Well-Tempered Clavicle (36 page)

They wound through the crowd in search of Dawn. But there were too many people; she was lost amidst them. So Picka unlimbered one clavicle and played a simple version of the summoning melody.

In barely two and a half moments Dawn found them. “That’s a relief! At first I feared it was Piper, until I realized it was bonged rather than blown. Woofer! What’s the news?”

“Woof!”

“Oh, bleep! Piper is bearing down from the north? Then we’re too late. No one’s listening to our warnings.”

“Woof!”

“Oh, we still have a few minutes? Then we’d better try to use them well. I don’t want to have to announce my status, but this time I fear I will have to. If I can just get the attention of the whole crowd, somehow.”

“Woof!”

“You do? Well, bring them in, Woofer.” She turned to Joy’nt. “Go with him, to explain verbally. We can’t afford to waste any more time.”

The dog ran off, following his nose. Joy’nt followed. Meanwhile Dawn set about making herself princessly. She reversed her jacket so that it became a royal robe, and produced her little crown from her purse. Picka wasn’t sure how it had ever fit in there, but that was just one of the mysteries of the feminine state.

“Skully, form into a platform structure I can stand on, to gain elevation.”

The skeleton obeyed, making a hollow box several feet high. Dawn climbed onto it and stood overlooking the throng.

Woofer returned, leading Joy’nt and three other people. They were young men whose eyes widened when they saw Dawn. Picka understood why; she was manifesting as a princess, and she was beautiful. If she breathed too hard they might even freak out. But she was being careful not to inhale deeply, and her gown was close about her chest, showing only an approximate outline.

“These are Justin, who can make a bubble of silence,” Joy’nt said. “Alex, who has a rain bow. And Tuck, who can pause time for others, not himself.”

Dawn looked dubious. “I’m not sure how such things can help.”

“Woof!”

She looked surprised. “You’re right! That may work.”

Then there was the sound of pipe music. Oh, no! “The monster is arriving,” Picka said.

Dawn looked at Tuck. “Can paused people still see and hear?”

“Yes,” he said. “They can’t react, but they can understand.”

“Can you make an exception for me and my friends?”

“Only if you are touching me while I make the pause.”

Dawn smiled. “We’re used to that. Gather ’round, friends.” She glanced at Justin and Alex. “You two too.”

They closed on her, each touching her legs. Justin and Alex did so also, though they seemed diffident about touching a princess. Picka understood perfectly.

“Tuck, raise your hand.” He did.

Then she reached down and took Tuck’s raised hand. Now he seemed on the verge of freaking, but managed to hold on. “Uh, say when,” he said.

“Now.”

He concentrated. The sounds of the crowd quieted. Picka saw why: they were all paused in place.

“Alex, I need your rain bow,” Dawn said.

Alex handed it to her. It was simply a colored bow of the kind that might decorate a package or a head of hair.

Dawn put it on her head. And suddenly it was raining on them all, but especially on her. Now Picka understood: a rain bow made it rain on the person wearing it. Of course.

“Is that the best you can do, Bow?” Dawn asked scornfully. Stung, the bow increased its effort, and the rain became a small storm centered directly above them. Lightning cracked, and a peal of thunder sounded. The rain completely soaked her.

What did she have in mind?

“Now release the pause briefly, Tuck,” she said.

The hubbub resumed as the people reanimated. They turned to face the thunder, which was now the main noise.

“And restore it,” she said. The people paused again, this time facing Dawn.

“Now, Justin, make your bubble of silence around the storm.”

There was sudden quiet. Jags of lightning still flashed, but in eerie silence.

Dawn raised her voice. “Your attention, please,” she called. “I am Princess Dawn. I am sorry to interrupt the festivities, but I have reason. I am here to warn you of a severe emergency. A destructive monster is bearing down on us all, and will do much damage if we don’t flee promptly. So as soon as you are free to move, run, don’t walk, south. Do it carefully so you don’t trip and fall, and make sure your families and children are with you, but keep moving. Only when you are safely south of me can you afford to pause and look back, because the monster is really after me. I hope you understand, but if you don’t, do it anyway. Now go!”

The pause ended. There was a flurry of motion. Then the crowd oriented and forged south.

