Free Heaven Cent by Piers Anthony Page A

be?”
    “No. Are you what you seem to be?”
    “Not exactly. What is your name?”
    “Tell me yours.”
    Marrow paused. “I am trying to ascertain whether you are dangerous. If you do not cooperate, I shall have to assume that you are.”
    “That is exactly the way I feel about you,” the woman said.
    “Then answer my questions, and I shall answer yours. What is your name?”
    “Gracile Ossein. Grace'l for short. What is yours?”
    “Marrow Bones. What is your nature?”
    “I am a skeleton. What is yours?”
    “1 am a skeleton. Where—”
    “Now I know you are trying to fool me!” she exclaimed. “You are pretending to be what I am!”
    “I suspect it is the other way around,” Marrow said stiffly. “There are no female skeletons in Xanth.”
    “There weren't until I stepped out of the gourd. I am the only skeleton stranded out here. Now what is your nature, really?”
    “Let us clasp hands, and we shall quickly verify each other's natures,” Marrow suggested.
    “No! You may be a bone-crunching monster!”
    “As you may be,” Marrow retorted. “If I had been that, I would have pounced on you from behind.”
    She nodded. “True. Very well, we shall touch hands.”
    They extended their hands. Slowly the two approached. Then they touched. Then they clasped.
    “You are skeletal!” they exclaimed together.
    Dolph decided it was safe to emerge from hiding. “She really is like you?” he asked.
    “Is this another of our kind?” Grace'l asked.
    “No,” Marrow said. “He is human. The illusion does not affect him.”
    Then they were happily talking. Dolph was immensely relieved to know that Grace’l was neither a monster nor a mushy woman. They explained what they were doing here, and Grace’l explained how she was looking for the gourd that she had stepped out from. “It was an accident; I only meant to travel to another setting, but I took the wrong exit and found myself in this strange place. At first I thought it was merely a new setting, and I walked through it, but then I realized it was not what it seemed, and I tried to go back—but I had lost the gourd. I have been here for days, trying to find it.”
    “It's hard to find anything under all this illusion,” Dolph agreed. “I don't know how long it will take us to find the Heaven Cent.”
    “What does it look like? I may have felt it in my search.”
    “We don't know. But maybe like a big bright copper mundane penny.”
    “Mundane? What's that?”
    She had never before been outside the gourd; she had never heard of Mundania. They tried to explain, but she could not grasp it; it was too strange for her.
    Then, abruptly, the illusion vanished. The three of them were standing on the weedy island.
    “Grandma Iris took her talent back!” Dolph exclaimed.
    Indeed it was so. The two skeletons were revealed in their bare bones; each had spoken truly. Marrow was taller, but Grace’l more rounded. Still, Dolph wasn't certain he could tell them apart, if he were to see them singly. “How can you tell boy from girl?” he asked.
    The skeletons exchanged eyeless glances. “That is a trifle delicate to discuss,” Marrow said.
    “Still, it is no secret,” Grace’l said. “I have more graceful bones and one more rib than he does.”
    “One more rib?” Dolph asked, surprised.
    “High G, the grace note,” she said.
    Dolph remained baffled. “High gee?”
    “Prince Dolph has not been exposed to skeletal history,” Marrow said. “Perhaps we should start from the beginning.”
    “Very well,” she said. “If you will help me look for the gourd, I will tell the tale.”
    “We can look for the Heaven Cent too!” Dolph said. He had the feeling that the skeletons were about to get into a long and dull discussion of some kind, and he didn't want to waste all that time.
    “We shall all search for both,” Marrow agreed. “With the illusion gone, it should not be difficult to find whatever we want.”
    So they started the search,