Up In A Heaval (7 page)

“I guess,” Umlaut agreed doubtfully. What was a comic strip? What was a cri-tic? Maybe he was better off not knowing.

“Meanwhile I shall settle down to compose a response to Arjayess in Mundania,” Princess Ida said. “She is correct: We do have things in common. It was nice of her to write.”

Umlaut wondered how she knew the letter writer was female, but he didn't ask. Maybe it had to do with her magic talent, the one she didn't care to tell him about yet.

Princess Ida had them settle down comfortably, as if for sleep. Umlaut and Sammy Cat lay on Sesame's resilient coils. Then the princess brought something for them to sniff. First Sammy, whom she cautioned not to race ahead too fast, then Umlaut.

He sniffed and found himself rising out of his sleeping body. It was weird. The body lay there, but he was an ethereal being passing through it, floating in space just above it. It was unconscious, but it had his substance. He was—just his soul.

He looked around and spied a floating blob hovering above the sleeping cat. “Sammy!” he called and had to form a mouth to do it, and a head to support the mouth, and a body to bear the head. He looked down at himself and saw his cloudy substance assuming his natural form; all it took was concentration.

Meanwhile Sammy was forming his own body, converting from blob to cat. He looked at Umlaut and issued a soundless Mew! For there did not seem to be sound here, though it seemed they could hear each other.

A third shape rose, issuing from the coils of Sesame Serpent. The shape was twisting around uncertainly, threatening to tie itself into a knot.

“Here, Sesame!” Umlaut called silently. “Form your image!”

The end part of the stretched-out cloud turned to point at him. Then her body took shape. She was learning how to do it.

Umlaut looked around again, this time beyond their little group. And suffered an odd vision. Princess Ida was sitting there, surprisingly large, gazing blankly through them. She couldn't see them but knew they were there. She lifted one hand and pointed to the little moon that orbited her head. Ptero, it was called. Where they were going.

He oriented on that moon, and it seemed to swell in size. So did Princess Ida. She was now a giant, and the room about her was astonishingly huge and getting larger.

Oh—they were getting smaller! “Go for the moon!” Umlaut called to the others.

Sammy came to life and bounded for Ptero. How he bounded Umlaut wasn't sure, as there was nothing to bound on, but the cat was moving well. Umlaut followed, moving his legs in a running motion, and that worked too. Sesame slithered, and that worked as well as the bounding and running did. Umlaut couldn't feel any ground and knew he was floating in air, yet he was moving just as if there was solidity there.

Planet Ptero looked ever larger. Now it seemed that they were falling toward it, and the reason it looked so big was that they were getting closer. One of the magic things about the Land of Xanth was called perspective, in which distant things made themselves look small, and close things looked large. Now Ptero was doing it too.

Then he saw a trail of glowing footprints in the air. They were somewhat sloppy around the edges, as if the shoe leather was rotting. The Zombie Master's marked route to the Zombie World! Sammy was bounding along it, but anybody could have followed it.

The trail led right down to the surface of the planet, which was now enormous. The tracks came to touch the land, showing the way to a distant castle. They followed. Umlaut was hardly aware of the scenery, except that it was pretty, with colored fog shrouding the distances.

“Please help!”

That was real sound: a maiden's voice. Umlaut looked and saw a tangled mess of foliage to the side, and beyond it on a small hill a pretty girl without a lot of clothing on. He paused for a better view. “Who are you? What's wrong?” he called to her.

“I'm Caitlin,” she called back. “I can't tell you what's wrong.”

This was odd. “Why not?”

“Because I have the talent of knowing when, not what. This is the time, but that's all I know.”

“Then how do you know you need help?”

“This is the time of my crisis. Something awful will happen if I don't get help. So please help me. It will take only a moment. I earnestly beseech you, kind traveler.”

Umlaut looked at Sammy and Sesame, who had paused when he did. “Can we spare a moment?”

They both looked doubtful. The Zombie Master's track went forward, not to the side. But Caitlin was so earnestly beseeching him for help it was difficult to refuse. He decided to spare a moment.

