Well-Tempered Clavicle Read online

  The others looked around. “Oh!” Dawn said, surprised.

  The castle was definitely there. It ascended into the darkness, the glass of its windows glinting in the lightning flashes. The storm was inhaling, about to blast them with full force.

  Then interior lights came on, illuminating the complete castle. It was magnificent.

  “We had better go in, if it lets us,” Dawn said.

  “It that wise?” Joy’nt asked. “To let the storm drive us in before we know anything about this castle?”

  Dawn paused. “Excellent point.”

  There was a horrendous crack of thunder.

  “But I’m willing to gamble on its goodwill,” Dawn said.

  “But what of Granola?” Skully asked.

  “There’s a large sheltered courtyard I can use,” the giantess said.

  They hurried to the front gate, which was open. In between one and two moments they were under cover, as the rain sluiced down outside. It was a suspiciously close call.

  It occurred to Picka that life-changing could be a euphemism for life-ending, but it did not seem expedient to mention that at the moment.

  They were in a high-vaulted passage. Alcoves lined it, containing paintings and statuary. The paintings were of Xanthly scenes: beaches, forest, fields, and some of the Gap Chasm. The sculptures were of ordinary Xanth creatures: dragons, griffins, fauns, nymphs, nickelpedes.

  “This castle travels,” Joy’nt said, “and collects pictures of what it sees.”

  “As castles go, it’s a competent one,” Dawn agreed.

  There were doors along the way but they were closed and locked, so they continued down the hall. It led to a curling stairway, which took them to a similar hall a flight up. There they found three doors open, providing access to bedrooms. All the other doors on this floor were closed.

  “Bedrooms?” Dawn asked. “We’re looking for Pundora’s Box.”

  “We are evidently guests,” Picka said. “Tonight it wants us to sleep.”

  Dawn explored the first bedroom. There was a king-size bed, properly made with the sheets turned down invitingly. There was an attached bathroom, with a tub full of soapy water. “Oh, that is tempting!” Dawn breathed.

  They checked the second bedroom. Its bed was without sheets or blankets; it was just a big square pad. There was no bathroom. “Good for two skeletons,” Skully remarked.

  “Yes,” Joy’nt agreed, her bones turning pink again.

  “Take it,” Dawn said. “I’ll take the bath.”

  “I’ll explore elsewhere,” Picka said.

  “The bleep you will,” Dawn said. “You’re with me.”

  “I am?”

  “We’ll talk while I have my bath.”

  “Oh.”

  The third bedroom was for the pets, complete with old blankets, sandboxes, water, and a perch.

  Joy’nt and Skully took the pad. The pets were happy with their room. Dawn led Picka into the other bedroom, closing the door behind them, then into the bathroom. She stepped out of her clothing, dumped it into the available laundry chute, and got into the bath. “Just right,” she said, sinking luxuriously into the water. “Caprice Castle knows how to entertain royalty.”

  “Are you sure we can trust it?”

  “I can’t be quite sure, because it’s not a living thing. But if it wanted to trap us or hurt us, why would it hide from us, then come to us when you played such excellent music? It has to have some other agenda.”

  “What would that agenda be?”

  “My guess is that it wants a suitable occupant, like a king or queen. Or someone with an outstanding talent, like you. When we showed it that we had something it might want, it came to us. Now it’s looking us over.”

  “What if it doesn’t like us?”

  “Then it will depart, leaving us behind. So we had better complete our mission, finding Pundora’s Box, before the castle decides we’re not good enough for it.”

  “But you did not let me search at this time.”

  “The castle does not want us to search right now. That’s why its doors are closed—except the ones for sleeping. Tomorrow it will surely give us better access. I’m glad to have the chance to clean up, rest, and sleep.”

  “But I have no need of these things.”

  “You will, Picka, when you invoke your flesh spell.”

  “I’m not going to do that!”

  She reached out of the tub and caught his wrist bone. “Oh, yes you are! Do it now.”

  “But—”

  “Must I humiliate myself? Then here it is: I have a sudden crush on you, Picka. It happened when I listened to you improvise. Your music was just so beautiful, so perfect, it captured my heart. So at this moment I like you—in fact, I love you, and I mean to have you.”

  “This is nonsensical!” he protested. “I’m not your type. That’s why you associate freely with me.”

  “That’s changed. Now I want you, Picka, at least for one hour. Invoke the spell, or I’ll haul you into the tub and soak your bones.”

  “But if I invoke it, I’ll see you in a different way.”

  “A male way,” she agreed. “That’s the idea.”

  “What idea?”

  “I want you to become capable of feeling what I feel. So you will understand.”

  “I don’t think this is something I want to understand.”

  “We princesses are an imperious lot. When Princess Rhythm got a crush on Cyrus Cyborg, he did not take her seriously, because she was only twelve years old. So she invoked a spell that aged her a decade and hauled him into a love spring. Then he understood.”

  “It’s not a matter of age. You are almost twenty-one. It’s that I’m a walking skeleton.”

  “Which is why it is time to invoke the transformation spell,” she said patiently. “Do it.”

  She would not yield. He brought the spell out of his cranium and invoked it, fearing he would regret it.

