Luck of the Draw (Xanth) (2 page)

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.

“I am Princess Dawn, wife of Picka Bone here. I must explain that I am also a Sorceress. My talent is to immediately know anything about any living thing I touch. Thus I know about you. Bryce, you are freshly from Mundania, a land almost bereft of magic.” She smiled, and the room seemed to brighten. “There are traces of it, such as your rainbows that can be seen only from one side, and perspective, where distant objects hurry to keep up with close ones without actually moving. But aside from such minor effects it is a remarkably drear world. This is the Land of Xanth, which in contrast has magic everywhere. It is for my taste a much preferable place to live.” She grimaced. “Except, perhaps, for the puns. But we are doing what we can to reduce them.”

“I never was very good at puns,” Bryce admitted. “But my companion, the dog—can you check her too?”

Dawn knelt before the dog and put her hand on a shoulder. “And you are Rachel, a German short-haired pointer highly trained as a Service Dog. But your master died, and they were going to put you down, so you left. Bryce reminded you of your owner, in that he needed help, and you really like to help, so you befriended him. Now you can talk, or at least say the few words you were trained to obey, but you understand many more.”

“Yes,” Rachel said.

“The point is that both of you will find it strange here, especially at first. But you will acclimatize, and you are welcome to remain here in Caprice as our guests until you do.”

“Until we return to Mundania, as you put it,” Bryce agreed.

“Until you are ready to live on your own in Xanth. I don’t believe you can return to your own realm. Not by your own choice. You passed through a one-way portal when you spoke the magic words.”

Bryce was astonished. “You mean those were the magic words the book told me to utter? ‘The magic words’?”

“Yes. You are unusual in that you did not die first.”

“That won’t be long,” he said. “A year or two.”

“No,” she said firmly. “You surely have a good sixty years ahead of you, before you fade out, if you stay clear of dragons and other dangers.”

He shook his head. “I am eighty years old, and in poor health.” He glanced down at his body. “Or I was, until I mysteriously arrived here. I assume I’m dreaming, and my real body remains a wreck.”

“You are mistaken. You have been gifted with four magical things, and Rachel with three, and you have no choice but to work through them as well as you can.”

She seemed very certain, so he didn’t argue further. He ticked them off on his fingers. “A youth potion. Blurred vision. A pass to this magic land. There is another?”

“A youth potion that makes you age twenty-one, physically,” she agreed. “And healthy. The illnesses you had in Mundania are gone. The blurred vision is actually a magic talent, second sight. You can see, hear, and feel ten seconds into the future with your left side, while your right side is normal. This is nice magic; it could be quite useful on occasion, such as if a dragon were about to pounce. It will give you that time to take evasive action, possibly saving your life. Because you are young, not immortal. All you need to do is take a few days to attune, so it no longer confuses you. You are correct about the pass to Xanth.”

“So what is the fourth gift?” he inquired skeptically.

“You have been imprinted with romantic love for my younger cousin, Princess Harmony.”

Bryce laughed. “I am long beyond love, let alone for a young princess. She must be a teen.”

“Sixteen,” Dawn agreed.

“Younger than my youngest granddaughter. Believe me, I know better than to get romantic about a child.”

Dawn glanced at the skeleton. “Picka, dear, please bring a mirror.”

A mirror?

The skeleton got up, walked to a wall, and took down a hanging mirror. He brought it to Bryce. He looked in it, and was amazed.

It did not reflect his face. Instead it showed a pretty girl with brown hair and eyes, as well as a matching brown dress. “Well, hello Harmony,” he breathed.

She looked startled. “Who are you?”

She had heard him! What magic was this?

“It is a magic mirror, of course,” Dawn said. She raised her voice. “Harmony, this is Bryce from Mundania. He will be courting you.”

“He will be what?” Harmony asked, astonished and not entirely pleased.

“I suspect it is a Demon wager to select your ideal man,” Dawn said. “You being the only remaining unattached princess of your generation. It is the most feasible way to account for the rather special effects I have noted associated with Bryce Mundane here. There may be other suitors. We must meet in a few days to consider this.”

“I’m not courting any teen girl!” Bryce protested.

“Well, nobody asked you to,” Harmony retorted. “I’m not ready for courting or marriage yet, and certainly not to any Mundane.”

“But he loves you,” Dawn said.

“I do not!” Bryce snapped. Then paused, frozen in place.

Because he did love her. Utterly, hopelessly, eternally. He didn’t know her, but he was overwhelmed with romantic passion for her.

Dawn had made her point. That was some imprinting.

Picka removed the mirror and the contact was broken. But Bryce was left with his sudden love.

“And you, Rachel, seem to have picked up some of the magic because you were with Bryce when he invoked it. You are now young and healthy, you can speak, and you have a more subtle magic talent of finding useful things. You have been imprinted with love for a dog you have not yet met, though your loyalty to Bryce might be considered similar.”

Bryce exchanged a glance with Rachel. Both of them were confused but impressed.

“What’s this about a Demon bet?” Picka asked.

“It is the way they operate,” Dawn explained. “They like to make wagers on random things, such as how a given mortal will react to a particular stimulus. Such as this.”

“So Bryce may have been summoned from Mundania to compete for the hand of Princess Harmony, who is the only one of that naughty trio who remains unspoken for.”

“Exactly. Princesses are not expected to remain on the market long.”

“That’s right,” Picka agreed. “Melody will marry Anomy in due course, and Rhythm will marry Cyrus Cyborg. That was quite a scandal when they got together. She was only twelve.”

“But we have to give the little twerps some credit,” Dawn said. “They did save Xanth from Ragna Roc.”

“So Harmony is left,” Picka concluded. “A suitable focus for a Demon contest.”

Bryce had been tuning out of their dialogue, caught up in the marvel of his sudden love, but this brought him back. “What is a Demon?” Because, oddly, he heard the capital.

“Demons are immensely powerful spirits associated with assorted galaxies, planets, moons, or substances,” Dawn said. “For example, the whole of the magic land of Xanth derives from the trace leakage of the magic of the Demon Xanth who snoozes deep below the surface. The leakage from the Demon Earth is experienced on that world as gravity. Demons seldom pay attention to the endeavors of mortals, but they do vie for status by making wagers that sometimes involve the unpredictable actions or reactions of mortals. You appear to have become one of those. Your entry to Xanth was facilitated, and you were given certain things you will need, such as youth and a magic talent, plus the imperative of courting Harmony. Your entry at this place was probably to be sure you received some necessary background information promptly, so you would not get eaten by a dragon before you got started. So your presence here is no coincidence. If that is the case, the Demon who selected you will not play any further part in your life. He or She will merely watch, and win or lose based on your performance.”