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it. She was past the Challenge.
        But she wasn't off the drawbridge. She took another step, but found her way blocked by a stick. She didn't think it had been there before, but couldn't be sure. She took hold of it, to move it out of her way. And received a slight shock.
        “What a lovely piece of wood you are,” she said with nasty irony, throwing it down.
        Then she was sorry to have been so rough and rude, even to a stick. “I didn't mean to do that.” She bent to pick it up, and got another little shock. “You did it again, you delightful emulation of a club!” she snapped, hurling it away.
        Again she regretted it. Normally she tried to be reasonably polite to every person and every thing, because many things of Xanth had feelings too.
        The stick had returned to its original place, blocking her way. She reached for it--and stopped. “When I touch you, I get sardonic,” she said. “You're a sarcas-stick!”
        The stick sank into the floor and disappeared. She had identified it and defeated it. Had she handled the second Challenge? She was still on the drawbridge.
        She took another step, and almost walked into a column of ashes. She actually touched it before stopping, and got ashes on her front. Then a shower of ashes fell on her head, making her sneeze. She looked up, and saw that it was a whole tree, all of it covered in ashes.
        Then a little dim bulb flashed just over her head. “You're not covered in ashes--you're made of ashes,” she said. “You're an ash tree!”
        The tree collapsed into a mound of ashes and was gone. She had solved another one. That made three.
        But she was still on the drawbridge. So could she now just go on across, her Challenges done?
        She took a step, and found her way blocked by a large cabinet. Evidently she was not done here.
        Then she realized that these were all puns lined up in a row. This was the Comic Strip! Now she knew what it was. And it was only the first Challenge.
        How long would it continue? She suspected it would keep putting puns in her way until she figured out not just how to identify them, but how to stop them entirely. But it was hard enough figuring out the individual ones; how could she solve the whole thing?
        First things first. What was the nature of this cabinet? She opened its door and found it filled with little curled bits of metal. “Metal filings,” she said. “A filing cabinet!”
        But it did not disappear. The filings arranged themselves along its walls, but that was all. It was tall and narrow and in her way.
        Then she got the rest of it. “People have to go through this single file,” she said. “Filing through the cabinet.” She stepped into it, turning sidewise to fit, and through it. When she looked back, it was gone. She had gotten the rest of the pun.
        And how many more to fathom? Sooner or later she would encounter one she couldn't figure out, and then she'd be balked. So rather than run that line, she should stop now and figure out the larger riddle: how to abolish the comic strip itself.
        Comic Strip. A strip of supposedly funny things, comics. But could there be another interpretation, as with the filing cabinet? Not just something to name, but something to do? Comic Strip--strip comic?
        Oh, no! She hated that. But it did fit. It was probably calculated to repel her, just as Karia had been repelled by the puns. So she probably had to do it.
        She faced ahead without moving. “I am not pretty. It would be ludicrous for me to take off my clothes. In fact it would be comical. So here is my comic strip.”
        She gritted her teeth and took off her shirt. Then she took off her shoes. Then she grimaced and took hold of her skirt.
        The closed-in Comic Strip faded out. She stood on the open drawbridge. No barriers remained between her and the inner bank of the moat. And she