Luck of the Draw (Xanth)

by Piers Anthony

  “Oh. Then it’s not about drawing lucky pictures?”

  “It is not,” he agreed. “Though I suppose here in Xanth, where so many things are literal, it could have been taken that way. Anyway, for me, the pen is mightier than the sword.”

  “The pen?”

  “A writing instrument. I meant that sometimes what a person writes with a pen is more effective than violence with a sword would be.”

  “Yes.” Harmony rummaged in a chest. “Here it is.” She held up a pen and small tablet.

  She had misunderstood again. “I meant—”

  “Shh. I know what you meant, that time. This is a magic pen. I can’t use it effectively, but maybe you could. How good are you at drawing?”

  “Well, I’m no artist, but I did take classes in mechanical drawing in my youth. I did seem to have a talent for that. I could draw an almost perfect circle without using a compass, or make other stylized little figures. Much good it did me; I never used that skill in life.”

  “You can use this pen, then,” she said. “Luck of the draw.” She handed it to him, together with the tablet. “Draw something.”

  “You want a little picture?”

  “Yes.”

  He shrugged, and drew a little sword. He showed it to her. “There.”

  “Now invoke it.”

  “Invoke it?”

  “Say the word.”

  He humored her. “Invoke.”

  The sketch slid off the page. The sword bounced on the floor, expanding. In a moment it was full size.

  “That’s the magic of the pen,” Harmony explained. “What it draws becomes real. I can’t draw a good sword, so mine would be warped and stunted. But yours is nice.”

  “Magic,” Bryce echoed, staring at the sword. “Amazing.”

  “Try something else.”

  “What about the sword? I shouldn’t leave it just lying around.”

  “You can revoke it, or invoke a new drawing, at which point the old one will fade.”

  “Ah.” He drew an ice-cream cone. “Invoke.”

  It slid off the page. He caught it as it expanded.

  “Chocolate eye scream!” Harmony exclaimed. “Thank you, Bryce.” She took the cone and licked the ice cream.

  “Um, is that actually edible? What happens when I revoke it?”

  “It vanishes.” She licked it again. “That makes it nonfattening.”

  “I see.” He decided not to eat any other drawings, because he did not want to be deceived about their food value. “Thank you for the pen, Harmony. I’m sure it will be useful.”

  “You’ll need to practice with it,” she said. “Maybe set up several drawings you can do rapidly at need.”

  He had another thought. “I’m not sure I should really accept this.”

  She frowned, and he caught just a hint of what it might be like to anger a Sorceress. “You are rejecting my gift?”

  “It’s not that. It’s a fine gift. It’s that this could be considered as you playing favorites in a contest that should be objective.”

  “Then I will give gifts to the others too, when I meet them.”

  “That may do,” he agreed. “I probably should go now.”

  “Yes, Piper and Granola are done now.” She laughed at his expression. “No, I can’t see what they’re doing. For one thing, she’s invisible.”

  That had not been the precise focus of his surprise, but he let it go. “Then farewell, Princess, until such time as we meet again.”

  “Oh, don’t be stuffy!” She flung her arms about him and kissed him again. Once more there was the pastel heart and the floating. She was lovely and that love spell was potent.

  Then he found himself outside, walking away from the castle. He must have walked down the stairs and through the halls and out, but he remembered none of it. Princess Harmony might be only a girl, but what a girl!

  He realized belatedly that he had seen no other people in the castle, after Harmony’s triplet sisters left. That must have been by design. There was so much magic, in so many guises!

  Piper was waiting for him. “Was it a good meeting?”

  “It was amazing,” Bryce said. “She’s a remarkable person.”

  “Sorceresses are. Did she enchant you?”

  “Yes. Figuratively and literally.”

  “They do.”

  They got on the trikes and the invisible giantess picked them up and bore them swiftly to Caprice Castle. What a day he had had!

  5

  PEN

  Next day Caprice Castle looked out on a remarkable landscape. It was ordinary immediately around the castle, but not far distant a towering cliff rose up. Two cliffs.

