“No, I’m not,” Picka said. “I am on a mission with Princess Dawn, seeking Caprice Castle and Pundora’s Box. We had information that it might be here, or perhaps was here recently, or maybe will be here in the future.”
“It hasn’t been here since this ship went down,” Skully assured him. “I would have noticed.”
“Then I had better return and report.”
“You’re really not from the gourd?”
“No. My father was, but I have always resided in Xanth proper.”
“You can still be my rescuer. Take me back with you, and in due course I’ll find a gourd and reenter the realm.”
“I can do that,” Picka agreed. “I just have to follow my rope back.”
They set off, following the rope. Soon the wreck was behind and they were at the slope. It was too steep to walk up conveniently, so they grasped the cord and hauled themselves along. When the remaining distance was straight up, they climbed hand over hand until they reached the lighted shallow section.
“Some legs,” Skully remarked.
Picka looked. Granola’s two legs were invisible in air, but translucent in water, so they showed. “That’s Granola, the female giant who is part of our company.”
“A princess and a giantess,” Skully said. “You have an interesting taste in company.”
“Plus a Mundane dog, cat, and bird. And my sister, Joy’nt Bone.”
“Remarkable!”
“We just happened to get together. We all do our parts. We haven’t made much progress so far, but we’ll keep trying.”
They reached the surface, and took turns clambering into the floating handbag. “Caprice Castle is not down there,” Picka reported. “But I found the haunt: Skully Knucklehead.”
“Hello,” Skully said.
“This is Princess Dawn,” Picka said, beginning the introductions. “A Sorceress.”
“Another walking skeleton!” Dawn said, surprised.
“And my sister Joy’nt.”
Skully and Joy’nt exchanged eyeless glances. A bone in the rough shape of a heart floated up. They were impressed by each other.
“Oh, my,” Joy’nt murmured.
“Woofer, Tweeter, and Midrange.”
The pets presented themselves.
“And Granola Giantess, whose handbag we are in.”
“I want to join your company,” Skully said immediately. “I’ll help any way I can.”
“Why, because you saw Joy’nt?” Picka asked sharply.
“Yes.”
Picka turned to his sister. “What do you think of this?”
“Let him join,” she said eagerly.
They considered. “Do you have any useful abilities?” Dawn asked.
“Maybe. I’m not a normal skeleton. I can’t reconnect my bones. That’s why I worked on special projects; my own kind didn’t want to associate with me. But I do have a magic talent instead.”
“You do!” Picka said, interested. “So do I. We’re both outcasts.”
“Mine is that I can form my bones into different things, like armor or weapons. What’s yours?”
“Music. I can play notes on my ribs.”
“What use is that?”
Picka was taken aback, as he hadn’t thought of it that way. “It helps makes friends. What use is yours?”
“I can form bone weapons to protect other folk. All I need is for someone to tell me what’s needed.”
“You can’t see for yourself?”
“Not always. I’m rather boneheaded.”
“That makes sense,” Dawn said, laughing. She glanced up. “What do you think, Granola?”
“Sometimes animals smell me and attack my ankles,” Granola said. “I don’t like that.”
“I’ll protect your ankles,” Skully said.
Dawn glanced at the pets. “How do you three feel?”
“Woof.”
“Tweet.”
“Purrr.”
It seemed they were amenable.
Thus it was decided: Skully could join them.
“So Caprice Castle is not here,” Dawn concluded. “Let’s try the next site.”
Granola heaved up the handbag and waded back the way she had come.
“This is something,” Skully said, peering out through the fabric of the bag. “I never traveled this way before.”
“How have you traveled?” Joy’nt asked.
“Mostly I rode night mares, so they could take me to the dream sites where I was needed. They can pass through trees and run across water, you know; they’re very swift.”
“So you’re directly from the gourd!” she exclaimed, thrilled.
“Yes. Until that accident with the sinking ship.”
“How did you get solid?”
Skully paused. “I am solid now, aren’t I! I never thought of that. How did your family get solid?”
“Somehow it happened when our parents left the gourd. We think it occurred naturally when they spent too much time in Xanth proper. Solidity just came to them.”
“Well, I was caught on the ship, beneath the sea, for several years. So I had time to absorb matter, I suppose. I didn’t realize it was happening.”
“Can you go back to the gourd now?”
“I don’t know. I thought I could, if a night mare returned to the wreck to fetch me. Now I’m not sure. I may have been spoiled for that. That’s unfortunate.”
“Maybe it happened at the outset,” Dawn suggested. “Because if you had been a figment, like a night mare, you should have stayed at the surface of the lake, instead of being drawn down in the ship. You would have passed right through the timbers.”
“I would have,” Skully agreed, surprised. “I didn’t know.”
“Maybe that’s why the night mares didn’t come for you,” Picka said. “They knew you’d been polluted with matter, so they would no longer be able to carry you.”
“That makes me feel better about them,” Skully said. “I thought they had deserted me without reason. So I guess I’m stuck here permanently.”
“Do you really mind?” Joy’nt asked coyly.
He looked at her. “Not anymore.”
