Well-Tempered Clavicle

by Piers Anthony

  “That seems just as well,” Shy Violet said, shuddering.

  Dawn and the pets joined them for supper, with a pie passed outside to Granola, while the skeletons helped out by splitting some wood for their stove. It seemed it got cold when Skyler wasn’t making the sun shine; maybe that was to make up for the warmth. Magic often did have side effects.

  As dusk loomed, the sunlight finally faded, as the two environments did not get along well together. Picka, Dawn, and Midrange took a walk around the hill, admiring the shifting view. Midrange led the way; there was something significant in the offing.

  They passed a large tree, and almost collided with a young woman in a strange outfit. “Oh!” she said. “I was expecting someone else.”

  “Other than a woman, a skeleton, and a cat?” Dawn asked.

  “Only a cat.” She looked at Midrange. “But I don’t think you are she.”

  “Midrange is a tomcat,” Dawn said.

  “Yes. I am Clair Voyant. My talent is to know things. I heard that there is a cat with the same name and a similar talent, so I came here to meet her.”

  “Midrange knows things,” Dawn said. “Maybe your talent oriented on him.”

  “Maybe. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  “Meow.”

  “Midrange says this is the place,” Dawn translated.

  A second cat appeared, a female. “Mew,” she said.

  “And there’s Claire,” Dawn said. “Sammy Cat’s girlfriend.”

  “Too bad, Midrange,” Picka murmured. “She would have been perfect for you.”

  Midrange shrugged as if it didn’t matter. Cats were good at that.

  Claire Cat and Claire Girl met and chatted, in their fashions, oblivious to the others. Picka, Dawn, and Midrange moved on, letting them be.

  There was a spare bedroom in the house, and the siblings insisted that Dawn and Picka take it. “Thank you,” Dawn said before Picka could demur. Skully, Joy’nt, and the pets went outside to join Granola.

  “We should not have imposed,” Picka reproved Dawn when they were alone. “We don’t need this bedroom.”

  “We are not imposing,” she said. “There was something they did not tell us but I picked up, because of my talent. This room is haunted, at least with respect to Shy Violet. A male spook is pursuing her. She’s seriously frightened.”

  “Ah. I will speak to him.”

  “Do that. He doesn’t come until she gets in bed in this room. She has to flee to join her brother. She hates that.”

  “We will be ready.” Picka stepped into a closet and stood still.

  Dawn stripped to her underwear, then to bare flesh, donned one of Violet’s nighties, and lay on the bed. In the darkness it wasn’t clear who she was.

  The spook came. He was a gaunt ghost with large hands. “Noow yooo aare miiine!” he whispered sibilantly, putting those hands on Dawn.

  Picka stepped out from the closet. “One moment,” he said, tapping the ghost on the shoulder. He could do that, because he was a spook himself.

  The ghost jumped, astonished. “Whoo are yooo?”

  “I am a friend of Shy Violet,” Picka said. “I hate it when she gets haunted by some other spook. Do you know what I do to spooks who bother her?”

  The ghost was daunted. “I didn’t know she had a—a friend.”

  “Now you do know,” Picka said. “I am going to tie you up in such a knot you will never get loose.” He started twisting the ghost’s substance like a sheet. He could do this because he had more substance than the ghost and was much stronger.

  “No, no, I’ll go!” the spook cried. “I thought she was … was available.”

  “Not to the likes of you.” Picka twisted further.

  “Please! I’ll go away and never return!”

  “No problem. You will never return anyway, once I finish with you.” He twisted some more.

  The ghost wrenched desperately away. In a quarter of a moment he was gone, and unlikely to return. Ghosts did not much like getting twisted; it ruined their lines.

  Dawn sat up and applauded. “Very good, Picka! I think you scared him off permanently.”

  “That was the idea.”

  “Now invoke your spell.”

  “Dawn, I don’t think—”

  “Bring it out,” she said, throwing off the nightie.

  He did, but still tried to protest before invoking it. “It makes me want you for an hour, but there’s no future in it. When I revert, I know you for what you are: a fleshly creature.”

  “Not your type,” she agreed. “Well, if you don’t want me, let’s see what that spell will do to me.” She snatched it from his hand and pressed it against her body.

