Well-Tempered Clavicle Read online

  “We do,” Picka said. “But I think it has to be unanimous.” Still, he wondered why Dawn had told Aaron to stop SOGA. His hands were likely to burn her.

  “Please!” SOGA repeated, struggling again. Aaron resisted, and his hands heated. In fact, they became burning hot. They could see smoke rising from them.

  Suddenly SOGA’s fur caught fire. It puffed into a ball of flame and vanished in a noxious cloud. Worse, her head seemed to fall off.

  “Oh, my clothing!” SOGA exclaimed. “I’m naked!”

  Indeed she was. Her body, now revealed, was nymphlike, and her face under what was now revealed as a concealing helmet was elfin. She was an outstandingly pretty girl, except for her awful arms.

  Aaron looked at her bareness, and freaked out. He froze in place. SOGA drew back, freeing herself. “I’m so embarrassed!” she said.

  “I think we can handle this,” Dawn said, setting down the cat. “Take my dress.” She pulled it off and gave it to SOGA. The sight of her bra and panties didn’t affect Aaron, because he was already freaked out.

  “But why?” SOGA asked.

  “Because you don’t want to freak him out again,” Dawn explained. “Put on the dress, snap your fingers, and kiss him. Meanwhile I’ll go find another dress.” She walked away.

  Picka realized that Dawn was definitely up to something.

  Evidently bemused, SOGA put on the dress, which fit her reasonably well because Dawn’s figure was nymphlike. Then she snapped her fingers.

  Aaron snapped out of his freak. “What happened?” he asked.

  SOGA kissed him.

  Little hearts flew out. In a moment Aaron drew back. “Let’s find somewhere private.”

  “But my arms,” she protested.

  “You have arms?”

  “Horrendous ones.”

  He yanked his eyes away from her face and clothed body. “Did I burn them?”

  “No. They’re too tough to burn. After all, they can tunnel through the ground. But they aren’t pretty.”

  “You have other qualities.”

  “Use the shelter,” Aliena said, evidently regretting her prior attitude. “We’ll manage.”

  They went into the shelter.

  “Who would have thought it,” Tom said. “She does have scary arms, but the rest of her is something else.”

  “And it seems that all any man cares about is that something else,” Aliena said wryly.

  Dawn returned, wearing a newly harvested dress. “You knew that would happen!” Joy’nt said.

  “Middy knew,” Dawn said. “I merely followed his advice and let them discover each other. He simply needed to see more than her arms.”

  “He did,” Aliena said. “I’m sorry I was so prejudiced. She seems like a nice girl.”

  “She is,” Dawn agreed. “And right for Aaron, because his hot hands can’t hurt her tough arms when he gets excited.” She allowed half a smile to escape. “And he’s very excited now.”

  After a brief but reasonable while, Aaron and SOGA emerged from the shelter. “We’re in love,” he said.

  “Of course,” Dawn agreed, as if that were only natural. Picka realized that the urgencies of living flesh were such that it might indeed be natural. The two knew almost nothing about each other except for the contact of their bodies, but it seemed that sufficed.

  They took different sections of the shelter, with the new couple in one corner and the skeletons patrolling outside. The frequent sounds of kissing didn’t seem to bother the three other females or the pets.

  * * *

  In the morning the people went their various ways. Picka, Joy’nt, and Dawn mounted their bicycles, following Woofer, and Tweeter and Midrange rode on or in baskets.

  By noon they reached the great Gap Chasm. Picka and Joy’nt had seen it before, but it remained impressive. It was a huge crack in the ground, so deep that a few small clouds were floating in it below the normal ground level. Deep within it, they knew, ran the dreaded Gap Dragon, Stanley Steamer. Except that he wasn’t dread to Dawn or the skeletons, who knew him from way back.

  Woofer turned, heading east. There was no enchanted path there. They would have to tackle the rest of their trip by foot.

  They put the bicycles by the edge of the chasm, for future use, and oriented on the unenchanted wilderness. The easy part of their travel was over.

  Somewhere, not far away, was Attila the Pun.

  5

  ATTILA

  They plowed into the wilderness south of the Gap Chasm, following Woofer, who was sniffing more avidly. That suggested that they were getting close.