  “We’re in the Gap Chasm!” Bryce exclaimed. “Piper told me about it.”

  “We are,” Mindy agreed. “Just be glad we’re not in the Gas Chasm; it really stinks. Rogue puns are everywhere. You will have to meet the Gap Dragon before you start, though, so he won’t steam you.”

  “Steam me?”

  “There are several fundamental types of dragons, chiefly the fire-breathers, the smokers, and the steamers. Stanley is a steamer.”

  “Stanley Steamer,” he agreed, amused.

  “It’s not funny. He’s dangerous.”

  “I didn’t mean to imply that he’s not. It was a private thought.”

  In due course they exited the castle and stood before the front gate. Bryce heard an odd whomping sound. Then he saw puffs of steam rising in the distance. Then the dragon hove into view: a green six-legged creature with vestigial wings and a great ugly head. The steamer.

  Dawn stepped forward. She hugged the dragon’s hot snout. “Stanley, we are here to forage for puns today. We have a new member of our household: Bryce, from Mundania.”

  The dragon eyed Bryce as if he wanted to steam him. Nervous, Bryce quickly sketched an ice cube. Could he control its size? He tried.

  “And Rachel Service Dog, also from Mundania,” Dawn continued. Rachel stayed close beside Bryce, ready to defend him in whatever way she could.

  The dragon did not seem to like her much either. He puffed up a lungful of steam. Bryce knew that steam could cook them both in place.

  “Invoke, large,” he murmured. The cube slid off the page and expanded to a yard square. The dragon’s steam would have to vaporize that to get at him, giving him and Rachel time to get away.

  The Gap Dragon considered the cube. He breathed out a seething jet of steam. It exploded into a cloud of vapor as it struck the cube. In barely a moment the cube was gone, but so was the steam. There was only a roiling rising cloud of vapor. The dragon nodded, satisfied, then lifted an eyebrow.

  “Princess Harmony gave me this magic pen,” Bryce explained. “I am learning how to use it.”

  The dragon nodded again, then turned and whomped away. “He likes you,” Mindy said.

  Or did not care to admit he had been balked. “Because of Princess Harmony, maybe,” Bryce said, relieved.

  “Perhaps,” Dawn agreed, with one of her obscure smiles. “Harmony’s mother, King Ivy, befriended him long ago. He wouldn’t hurt any of her children, or their friends.”

  “That is reassuring to know.” If the dragon had merely been testing them, it had been a dangerous test.

  “Now we will split up and go pun questing,” Dawn said. “We’ll meet at noon here at Caprice for lunch and storage, then go out again. It should be routine.” She glanced at Bryce. “Mindy will accompany you and the dogs, of course. But because there may be unforeseen dangers, Skully and Joy’nt will also be with you.”

  “Who?” Bryce asked.

  Two more figures emerged from the castle: walking skeletons he hadn’t seen before. “They are part of the household. They’ve been foraging for puns elsewhere.” She hugged the female. “Joy’nt Bone, Picka’s sister, and her friend Skully Knucklehead. They will help you practice with your pen.”

  “Thank you,” Bryce said, taken aback. There were so many people to get to know! But his session wit
h Magician Trent and Sorceress Iris, working on his second sight, had satisfied him that he did need practice handling magic things. The second sight had turned out to be considerably stronger than he had supposed. Maybe the pen would too.

  The group split, with Dawn, Picka, Woofer, and Tweeter going west, and Bryce, Mindy, Joy’nt, Skully, and Rachel going east. They spread out and searched the brush.

  Rachel pointed, and Bryce went to pick up two linked sticks. “I’m not sure what these are,” he said. “They look like nunchaku, a mundane weapon. I don’t see the pun.”

  “I don’t know either,” Mindy said. “Weapons aren’t my specialty.”

  “Those are none-chucks,” Skully said. “They will prevent a mortal person from vomiting, should you feel the need.”

  “Ouch! None chucks. A pun, sure enough.” He put them into his bag. Then, since Skully was near, he asked the skeleton a question. “How did you come to be in Caprice?”

