picka said. “Affecting living folk. Except Bink.”

“And reel her in,” Pundora said. She seemed unaffected, either because she was a pun rather than an ordinary living creature, or because the monster was able to exclude her from the effect. Neither reason was encouraging for the others.

Then the music changed. Dawn looked horrified, but took a step toward Piper. She was being compelled.

“No!” Bink cried. He strode to Dawn, picked her up, and carried her away from the monster.

“Do the others,” Pundora said.

The music shifted again. Mim, Chameleon, and the three pets started walking toward the monster. Bink couldn’t rescue them all.

“Picka!” Dawn cried. “Stop the music! You can do it!”

Picka unlimbered his clavicles and started playing his ribs. He played the same dire melody he had just heard. It was totally new music to him, with amazing implications, but it
was
music, and he could play it. It seemed that only a superlative musician could play the magic music, but he had evidently passed that threshold.

The living folk paused, torn between the two sources of summoning music. It was working!

Piper increased the volume. The people and pets resumed motion toward him.

Picka played harder, opposing volume with volume. People and pets paused again.

“Take them!” Pundora said.

The monster slid forward, the music unceasing. The people and pets, anchored where they stood, could not retreat. Picka knew that if the acid had slow effect on skeletal bones, it would have rapid effect on living flesh. The targets would be painfully dead in minutes or even seconds.

He had to do more. But what?

“Can you stun
it
?” Bink asked, setting Dawn down.

Picka tried. He copied the music Piper had used to freeze the living folk before, and directed it at the monster. Could he do this also? It was so new and different!

Piper’s music paused. Again, it was working!

The people and pets came to life, fleeing the monster. But now Piper oriented on Picka. He played loud stun music.

Picka was unaffected. “You can’t stun me,” he said. “I’m not alive.”

“Change your tune,” Pundora told Piper. “He has some soul. Focus on that.”

The music changed again. Suddenly it
was
affecting Picka. He could feel his bones being stilled. It became difficult to play his ribs, because his arms were slowing. Without that motion, he could not play his own music.

“Try harder!” Dawn cried.

For her, he could try harder. He concentrated all his will. Slowly his arms revived, and his playing regained strength. The process fed on itself, his increasing power of music providing better control of his bones.

Piper played harder, but now Picka was braced, and played harder too. It wasn’t loudness so much as the magic element; the music summoned surrounding magic and directed it like a weapon. Piper was attacking, Picka was shielding, preventing the deadly theme from touching his bones. But he was also learning the nuances of the attack music, and playing it back at the monster. It was still another impasse as the two of them strained against each other, unmoving.

“Ho!”

Picka turned his head to look, without abating his magical effort. Bink, watching the struggle, had stepped back to the mesa drop-off and lost his balance. He was windmilling his arms, trying to recover, but not succeeding. Picka could not help him; it was all he could do to fend off the monster’s attack.

But Joy’nt and Skully were free. Skully picked her up and hurled her toward Bink. She dissembled in midair and formed her bones into a chain. She reached out with one arm and caught hold of Bink’s extended leg as he toppled off the edge. Then Bink dropped down out of sight, trailing Joy’nt’s linked bones.

Skully had hold of one of Joy’nt’s feet. As Bink’s weight dropped, the bone chain went taut, and Skully was jerked forward. “Some help here!” he called.

Chameleon and Dawn leaped to catch his feet as he slid past them. Woofer caught Dawn’s skirt in his teeth and set his four feet to braking. Midrange did the same with Chameleon’s singlet. Tweeter flew over the brink, peered down, and tweeted.

“Oh, all right,” Mim said, understanding him. She caught hold of one of Chameleon’s feet and braked also, her own feet digging two little trenches in the soil. Her wings became stout poles with splayed ends that dug into the ground, generating a lot of drag.

The motion slowed, and halted. They had stopped Bink’s fall.

Bink helped himself. He climbed up along Joy’nt’s chain of bones and scrambled over the brink. Then he pulled her dangling portion up to join him. “Thanks!” he gasped. “I’m not proof against a physical fall.”

The others relaxed. Woofer and Midrange let go of the skirts, which had come half off, baring portions of their panties and bottoms. Dawn and Chameleon quickly pulled their skirts back up as if ashamed, though in truth their bottoms were freakingly beautiful.