  Suddenly in the thicket they came to a sign: BEWARE THE BANKS. Woofer paused there, uncertain.

  “What is it, Woofer?” Dawn asked, touching his back. Then she answered herself. “We are about to enter a region stiflingly thick with puns. They are so dense they are obscuring the smell of Attila. Woofer has lost the scent for the moment. We’ll just have to forge through and hope he can pick up the scent on the other side.”

  They forged through. First they came to a bank of red sand that blocked their way. When Picka stepped in it, it stuck to his foot, making it icky red. He poked a bone finger into it and inspected it. “That’s not sand,” he said. “It’s partly clotted blood!”

  “Do you wish to make a deposit or a withdrawal?” the blood inquired.

  “Neither,” Picka said. “I have no blood, and want none.”

  “Then I have no interest for you.”

  “Don’t you mean in me?” But the blood was silent.

  “A blood bank,” Dawn said. “It deals in blood. That’s what the sign meant. We’ll have to go around it.”

  They tried, but soon came to a mass of fog so thick they couldn’t see through it at all. “A fog bank,” Joy’nt said.

  “We will pay the highest rate of interest,” the fog said, blowing a waft of mist at them. “Store all your fog here.”

  They turned aside again, and came to a river. “Do you wish to deposit your water?” it asked.

  “I think not,” Dawn said, coloring slightly for some reason.

  “A river bank,” Picka said. “But why should we beware of this?” He dipped his bloodstained foot so he could wash it off.

  A fish swam close. “Stop that!” it shouted in a very low voice. “You’re polluting the water, and you aren’t even a client!”

  A talking fish? “Who or what are you?” Picka asked.

  “I’m a bass, you numbskull. I have the very lowest voice of all fish, and those who eat me, cursed be their kind, develop similarly low voices. Now get your filthy foot out!” It lurched forward, snapping at a toe bone.

  Picka couldn’t pull his foot out fast enough, so he flung down his hand to push the deep-voiced fish away. His fingers struck two scales, and major and minor notes sounded.

  “Musical scales,” Dawn said, laughing as the bass swam indignantly away. “The sign was right: there are puns here.”

  “So it seems,” Picka agreed. It also seemed he wasn’t alone in having a musical body. He tried again to rinse his foot, but immediately two more fish attacked. One was long and fat, the other small and thin. Both made nasty bites that would have hurt, had his toes been flesh. “What are you?” he asked them warily.

  “We are gar, bonebrain,” the larger one said. “I am Ci-Gar, and this is my girlfriend Ci-Garette. We’ll smoke you out.” And smoke did seem to issue from them as they charged up for more nips.

  Picka hastily pulled out his foot, which now had been washed clean. But when he put it down on the sand, it touched a rounded branch lying there. His thoughts started drifting, and he forgot what he was doing.

  “Picka!” Dawn said, pulling on his arm. “Snap to!”

  “What?”

  “You touched a piece of drift wood, and your thoughts drifted.”

  “Oh.” He moved away from the wood.

  “Maybe we should take a break and reorganize,” Joy’nt suggested. “So we don’t blunder too much.
”

  “Good idea,” Dawn agreed. “Let’s rest in that shed, and forage for lunch.” She gestured to a shed they saw farther along on the river bank.

  The pets were glad to agree. They went to the shed, which turned out to be filled with an odd collection of objects. There were fine coral combs, glossy mirrors, and an assortment of jewelry. “Who left these here?” Joy’nt asked, lifting a pretty earring.

  “Stop molesting our things!” a voice called. There in the water was an angry mermaid.

  Joy’nt dropped the earring. “I didn’t realize these belonged to anyone.”

  “Well, they do,” the mermaid said. “That’s our water shed, where we store our things because it’s hard to carry them with us. We don’t have pockets.”

  “I’m sorry,” Joy’nt said. “We skeletons don’t have pockets either, and we don’t use jewelry. I was just curious. Who are you?”

  “I am Khari Saia,” the mermaid said.

  “I am Joy’nt Bone, and these are my brother Picka, and friend Dawn. Also three pets. We thought we’d pause here so the living folk could eat.”

  “That’s all right, then,” Khari said. They shook hands. “There are snacks a little further along the bank.”

  “Thank you. We’ll go there.”