  Suddenly he was clothed in living flesh. It spread across all his bones, covering his limbs, ribs, skull, and everything. His skull filled with substance, and so did his pelvis. He had meat in places that hadn’t existed before. It threw him off balance, so that only her grasp on him kept him upright.

  “Very good,” she said approvingly. “Now get into the tub with me.”

  “But—”

  She hauled on his wrist, and he tumbled forward, splashing into the water. She caught his stray limbs and got his clumsy body arranged. He struggled to get out, but she held him and kissed him on his now-meaty mouth.

  It was like getting clubbed on the skull. His head seemed to explode into rapture. Nothing existed except that ardent contact of his lips and hers.

  After an eternity-long moment she drew back. “Now behave, or I’ll kiss you again.”

  “But—”

  She kissed him again. This time not only did the new flesh of his head seem to swell, a new organ inside his rib cage started thumping vigorously. What was going on?

  She drew back again. “Now will you stay in place?”

  “But—”

  She caught his now-meaty hand again and put it against her fleshy chest. His new heart muscle beat violently again, seeming to swell in his chest. So did some of the flesh farther down.

  “Had enough?” she asked.

  “No, I—”

  “Then I will give you more.” She wriggled forward, bringing her wet skin up against his. She wrapped her arms around him and held him close, so that her sculptured chest pressed tightly against his while her midsection squeezed his most swollen flesh. She wriggled and did something, relieving the lower pressure, though there was no room there. It was almost as though she had taken his flesh into hers. An impossibility, of course, because her flesh was solid throughout, not spaced between bones the way his body normally was. “Now?”

  “I don’t—”

  “You never learn.” She kissed him on the face, and squeezed him below, rhythmically.

  His entire
being erupted into incredible rapture. He found himself kissing her while something else gloriously surged into her. It continued for several eternal moments, then subsided blissfully.

  “What happened?” he gasped.

  She laughed. “Let’s finish our bath, and I will take you through it again, in slow motion.”

  The bath turned out to be halfway pleasant, as she washed him and rinsed him. He was beginning to get used to being buried in meat.

  Then they got out and dried off, using the big towels the castle provided. There was new clothing laid out, but she demurred. “We have less than an hour, now. We’ll stay bare.”

  She took him to the bed, and they lay on top of it. “I know skeletons do it differently,” she said, “but for the moment you are in my realm. Living folk like to make love.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Like this.” She rolled over and came up against him. She was marvelously soft. She kissed him, and it transported him again. Then, step by step, she took him through the process of making love, explaining it along the way.

  By the time they completed it a second time, he understood the burgeoning emotion he felt. “I love you!”

  “Yes, for now.”

  Then the hour expired, and he reverted to his natural state. “Oh, my,” he said, appalled. How could he have done such fleshy stuff?

  “But for that time, you did understand what I meant when I said I loved you,” she said. “Because you felt it too. Now you are back to normal, and the living feeling is gone. But I remain as I am, and my feeling has not faded. I just wanted you to understand, even if you don’t feel it yourself at the moment.”

  “I understand,” he agreed, fazed. “I think.”

  “So now we can talk sensibly, and decide our future.”

  “Our future!”

  She caught his hand again, making him lie beside her on the bed. “Picka, that can be anything. We may complete my mission and part ways forever, or we may continue our association and possibly even marry.”

  “Marry!”

  She squeezed his finger bones. “Let me make something clear to you, Picka. I am a princess and a Sorceress and a lovely female living human creature in my own right. I am not accustomed to hearing the word ‘no’ from any man. I will marry whom I choose. We need to determine whether I will choose you.”

  “But you’re not my type! You have all that, that—”

  “All that disgusting flesh on my bones,” she agreed. “You are perhaps the only kind of humanoid male who would see it that way. I was not romantically interested in you before we discovered your music. In fact, I wanted to be sure that you did not see me as a desirable creature.”

  “I remember,” he said. “You climbed all over me.”

  “How would you have reacted if I had done that when you had flesh on?”

  He visualized the way she had flashed him with her bra and panties, then wrapped her legs about his head so that his face had been blinded by her lower belly. He had not understood how arousing that would have been for a fleshly man; now he did. “I would have wanted to summon the stork with you.”

  “Yes. And when you had flesh on, you did do that, though I took a potion that prevented the signal from going out. And there’s the irony.”

  “Irony?”

  “I wanted to be sure you had no romantic or sexual interest in me, so that I could trust you not to get all eagerly male. Now I want exactly such interest, and you can’t give it. I never thought of myself as foolish, but I have put myself into a truly foolish situation.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I brought it on myself. Now we have to figure out what to do about it.”

  “I’ll be your friend until you find a handsome living human prince. Then you can forget me.”

  She shook her head. “Unlikely, and not just because there don’t seem to be any suitable princes available at the moment. Picka, I fell for you because of the absolute beauty of your music. You will only get better, musically, and my love will intensify accordingly. I know you for a thoroughly worthy male, surely better than any prince I might encounter. I don’t want to forget you.”

  “But—”

  “But it’s impossible. I know. Unless you should be willing to convert permanently to a fleshly man.”

