Luck of the Draw (Xanth) Read online

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Map of Xanth

  1. Xanthin Box

  2. Punfest

  3. Tour

  4. Princess

  5. Pen

  6. Good Magician

  7. Suitors

  8. Dress

  9. Ring

  10. Sword

  11. Gem

  12. Bee

  13. Monocle

  14. Decision

  15. Demon Wager

  Author’s Note

  Tor Books by Piers Anthony

  About the Author

  Copyright

  1

  XANTHIN BOX

  Bryce smelled a rat.

  He sighed. He knew what it meant. He would have to clean up the garage. At least until he found the dead rat.

  So he started in. He was eighty years old, and increasingly absentminded, so if he encountered something that needed doing, he generally did it immediately, lest he forget. The stench of the rat would not ease on its own if ignored. The body would be there somewhere, buried under or behind assorted junk. If he could get at it.

  It had been some time since he had shaped up the garage. In fact he had mostly stopped coming in here, since he gave up driving, and things had pretty much accumulated on their own. But in time it would need to be cleared out, when the house was put on the market, because—

  Because Bryce had between one and two years left to live. His doctor had given him the word: he had type two diabetes because he had grown too fat, and his blood vessels were three-quarters clogged because he had eaten too many fatty snacks, and the formerly inert prostate cancer was beginning to become assertive because, well, just because. He had to exercise, reduce his weight, and stop sleeping so much in front of the TV. He needed to get out and interact with other people, becoming more social. He needed to challenge his brain instead of being a mental sponge. Or else.

  Bryce had lacked the gumption to do any of those things. Exercise was too much work, and his fading eyesight made it harder to recognize people. So he was faced with the or else. That meant he would die, and his house would be sold in the process of putting his estate in order. It wasn’t much of an estate; forty-odd years of office work had not paid any fortune. The two of them had been comfortable, however, not requiring much.

  Then Bev had died, and any remaining ambition Bryce might have had had dissipated like windblown smoke. He existed; that was most of what was to be said for him. Their sons had expressed concern, but they had lives and families of their own, as did their grown children, his grandchildren, so they mostly left Bryce alone. His increasing grouchiness of age might have had something to do with it.

  He got to work, slowly, because he did not have a lot of energy to spare. He might have to do the job in installments, until he penetrated to the rat’s nest, wherever it was. Too bad odor was not more specific, so that he could orient on it efficiently and be done with the distasteful chore. As it was, he would soon be grimy, because layers of dust covered everything. Roaches and silverfish skittered away, resenting the disturbance. Bryce grimaced; he should have donned gloves for this dirty work, but naturally hadn’t thought of it. It was just too complicated to go back to fetch them from the house, assuming he could find them.

  Almost immediately he had to fight off a wave of nostalgia. There were things here dating back decades, to when the family was more active and ambitious. Useless things that he had not been able to throw out, because that would have been like discarding part of his wife, or a son, or a friend, or his own youth. He knew it was foolish, but he just couldn’t do it. So the junk accumulated, reminders of hopelessly faded memories.

  He had lived a mediocre existence, and not entirely because he had to. He had made obvious mistakes of judgment and passion, and paid for them. If he could somehow live his indifferent life over, he would be a lot smarter about that. He would do the right thing instead of the convenient thing, the decent act instead of the selfish one, the prudent decision instead of the reckless one. He might not be richer or better known or respected, but he would be a better man. That would count for a lot, personally.

  For one thing, he should have made more of his ability to sketch. He was no artist, and had never worked with paints, but if he had a pencil and paper he could sketch anything he saw, accurately enough so that others could immediately recognize it. He still liked to draw things; the house was piled with old pencil pictures, and he always kept a stubby pencil and a little notepad in his pocket. It was his sole creative expression, and it made him feel good. Had he taken art courses, who knew what he might have made of it? So he would definitely follow up on that.

  And a fat lot of good that resolution was, at this stage in his wasted term! It was easy to make fine resolutions when there was no prospect of having to follow through on them.

  But he was woolgathering, one of his bad habits. It was time to get back to work.

  Here was an old push-lawnmower, overwhelmed by cobwebs, as dated in its fashion as Bryce was in his own. There was a similarly old circular rattan chair, once a comfortable novelty, but in recent decades useless because Bryce knew that once he sat in it, he would not be able to get back out of it. It was piled with junk: a bucket of dry-rotting wooden clothespins for laundry that no longer got hung out to dry in the sun, a bag of tattered clothing that Bev might once have worn, an empty picture frame that could have pictured his present empty life, several battered paperback novels that would never be reread, and a bright yellow box.

  Bryce didn’t recognize that last. Could a granddaughter have left it here? But no granddaughter had been here in the past decade, and this wasn’t the kind of thing to be left and forgotten. It was too pretty: it almost glowed with a xanthin luster. Also, there was no dust on it, so it couldn’t have been here long. Yet who could have left it here? The garage was locked from the outside, and the neighbors were not the kind to intrude. It was as if it had simply floated in on its own and found a place to perch.

