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

did.”
    “Caprice travels,” she explained. “It fades out at one location, and appears at another, carrying along everything within it. Picka and Dawn had an awful time catching it, before they persuaded it to accept them as residents. It seems to be somewhat random, but they can direct it when they choose. Mostly they let it travel as it likes.” She looked around. “I’m not sure exactly where we are now, but it hardly matters. There will be puns.”
    “That’s what Princess Dawn meant. I said we had cleaned out the puns, and she said there would be another day. This is another day, and we are where there will be more puns.”
    “That is true. Puns are all over Xanth, so we have to travel to get them all, or at least as many as we can. We’ll never catch up completely, but at least we can detoxify things somewhat.”
    “So the castle travels. Live and learn.”
    “That we do,” she agreed.
    “Let’s get to it,” he said, resuming his pedaling.
    Soon they came to a small lake in a mountain valley. There was a pier projecting into it. “Woof!” Woofer said.
    Bryce looked. “There is a pun? All I see is an almost mundane scene.”
    Rachel went closer to the pier. She pointed at it with her nose.
    “I don’t get it,” Bryce said.
    “Neither do I,” Mindy agreed. “But the dogs are seldom mistaken.”
    “What’s the pun?” Bryce asked Rachel.
    “Forgot I can talk,” she said. “Sorry about that. The wharf.”
    He moved closer and inspected the planking. There was an eye. Farther along was a mouth. “It’s a creature!”
    “A mouse,” Mindy agreed. “A big one.”
    “No, a rat,” he said, the light bulb flashing over his head. “A huge rat in the shape of a pier. A wharf rat.”
    Mindy groaned, and both dogs howled. Bryce opened his bag and sucked in the rat.
    The business of the day had begun.
    They soon spotted another oddity. It was a large spiderweb that seemed to have eyebrows. This time Mindy got it first. “A Web Browser,” she said, putting it in her bag.
    The mountains gave way to hills. Some of them appeared to have wheels, so that they could move about.
    “Rolling Hills,” Bryce said, taking them in.
    Then a group of socks came hopping toward them. “Sock Hop,” Mindy said, catching them.
    Beyond the mountains were a number of small settlements. “I don’t trust this,” Bryce said. “We’re in a thick pun region—a pun thicket—and we can’t be sure that anything we encounter is not a pun.”
    “I agree,” Mindy said. “Let’s examine them more closely.”
    They came to a sign. WELCOME TO N.
    “That’s a pun?” Bryce asked. He glanced at the dogs, but they just shrugged.
    “It doesn’t seem to be,” Mindy said. “Ah, here are some direction signs pointing to different villages.”
    Bryce read them off. “Tice, Velop, Joy, List, Act, Able, Amor, Case. I still don’t get it.”
    Mindy approached the first sign. “Oh, I want to go there!” she exclaimed. “It really attracts me.”
    “The path to Tice attracts you?”
    “Yes! There’s just something about it.”
    Now Rachel was pointing to the sign. There was a pun there.
    Bryce got an awful groaner of an idea. “We can do it,” he said. “But let’s first examine the second sign.”
    “If you insist,” she said impatiently. She walked to the next direction sign, Velop.
    It extended to the sides and wrapped its edges about her. “Eeeek!” she screamed so piercingly that he heard all four E’s.
    He rushed to her assistance. “Envelop!” he cried, opening his pun bag.
    The sign dissolved into mist and drifted into the bag.
    “Thank you,” Mindy said, disheveled but recovering. “But why did that word stop it?”
    “These are all N words,” Bryce said. “N Tice attracted you. N Velop enclosed you.” He looked at the others. “N Joy will please you, N List will make you join it, N Act will do something else, as will N Able. You will really love N Amor, but get boxed in by N Case.” As