Well-Tempered Clavicle

by Piers Anthony

  “It can’t be harmful,” Bink said, “because—”

  “We know,” Fanchon said. “You can’t be harmed by magic. But what about us?”

  “Stay close,” he said.

  The tile landed on ground covered in text. In fact, it settled into a square depression, completing an interrupted pattern.

  “It must have been ripped out of the ground here,” Fanchon said, “when the spell went wrong.”

  They looked around. Not only was the land seemingly made of text, so were the trees, from trunks to leaves. Everything seemed to have been shaped from Mundane newspapers, with the text remaining prominent.

  A man approached, walking along a text path. He too seemed to be formed of wadded text. He wore a wide-brimmed hat folded from newspaper, and had a big star-shaped belt buckle. “You ask him,” Fanchon murmured to Wynne. Bink knew why: no man ever ignored Wynne.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Wynne called. “Can you tell us where we are, please?”

  He glanced at her, and paused, exactly as any man would. “This is Text Us, of course.”

  “What is Text Us?” she asked stupidly.

  But the man was not annoyed by her dullness. No man ever was. “This is the world of written text hidden behind written words, of course. Every word ever written exists here.”

  “Oh, that’s so impressive,” Wynne said fawningly. “What do you do here?”

  “We all have related talents,” the man said proudly. It was easy to be proud when Wynne was admiring a person. “Correcting, erasing, locating, altering words. There is constant work for we Textans to do, and we do it very well.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Wynne enthused, breathing deeply. She might not be head-smart, but she was body-smart.

  “Ask him how we can get out of Text Us,” Fanchon whispered.

  “How—”

  “Who would ever want to leave Text Us?” the man demanded. “It’s the greatest state in the universe!”

  “Oh, I’m sure it is,” Wynne agreed, swinging her long hair enticingly. “You are so smart!”

  Bink almost smiled, seeing the Textan’s eyes following that hair, and his ears soaking up her admiration. It was of course an act, but Bink himself always fell for it. Wynne’s nymphly qualities were compelling.

  “Of course it is,” he agreed gruffly. “I’m just an ordinary Textan; we’re all smarter than average.”

  “Thank you,” Fanchon said crisply, stepping in front of Wynne. The man immediately lost interest in the dialogue, and departed. It was a system the two had worked out, and it worked well enough.

  “There must be a way out of here,” Bink said, “but it seems the natives don’t see the need. We’ll just have to find it ourselves.”

  They explored the great state of Text Us. Everything was made of compacted text, as they had seen. The natives were busily working on text rocks, using sharp text tools to inscribe obscure changes. They were remodeling text houses, correcting errors in the walls and windows. Obviously there was a lot of work involved in maintaining the text archives.

  “But this is not doing us any good,” Fanchon fussed. “There has to be an exit.”

  “We got here via a ’til becoming a tile, touching textile,” Bink said. “Is there a tile becoming a ’til to reverse the process?”

  “Backwards,” Wynne said. “Text Us backwards is Sutxet.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Fanchon snorted.

  But suddenly they were swirling amidst textual fragments that swept them up into chaos. They grabbed on to one another to stay together as the realm sundered around them.

  And they were abruptly back in the cabin they had left, landing in a tangle on the bed.

  “It worked!” Wynne squealed.

  “So it did,” Fanchon muttered. “Out of the mouths of babes and idiots…”

  “Well, it did!”

  “Don’t start,” Bink said quickly. “Let’s just bid farewell to Eunice and be on our way.”

  “Where is Eunice?” Fanchon asked, looking around.

  “And where is the carpet?” Wynne asked.

  There, where the rolled carpet had been, was a note. Bink fetched it and read it.

  I HAV GON FOR HELP, LEAVING THIS NOT OF EXPLANATION. EUNIC.

  “Her written words delete the silent E,” Fanchon said.

  “So we’ll just have to wait until she returns,” Bink said. “Bringing back our carpet.”

  “But we are supposed to be on Mount Rushmost today,” Fanchon protested. “We can’t wait.”

  “It’s awful wet out there,” Wynne said, peering out. Then: “What’s this?”