  “No!” Picka cried, too late. He had no idea what such a spell would do to a living person. It could be lethal.

  Dawn’s living flesh melted away. Suddenly there was nothing left of her but bones.

  Beautiful bones.

  Picka had never realized exactly how lovely her bones were, because of their unsightly contamination with flesh. Now he saw her in all her bare-bones glory. He was instantly smitten.

  “Oh!” she said, liplessly. “I’m naked!”

  “You’re beautiful,” he reassured her. “You have become a walking skeleton.”

  Her marvelous square eye holes gazed at him. “The spell—it had the opposite effect on me. It transformed me into your kind!”

  “For an hour,” he agreed, trusting that was true. He knew she would not want to be a permanent skeleton. Mortal maidens liked to be thin, but not that thin. Generally.

  “Then let’s make the most of it.” She came close and tapped her skull lightly against his, in the skeletal version of a kiss.

  He was profoundly affected. “Dawn, did it affect your feeling for me?”

  “No. I still want to marry you.” She eyelessly eyed him again. “So, how do you like me now?”

  “You have the nicest bones I have seen. I am utterly smitten.”

  “Well, that’s progress. Now will you marry me?”

  “No.”

  “No? I am not accustomed to that word. I’m a princess.”

  “That’s it. You are a living human princess. I’m a nonentitious skeleton. We have only our friendship in common.”

  “But you do love me now?”

  He sighed. “I think I have always loved you, Dawn, in my fashion. Maybe that’s why a day mare once brought me a daydream of romancing you. But I am nothing but a skeleton, not even a royal one. I always knew there could be nothing between us except friendship. Now I have seen your lovely bones, and I wish there could be more. But there can’t be.”

  “I disagree. This transformation spell can give us similar-form interaction, an hour at a time, in your form or mine. There are other spells, like accommodation, that can enable similar interactions.”

  “For limited times.”

  “Picka, we can associate as ourselves most of the time. We don’t have to be making constant love. I love and respect you as what you are, a walking skeleton with an even temper and a wonderful musical talent. Isn’t that enough?”

  “It’s not enough. I am not worthy of you. Even if we were of similar kind, I would not warrant your romantic attention.”

  “Oh, for bleep’s sake! What would make you think you were worthy?”

  Picka considered. “I suppose if I were a prince or equivalent.”

  “Princes are overrated. Sometimes they are required, yes; when Jumper Spider became a prince it made him eligible to marry the Demoness Eris and rescue her from confinement. But I don’t have to marry a prince.”

  “You don’t?”

  “A man of equivalent status would do.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like being the finest musician in Xanth.”

  Picka laughed. “I am not that. Caprice Castle found me wanting.”

  “Not yet,” she said earnestly. “But you can improve. I’ll help you.”

  “But we’re still not each other’
s types!”

  “First things first. Let’s make you worthy, in your own estimation. Then we can worry about types.”

  “This is ridiculous.”

  She tapped her skull against his again, and little hearts radiated out from the contact. “How’s that again?”

  “Ridic—”

  She rattled her arm bones against his, sending a vibration through his whole body, distracting him with romantic passion. “I don’t think I heard you, Picka.”

  “Ri—”

  She intertwined her finger bones with his and squeezed. All powers of resistance left him. “What?”

  He surrendered. “I love you!”

  “That’s what I thought you said,” she said, satisfied. She tapped her skull against his again, and this time he tapped back, avidly. It was impossible to resist her, at least in this form.

  After that it was sheer bliss—until a seeming instant later, when she reverted to fleshly form. Suddenly a naked living woman was in his embrace.

  And it made hardly any difference. Once his love had broken through and been expressed, it remained, regardless of her form. Her flesh was no longer objectionable.

  “Does this disgust you?” she asked, kissing his skull with her fleshy lips.

  “No,” he confessed. Not anymore.

  “Or this?” She stretched out against him, full length, her fleshy pelvis against his bone pelvis.

  “No.” In fact, now he discovered he liked the contact.

  “I think I am becoming accustomed to that word ‘no.’”