He left the trail and walked to the tangled foliage. It was in a strip that extended between him and the maiden. He was about to step into it when Sesame slithered before him, shaking her head.

Umlaut hesitated, for he knew Sesame was trying to look out for his welfare. But then Caitlin made a cute pleading gesture, and his resolve returned. “Why not?” he asked. “She needs help, and it's only a moment.”

The serpent was insistent, so he played nineteen questions with her and learned that she recognized the area by Princess Ida's description: It was a comic strip. One of the locations where egregious puns abided. A place to be avoided.

“But there's no way around,” Umlaut protested. “I have to cross.”

Sesame nevertheless felt that this distraction should not be allowed. They should go on to deliver the letter to the Zombie Master and then help the damsel on the return route if she still needed it. That made sense.

Caitlin leaned forward imploringly. The front of her blouse was a bit low and loose. Umlaut decided that the best thing to do was help her now. He stepped over the serpent and into the tangle.

He found himself standing chest deep in a small field of grain. To one side was a sign identifying a red patch as YOUR GRAIN. To the other side was a green patch marked HIS GRAIN. In front was a scintillating silvery-white patch marked MY GRAIN. That was nice to know; he must be going the right way, though he could no longer see the damsel in distress. Fortunately he had not yet encountered any bad puns.

He tried to push on forward, but the standing grain was too thick. Then he saw another little sign: EAT ME. Maybe he had to eat some in order to get through it. So he took a few silvery-white grains and put them in his mouth.

Immediately there was a shining silvery-white bar before his eyes. He reached out to take it, but his hand passed through it—it was illusion. Then his head began to ache. The ache was awful; in fact it felt as if his head was about to explode. What had brought this on? All he had done was take a mouthful of my grain.

A dim bulb flashed. He had heard of that. It gave folk terrible headaches. He hadn't swallowed the grain, so he spat it out.

The pain faded. The grain remained, but it no longer was as thick. He had fallen afoul of a dreadful pun but figured it out in time, so it could no longer hurt him. That was just as well, because he would not care to have another headache like that. Ever.

But now he was mired in the comic strip. He looked back, but the grain had closed in solidly behind him. He had to proceed forward. He saw several paths; which one was best for his purpose? They had labels: G, PG, PG-13, R, and X. He had no idea what the labels meant; maybe they referred to whoever had made the paths. The most open route seemed to be X; it went straight ahead with no artistic diversions. Naturally he took that one. He stepped onto it.

Some cloth appeared, curtaining the path. On it were the words WARNING: POTENTIALLY OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL FOR PRUDES. P TRAP.

“I don't care what it is,” Umlaut muttered, pushing on by. “I just want to get across this comic strip.”

Beyond the cloth veil the scene changed. He stood amid a group of attractive young women. “Well, now, what have we here?” one murmured dulcetly. She had a rather eye-catchingly full white blouse.

“I'm just passing through, if you please,” Umlaut said. So many pretty girls so close made him a bit nervous, because he was nothing special, and he hadn't thought to emulate anything special.

“This looks like a teenage boy,” another woman said. She had an eyeball-locking full posterior.

“Who perhaps has not yet joined the Adult Conspiracy,” a third woman said. She had pupil-dilating firm thighs just below a too-short skirt.

“Perhaps we should do him a favor, then,” the first said. She drew open her blouse to show a bra overflowing with gently heaving flesh.

“And overcome the Adult Conspiracy by showing him our P's,” the second said. She started to draw down her skirt.

Suddenly Umlaut caught on. This was a path of ill repute! They were about to show him things they knew no boy under age eighteen should see.

He turned and lurched back past the cloth veil. Now he recognized its shape: panties! Had they been occupied, he would have freaked out. The P trap wasn't a prude trap, it was a panty trap. And those women had been about to spring it. What would have happened to him if he had seen panties?

He lunged on back off the path. Now he understood the designations: they were ratings, and X was the forbidden one. He had foolishly blundered right onto it. This was worse than a mere pun; it was dangerous.