  In a moment he realized something odd but surely significant: the dead-rat odor emanated from the box. Such an awful smell from such a lovely object! Could that be coincidence? It had the one fragrance that was guaranteed to make him search it out promptly. So it must have been placed for him to find.

  He picked it up and opened it. Inside were three objects: a tiny pillbox containing a yellow capsule, a small vial of yellow fluid, and a bound yellow notebook. Each had lettering on it. The pillbox said FBU NF, the vial said ESJOL NF, and the notebook said SFBE NF. What did it mean?

  Bryce had never been any genius, but in the old days he had diverted himself with newspaper word puzzles. That repeated NF looked like a two-letter word. There were only so many of them. Suppose the letter B were substituted for the letter A? The letter F for the letter E? A childishly simple transcription.

  And just like that he had it. The pill said EAT ME, the vial said DRINK ME, and the notebook said READ ME.

  Like Alice in Wonderland. Who knew what effect such things might have on a person? Nothing magical, surely, but they could be candy—or poison. It was best to leave them alo
ne.

  Except that someone must have left them for him. Why? He had no close friends anymore; they had all died. Similarly, he had no enemies. What possible reason could any stranger have had for such an obscure contact? This was curious indeed.

  Well, hell: what did he have to lose? He took the pill and swallowed it.

  Nothing happened. So much for that.

  He unstopped the vial and drank its few drops of golden elixir. It was neutral in taste. Again, nothing. What had he really expected?

  So he opened the book and started reading. It was in the same code, so he had to change the words letter by letter, tediously. It was a curious, probably nonsensical message.

  THIS IS A SECRET ONE-WAY PORTAL TO THE LAND OF XANTH. TO ACTIVATE IT, SPEAK THE MAGIC WORDS

  He paused. What magic words? It didn’t provide them.

  This must be someone’s idea of a joke. Bryce tucked the book in a pocket and went on with his cleanup, since he was now well into it and had nothing better to do.

  He discovered his old recumbent tricycle, buried under more junk. He hauled it out and brushed it off. The chain was oil-caked but seemed serviceable. The tires were solid rubber; he had gotten tired of repairing punctures and switched to these ones that might wear out in time but would never go flat. The trike should be ridable despite its long neglect.

  And what about him? Could he still ride it? Balancing was tricky on such machines, because the rider was low to the ground. He had learned the art, but his old reflexes might not be up to the challenge. Still, the trike should be secure against even his clumsiness. It was a bike, not a trike, that required balance. He had been confusing the two, in true senior moment fashion.

  Well, hell, again. He opened the garage door and hauled the trike out onto the pavement. He would try it, and if he crashed, well, that was the luck of the draw.

  “Ruff.”

  Startled, Bryce looked up. There was a dog. Female, healthy, older, with short black and white hair, fairly solid, with somewhat floppy ears. He was generally familiar with dogs, but did not recognize this one. “Well, what breed are you?” he asked.

  She shrugged, obviously unable to answer the question.

  Bryce left the trike and approached the dog. “May I? I want to look at your tag.” It was always best to approach any strange canine cautiously, though this one seemed friendly.

  She shrugged again. Taking that as a yes, he petted her shoulder, then reached for her collar. There was none. Evidently there had been one, but somehow it had been lost along with the tags.

  “You must be lost,” Bryce said. “And maybe hungry and thirsty. Let me fetch you some water and whatever else I can rouse up. Wait here.”

  He went back into the garage, glancing back. The dog lay down in place, doing what he had asked. That was a good sign.

  He entered the house, found a pan and some leftover pie, and brought them out. He set them down before the dog. “Sorry it’s not more. It’s all I have at the moment.”

  She merely looked at him. “It’s okay,” he said reassuringly. “Drink. Eat. Then we’ll see what we can do for you. Maybe there’s a bulletin out.”

  She got up, put her head to the pan, and drank thirstily. Then she ate the pie.

  “So I was right. You’re lost and haven’t been fed in a while.”

  She looked at him and seemed to nod. She perhaps understood the essence if not the words.

  He looked at his trike. “I was about to try riding this, just to see if I could. Let me make my attempt, then I’ll pick myself up off the pavement and bring you inside so I can try to locate your owner. Okay?”

  This time he was sure she nodded. This was evidently a smart dog.

  He oriented his trike, settled onto it, put his right foot in the webbing on the right pedal, and pushed. The trike started to move, rather wobbly despite its third wheel. He brought his left foot up and pushed that pedal, gaining speed and balance. He was doing it!

  Then he was out on the street, not by choice so much as because that was the only place to go without crashing. Fortunately there was no traffic at the moment. He turned right and moved along the pavement. “Damn!” he said, pleased.

  Then he saw that the dog was running along beside him, keeping him company. He liked that too. Loneliness had been his chief companion in recent months. “I’ll loop around the block and return home,” he told the dog.