  The mermaid disappeared in the water, satisfied. They walked along the bank to the place she had indicated. It did look like a kind of picnic area.

  Pea plants curled around a natural trellis, with many pods. Picka accidentally stepped on one. “Moo!” it protested, and squirted him on the skull.

  “That’s a cow pea,” Dawn said. “Full of milk.” She picked a pod and held it down for Midrange, who found it tasty.

  Next to it was a rocky bar with assorted plants on it. “A salad bar,” Dawn said. “But I think I’ll pass it up.”

  “Why?” Joy’nt asked. “Isn’t it edible?”

  “In a manner. This is a bar where vegetables get drunk. I’m afraid it would do the same for me.”

  Near to it was a tea plant, with several little cups of tea. But Dawn passed this up too. “A person drinks this to deal with an infinite number of puns. But I don’t want my pun sense dulled, because I’m pretty sure there are so many puns here because we’re getting closer to Attila. He would naturally seek the thickest thicket of puns, so he could destroy them.”

  “That makes sense,” Picka agreed. It did seem to be an unusually thick infestation.

  “Here’s a pie plant,” Joy’nt said. “With several nice pies. That should feed you living folk.”

  “Maybe,” Dawn said.

  Woofer went up to snag a long-hanging pie in his mouth. But it avoided him, and his teeth snapped on nothing. He tried again, and missed again.

  “That’s what I thought,” Dawn said. “This is an occu-pie. You can harvest it only if occupied with something else.”

  “Then how can you eat it?”

  “I will focus on something else. Look, there’s a set of crack-hers.”

  “Crackers?” Joy’nt asked.

  “Crack-hers,” Dawn said, picking up the metallic device. “You use it to crack open wall-nuts and similar.” She applied the device to a nearby wall in the shape of a nut, and in half a moment had crunched off a section. There was a corrugated nut in it. “A man would have to use crack-his to manage it.”

  “Still more puns,” Picka said.

  “And here is our pie,” Dawn said triumphantly. “I nabbed it while occupied with the wall. Have a good meal, pets. There’s enough there for all three of you.” She set it down on the ground.

  The three pets eagerly dived in, sharing. Meanwhile Dawn harvested more wall sections, and then another pie. She also caught a bug that turned out to be a pop fly, made of soda. She had evidently had experience with this sort of thing before.

  After eating, the living folk were ready to move on. Woofer still found the sniffing slow, because of the interference of the massed puns, but slowly advanced to the east. He stepped on some O-shaped mats. Immediately they broke into argumentative speech. “Our way is the only way to pursue peace!” one mat proclaimed.

  “No, our way is the only way,” another said.

  “What are they?” Picka asked Dawn.

  “I can’t tell; they aren’t alive.”

  Tweeter, flying overhead, tweeted. “You don’t say!” Dawn said, laughing. “Those are diplo-mats? O-shaped mats that constantly argue their cases?”

  It seemed that Tweeter had encountered such mats before.

  They came to a small grove of palm trees. The palms had long fingers. In their midst was a handsome prince.

  “Well, now,” Dawn said, inhaling. Picka wasn’t sure why she did that when she met a man, but it did seem to get his attention. “Hello, Prince.”

  “Hello, damsel,” the prince responded.

  “We are in search of a person somewhere in this vicinity,” Dawn said. “Would you like to travel with us for a while?”

  “I would,” the prince said. “But I can’t. I am the Finger Prince, governing this palm grove, and I may not depart it.”

  “Finger Prince?” Dawn asked. Then something overtook her, and she had to stifle a laugh. “Fingerprints!”

  It was yet another pun. The prince had no reality apart from it.

  “There is something amusing?” the prince inquired, frowning. Obviously he didn’t get it.

  “Not at all,” Dawn said with a remarkably straight face. “But we must be moving on.” Because though she was looking for a prince, this one was clearly not suitable.

  They moved on. Picka hoped they would find Attila soon, because all these puns were becoming wearing.

  Picka found a horn lying on the ground. At first he feared it was a stink horn, but its configuration was different. Was it meant to be blown?

  He showed it to Dawn, who examined it carefully. “This is no longer alive,” she said, “so I can’t be sure. But I think it’s a matter horn. You can blow it only for things that really matter. It must have come from the home of all such horns, Mound Matterhorn.”