  Bink looked. There was a line of streamers where Eunice had flown away on the carpet, getting rained on. “Tap equals tape,” he said.

  “But the tape should have reverted to water after she stopped touching it,” Fanchon said.

  They considered that. “It got waterlogged,” Wynne said.

  “That is so stupid!” Fanchon said. “Yet apparently also true. They were too wet to change. They’ll revert to water when they dry, ironically.”

  “We’ll have to walk,” Bink said.

  “And how will we climb the sheer cliff to the mesa?” Fanchon demanded. “That is the winged monster retreat for a reason: only winged creatures can reach it.”

  They mulled it over, and decided they would just have to wait for Eunice’s return, hoping they could then make it to Mount Rushmost in time.

  “If she returns,” Fanchon said.

  “But she left a note,” Wynne said.

  Fanchon considered, and decided not to make a logical issue that could only aggravate things. “So we’ll wait.”

  They waited, but Eunice didn’t return. Disconsolate, they slept in the shelter, as the rain continued. Bink would have liked to embrace Wynne, but Fanchon’s presence nixed that. It wasn’t that Fanchon wouldn’t understand; it was that she would.

  In the morning the storm had finally given up. And Eunice returned, with another passenger.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “The rain made me lose my way. But I brought help. Note that you seem toe need it any more. You made it back one your own.” She was still adding E’s to words that could take them.

  “But not in time,” Fanchon said sharply. “We have missed our rendezvous.”

  Eunice nodded. “Maybe my friend cane help with that.”

  They looked at the other person. He was a grossly corpulent man. “Hello, folks,” he wheezed. “I’m fat.”

  “We can see that,” Fanchon said sharply. “Who are you?”

  He smiled. “I get that a lot. That is my name as well as my condition. But Eunice rescued me from a fate worse than fat, as it were.”

  All three of them were perplexed. “You still look fat,” Wynne said indelicately.

  “Like this,” Eunice said. She opened her shirt to reveal her nice bosom. The other women, caught by surprise, did not have time to prevent it, so Bink got an eyeful that came delightfully close to freaking him out. “I tempted Fate.” She stepped into Fat.

  And Fat became Fate, a gaunt hooded man who was plainly much taken with her. He kissed her ear.

  “Wait tile we’re alone,” she murmured.

  “As Fate, I can guarantee that your delay will not interfere with your mission,” Fate told them. “You may proceed on it now.”

  “Ludicrous,” Fanchon muttered. Then she reconsidered. “Still, crazy as it may seem…”

  They took the carpet and soon were in flight, leaving the lovers in the shelter. It seemed their tryst was fated.

  * * *

  “But we didn’t complete our mission,” Bink concluded. “We arrived a day late, and there was nothing.”

  “We fear the text misadventure has cost us our answer,” Fanchon said. “Unless you folk have it.”

  Dawn looked blankly at the others. No one had an answer.

  Picka made an effort. “If repeating the word backwards got you out of Text Us, could reversing the Double You put
you back together?”

  “The letter W backwards is the same letter,” Fanchon snapped.

  “I was thinking of the opposite meaning,” Picka said. “A singlet.”

  A look of wild surmise ricocheted around the group. “Do we have a singlet?” Bink asked.

  “Sure,” Wynne said. “It’s just a loose-fitting jersey for when I exercise.” She delved into her purse and hauled out the garment.

  “This is just crazy enough to make sense,” Fanchon said.

  The two women stood together, Fanchon behind Wynne, and Bink pulled the stretchable garment over their heads and shoulders. As he did, something strange happened: their heads merged, then their necks and shoulders. As he drew the singlet down, their bodies continued to come together. They became single above, double below: the head and arms of an ordinary woman, with four legs. It was working.

  Bink continued pulling the singlet down, stretching it to cover their legs. When he got it to the ground, only one woman remained. “Chameleon!” he exclaimed, hugging her.

  “It’s so good to be back!” she said, kissing him.

  “And it was your boneheaded idea,” Dawn murmured, kissing Picka’s skull.

  “Thank you.”