  “Oh, Dawn! You made me love you. What am I to do?”

  “Just keep loving me, Picka. The next challenge is to make you worthy in your own eye sockets. It’s time to practice your music.”

  “But—”

  She fetched her ocarina and played a melody. He was obliged to unlimber his clavicles and play the same melody. It was evident to him that he was better at it than she was; he was a better musician than she. Not that he would say it to her.

  “You’re better than I am,” she said, “but I think not as good as you can be. We need to get you good enough so that Caprice Castle accepts you. Then we can summon it again and complete the mission.”

  “This is all for the mission!” he exclaimed, not entirely pleased.

  “That too,” she agreed. And somehow that made it all right.

  Then he improvised, and she put away her instrument and slept. She smiled in her sleep, and that made him feel good. She was indeed beautiful, whatever her form. He still felt unworthy of her love, but he was satisfied to do what she asked, and to labor to be the best musician he could be. To maybe become worthy of her. Then they could perhaps tackle the problem of their differing types. After all, as she had said, a spider had married a Demoness. Anything was possible, with enough magic.

  He played a love song, and Dawn smiled again. It was wonderful being in love. He had never experienced it before, partly because he had known no female skeletons. He had never anticipated love with a living woman, but it had happened, and it colored his whole existence.

  After a while he leaned down and touched her fleshly head with his skull, lightly, in a skeleton kiss. She turned her face and kissed him in fleshy style, then pulled him down with her. He could no longer play music, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except being close to her.

  * * *

  In the morning they reported to Skyler and Shy Violet that the amorous ghost was gone. “Picka warned him away,” Dawn said.

  “But ghosts don’t accept warnings,” Violet said doubtfully. “I escaped him before only by merging into the scenery.”

  “They do when a skeleton friend of yours twists their sheets into knots,” Dawn said. “You should have no further problem.”

  “Thank you!” Violet said gratefully.

  “We heard music,” Skyler said. “It was beautiful.”

  “Picka and I like each other,” Dawn said. “We are of different types, as you may have noticed, so we play music together.”

  “That’s so romantic,” Violet said.

  “Thank you for your hospitality,” Dawn said. “Now we must be on our way, before the Music Monster tracks us down here.”

  “It is too bad you can’t twist the monster up like a sheet,” Violet said.

  “Too bad,” Picka agreed.

  They stepped out into the sunlight, which always shone on the hill. They got into the handbag with the others, and Granola heaved them up high. They waved farewell to Skyler and Violet.

  “Where to?” Skully asked. His skull and bones looked as though someone had been tapping and rattling them all night.

  “I think I know,” Granola said. “I suffered a revelation during the night.”

  “So that was the flash we saw,” Joy’nt said. Picka realized that he and Dawn, inside and distracted, had not seen the flash she spoke of.

  “Revelation?” Dawn asked.

  “Pundora’s Box. I believe I know why we couldn’t find it. It was in the next-to-last place we looked, which I believe would have been a look by one of your interior parties.”

  “Yes,” Dawn agreed. “We checked the turrets, the cellar, and the ground floor, while you checked outside. Where do you think it was?”

  “We were looking for the wooden box we saw in the History,” Granola said, “but that was only a convenience. It couldn’t possibly hold every pun that exists. The real container is the castle itself, especially its cellar, which can be sealed off.”

  “Caprice!” Dawn exclaimed, amazed.

  “Caprice,” Picka agreed, seeing it. “We searched it, then went outside, where Granola was still searching. So her search was the last, and ours was next to last.”

  “And we didn’t see any puns because all of them had escaped,” Joy’nt said.

  “And that little wooden box doesn’t matter,” Skully said. “Someone may have used it for firewood. Pundora may have opened it, but first she opened the sealed cellar, the real storage place.”

  “And that is why the Good Magician wants me to tame the castle,” Dawn concluded. “Because it is the Box.”

  “Now we know,” Granola agreed. “So I think we had better search for the castle again, hoping we can find it by strategically backtracking as we did before.”

  “But finding it isn’t enough,” Picka said. “We have to convince it we are worthy to occupy it. And we’re not.”

  “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

  CHAMELEON

  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 jus
t 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.”