Luck of the Draw (Xanth) Read online

  He stroked and she dog-paddled. They were making fair progress. Then a horrendous head lifted from the water between them and the shore. “A sea monster!” Bryce exclaimed, appalled. “How can we avoid it?”

  “Arf!” Rachel pointed to the side. There was a tiny island with one tree and a yard of beach. That would have to do.

  The sea monster oriented on them and swam swiftly toward them. But the islet was close by, and they managed to reach it just before the huge jaws snapped. They sprawled on the beach.

  The monster could readily have picked them off the sand, but it simply looked at them, shook its head, and submerged. Why had it given up the chase?

  “Why not us got?” he asked the dog, turning to her. And paused, for two reasons.

  First, it had not been his preferred phrasing. He had spoken in a guttural growl, and he had made a stupid rhyme. Neither was his style.

  Second, the dog was not with him. Instead there was a naked woman with short black hair and heavy nails.

  “You’re an ogre!” she said, drawing back as far as the limited beach allowed.

  He looked at his own body. He was hairy and muscular throughout. He still had his pen and pad, so he quickly sketched a hand mirror and invoked it. Yes, he was an ogre, huge and ugly. He had been somehow transformed.

  Then, realizing what else must have happened, he handed the mirror to the woman. She took it and looked at herself. “Oh, ugh!” she cried, dismayed. “I’m human!”

  “So true, for you,” he agreed. “Some spell, Rachel.”

  They discussed it, and concluded that this was an enchanted islet. Whoever landed on it was transformed into something else: a dog to a girl, a man to an ogre. That was why the sea monster had let them go; if it touched the isle, it would have changed into something else, and it didn’t care to risk it. That had saved them—but at what price?

  “Maybe it’s temporary,” Rachel said. Her vocabulary had improved along with her form. “Maybe when we leave, we’ll revert.”

  “Maybe,” he agreed. “Let’s see.” He was still rhyming, which it seemed was what ogres did.

  “I will try.” She slid into the water.

  Two things happened. First, she reverted to canine form. Second, the sea monster’s head lifted from the water not far away. It was lurking for them the moment they left the safety of the atoll.

  “Get back! No slack!” he said.

  She scrambled back to the beach, and became the woman, walking on all fours. Embarrassed not so much by her nudity as by her form, she lay on the sand, doglike. “We’re stuck in these awful shapes.”

  “No be sad, you not bad,” he reassured her. Indeed, she was attractive.

  “But I’ve lost my fur! I look like a plucked chicken.”

  He decided not to argue the case. “Maybe night, we take flight.”

  “I have a better idea. You draw a gun to shoot that sea monster in the snoot.”

  Draw a gun. Would it work? Everything else had. But he was not eager to kill a sea creature who was only trying to get a decent meal. He preferred to escape without harming it. Still, maybe that was feasible, if he used his imagination appropriately. “Me think, make stink.”

  “Not on this little isle, please,” Rachel said, wrinkling her nose.

  “Relax her; for monster,” he said, frustrated by the limitations of ogre vocabulary. He sketched a picture of a stink bomb, but did not invoke it.

  “Oh. Very well.”

  “Who are you?” a new voice demanded.

  Bryce looked around, trying to spy the source. Rachel pointed, but her pert human nose was not very effective for that. “There,” she said, directing him with her gaze.

  It was a face amidst the ripples of the water just offshore, surrounded by floating hair. It seemed to be another girl.

  It seemed simplest to answer. “Bryce me, can see,” he said, thumping his big hollow chest. “Rachel she, canine be.”

  The girl rose out of the water, catching on to a hanging branch of the tree. Her upper section was human, her lower section a fish or dolphin tail. As she touched the edge of the beach, her tail split into legs. She was lovely as only a nymph could be. “Well, I’m Sela Sea Nymph, and you’re on my isle. Go away.”

  “Unsafe we, swim in sea.”

  “We were threatened by a sea monster,” Rachel said, translating his limited explanation. “We had to escape it. We can’t leave until the monster does.”

  “Oh, that’s Semi Sea Monster,” she said dismissively. “He forages around here. I don’t care about him. I just want you off my isle so I can relax.”

