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

walked along the fence, which he discovered was barbed wire. Embedded in it at intervals were fruits, such as red cherries and green pineapples. He reached for a cherry.
    “No!” Rachel exclaimed. “Bad!”
    “Poisonous?”
    “No.” But she didn’t know exactly what was bad.
    Mindy came over. “Oh, don’t touch that,” she said. “It’s a cherry. And next to it is a pineapple.”
    “So I noticed. What’s so bad about such fruits?”
    “In Xanth, they’re explosive,” she explained.
    Oh. Cherry bombs and grenades. The proprietor really didn’t want company. He moved on.
    Rachel pointed to the sign by a little gate. GNOME ANNE. So the proprietor was a gnome, like a small person, who wanted to be alone. Still no pun.
    Then a light bulb flashed over his head. He actually saw it. It represented his bright idea. “This is Gnome Anne’s Land,” he said. “No Man’s Land.”
    He opened his bag, and the property closed in on itself and piled in. There wasn’t really a gnome named Anne; it was all a pun.
    It continued, as they encountered a group of animals having a party—party animals—until rain deer joined in, and it got rained out. There was a cat and a horse who tried to steal their things, a cat burglar and a horse thief.
    Finally even Bryce had had enough, as his queasy stomach indicated. Their bags were full, and their patience exhausted. It was time to go home.
    “You did very well,” Mindy said.
    “I was too often clumsy, and slow to catch on.”
    “I was way worse, my first day. It took me several days to recover my peace of mind. I had a bad case of pundigestion.”
    “That’s a pun!”
    “That’s what happens when a person associates with puns. They infect her, and she starts emitting bad puns. Nobody could stand to be near me until I recovered.”
    Back at the castle, Bryce saw how Picka and Dawn carefully poured the bags into secure vaults and stored them in the dungeon. The magic of the castle prevented any puns from escaping. It had been a good day, and they had pretty well cleaned out the area.
    “So you should be catching up on the job,” Bryce remarked. “We did not leave many puns behind today.”
    Dawn hardly glanced at him. “There will be another day.”
    What did that mean? He decided to let it be. There was still too much to learn about this remarkable land, and he could well afford to learn it at its own pace.
    “Mindy says you did well,” Dawn continued as she worked.
    “I tried,” he agreed. “But without the help of the others I would have been sadly lost. Everything here is almost completely new to me.”
    “I’m sure you will soon adjust. If you have any questions, just ask me.”
    “Actually I do have one. I note that Mindy wears glasses, as she must have in Mundania. But no one else here does, and I no longer need them. Is there a reason?”
    “Not a physical one. They are simply part of her personality. In time she may discard them, when she finally accepts that she no longer needs them.”
    “Thank you.”
    Thereafter the day was routine. He was glad to retire to his room with Rachel. He needed to sleep, not so much because he was tired; this young body was remarkably hearty. But because his mind needed to sort out the many things he had learned, so that he would function better tomorrow.
    “Do you find this all as new and different as I do, Rachel?” he asked as he lay down.
    “Yes,” she agreed, and closed her eyes.
    That was perversely reassuring.

 
    3
    T OUR
    N ext day they went out again, Bryce on his trike, Mindy on her little carpet, the two dogs afoot. But immediately Bryce paused, astonished. “Mountains!” he exclaimed, and Rachel shared his surprise.
    “True,” Mindy agreed. She seemed amused.
    “They weren’t here yesterday!”
    “Yes they were. We weren’t here yesterday.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    She smiled. “Maybe we forgot to tell you something about Caprice Castle.”
    “It didn’t change. The landscape