  Bink and Chameleon disengaged. “So our advice was correct,” he said. “Our solution was here.”

  “It was just a guess,” Picka said.

  “We are duly appreciative anyway,” Bink said. “What can we do for you in return?”

  “There’s really no need,” Picka said.

  “Let’s celebrate with a concert,” Dawn said. “Then we’ll go our separate ways.”

  That seemed good. They brought out their instruments and played a round of “Ghost of Tom.” Chameleon clapped her hands, somewhat in the manner of Wynne, and even her Fanchon aspect seemed impressed.

  Then they paused. Something ugly was poking its snout over the brink of the cliff.

  13

  MONSTER

  “He climbed the cliff,” Dawn said, aghast. “Using his goo.”

  Mim flew across to intercept the Music Monster. “You can’t come here,” she protested. “You have no wings.”

  Piper ignored her. He continued to slide up and over the edge, making a right-angle turn without difficulty. He was huge and black and gelatinous, and he smelled like a putrid stink horn.

  “Get off this mountain,” Mim said imperiously, hovering right above him.

  The monster shot out a black pseudopod that circled her waist and drew her down toward him.

  Mim’s wings became swords that lashed down. One cut off the pseudopod; the other hacked a slice off the top of the monster. Freed, she landed neatly on her feet beside Piper. “Now will you get out?” she demanded.

  The two sections of monster slid along the ground and rejoined the main mass. More pseudopods shot out at her, catching her legs. She windmilled, losing her balance.

  Skully ran forward, his arms becoming massive swords. He hacked off the new pseudopods, freeing Mim. “Better get back,” he advised. “This thing can’t hurt me, but might hurt you.”

  “Thank you,” she said somewhat faintly. It was obvious that she did not like accepting help, but realized that she did need it.

  The three pets moved toward the monster, but Dawn waved them back. “That thing is dangerous,” she said. “Stay out of harm’s way, so we don’t have to be distracted by concern for you.”

  That made sense to them, and they retreated.

  “This is what wants to marry you?” Bink asked Dawn.

  “Yes.” She looked ill.

  “That stinks,” Chameleon said.

  “That too,” Dawn agreed with a third of a smile. “Literally.”

  “Then we had better dissuade him,” Bink said. “In this manner we can repay the favor you have done us.”

  “I’m not sure he can be dissuaded. Look at what he was doing to Mim.”

  The monster completed his turn, and was wholly on the mesa. Now another figure came into view, riding his rear portion. A lovely young woman.

  “Pundora!” Joy’nt cried. Picka realized that of course she would be with the monster; she was guiding him, using her friend Steel in the form of a magic mirror.

  “And who are you?” Pundora asked, stepping onto the mesa.

  Dawn nerved herself and stepped forward. “I am Princess Dawn, and these are my friends. We have no use for you.”

  “I wasn’t asking you,” Pundora said arrogantly. “I know who you are, you murderess; I’ve been tracking you. You destroyed my boyfriend. For that you must pay.” She turned to face the skeletons. “But I don’t know about you freaks.”

  “We are walking skeletons,” Picka said. “We are helping Dawn with her mission.”

  “Well, forget it,” Pundora snapped. “She will soon marry Piper and be miserable ever after. That’s my revenge.”

  Bink stepped forward. “And I am Bink. I owe my great-granddaughter a favor, so I will stop the monster from coming after her. I suggest you go back the way you came, and never bother her again, and save us all trouble.”

  “Great-granddaughter!” Pundora said derisively. “You’re barely old enough to be her father!”

  Bink didn’t debate the point. He simply went and picked her up and carried her back toward Piper. “Go. We are asking you nicely.”

  Pundora made a screech of impure outrage that sounded like a cross between an injured hoot-owl and a deflated frog. The mirror appeared in her hand. It converted to a sword. She struck at Bink.

  The sword somehow went askew, missing him, and Pundora almost lost her grip on it. She tried again, and again it missed. “What?” she demanded. She tried a third time, determinedly, but somehow to no better effect.

  The sword became the woman Steel. “It’s no use,” she said as she dropped to the ground. “Some kind of ambiguous magic protects him.”