  That of course was not feasible at the moment. “We team, not what seem.”

  “We were transformed in shape when we boarded the isle,” Rachel clarified.

  “Well of course you were,” Sela said. “I enchanted it so no intruders would bother me. You’ll revert when you depart. Now get the bleep off. The only ogre I want to see is Eli.”

  “You—who?”

  “Don’t go calling your dim-witted friends! Just get off my isle.”

  “He meant who is Eli?” Rachel said.

  “He’s an ogre who lives on the moon,” Sela explained impatiently. “He makes Moon-stir cheese by stirring honey and green cheese pools. He brings me some when he visits. It’s delicious.”

  “Moon-stir cheese,” Rachel repeated, groaning. Now that she had nymphly form, she could appreciate the true awfulness of the puns.

  “I’m losing my limited patience,” Sela said. “Now go, you ludicrous excuses for creatures.”

  This was not going well. “Me man. No can. She dog. No slog.”

  Rachel had to translate again. “In his natural state Bryce is a human man. In mine I am a dog. Neither of us dares enter the water while the sea monster lurks.”

  Sela considered. “It might be fun to have a pet dog and a pet man. A dog could bark when anyone came, and be petted.” She eyed Bryce. “A man could tell stories, and be fondled.”

  Bryce did not like the way this was developing. “We no. Must go.”

  “When I say so,” Sela said, as determined in her change of mind as she had been originally. “You can’t oppose my will on my isle. Kiss me.”

  Why did the girls in this land always have to kiss? Yet he found himself responding, compelled by her magic. She did have power here. Somehow he knew that if he kissed her, he would be subject to her will indefinitely, regardless of who else he loved.

  He got an inspiration. “Must refrain. We Mundane.”

  “Mundane!” she exclaimed. “Disgusting! Get off my isle now!” And his feet started walking toward the sea.

  Hastily he erased the stink bomb and sketched a toy canoe with a paddle. As his feet touched the water he invoked it, and it splashed down before him, expanding to full size. He climbed in as he reverted to his natural form. Rachel waded into the water, reverted, and jumped in too.

  He stroked vigorously with the paddle. They were on their way.

  Then the sea monster reappeared in his left-eye sight. He had forgotten it, but it hadn’t forgotten them. Now what were they to do? If he drew another picture and activated it, the canoe would vanish.

  What could he do? “Sorry, Rachel. We’re about to be dunked.” He quickly sketched the stink bomb.

  The monster appeared to his right eye. Bryce tried to dissuade it. “Go away, Semi! We don’t taste good.”

  The huge head tilted back and laughed. Then it oriented and plunged down toward them.

  “Invoke!”

  The canoe ceased to exist. They dropped into the water. But Bryce caught the little bottle that replaced it. He braced himself in the water as well as he could, and hurled it upward into the gaping maw.

  It was a clean shot. It flew right inside and fragmented against a rear tooth. Purple vapor puffed outward.

  The monster choked. It tried to spit out the bomb, but it was too late. The stink was already filling its mouth. As the creature inhaled, the vapor entered its lungs.
r />   The monster coughed. Vapor shot out of it like steam from the Gap Dragon, spreading the putrid stench. The head plunged under the water, but the miasma bubbled up from it, smirching the very sea. Indignant waves rose up, trying to wash it out. The monster forged away, trying to escape it, but of course it carried the noxious smell with it.

  Bryce treaded water while he re-sketched the canoe and paddle. Fortunately the pad didn’t seem to be affected by water. “Invoke!”

  The canoe reappeared, and they scrambled back in, wet but happy. The stench color had faded, since the bomb no longer existed. “Let’s hope the monster doesn’t catch on soon,” he said.

  “If returns, pineapple,” Rachel said. She was back to her more limited vocabulary.

  An explosive pineapple certainly would deal with the monster. But Bryce still hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He really wasn’t much for violence. He paddled desperately for land.

  They made it. They reached the end of the chasm safely and stepped out on land. They were dripping wet, but satisfied. They had escaped assorted dangers; that was what counted.

