Swell Foop by Piers Anthony Page A

it belongs to the one who finds it," Dara said. "For the duration. You accept the commitment of it by donning it. For Wira, it was just a ring."
    "But a nice one," Wira said.
    "I thought I was just looking for it, to bring it back," Che said. "It is really Cynthia's mission, to find the Swell Foop."
    "And yours to help her," Zyzzyva said. "Let's go." She climbed onto his back.
    "Uh, yes. Thank you, Dara, Dafrey, and Wira. I sincerely appreciate—"
    "Oh, cut it short," Dara said. She slapped him on the flank. Startled, he bolted out the door, and was soon in the garden court, where he flicked them both with his tail, spread his wings, and took off.
    "I'm not sure I like this," he remarked as he gained elevation.
    "Too bad," Zyzzyva said unsympathetically.

 
     

     
     
    Justin watched Breanna depart with King Xeth. He wasn't totally easy about this, because Xeth had once wanted to marry Breanna, but he chided himself for even thinking of having doubt. After all, there was no question of Breanna's loyalty to him or Xeth's to Zyzzyva. Maybe it was that ever since his conversion from tree to young man, Breanna had been with him, and he wasn't used to being apart from her. He had been a tree for so long that he was hardly comfortable with the man state, but she had supported him throughout. They were about to be married, and though she liked to pretend that she was forcing him unwillingly into it, he truly wanted it.
    But now he had to find his own zombie and search for a Ring of Xanth. According to King Xeth, all the Ring zombies were here, so he had merely to choose one and go find the Ring. He hoped it turned out to be that simple.
    He turned to the nearest zombie, who was not far gone as zombies went. He had met most of the zombies in the course of the past year, and come to appreciate their qualities, but did not know this one personally. He was not part of the Castle Zombie contingent. "Hello."
    "Hullow," the zombie responded.
    "I am Justin Tree. Who are you?"
    "Unpun."
    "Unpun, do you know where a Ring of Xanth is?"
    "Yeth."
    "Which one?"
    "Ring of Ider."
    This would require some finesse. "Please spell that."
    "Eye Dee Eee Ay."
    "Ah, the Ring of Idea. That will do. Take me there."
    "Canth."
    "Can't? Why not?"
    "Complishated."
    "It is complicated to explain?"
    "Yeth."
    Justin considered. The brains of zombies were notoriously poor, and simplicity was best. But he saw no ready way around this complication. "Then we shall just have to figure it out as we can. What makes it complicated to explain?"
    Unpun started talking, with many confusingly slurred words. Justin focused, got clarifications on words, and managed to piece out the story.
    Unpun was once a living young man with the talent of making puns disappear. He kept company with a young woman named Punny, whose talent was creating puns. They went everywhere together, their talents nullifying each other. They were not consciously controlled talents; it was just that wherever Punny went, puns grew in her wake. Wherever Unpun went, puns were destroyed. So as long as they were together, their wakes overlapped, and the pun ratio of Xanth was fairly constant. Of course some of her new ones got away, and he canceled some that had existed before, but overall there was no problem.
    Then they encountered a bad situation. Justin was unable to clarify whether it was a dragon or some other monster. It attacked, threatening to gobble up Punny, because she was delectable, and Unpun tried to protect her. So it turned on him instead, and with one chomp killed him.
    Punny was distraught, but nothing she could do could bring him back to life. She could not create puns consciously, and even had that been possible, what pun would suffice for something as unfunny as this? So she did the next best thing: She brought Unpun's body to Castle Zombie and begged the Zombie Master to zombie him, so that he could have at least half a life. The Zombie Master did so, but Unpun could no longer make puns