He reoriented and this time took the G-rated path. That led him through a pleasant garden and on to a bridge across a ditch. He could see that the ditch was filled with festering puns, beginning with a small offshoot labeled SON OF A DITCH. He did not want to get down into that, so he would cross the bridge. But he was cautious, realizing that everything in this region was a moderate pun, a bad pun, or, worst of all, an egregious pun. He had to be careful where he set his feet, lest he step on a pun and get it all over his shoe. Yuck!

The bridge was labeled CANTILEVER. He had heard of the principle: a vertical post with a horizontal projection, counterbalancing the business end of the bridge. That was all right to use. He could see the damsel in distress on the other side, so he had made progress. Soon he would be with her and able to help.

He set a cautious foot on the bridge. Nothing happened. He took another step. No problem. Still, he didn't quite trust this. He had encountered no pun, and there was bound to be one. Where was it lurking?

He decided to retreat while he considered. He wanted to figure this out before he got caught, rather than after. He didn't want to risk another headache, or another panty trap, or worse.

He turned and tried to take a step back. But his feet wouldn't go that way. He could go forward across the bridge but not back to the side he started on. Had he already fallen into whatever trap it represented?

Then he remembered the name of the bridge. Cantilever. “Can't I leave her!” he exclaimed. That was the trap.

But he hadn't actually joined the woman yet, so maybe it hadn't quite closed on him. He tried another tack: Instead of turning, he simply tried to back off the bridge. And he succeeded! He took two steps backward, and he was off. He had fathomed the pun and avoided mischief.

Or had he? He was still in the comic strip, with no way out of it except the bridge. He certainly wasn't going to try the ditch. And he hadn't helped the damsel in distress. So he hadn't accomplished anything. His seeming victory was hollow.

“Bleep, I'm going to do what I set out to do, and bleep the consequences,” he said. He forged back onto the bridge and across it.

But then Caitlin stepped onto the other side, intercepting him before he cleared the bridge. “Oh, thank you, stranger!” she exclaimed. “You have helped me.” She flung her arms about him and gave him a kiss that lifted his hair halfway off his scalp.

“But I haven't done anything yet,” he gasped when he had a chance to take a breath. Her extreme affection made him nervous, though her kiss was not sweeter than wine, fortunately.

“Yes you have, You came to help me just at the right when, and now I'll never have to suffer the wrong what. You deserve your reward.” She kissed him again, with an alarming amount of feeling.

“But—” he gasped, not at all sure what kind of reward she had in mind.

“Let's lie down right here on the bridge and do it,” she said, glancing down to where a soft mattress had appeared.

This was coming to resemble the panty trap, and that made him even more nervous. “I have to get back to my friends and explain the delay,” he said.

“Can't,” she said, drawing him down with her.

He tried to resist, but she was very persuasive. “Can't what?”

“Can't tell ever. Your friends will never know.” She was unbuttoning his shirt.

“I don't understand.”

“Didn't you see the sign? This is the Can't Tell Ever Bridge. You can never tell what happens here. You don't think I'd do this otherwise, do you?” She drew him down onto the mattress with her.

This had the punnish ring of truth. “What can't I tell?”

“How I inducted you into the Adult Conspiracy, of course.” She kissed him again.

Then he heard a rustling. It sounded like the slither of a big

serpent. Sesame was coming to rescue him! “Over here!” he called.

“Curses, foiled again,” the girl muttered and faded away, along with the mattress.

Umlaut got up and stumbled on across the bridge. There were Sammy and Sesame. “Am I glad to see you!”

Both nodded. They were looking at his shirt.

Oh. He buttoned it. An explanation was needed. “I—” But that was as far as he got. He discovered that he couldn't tell. Ever. The bridge would not allow it.

It turned out that Sammy had found a way across the comic strip that wasn't too arduous and had led Sesame , through. The two had arrived just in time to save Umlaut from a fate worse than—actually it hadn't seemed worse, or even bad, just different. But it didn't matter, because it hadn't happened and anyway he couldn't tell.