  Bryce sketched a recumbent trike. He got on it and started pedaling. Rachel ran along beside him. Now it was just a matter of time before they rejoined the others.

  “I hope we don’t have any more adventures like that,” he told her. “We survived, but we were lucky.”

  Then Rachel slowed, stopped, and pointed.

  Bryce halted and got off the trike. “What is it? A pun?” He got his bag ready.

  “No,” she said. “Danger.” She continued to point.

  He looked, but saw nothing. She seemed to be pointing at empty space. He started to pass his hand through the area to see if there could be something invisible there.

  She made a small growl. He jerked back his hand. “Dangerous to touch?”

  “Maybe.” She continued to point.

  He bent to look more closely. Now he saw it: a sort of twisted worm hanging in the air about a foot above the ground. He passed his hand over it to find the supporting thread, but there was none.

  “Hmm.” He passed his hand under the worm to find some unseen support. There was none. Finally he tried around the sides. Nothing. The thing was unsupported. It seemed to be magically fastened in place.

  “This is curious,” he said. “But how is it dangerous?”

  ZZAPP!

  Startled, he looked. The worm was gone. What had happened to it?

  Rachel took a few steps forward and pointed again.

  Bryce checked. There was a rounded rock with a worm-sized hole in it. Had that hole been there before? It smelled faintly scorched as though it had been recently drilled.

  Rachel moved forward again, and pointed. Bryce looked. There was the worm, suspended in the air, as before. Could it really be the same one?

  He went back to the stone and sighted through the hole. There was the worm, right in the line of sight. It could have passed through the hole. But who or what had drilled the hole?

  ZZAPP!

  He checked. The worm was gone again. Now, in the same line of sight, was a small tree. With a neat hole through its trunk. Beyond it, in midair, was the worm.

  “I am getting a surprising suspicion,” Bryce said. “Maybe I can verify it.”

  He went ahead of the worm and quickly sketched a spade. He activated it and the trike faded. He used the spade to dig several spadefuls of dirt, making a mound in front of the worm.

  ZZAPP!

  And there was a hole in the mound, with the worm hanging beyond it.

  “That worm is making those holes,” Bryce concluded. “It must be zzapping like a bullet and drilling them itself. I can see how this would be dangerous to anyone standing in its way. But one little worm can’t do much damage if there’s nothing much in its way.”

  ZZAPP!

  “Uh-oh,” Bryce said. Because that sound was behind him, not in the same line as the one he had been investigating. “There’s more than one of them. Where there are two, there could be more. That could indeed be dangerous.”

  “Yes,” Rachel said.

  “We’d better check with Princess Dawn. She can touch it and know everything about it.” But they didn’t know exactly where the princess was. It might take some hours to locate her, and this zzapping menace needed to be checked out sooner.

  Bryce pondered briefly. “I think we need to get faster advice, just in case. Let me see if I can contact Princess Harmony at Castle Roogna. She should either know, or be able to find out.”

  Rachel looked at him questioningly. “How?”

  “I’ll try for a magic mirror.” He sketched the mirror. “Invoke.” It took form, and the spade faded out.

  Bryce held the mirror before him. “Can you give me Castle Roogna?” he asked it. “Princess Harmony?” He was not at all sure whether the magic pen could perform magic this potent, by making another magic object. Or how a magic mirror was actually used. He assumed it was like a verbally controlled cell phone.

  A face appeared in the mirror. It was an older woman. “Harmony is not in at the moment. Who wants her?”

  “Um, I am Bryce from Mundania. One of her suitors. We met yesterday. I have discovered something odd and need advice about how to handle it.”

  “The Mundanian suitor!” the woman said. “Yes, I know who you are. I am Harmony’s mother, King Ivy.”

  Oops! He had gotten a lot more than he had bargained on. “I apologize, Your Majesty. I didn’t mean to bother you. It’s not that important.”

  “Let me decide that. What have you discovered?”