Joy’nt actually blushed. It wasn’t supposed to be possible for fleshless skeletons, but her bones turned faintly pink. She was definitely interested.
Now they were moving over land as the giantess forged south. They came to the Gap Chasm. She walked down a path she knew, across the base, and up the other side. Then she continued through the jungle. It was evidently a long trip.
“We might as well nap again,” Dawn said to the pets. They were glad to agree. The four of them settled down for a snooze.
That left the three skeletons to get to know each other better. Picka demonstrated his music by playing on his ribs. Skully showed him he could grow his arm bones big and wide, like clubs. Joy’nt was impressed, making a little show of it. Picka was privately amused, and a bit jealous. She had found a prospective companion. When would he find one, if ever?
The giantess slowed. They were on an almost featureless plain. There was only a single ragged outcropping of rock.
She stopped beside the outcrop. “This is it,” she announced, setting down the handbag.
The others piled out and looked around. There was nothing. Woofer sniffed something interesting, perhaps a scent trail, but it led to the foot of the outcrop and stopped. “Woof,” he remarked, disappointed.
“So maybe the castle was here once,” Dawn said. “Or will be here in the future. But not now.”
That seemed to be it.
Midrange yowled. “Danger?” Dawn asked. “What kind?”
The cat was unable to say. It was simply urgent that they get away from here quickly.
“But we haven’t finished looking for the Box,” Joy’nt protested.
Then they heard something. It sounded like a troop of men marching. “Hup two three four! Hup two three four!”
As they watched, the troop marched around the outcrop. It wa
s a formation of round red cherries with little feet, led by a pineapple who called the cadence.
“Company halt!” They stopped before Dawn’s party, apparently coincidentally.
That made Picka nervous. He was dubious about coincidences.
“Today’s drill will be on detonations,” the pineapple said. “When you get hurled into an enemy camp, what do you do, Bomb One?”
“Explode?” the first cherry answered hesitantly.
“Well, sure, fruitbrain! But is that all?”
“All?”
“Lesson number one: there’s a stupid way to do it and a smart way. I’m here to teach you to be smart. If you detonate on contact you may take out one aggressor enemy personnel, or none. Your effort will be largely wasted. That’s the stupid way. Instead you should hold off a while, survey the situation. Move a few yards over and you may be able to take out three or four. A lot more bang for your buck. That’s the smart way.”
The assembled cherry bombs bobbed, getting it. Picka remained nervous, not trusting this. But what could he or the others do, except keep quiet?
“Any questions?”
“Some of us have short fuses,” Cherry Bomb Number Two said. “We have to detonate on contact. That’s the way we’re made. So how can we pick our targets?”
“Short fuse, my fruity fundament!” the pineapple exclaimed impatiently. “Stifle it, red neck. You can hold off until you hit the right target.”
The cherry bombs were silent. They had been given the word.
“Now for a practice run,” the pineapple said briskly. “All we need is an enemy troop.” It looked around, spying Dawn’s group, as if coincidentally. Of course the thing had seen them all along. “And I believe we have one. Company, attack!”
The cherry bombs started marching forward.
“Get out of here!” Dawn cried.
They scrambled for the invisible handbag, but several cherries were crowding between them and the bag. One touched Joy’nt’s moving foot. It exploded into a ball of fire and roiling smoke, just missing her. It had been a stupid bomb.
“Not that way!” the pineapple bawled. “Get smart, you dumbbells!”
The others were determined to be smarter bombs. They surrounded Joy’nt, closing in.
Skully charged in to join her, his arm bones expanding into clubs. He swung at a cherry, knocking it into the air. It exploded, harmlessly. He swung at another, knocking it into the main formation. It detonated, setting off the others, and there was a fusillade of explosions and a surging cloud of smoke.
Meanwhile Dawn and the pets made it to the handbag, and Joy’nt was approaching it.
“No, no!” the pineapple shouted, running to intercept her. “Get organized!”
Skully leaped to reach the pineapple first, swinging his club. He caught the pineapple on the crown.
There was a horrendous explosion. The pineapple and Skully flew into pieces.
Picka watched, appalled. Skully had saved Joy’nt at the cost of his own existence. The smart-bomb menace was gone, but at what price?
“No!” Joy’nt cried. She ran to fetch a stray bone as it landed some distance away. She picked it up and went after another.
Of course! Picka started fetching scattered bones himself. Dawn and the pets caught on, and joined the effort. The bones were smoking hot, some charred, but they were all in the area. They just had to find and collect them.
Soon they had a pile of battered bones. Then they started fitting them together, toe bone to foot bone, foot bone to ankle bone, leg bone to knee bone, thigh bone to hip bone and so on up. All that was missing was one finger bone they were unable to find. When they put the skull bone on the neck bone, Skully animated. “What a headache!” he exclaimed.
“You’re back!” Joy’nt said, hugging him.
“Well, you know a walking skeleton can’t be destroyed by dismemberment,” Skully said. “Not if he has friends.”
That about covered it. Skully had proved himself in more than one sense. He was burnt and battered, but before long his bones would heal.