  “Can you blow it?”

  “I can try.” Dawn put it to her lips and blew, but no sound came out. “It seems not. We’re searching out puns, and they really don’t matter.” She set the horn down.

  The thicket became thicker. Thickets liked to do that, always striving to become thickest. Small branches caught in Dawn’s hair, yanking it into disarray. It was getting in her face, so she paused to put it straight. But somehow it just got messier. “I don’t understand,” Dawn fussed. “I never had such trouble with my hair before.”

  “Let me try,” Joy’nt said.

  “You know how to do hair?”

  “I think so. Remember, I practiced on yours when we were children.”

  “That’s right! I had forgotten. You had the touch. Do it now.”

  Joy’nt tried. But Dawn’s sun-bright hair remained tangled.

  Midrange meowed. “You saw this problem coming?” Dawn said. “But did you see how to fix it?”

  Midrange walked a short distance to the side, and meowed again. “Work on it there instead of here?” Dawn asked. “How will that help?”

  But they moved there, and Joy’nt tried again. This time she did the job perfectly, and Dawn’s hair was neat again.

  “Now this interests me,” Dawn said. “Why did moving fix the problem?”

  It took a while, but they unraveled the mystery. It seemed that they had been in a Hair-don’t region. When they moved to a Hair-do region, then it worked. It was another pun.

  Woofer woofed. “You found him!” Dawn exclaimed gladly.

  So he had. There was a warrior man, clad in archaic garments, with a curved sword. Attila the Pun.

  “He looks dangerous,” Picka whispered.

  “Not to me,” Dawn said. She tightened her clothing and took a deep breath. She marched toward the man.

  Attila said something unintelligible, lifted his sword, and charged.

  “He’s not fri
endly!” Dawn said, picking up on the obvious.

  Picka jumped in front of her, grabbing for the sword. It would have cut flesh, but not his bone. It would have hacked him apart if it had struck with full force, but he had hold of it, and it was nullified.

  “Death to all puns!” Attila cried, struggling to yank his sword free.

  “I am not a pun,” Picka said. “I am a walking skeleton. A night mare spook.”

  Attila paused. “So you are. What are you doing here?”

  “We are here to recruit you to our cause,” Picka said. “We need your help.”

  “I’m not interested. My mission is to destroy all puns, not to help with the causes of other people.”

  “We need to recover Pundora’s Box,” Dawn called.

  Attila paused. “That relates,” he agreed. “I have no love for that Box myself. I was once imprisoned in it.”

  “You were in it?” Dawn asked, surprised.

  “It’s a long story. Suffice to say that my girlfriend freed me. I love her, and hate that Box. But no one knows where it is.”

  “It is in Caprice Castle,” Dawn said.

  “I knew that. But that castle travels randomly.”

  “I am Princess Dawn. My mission is to capture and tame that castle, so we can recover the Box.”

  Attila considered. “No, I can’t help you.”

  “But we need you to locate Pundora’s Box,” Dawn said, “so I can complete my mission.”

  “It’s not her Box. Anyway, I can’t take time off from my mission,” Attila said. “This is the thickest thicket of puns in Xanth, and I must act swiftly to destroy them all.” He advanced on a nearby pastree and viciously sliced it in half. Pastries flew out, dissolving into paste, which puffed into acrid smoke.

  It seemed that his sword was what did it, magically nullifying any puns it cut.

  Dawn, watching him, backed into a razor tree. Suddenly she was lifted up a good foot. It was a raise-her pun.

  Attila whirled and slashed the tree, and the blades dissolved into vapor and dissipated.

  “Oh!” Dawn said, stumbling into a windowpane. “Ouch!” Because it was actually a window pain.

  Attila swung his sword, and the pain shattered into mist. Then he whirled and leaped, catching a pie that was floating overhead: pie in the sky. Then he stared ahead. “I see an enemy!” he cried, and charged at a spiny creature in nearby water: a sea anemone. Then he spied a legalistic document running along a branch with little feet, with the word DAVID on it. “I am the official aphid,” it proclaimed. “I make things legal.” Attila sliced it in half, and it dissipated. “An affidavit,” he said, disgusted.