Luck of the Draw (Xanth) by Piers Anthony Read Free Book Online

who could make stone out of sand. One of her creations must have wound up here. Sand Stone.” She packed it into her bag.
    Rachel abruptly retreated in fear. Bryce checked. It was an old bottle of shampoo. Then he got it. “Flee Shampoo.” He put it in his bag, and Rachel relaxed. Naturally, as a dog, she had been terrified of it.
    Bryce approached a large-trunked tree. It did not seem to be made of wood, and it also seemed to be chewing something. What could it be?
    “Gum Tree,” Mindy called.
    Oh. A tree made of gum that chewed things. What else? He opened his bag, and the tree shrank and went in.
    Then Mindy found a translucent jacket. She tried it on, and it accommodated to the contours of her body. “Cool,” she said. Then she frowned. “Uh-oh. It’s a Water Jacket.” And the water lost its cohesion and soaked her. Bryce politely refrained from looking. But she commanded it into the bag, and she was dry again. She had after all had some experience collecting puns.
    Bryce approached what looked like a huge onion. It had to be a pun. He peeled off a thin layer, and discovered a plaque on its side saying TERMS OF LOANS . That gave him the clue. “It’s a Credit Onion!” It condensed to normal onion size and entered his bag.
    “Ouch!” Mindy exclaimed. “Something bit me!”
    “I hope it’s not poisonous,” Bryce said, approaching her.
    “What gives you the right to have an opinion?” she demanded sharply.
    That gave him the clue. “It’s a Heretic. It makes you question another person’s point of view.”
    They got it in the bag, and Mindy’s bad attitude faded.
    Woofer found a pair of human shoes. Bryce tried them on, cautiously, and was immediately ready to embark on a spiritual journey. “Souls!” he said. “Their souls are heeled!”
    Rachel pointed. There was a mossy stone rolling down a slope. Or rather the slope was moving up, because no matter how much the stone rolled, it did not reach the bottom.
    “That’s an illusion, all right,” Mindy said. “Because a rolling stone gathers no moss, and this one is entirely mossy. But is it a pun?”
    They considered, and concluded that it wasn’t. “So not absolutely everything in Xanth is a pun,” Bryce said.
    “Right. Some is merely crude humor.”
    Now they came to a pumpkin patch. No, they weren’t exactly pumpkins; they had stupid smiley faces with eyes that winked. “Punkins,” Bryce said. But they did not fade, so evidently he did not have the whole of it.
    Then something else entered the patch. It looked like a chicken, but it was translucent. It was a chicken spirit, the ghost of a chicken. It moved through the patch, pecking at punkins, which flinched but weren’t actually damaged because the chicken wasn’t real. It flapped its wings and made a clucking sound.
    Then Bryce caught on. “It’s a poultrygeist! A noisy mischievous chicken spirit.”
    Mindy groaned. She was evidently getting close to her limit for the day.
    At that point he was able to bag both chicken and punkins.
    The path led to an ocean shore. Rachel pointed. There on the beach lay a saw. Bryce picked it up. It seemed ordinary. Where was the pun?
    Then he got an idea. He took the saw to the water and started sawing. Sure enough, it cut through the water as if it were wood, and in due course he was able to lift out a wedge of water, leaving a hole in the sea. “Sea-saw,” he explained, putting it in his bag.
    Mindy and both dogs were looking faintly ill, but Bryce was enjoying this. He seemed after all to have a talent for identifying puns, not a magical one, just a mental one. Maybe this was another aspect of his entry into this weird world.
    Rachel, seeing his determination to continue, pointed to another pun. This was a small house and garden, fenced, with a sign saying KEEP OUT—THIS MEANS YOU.
    “That’s clear enough,” Bryce said. “But what’s the pun?”
    The dog shrugged. She did not know what the pun was, just that there was one there.
    Bryce