As they walked along the bank just beyond the comic strip, Umlaut looked back. He saw Caitlin, standing where he had first seen her, looking into the ditch as if expecting someone to emerge from it. Didn't she know that he had already done so? After all, she had joined him on the bridge. She was acting as if none of that had happened.

Well, he wasn't going to get involved with her again, even off the bridge. She obviously was not what she appeared to be.

Sammy plunged into the comic strip. There was a loud creak, Umlaut wasn't sure about this, but Sesame followed the cat without concern, so he did too.

The creaking got louder. What in the worlds could it be? Then they came to a small river or stream. No, it was a creek—and it creaked. Oh. Another egregious pun. What had he expected?

Slightly farther along, the creek became a chain. Umlaut paused to verify that, but it was so: The water flowed creakily into interlocking loops, forming the chain. The chain continued over a ridge and turned to water again where the land was low. Oh, that was how the creek got over the ridge, since water generally had a problem flowing upward.

Umlaut touched the chain, curious whether it was solid. The chain drew back with another creak. It evidently did not like to be touched.

Sesame was pausing, looking back at him. “I'm coming,” he reassured her. “Just verifying a chain reaction.”

The serpent dropped her snout in a groan motion, and Umlaut realized he had just fallen into another pun. “Sorry about that,” he muttered.

He ran on. Something stung his ankle. It was an ant. He brushed it off and followed the other two out of the comic strip. They had made it back across, suffering only two awful puns. But somehow he wasn't happy. In fact he was sad. He sat on the ground and moaned.

Sammy and Sesame looked at him, uncertain what his problem was. “I'm dejected,” he explained unhappily. “Everything seems pointless and miserable. I don't know why I ever got into this depressing business.”

Then a very dull sad bulb blinked. He hadn't escaped another pun after all. “That ant that stung me!” he exclaimed. “It was a depress-ant!”

Both animals did their best to groan. The comic strip had struck again.

However, now that he knew what had happened, he was able reluctantly to push it aside and resume traveling. Soon he had left the depression behind. But he intended never to get near a comic strip again.

They encountered an old man wearing an ornate suit, walking with a low, rounded, armored creature. The man hesitated when he saw Sesame, so Umlaut reassured him. “I'm Umlaut, and these are my friends Sesame Serpent and Sammy Cat. We're not looking for any trouble. We're on our way to Zombie World.”

“I am Matt A Door, and this is my friend Arme Dillo,” the old man said, looking reassured. “We're looking for the Good Magician.”

Umlaut did his best to be diplomatic but bungled it as usual. “Aren't you too old to handle challenges and all that?”

“That's my problem,” Matt said. “On this world we are whatever age we want to be, except for me. Mine is a long sad story you will surely want to hear in exquisite detail.”

“No, uh, we have to get on to—”

“Magician Humfrey was married to his first wife Dana or Dara Demoness for barely two years, and like many of her kind she was a phenomenally sexy creature when she chose to be. No sooner had the stork delivered his first son, Dafrey, than she gave her soul to the baby and took off, leaving Humfrey a divorce. So he had to remarry the Maiden Taiwan in order to have help raising Dafrey.”

“That's very interesting,” Umlaut said insincerely. “But we have to—”

“Then Dara discovered that she hadn't quite succeeded in giving away her whole half soul. She still had a little bit of conscience left, interfering with her demonly freedom. Souls can be awkward for those accustomed to being without them. So she paid another visit to Humfrey by night, pretending to be the Maiden Taiwan, and got him to summon the stork with her again. Then she took off again, and he never knew that the Maiden's surprising ardency was not really hers. Then when the stork delivered her second son, that was me. My talent is making doors into unobtainable areas.”

“Uh, fascinating. But—”

“Dara dumped the rest of her soul on me and was finally free. She did not take very good care of me, being now without conscience or love, so I set out to find my father, not knowing it was the Good Magician himself. I wandered off the enchanted path and stumbled into a big bird. She was the Roc of Ages. She had a maternal bent and nestled me under her wing. There I slept and aged until accidentally knocked free by Arme Dillo. At that point I discovered that I was no longer a child of two but a man of one hundred and forty-seven. I had slept more than a lifetime under that wing.”

