Well-Tempered Clavicle by Piers Anthony Read Free Book Online Page B

realized that most Demonesses wouldn’t have the patience to mess with a dull skeleton.
    “So when may I see the Good Magician?” Dawn asked.
    “Oh, you won’t be seeing him this time,” Dara said. “He’s busy with something else. But I can brief you.”
    “Something else!” Dawn said, tiny sparks snapping from her eyes. “I went through this bleeping Challenges charade just to have him ignore me?”
    “At ease, Princess,” Dara said, not at all intimidated. “Humfrey asked me to explain your Service to you.”
    “When he hasn’t even given me an Answer?”
    “He says you’ll find your ideal significant other by the time you complete the mission.”
    Dawn subsided. “He does arrange things that way, sometimes,” she said. “So there is a suitable prince for me?”
    “There is an ideal male for you,” Dara said. “I’m not sure whether he’s a prince, but Humfrey says he will be more than worthy of you, and you’ll be well satisfied when the time comes. Now are you ready to learn about the mission?”
    Dawn sighed. Her normally straight nose had become slightly crooked. It was evident she wasn’t accustomed to being treated this way—no princess was—but of course the Good Magician was a rule unto himself. A whole complex of rules, as the matter of five and a half wives demonstrated. If she wanted her Answer, she would have to cooperate. “Yes,” she said.
    “Humfrey has learned, after a century or so, the whereabouts of Pundora’s Box. He means to recover it.”
    “Pandora’s Box?” Dawn asked. “Isn’t that Mundane? It held all the blessings and curses, and when Pandora opened it they all escaped, which is why Mundania is such an awful place. What would the Good Magician want with it? It’s empty, after all, except maybe for one blessing, Hope. We learned about it in Comparative Magic class.” She yawned delicately, clearly not much interested.
    “Pundora’s Box,” Dara repeated. “With a U. Pundora was the Xanth equivalent. When she opened the Box, all the confined puns escaped, and they have been infesting Xanth ever since. The only thing that will contain them for any length of time is the original box, securely closed. But though it is possible to sweep up errant puns—if you have a strong stomach—that is pointless, because the Box has been lost. Until now.”
    Picka got interested. “So now those puns can be put back in the Box, and not soil Xanth anymore?”
    “Exactly,” Dara agreed. “It will finally be possible to clean up Xanth. ’Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.”
    “But isn’t Xanth mostly made of puns?” Joy’nt asked. “If all of them were taken out, there might not be much left.”
    “We’ll be selective. Only the worst riffraff will be culled, at first. Then we’ll see about what else is expendable.”
    “Once you recover the Box,” Dawn said. “Where is it?”
    “That is another story,” Dara said. “Every time Humfrey got a fix on the Box, and sought to fetch it in, its location changed. It was almost as if the Box knew it was being tracked, and sought to escape. Which doesn’t seem sensible. Why would the Box care? But though Humfrey knows just about everything about everything, somehow that knowledge escaped him. It was frustrating. It made him grumpy.”
    “For over a century?” Dawn asked. “That would explain a lot.”
    “It does,” Dara agreed. “His grumpiness is legendary. All five and a half of us wives are highly aware of it. Now we know why. We must recover that Box, and not just because of the potential pun cleanup.”
    “Yes,” Dawn agreed. “A way to reduce the Good Magician’s grumpiness would be a significant service to Xanth. He might even start seeing querent princesses instead of snubbing them.”
    Dara smiled, evidently amused by Dawn’s irony. “Even that, perhaps,” she agreed. “I am glad you appreciate the importance.”
    “I do. So exactly where is the Box? I presume my mission will be to go