But so did the monster, who had also been paused. Picka realized that they couldn’t pause one without the others; otherwise it would have been a handy way to stop Piper.

“I can pause them again,” Tuck said.

“No, that merely postpones the problem. Thank you for your assistance; now you should head south.” She glanced at Alex and Justin. “Here is your rain bow back, Alex; it served well.” She removed it from her hair and the rain ceased. She remained soaking wet, her clothing plastered to her torso, but seemed not to care, though the three young men were having trouble keeping their eyes clear of glaze. “So did your bubble of silence, Justin. Thank you.”

The three headed south, gratified perhaps as much by the wet view of her as by their ability to assist her.

Unfortunately, the main mass of people did not move smoothly. They were panicked and not making the best judgments. Some banged into others; some got separated from their families in the crush. Overall they could not move efficiently, and the monster was gaining on them.

“Play pacification music,” Dawn told Picka as she stepped down from the Skully platform so he could reassemble. “Just enough to calm them down.”

That made sense. Picka took his clavicles and started playing as loudly as he could. He made the theme moderate so that it would take the edge off panic without eliminating concern.

It worked. The people started moving sensibly, and the misqueues eased. But the monster was still gaining, and would soon catch the rearmost people.

“We have to distract him,” Dawn said. “Lead him somewhere else, so the people can get away.”

“How?” Joy’nt asked. “The only thing he wants more than fresh living food is you.”

“Exactly. I need to get over there.”

“No!” Picka cried.

“I don’t mean to give myself to him,” Dawn said. “I mean just to show myself so he’ll follow me. Then when he’s well away from the crowd, I’ll invoke the travel spell to escape him.”

“But he will stun you!”

“True. Or summon me in to him. I’ll need help.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No. You need to keep the crowd in order. Joy’nt or Skully can help me.”

Picka was not much reassured. “Maybe you can get a faster ride. I see a centaur.”

“Maybe,” Dawn agreed.

Skully ran out to intercept the centaur, who was moving perversely north rather than south. The skeleton led him to their small group.

“Hello,” the centaur said. “I am Checkoff Centaur. I am cursed to get everything wrong on the first try. So I don’t know whether I can help you, unless you have some perverse need for failure.”

“What about your second try?” Dawn asked.

“That I can usually get right. But you see, my first try is usually automatic, and by the time I realize it I am committed to a wrong course. I have banged into more trees I tried to avoid, and insulted more fillies I meant to compliment, and loosed more arrows at wrong targets than I can check off.” He shrugged. “So I no longer carry a bow; it’s dangerous.”

“Can you carry me and my friend Joy’nt Bone to the monster? We could direct you, so you would not have to make directional decisions.”

“That would work,” Checkoff agreed. “But I can’t see the monster from here.”

“Neither can we. But Woofer will lead us.”

Dawn and Joy’nt got on the centaur’s back. “Move toward the monster,” Dawn told Woofer. “Follow that dog,” she told the centaur. Woofer started off at a dogtrot, and Checkoff moved that way without a problem, since it was Dawn’s decision rather than his. Dawn, knowing everything about any living thing, knew how to neutralize his curse.

Picka and Skully watched them go. Picka continued playing, and Skully remained near to guard him in case of mischief. “I am not easy about this,” Picka said.

“I think Dawn has something in mind,” Skully said. “She’s smart, for a meat figure.”

“See if you can track their progress,” Picka said, still nervous about their prospects.

“Kick my tail.”

Oh. Yes. Picka gave him a good kick in the rear.

Skully flew into pieces and reassembled in midair. Now he was a tall pole with his skull at the top. “Hold me upright.”

Picka couldn’t do that and continue to play, so he paused his music, grabbed the pole, and jammed the bottom foot into the ground to that the pole could stand alone. Then he resumed playing just in time to prevent the moving crowd from messing up.

“They’re moving along okay,” Skully said from on high. “The centaur is running now, moving swiftly. They are closing in on the monster.”

“Oh, I fear that!” Picka said.

“That’s odd.”

“What’s odd?” Picka asked nervously.

“I thought Dawn was riding in front, but it’s Joy’nt there. Not that it matters.”

“Maybe they switched places.”

“Maybe. But why would they take the trouble?”