“Horrible,” Umlaut said. “But—”

“So I decided to go see the Good Magician, hoping to find a way to recover my lost youth. But I didn't know where to find him. So I made a door to this realm, which is unreachable by regular folk who don't want to leave their bodies behind, and discovered that he's my real father. Actually I ran into Dara, who told me, though I don't think she told me everything. All I need to do is find him, but since he is accessible here, my talent won't help; my magic doors open only on the inaccessible. So I'm searching the old-fashioned way: afoot. Have you seen him?”

“No,” Umlaut said, glad that the recitation was finally done. But then he thought of something he would rather not have realized. “Did you take youth elixir or something, to live so long?”

“No.”

“Then you must have died of old age in your sleep. You are here in soul form. That's what Dara didn't tell you. It is too late to get your youth back.”

“You must be right,” Matt said, appalled. “This is awful.” He wandered away, accompanied by Arme.

Umlaut realized belatedly that Matt might have preferred not to learn that he was dead. Somehow he had messed up again. He had good intentions but was such a klutz.

They approached the castle, and it looked just like the real Castle Roogna. Actually, maybe it was real, on its own terms.

Three adult princesses came out to greet them. They looked somehow familiar. One wore green, another brown, and the third red. The second carried a harmonica, and the third a little drum.

Umlaut stared impolitely. Could it be?

“Hello, Sammy!” the first said, picking up the cat and hugging him. “You didn't forget Melody.”

“Hi, Sesame,” the second said. “I haven't seen you since I was six years old. I'm glad you didn't forget Harmony.” She hugged the serpent's foresection.

“And Umlaut,” the third princess said, giving him a hug. “You seem younger than I remember you. I'm Rhythm.”

“But—but you're only six years old!” he protested.

All three princesses laughed. “This is your first visit to Ptero, isn't it,” Melody said.

“Time is different here,” Harmony added.

“We can be any age we choose to be, just by traveling,” Rhythm concluded. “We're twenty-three at the moment.”

After some further explanations, Umlaut got it straight: On this world, time was geography. When a person traveled east, or “from,” she became younger; west, or “to,” she became older. They moved Castle Roogna around so they could live in it at whatever age they cared to be. It was all perfectly ordinary, they assured him. Six was the only age they couldn't be, because that was their current year of full mortal existence in Xanth.

“And this is my fiancé Anomy,” Melody said, introducing him to a rather ordinary-seeming man. “He was once a real dastard, but he reformed.”

Umlaut couldn't make sense of this, so he didn't comment. Probably he had misheard, as a princess would not use a bad word.

“And what brings you three here?” Harmony inquired.

“We are looking for Zombie World,” Umlaut explained. “The Zombie Master's trail led here.”

“Of course,” Rhythm agreed. “Zombie World is far up the line. We'll take you to Princess Ida.” She took his arm.

Umlaut was a bit disconcerted. She was a princess, and six years older than he was, and a lovely young woman. He felt indistinctly out of place. But what could he do? He suffered himself to be drawn on into the castle. Melody was carrying Sammy, and Harmony was chatting sociably with Sesame, seeming to understand the serpent's thoughts more readily than Umlaut did. But of course they had Sorceress-class magic and could do what they chose.

Princess Ida looked seventeen years older but was definitely the same person. Except that her little moon was the shape of a four-sided pyramid. Each triangular side was a different color: red, blue, green, and gray. Umlaut had never heard of a four-colored pyramidal world, but evidently one existed.

“Aunt Ida, these folk are going to Zombie World,” Melody said brightly. “They're following the Zombie Master's trail.”

“Naturally,” Ida agreed, as if this happened every day. “No need to leave your bodies for that destination, just focus on the footsteps.”

Now Umlaut saw the Zombie Master's tracks walking up through the air toward the world of Pyramid, growing smaller as they approached it. Sammy was already climbing the air, following them, growing smaller, and Sesame was slithering after him, her head section becoming smaller than her tail section. So Umlaut spoke a brief thank you to Princess Ida and ran after his friends.