  “I was stranded on a sunken ship until Dawn’s party rescued me. Then I fell for Joy’nt’s nice bones, so I stayed with her party. When Picka won Caprice, we all moved in and helped out. Puns don’t bother skeletons as much as they do mortals, maybe because we can’t get nauseous.”

  “Eeek!” Mindy exclaimed. She had come up against a boulder that turned out to have eyes and whiskers.

  Skully’s arms became swords as he went to her rescue. “What is it?”

  “It—I think it’s a monstrous mouse.”

  Bryce got it. “An enor-mouse,” he said, bagging it.

  They continued bagging puns. Meanwhile Bryce tried to practice with the pen, which he kept with its tablet pad in a breast pocket. He realized that if it was to be useful for him, he would need to have a number of sketches rehearsed that he could draw and animate rapidly, in under ten seconds if possible, so as to coordinate with his second sight. Yet without more experience of Xanth’s dangers, it was hard to do.

  “Skully can help,” Mindy murmured, fathoming his thought. “You saw how he can make his limbs into weapons.”

  He had indeed. “Skully, could I ask a favor?”

  “You need someone to pretend to attack you with a weapon,” Skully said immediately. These folk were evidently attuned to his needs.

  “Yes, so I can figure out how to deflect it. If you could make a sword or two, and come at me slowly, maybe I’ll figure it out.”

  The two swords formed again. Skully approached him with measured steps, slowly waving the swords.

  Bryce got a notion. Quickly he sketched a crude shield. “Invoke.” The shield slid off the page, expanding. He put his left arm through the holding straps behind it and held it up just in time to block Skully’s slow attack. Both swords clanged off the edge of the shield.

  “You’d have been skewered in real life,” Mindy said. “You took too long.”

  “I did,” Bryce agreed. “Also I’m not sure this shield is my best defense. It’s heavy, and it doesn’t disarm him, merely balks him momentarily.”

  “True,” Skully agreed. “Had I swooped over or under the shield instead of striking directly at it, I could have lopped off your head or feet.”

  “Let’s try again,” Bryce said. “Revoke.” The shield disappeared.

  This time the skeleton approached faster, and Bryce drew faster. The shield was not metal, but cork. The swords bit into it and stuck.

  “Well, now,” Skully said. Then he yanked harder, and got his swords free. “That is better, but not perfect.”

  “Let me try another.” He revoked the shield, because he needed his left hand to hold the pad so he could draw the new one.

  The third time he drew a shield made of taffy. He found he could define some of the details mentally, as he drew, which helped.

  Both swords stuck in the taffy and would not come loose; the shield merely deformed and stretched as the skeleton yanked. “That will do,” Skully said.

  Bryce revoked the shield, and the skeleton’s arms were freed. “I wonder whether I can draw something in advance, ready to be invoked when I need it? That would save me time.”

  “But suppose you turn out to need something else?” Mindy asked.

  That was a good point. “I’d better practice different drawings, so I can do any rapidly, rather than be precommitted to any single drawing.”

  They searched out more puns, routinely bagging them, while Bryce mentally rehearsed several more sketches. They had to be simple, yet accurate enough to be effective. Suppose, for example, the Demoness Metria appeared and tried to freak him out again with her panties?

  A ball of smoke formed before him. “Did I hear my nomenclature?”

  “No, you did not hear your name, Metria,” he snapped.

  “Odd. I was sure I heard a thought about me and panties.” Her voluptuous figure formed.

  “Oopsy,” Mindy murmured. “It is dangerous just to think of her. She was probably tracking you, hoping for a pretext.”

  So it seemed. Well, now he could test his notion. “Yes, I am concerned about your panties,” he said.

  “Coming right up.”

  His second sight confirmed it. Her clothing was swirling into vapor, slowly exposing her brightly colored underwear. He sketched feverishly: a kind of doubled board.

  “Ta-daa!” The last of her outer clothing dissipated. She turned grandly to present the rear aspect of her panties.

  Bryce invoked his drawing. In half a moment it was in his hand. He swung it, smartly striking those panties with the flat of it. It made a loud thwack!