  “Then I could not play my ribs. I would lose my music.”

  She sighed. “True. But I’m not sure I want to convert to a skeleton, if that were even possible. So we have a problem.”

  Picka pondered. “Dawn, we are friends, and I do like you, and after that hour I do understand your feeling. If you wish to marry me, I will do it. I could invoke the spell once a day.”

  “I don’t want you to marry me out of friendship, Picka. I want you to fall madly in love with me. Your prospects for finding a suitable female skeleton are about as dim as mine for a prince. We might make a couple of convenience. An odd couple, but a couple. Can you consider that?”

  “Yes. But I can’t promise love.”

  “I am going to court you, Picka. If I can make you love me, in your natural state, then we’ll reconsider marriage. Is that fair?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then lie here beside me as I sleep. Be tolerant when I wake and kiss you. If it is possible to arouse love in a skeleton, I mean to do it. Just give me a fair chance.”

  “Of course.” He believed in fair chances, even when the odds were impossible.

  She lay back and closed her eyes, but continued holding his hand possessively. Soon she was breathing evenly in sleep.

  She was a beautiful creature of her kind. She was, as she said, a princess and a Sorceress. She had a crush on him. She intended to win his love along with his passion. But was it possible for him ever to love her back while in his natural form?

  He didn’t know.

  10

  CAPRICE

  In the morning Dawn woke and kissed Picka on the skull. He had not slept, of course, but he had spent the time pondering, wishing he could be what she wanted him to be. She was a good person, a worthy partner. But she was alive.

  “And you are not,” she said, divining his thought though she could not fathom things about the un-alive. “It is a challenge.”

  “I will give you some privacy to get dressed,” he said, remembering that she had preferred it in the past.

  “Nu-uh. You’ll watch everything. Maybe it will impress you.”

  He did not argue, not wanting to make her feel bad about her chances of impressing him in that manner.

  She got up, washed, and dressed, all in his sight. He recognized that she was an extremely sightly creature, one of the prettiest in Xanth. But there was no obscuring the fact that she was simply not his type. All that meat on her bones! Only if he invoked the transformation spell would she impress him, and then only for an hour. It wasn’t worth it.

  “I had hoped there would be more of a lingering effect,” she said.

  “I remember how impressed I was when I had flesh,” he said. “But now that I am myself, I know better.”

  “Let’s go out and see whether this hospitable castle serves breakfast.”

  It did. Dawn and the pets had a nice breakfast, and food was sent out for Granola in the courtyard.

  When they were finished, they blinked, and the dirty dishes and crumbs were gone. It seemed that all chores were magically accomplished.

  “Now it is time for our mission,” Dawn said. “Somewhere in this castle is Pundora’s Box. I thought it would be easy to find, once we got in the castle, but now that I see the size of the premises I’m not so sure.”

  “We can split up and search many areas at once,” Picka suggested.

  “No. We must not forget that we are in a castle whose nature and loyalties we do not properly understand. We should search in pairs, and the pairs should be in constant touch with the others.”

  “This is sensible,” Skully agreed. “Joy’nt and I will pair.”

  “And Picka and me,” Dawn said. “And
the three pets. That leaves Granola to search outside, just in case.”

  They went to work. Now all doors were open. Picka and Dawn searched the higher turrets first, looking in closets, under beds, even behind hanging tapestries. The castle was well-appointed throughout, but there were no boxes.

  “This is such a nice castle,” Dawn murmured. “I wouldn’t mind living here.”

  “It does seem suitable for a princess,” Picka agreed.

  “Yes. But a princess does not rate her own castle until she marries; it’s an unwritten rule.” She glanced sidelong at him. “So all I need to do is tame this castle, find Pundora’s Box, and marry you.”

  “Maybe we’ll find that Box.” Picka was being careful, trying not to annoy her.

  She laughed, with a trace of bitterness. “We’ll start with that, anyway.”

  By noon they had gone over all the upper sections, admiring the well-kept chambers, but finding no Box.

  “I just realized,” Picka said. “There are no puns in this castle.”

  “They probably stay well away, lest they get caught and boxed.”

  “Do puns make decisions?”

  “Some do. Remember Attila the Pun? But more likely they have simply been swept out. Caprice Castle may not like puns. It would hardly be alone in that.”

  They returned to the ground floor.

  “Woof!”

  “Woofer!” Dawn said gladly. “What have you found?”

  “Woof.”

  “A book? We’d better check.”

  They followed the dog to a small chamber where Tweeter and Midrange waited. There on an ornate pedestal was a single book. Dawn picked it up, glancing at the cover. “History of Caprice Castle,” she read. She looked up. “I think this is something we all need to share.”

  They located Skully and Joy’nt, who had been searching the basement levels with no success. Then they went out to the courtyard, where Granola also had not found anything. Picka, Joy’nt, and Skully dropped their bones on the ground, and the three pets lay down beside them, ready to listen.

  Dawn settled on the rim surrounding the fountain and opened the book. She began reading aloud. Her words sailed out across the fountain, and the water there formed into a picture. The group of them watched, amazed.