They piled back into the handbag and Granola started walking again.
“Picka and Joy’nt have partial souls,” Dawn said, “so they do decent things. But you, Skully are directly from the gourd. What motivated you to sacrifice yourself like that?”
“Actually I have some soul,” Skully said. “We all do. It’s desiccated and so thin that it’s hardly noticeable, but it’s there in the marrow. We are, after all, derivatives of living human lineage, way back in our past.”
“So you are,” she agreed, surprised. “I never thought of that. All human-related creatures have souls, including crossbreeds and derivatives. I suppose I assumed that skeletons are dead, so their original souls departed.”
“Most of our souls do go,” Skully agreed, “but a little fraction remains.” He shrugged. “I never had much use for it. But then Joy’nt was in danger…” He made a gesture of helplessness.
Picka had been a bit jealous of Skully’s interest in Joy’nt, but the incident of the smart bombs had defused it. Skully was worthy. Now if Picka could just find a similarly worthy female walking skeleton …
“Are you at all musical?” Joy’nt asked Skully.
“Not a musical bone in my body.”
Picka realized what she had in mind. “Music is what you make of it. Anyone can be musical in his fashion. Just form an arm into a hammer and bonk your skull, keeping the cadence.”
“I guess I could do that,” Skully said. “But why?”
Dawn smiled. “We are a musical group. It’s not just Picka. We’ll show you.” She looked up. “Granola, can you play while you walk?”
“Yes, if it doesn’t freak out the local wildlife,” the giantess responded.
“The wildlife might appreciate a good freaking,” Skully remarked.
“Then let’s do it,” Dawn said. “You might as well know the company you are keeping.”
They did “Ghost of Tom” again, sure that Skully would like it. He did; by the time the last refrain finished, he was happily bonking his skull in time.
“I like it,” Skully said. “Including the animals. It is a rendition like none other. I’m just a hollow head, but the rest of you are good at it.”
“It came upon us more or less coincidentally,” Dawn said. “I liked to play tunes with my sister, and when we discovered Picka’s talent we just got into it.”
“I’m not a reliable judge,” Skully said, “but you seem like the finest musician I’ve heard, Picka.”
“I just repeat songs I’ve heard.” But Picka was coming to like Skully better.
They played other songs, enjoying the harmonies. “You know, what we need is a book of songs,” Joy’nt said. “Then we could really improve.”
“After we find Pundora’s Box, we can look for a good music book,” Dawn said.
Granola slowed. They were approaching the next site.
This turned out to be by the bank of a river. A young woman stood there. She looked frustrated.
Granola stopped some distance away, amidst a grove of trees. She set the handbag down gently.
“Maybe I had better go first,” Dawn said. “Our full company might startle her.”
“Three walking skeletons and an invisible giant?” Picka asked. “Whatever makes you think that?”
“Woof!”
“You’re right, Woofer,” Dawn agreed. “A woman with a friendly dog should not spook anyone.”
Dawn and Woofer got out and walked toward the river. The others remained hidden, listening.
“Hello,” Dawn called. “Where are we?”
“Woof,” Woofer added.
The girl turned. “Crymea River.”
“I never heard of that river.”
“No, I’m Crymea River. My talent is to build a bridge and get over it. But there’s nothing on the other side that I want, so I’m left with nothing to do.”
“Oh,” Dawn said, disconcerted. Evidently the
girl had misheard her query. “I’m Dawn. This is Woofer. He’s a dog.”
“I noticed.”
“My talent is to know about living things. We are looking for a … a castle. Have you seen it?”
Crymea laughed. “Not here! I’m sure I would have noticed. Are you sure you don’t need to cross the river?”
“Not unless the castle is there.”
They both gazed across the river. No castle was visible. “Why do you think a castle should be here?” Crymea asked.
“It’s a complicated story. The essence is that the castle seems to travel, so it’s hard to locate. But we’re trying.”
Crymea smiled, not taking her seriously. “Good luck.”
Dawn turned and returned to the grove. “I think we had better give up the search for today,” she said. “It is getting late.”
Midrange stirred. “Meow.”
“We should cross her bridge?” Dawn asked. “But the castle is not across the river; we looked.”
“Mew.”
Dawn shrugged, not completely pleased. “If you say so. That means I’ll have to introduce the group.”
“Mew.”
“Come on, folk,” Dawn said. “Midrange says we need to do it.”
They climbed out of the handbag. Dawn went ahead to warn Crymea, then signaled the others to advance, including the giantess.
The girl was plainly amazed to see them, and more than a trifle nervous. “Woofer Dog you’ve met,” Dawn said briskly. “This is Midrange Cat, and Tweeter Bird. Picka Bone. Joy’nt Bone. Skully Knucklehead. And Granola Giantess. She’s invisible.”
“Then how—?”
“Hello, Crymea,” Granola said from above.
“Uh, hello, Granola,” Crymea said faintly.
“We have decided we need to check the other side of the river after all,” Dawn said.
“You want my bridge!” Crymea said, abruptly overjoyed.
Well-Tempered Clavicle Page 12