  “The nerve!” Pundora snapped, outraged. Then she thought of another tack. She ripped open her blouse. “Look at this!” But the view did not freak him out; in fact, it seemed to have no effect. Pundora was amazed. So was Chameleon.

  Bink carried Pundora to the monster and dumped her down on his back. “Go,” he repeated.

  Now the monster reacted. He had evidently been as surprised as Pundora by Bink’s action and immunity. He lashed out with a pseudopod. And missed.

  “It’s that bleeping magic,” Pundora said, disgusted.

  Picka was standing beside Dawn. “Why didn’t her bosom freak him out?” he asked.

  “He can’t be harmed by magic. Pundora is magical. If he had freaked out, he might have been vulnerable. So his talent did not let it happen.”

  “Still, he might freak out if there was no threat of harm?”

  “Yes. Wynne could do it.”

  Or might have, if she had continued to exist separately. Still, it was an interesting distinction, confirming what Dawn had told them about her great-grandfather’s magic.

  “Get off the mesa,” Bink said. He stooped, put his hands under Piper’s front section, and heaved up. But his hands slid sloppily through the jellylike flesh. He couldn’t get a grip on the monster. It was an impasse.

  “Maybe if we three skeletons act together,” Skully said.

  They tried it. Picka, Joy’nt, and Skully lined up before Piper and hunched down together. They braced against the ground and pushed at the gelatinous substance.

  And found themselves walking into it. The substance gave way before them, and closed in around them. They were mired in it up to their neck bones.

  “Uh-oh,” Skully said. “There’s acid.”

  Picka felt it too. The juice was gradually eating into his bones and joints. Soon it would dissolve the joints, leaving the bones disconnected, and then it would slowly digest the bones.

  “We had better get out of this,” Joy’nt said urgently.

  They waded out. The flesh couldn’t hold them any more than they could hold it. It was another impasse.

  “I can do it,�
� Granola said.

  “No,” Picka said. “That acid would hurt your living flesh, unless you have protective gloves or a solid tool to push with.”

  “I will find one,” the giantess said. They heard the sound of her footfalls as she hurried away.

  “What is that sound?” Mim asked.

  “That’s just the invisible giant,” Chameleon answered brightly.

  “A giant?”

  “Part of their party.”

  Mim turned to Dawn. “There’s an invisible giant in your party?”

  Picka realized that they were in trouble. “Well—”

  “Who can pick up a person and make him seem to fly?”

  “Uh—”

  “So you’re not really winged monsters.”

  “We confess it,” Dawn said. “We had to do our business here. We did do it. We would have been gone by now, if the monster hadn’t come.”

  “I will summon the dragons,” Mim said grimly. “They will roast it and vaporize it. Then we can settle this issue of misrepresentation.” She brought out a summoning horn.

  “Stun them!” Pundora cried.

  Suddenly the monster was making sound. Air blew from myriad vents in his substance, and each vent was a pipe that played a single note. The notes merged in chords, and the chords formed a melody.

  Mim stood still, stunned, unable to blow her horn. So did Chameleon. So did Dawn. So did the three pets. Only Bink was immune.

  “It’s the stun music,” Picka said. “Affecting living folk. Except Bink.”

  “And reel her in,” Pundora said. She seemed unaffected, either because she was a pun rather than an ordinary living creature, or because the monster was able to exclude her from the effect. Neither reason was encouraging for the others.

  Then the music changed. Dawn looked horrified, but took a step toward Piper. She was being compelled.

  “No!” Bink cried. He strode to Dawn, picked her up, and carried her away from the monster.

  “Do the others,” Pundora said.

  The music shifted again. Mim, Chameleon, and the three pets started walking toward the monster. Bink couldn’t rescue them all.

  “Picka!” Dawn cried. “Stop the music! You can do it!”

  Picka unlimbered his clavicles and started playing his ribs. He played the same dire melody he had just heard. It was totally new music to him, with amazing implications, but it was music, and he could play it. It seemed that only a superlative musician could play the magic music, but he had evidently passed that threshold.