  The demoness was so startled that she puffed into smoke, ruining any effect her overstuffed panties might have had.

  “What was that?” Mindy asked.

  “It’s an old mundane device called a slap stick. It makes a loud noise when it strikes, without hurting the person hit. The sound is from the second board banging into the first board.”

  “And you whacked her right on her meaty bottom!” Joy’nt said. “She must have thought something was exploding, like a pineapple, and dissolved.”

  “What a way to thwart a freak-out!” Skully said.

  Then they all dissolved into laughter. Skeletons might not have flesh, or freak out when it stuffed panties, but they knew it when they saw it.

  “Let’s try that again,” Metria said, re-forming. This time her clothing puffed off so rapidly that there was hardly time for him to draw anything. She was wearing a bright blue bra and red panties.

  But Bryce’s second sight had seen it coming, and it seemed that his left eye did not freak out. He hastily sketched a tube. He invoked it as her full undergarments flashed. He squeezed the tube, hard.

  A stream of white paint shot out. It splatted against her body, soaking both bra and panty, nullifying them and dripping down her legs.

  “Oh, bleep!” she swore, trying to brush it off with her hands. All that did was smear it further, along with her hands themselves. That really set her off. “Bleepity bleepity BLEEP!!” The foliage in her vicinity wilted and browned, and a scorched smell rose from it. The sound might have been bleeped out, but the corrosive essence remained.

  Mindy and the skeletons actually fell down laughing. Even Rachel seemed amused.

  “BLOOP!!!” Metria said, and literally exploded into a roiling cloud of smoke. The local vegetation was flattened, and tongues of flame flickered.

  “There’s no Adult Conspiracy for plants,” Mindy explained between gasps of laughter. “So they got the full brunt.”

  “There will be another time,” the smokeball said, and floated away.

  “Keep that sketch,” Joy’nt said. “It should be good against monsters, too.”

  Bryce was pleased. He was learning how to use the pen effectively.

  They resumed gathering puns. Then Bryce walked into something new. It was a swarm of coin-sized bugs with rounded pincers. “Are these puns?” he asked.

  “Those are nickelpedes!” Mindy cried. “They gouge out nickel-sized chunks of flesh. Get away from them.”


  Instead Bryce drew another sketch. He invoked a small vat of liquid tar. He poured it on the nickelpedes. They were immediately mired, unable to attack or escape.

  “You are really learning to use that pen,” Mindy said admiringly.

  “I want to be prepared for any danger I might encounter, at such time as I don’t have friends to look out for me.”

  They continued with the puns. Then Bryce misstepped and slid into a pit he hadn’t seen. Suddenly he was in a cave whose opening was too high for him to reach.

  He sketched a ladder, invoked it, and used it to climb up and out. He was really getting to like the magic pen.

  But his confidence made him careless. When he came to a small river he did not carefully jump over it, but waded through it. He shouldn’t have.

  The water was deeper than it looked. He sank in up to his waist, then was swept off his feet. Before he could properly react he was carried into a hole and down into the ground. He was caught in an underground river!

  There was air above it so he could breathe, but the sides were smooth and slippery so that he could get no purchase. He was carried along through the darkness at what felt like breakneck speed. All he could do was hope that it would end soon. The involuntary ride seemed interminable.

  Then abruptly he shot out into space. Before he could scream he plunked down into a great pool of water. Pool? This was the ocean! The river had carried him right out to sea.

  “Arf!”

  He looked around. “Rachel!” She had followed him. She must have dived in after him, and been carried along too. “You risked your life for me!”

  “Service dogs do,” she said.

  “Well, let’s get out of here. I doubt the deep sea is safe for ignorant Mundanes. Which way is the shore?”

  She pointed with her nose. There was the cliff, with the water-spouting hole that had spewed them out. But the wall lowered to the north, where the Gap Chasm met the sea. How they had entered the river at the base of the chasm, then emerged above it he couldn’t say. “We’ll swim that way,” he said, pointing himself.