That was curious, but they surely had reason. If they really had switched places. Picka couldn’t remember which way they had mounted. It wasn’t worth being concerned about.

“They are reaching the monster,” Skully reported. “I see him orienting on them. Now they are dismounting. Dawn is bare.”

“But he can catch them afoot!” Picka protested.

“He can as readily summon or stun the centaur,” Skully pointed out. “Maybe they want to separate so Checkoff is not in danger.”

“But what of Dawn?” Picka asked in almost living pain. “Going bare won’t freak out the monster; he can control it. What is she thinking of?”

“Now she’s standing there. Now she’s walking toward the monster. Now—well now!”

“What?”

“Joy’nt is picking Dawn up. She’s carrying her away. Woofer is with them. And the centaur is galloping right toward the monster.”

“He must have bolted,” Picka said, “and gone the wrong direction.”

“Yes. Now he’s colliding with Piper. He’s stomping him with his four hoofs. He’s not attacking, just running through the monster. Ooo, that must smart!”

“Indeed,” Picka agreed. “That acid will burn his legs.”

“I mean the monster, getting stomped like that. He’s disorganized as the centaur runs to the north. Joy’nt’s running north too, carrying Dawn. Maybe they’ll rendezvous.”

“So they can all outdistance Piper,” Picka agreed. “That’s a worthwhile strategy.”

“But now the monster is moving again. He is closing on them as they rejoin the centaur. Woofer seems to be barking a warning. Dawn is dropping to the ground and running too. Oh!” He sounded surprised.

“What?”

“Joy’nt leaped onto the centaur’s back and they are charging away. Dawn remains afoot. She’s running east with Woofer. The monster is veering to follow her, of course.”

“Of course,” Picka agreed, feeling ill. Why had they done it? Not only was the monster not after the skeleton, he couldn’t do her much harm anyway unless he played his joint-fracturing music, and what would be the point of that? So it should have been Joy’nt who ran, and Dawn who rode away to safety. What had ever possessed them to reverse it?

“The monster’s gaining on Dawn,” Skully said. “All that jiggling meat on her bones makes her slow. She’d better invoke the travel spell soon.”

Oh. That was right. Dawn
could
escape alone. So the centaur would not be stunned and maybe eaten for trying to help her. It made sense after all.

“The monster’s catching up to her,” Skully reported. “He’s throwing out a pseudopod. He’s got her!”

“Invoke the spell!” Picka exclaimed.

“She isn’t doing it. She’s just standing there talking to him. Woofer is listening. And—I don’t understand!”

“Understand
what
?” Picka cried in anguish.

“He’s letting her go. She’s walking away with Woofer.”

“Impossible!”

“But it’s happening. What could she have said to him?”

“Apart from agreeing to marry him?”

“Um, that would do it, yes.”

“She wouldn’t do that!” But Picka wasn’t quite sure. He had never completely understood the complicated thought processes of meat heads or of females, bare or otherwise.

“What else could it be?”

The dialogue lapsed. What, indeed, else?

Meanwhile the crowd of people was still moving, now well away from Piper. Whatever else the diversion had or had not accomplished, it had given the people time to get clear. That had been Dawn’s object. A number of them were now looking back, seeing what it was they had escaped.

Picka ceased playing his music; there was no longer need for it.

The centaur galloped up, with the skeleton still aboard. “Joy’nt!” Picka cried. “You were supposed to help Dawn! Why did you leave her to the monster!”

“Are you sure?” the skeleton asked.

“We saw—” He broke off. That was Dawn’s voice.

“I’ll be disjointed!” Skully said. “You’re not Joy’nt!”

Now Picka saw what he had somehow missed before. Those absolutely lovely bones. It was Dawn in skeleton form.

He worked it out. “You invoked the conversion spell. Joy’nt invoked hers. So you became skeletal and she became fleshly. The monster thought you were each other.”

“And chased Joy’nt,” Dawn agreed, “while I escaped on Checkoff.” She swung her leg bones over and dropped to the ground. “Thank you, Checkoff. You really helped.”

“Glad to have been of service,” he said. “That’s one fearsome monster.”

“Don’t go near him again. He was distracted by what he thought was me, so didn’t stun you, but he will next time. He won’t forget that stomping you gave him.”

“I was trying to run away from him, but got it wrong.”