  She glanced at him and nodded. She probably recognized the word “home.”

  He laughed. “I guess I said the magic words.”

  He looked at the street, ready to make the first turn around the block. But there was no turn. In fact there were no houses. He was suddenly on a strange street. Not even a street; a path. It wound through a quiet forest. How had he suddenly come to this parklike avenue? He had been distracted only a moment, and there was no such park in his neighborhood.

  The dog still ran beside him. She looked surprised too.

  Then the path tilted down. Before he knew it he was picking up speed. He squeezed on the hand brakes, but they were ineffective. That was what must have fallen apart with disuse: the braking mechanism. He was out of control. All he could do was steer and hope for the best.

  The dog kept pace with him, but he suspected she was questioning his judgment, speeding like this on a strange path.

  They rounded a curve—and there was a great old-fashioned stone castle. The path led right up to its sturdy wood dungeon door. But the door was closed.

  He tried again to stop, and could not. “Swerve aside, doggie!” he cried. “We’re going to crash!”

  But she only drew closer to him, as if trying to cushion his crash with her body. It was way too late to stop.

  Bryce closed his eyes and braced for the worst. They crashed.

  * * *

  Bryce blinked. He was sprawled beside the dog in an empty stone chamber, obviously not his cluttered garage, and the trike was gone. But that was only part of it.

  He had double vision. Whatever he looked at seemed slightly blurred. Was he suffering a stroke? “What are the symptoms?” he asked himself rhetorically.

  “Yes?” the dog asked.

  “You talked!” Bryce said.

  “Yes,” she agreed, looking surprised.

  “Did you talk before we got here?”

  “No.”

  “Something very odd is happening. Maybe we both died in that crash, and this is our afterlife. You think so?”

  “No.”

  Bryce sighed. “I guess that would have been too easy an answer. But right now I have another problem: double vision. Let me have a moment.”

  “Quiet,” the dog agreed.

  He stood perfectly still, and his vision cleared. Then he moved, and it blurred again. He discovered that if he closed one eye, things were clear. So it was a nuisance, but did not seem dangerous. He felt fine.

  In fact, he felt great. He looked down at himself, and discovered that his overgrown belly was gone. His arms and legs were lean and muscular. His eyesight was preternaturally clear. It was as though he had imbibed a youth potion.

  He smiled tolerantly. Could it have been in a yellow vial?

  Then what about the pill? Had it caused his double vision? If it was another magical gift, it did not seem to be very convenient.

  He looked at the dog. “What’s your name?”

  “Rachel.”

  “Are you feeling as healthy as I am, Rachel? Especially considering we should be close to dead?”

  Rachel checked herself, surprised again. “Yes.”

  And she had not eaten a pill or drunk from a vial. Something else was in operation here.

  Then someone entered the stone chamber. Someone? It was an animated skeleton!

  Rachel moved protectively close to Bryce, picking up on his reaction.

  “Do you see a skeleton?”

  “No.”

  Oh—maybe this was a horror house, with scary figures being dangled to impress the visitors, not visible from every angle
. Or something.

  Bryce shut his left eye, and the apparition disappeared. But a few seconds later it reappeared, this time in the right eye. What kind of horror house effect could account for that? He wasn’t wearing glasses. He needed them, but was forever losing track of them. Rather, he had needed them, until now.

  Rachel growled. This time she was seeing what he was seeing. “Attack?”

  “No,” he said quickly. “It probably isn’t real.”

  The skeleton saw them and paused. “Who are you?” it asked with evident surprise. Now Bryce realized it had spoken before, but in his confusion he had tuned out the sound. So the thing talked, or at least there was a speaker somewhere to make it seem to do so despite lacking lungs or lips. Such effects were standard in amusement parks.

  “Just an old man suffering a hallucination,” Bryce replied, playing along. “And his friend. Who are you?”

  “I am Picka Bone, proprietor of Caprice Castle. This is supposed to be a secure chamber. That’s why I investigated when I heard noise here.” His words seemed to repeat themselves about ten seconds later. Bryce focused, trying to tune out the extra voice, and succeeded reasonably well.

  “I can’t explain how I came here,” Bryce said candidly. “I was riding a recumbent tricycle, and suddenly we were in an unfamiliar setting.”

  “I’ll ask Dawn,” the skeleton said. “She will know. Please come this way.” He turned and departed the chamber.

  This was weird, but it was easier to continue playing along. Bryce and Rachel followed the skeleton out the door, up the stone steps, and into a rather more ornate section of the castle.

  Soon they were met by an astonishingly beautiful young woman. She had bright red hair, green eyes, and a figure a movie starlet could only dream of. She must be Dawn; indeed, her presence was like the rising of the morning sun.

  Dawn approached Bryce and touched him. “Ah,” she said. “This will require some explaining. Please come this way.”

  Bryce and the skeleton followed her to a pleasant family room. They sat opposite her. Dawn talked.