  “It’s a sort of little worm that hangs in the air, that suddenly goes ZZAPP! And drills through anything in its path. There’s more than one of them, I don’t know how many. I don’t understand it, so I thought I’d better ask someone. I’m alone in the Gap Chasm, with Rachel Dog, collecting puns, and—”

  “That’s a wiggle,” she said, alarmed.

  “A what?”

  “When the wiggles swarm, nothing in their path is safe. Get yourself and your party out of there immediately. Stanley Steamer too.”

  “But ma’am, we’re not with them. And the walls of the chasm are sheer. We can’t get out quickly.”

  “Oh, bleep, that’s right. Run ahead of the wiggles; they don’t move rapidly overall. That will keep you safe for a little while. I’ll round up a roc.” She paused. “Do you know what a roc is?”

  “A rock? Yes, there are stones all around here.”

  “A big bird. When you see it coming, signal it. It will carry you to safety. Now get off the line; I have things to do in a hurry.”

  “Yes ma’am,” he said. “Revoke.” The mirror faded.

  He turned to Rachel. “It seems we have to race ahead, and then a big bird will pick us up.” At this point he wasn’t sure what to disbelieve.

  He sketched the trike, activated it, and got on. They started moving. He hoped they were leaving the wiggles behind.

  A shadow passed over them. Bryce looked up. There was a monstrous bird, the biggest, hugest one he had ever imagined, let alone seen. “The roc!” he cried.

  He halted the trike, got off, and waved his arms wildly. “Down here!” he called.

  The bird looped around and came in for a landing. It carried a tiny basket in its talons. But when they ran up to it, the basket turned out to be the size of a small house. It was the sheer magnitude of the bird that made it look small.

  They piled in, closed the basket door behind them, and sat on the wickerwork floor. They could see through the crevices below and around them. The roc ran along the ground to get up speed, spread its wings, flapped for power, and took off at a sharp angle. The ground retreated at an alarming rate as Bryce and Rachel scrambled to maintain their equilibrium.

  “Thanks for the lift,” Bryce called.

  “Squawk!” the bird replied.

  Bryce thought of something. Could he use the magic pen to sketch a translator? He tried, making it a small unit like a cell phone. Then he
punched the buttons for HUMAN and ROC.

  There was the translation: “You are welcome. I am Roxanne Roc, chore officer of the day.”

  Well, now. “I am Bryce Mundane, a suitor for the hand of Princess Harmony, and my companion is Rachel Dog. We are pleased to meet you.” He pushed the SEND button, and a loud squawk blasted out of the little speaker.

  “Squawk!” Roxanne replied. Which translated to “So that’s why King Ivy was so urgent to save you from the wiggles! I will rescue Princess Dawn and Picka Bone next.”

  She did, landing near them, and they scrambled into the basket along with Woofer and Tweeter. Then she flew to Caprice Castle, where it turned out Skully, Joy’nt, and Mindy had made it on their own, having somehow gotten news.

  Caprice moved to a new location, while Dawn explained about the wiggles to the others. “They are a branch of the voles, and normally live well underground in the deep rock. When they spawn the little ones zap out in all directions seeking a new base. In the old days we thought they had to be destroyed, which could be done only by catching them when stationary and chewing them up—they are reputed to taste awful—or crushing them between two stones, or burning or drowning them. Now we know that is unnecessary; leave them alone, they either get where they’re going and stop zapping, or exhaust their energy and die. We just need to be out of their way for the few hours they are zapping. King Ivy warned Stanley Steamer, of course, and he fled the Gap Chasm for the day. Tomorrow things will revert to normal.”

  “That’s a relief,” Picka said. “We skeletons are practically immune to most threats, having no soft living flesh, but wiggles could riddle our bones and make us most uncomfortable.”

  “How did we receive timely warning about the swarm?” Joy’nt asked.

  “It was Bryce and Rachel who did it,” Dawn said. “They spotted the first wiggles zapping, and mirrored King Ivy, who of course knew what to do. That provided the extra hour’s leeway we needed to get everyone clear. Bryce saved us all, by that call.”

  “Well, thank you, Bryce,” Skully said. “We wondered where you went so suddenly. Now we know you had more important business.”

  “It wasn’t really like that,” Bryce said, embarrassed.