Soon they were slanting down toward the expanding world. It was rotating grandly, showing one side full face and then another. The edges seemed to be quite sharp, with no rounding off; even a river he saw went around the corner in a fold rather than a bend, changing color as it did. Apparently the rules of magic differed on this world, just as they did on Ptero. He had never before realized just how versatile magic was. He had assumed that what he knew in Xanth was the way it was everywhere, except for drear Mundania, where there was very little magic. Did Xanth seem dreary to the inhabitants of these other worlds?

The footprints oriented on the blue face and came to land there. Here everything was in shades of blue: mountains, trees, rivers, animals, buildings. Otherwise it was reasonably familiar.

They came to a blue lake. The footsteps crossed it, so they followed. Apparently this trail was enchanted, so that they could walk it without splashing into the lake. There was a blue isle, and on the isle was a blue ridge, and near that was a blue house. The prints went up to its door.

They knocked, and Princess Ida appeared. She was about the age of the one on Ptero, but all blue, from hair to toes. What appeared to be a doughnut orbited her head. “Uh, we're going to Zombie World,” Umlaut said awkwardly. "I'm Umlaut, and this is Sesame Serpent, and—'

“Sammy!” she exclaimed, picking him up. The cat had friends everywhere. Then she looked back at Umlaut. “You will want to continue following the tracks. You are fortunate he left the trail, for otherwise your travel would be much complicated.”

“Complicated?”

“You would have to eat and drink and sleep and ask directions. That means interacting with the natives. Asking favors.”

He still didn't get it. “Favors?”

“On this world, anyone who does a favor gains size. Anyone who receives it loses size. So most prefer to give rather than to receive, for selfish reasons. You are spared that, as the trail conveys you swiftly without the need to pause along the way.”

“Oh. Yes. Thank you for clarifying that.” Then something slightly disturbing occurred to him. “Is that a favor?”

Ida laughed. “No. I have an arrangement with the Zombie Master, to help travelers along their way. He and I settled accounts separately.”

“Accounts?”

“I get to follow the trail myself, when I wish to, and see the other worlds. That's his return favor to me. I delight in such sightseeing.”

This seemed odd. After a moment he figured out what was bothering him. “You can go to another world—circling your own head?”

“Yes. Isn't it wonderful? I thought for a long time that I couldn't, but then I learned that I could, since it is merely soul travel. My body remains here, of course.”

“Uh, yes,” he agreed. Their own bodies remained in Xanth; they were now mere souls, though they seemed much the same. But smaller. He tried to imagine how small, thinking of the sphere of Ptero, then the much smaller Pyramid. And it seemed these were merely the beginning of a long chain. He got dizzy.

“Don't try to make too much sense of it,” Princess Ida recommended. “It's one of those things a person must accept on faith, so as to remain sane. Just accept each world on its own terms as you come to it.”

The dizziness began to clear. “I will. Thanks.”

“Remember that each world is unique to itself in custom as well as form. The next one incurs a burden of emotion for favors rendered, rather than size.”

“I don't understand.”

“One who does a service for another comes to like that person, or even love him. So it is best to be cautious about doing or receiving favors, unless you can arrange to exchange favors. Then they cancel out.”

“We'll be careful,” Umlaut promised, shaken. Instead of getting accustomed to these new worlds, he was becoming increasingly nervous about them.

“Now you had better follow the trail to Torus.”

“Torus?”

“The doughnut.”

He felt stupid again. “Oh. Thanks.” He saw the tracks proceeding through the air toward the moon, as before.

Princess Ida released Sammy, and he bounded up the trail, becoming rapidly smaller, until he disappeared onto the doughnut world. “Wait for us!” Umlaut called belatedly and followed with Sesame.

“So nice to meet you, Umlaut and Sesame,” Ida called after them. Now she seemed mountainously large.

“Same here,” Umlaut called back, afraid his voice wouldn't reach that expanding distance.

They landed on the inner surface of Torus and followed the tracks to what turned out to be the Sarah Sea and across it to the isle of Niffen. There were many wild creatures there, but they remained clear of the trail.