"I'd better finish this mucking job before I dress again," he decided.
Sesame was apologetic. She had not liked soiling the dungeon floor, but no provision had been made for her in that respect. Normally she left her manure in dirt or water. She had just had to make do, with regret. The oubliette was not convenient for her anatomy, or she would have used that, as it was enchanted never to fill up.
"That's all right," Umlaut said. "I just want to finish the job I started, before I go."
He was remarkably decent for his kind, she suggested.
He got to work and made progress. Then, as he was finishing up the chamber where the stairs were, there was suddenly extra light as a door opened. There was Breanna of the Black Wave, with another cartful of food.
And there he stood, with nothing on. He froze, with no idea what to do.
"You've got so much muck on you, I can't even see your clothing," Breanna remarked. "But really, you didn't have to continue that chore. I told you it was a mistake."
He realized that she couldn't tell that he had no clothing on. What a relief! "Not much farther to go," he said. "Then I think we should talk."
"For sure." She gave them their food and departed.
They ate, meanwhile considering their plans. They would leave the castle and travel together, meeting random people. Umlaut would talk with them, evoking their minds, and if there were any danger, Sesame would handle it. She was, after all, a good-sized serpent, similar to the ones that found employment defending moats. She could handle land as long as they spent the nights near water. It promised to be a fair adventure.
Then Umlaut finished the mucking, dumped the last of it into the oubliette, went to another basin of water, washed, and donned his mostly dry clothes. He was ready for the next stage. "I guess I'll have to go up alone to explain things to Breanna and to look around the castle," he said. "You'll have to trust me on that."
She would. He had been trusting her all along, after all. She indicated it was nice to have company with a mind, after a year alone in the dungeon.
It was now about noon, and the light in the dungeon was brighter than it had been. He paused as he was about to mount the stairs. There was something behind them, where he hadn't had to clean. Curious, he looked.
There was a small window in the wall, letting light in. Below it, inside, was a pile of papers. It looked as if someone had pushed the papers through the slot from outside, and no one had collected them inside. Small wonder—probably nobody had known about them. Sesame hadn't; she didn't read and couldn't write. She understood human talk, a private ability a number of animals had developed, but that was the extent of it.
He picked one up. It was a sealed letter addressed to the Demon Jupiter. Who was that? Umlaut knew about demons; they popped in and out of existence and usually meant mischief to mortal folk. But he hadn't known they received letters.
"Do you know the Demon Jupiter?" he asked Sesame.
She shook her head. Then she reconsidered. It took a while to fathom what she meant, but in time he had it: She didn't know of any local demon by that name but understood there was a major Demon in another realm by that title. Maybe that was the one. If so, this could be important.
"I'd better ask Breanna," he decided. "I'll take it up with me."
He mounted the stairs. He paused at the top. "Oh, is it all right if I tell them your real nature? That you're not a dragon?"
She nodded, trusting him.
He opened the door, which wasn't locked, and stepped into the brighter light of the real world. He saw a zombie standing guard. "Where is Breanna?"
"Thash," the zombie said, pointing with a rotten finger.
"Thank you." Umlaut walked in that direction. When he came to a door, he knocked.
It opened. Breanna stood there. "Oh, yes, I almost forgot. What's on your mind?"
"First, I'm ready to go. So is the dragon."
"The dragon!"
"It's not really a dragon. It's a serpent. It was trapped in the dungeon."
"You mean it doesn't belong there?"
"That's right. I guess it happened to come just about the time you took over the castle, so you didn't know."
"For sure!"
"So we figure to travel together for a while, see the sights, you know? I cleaned out the muck, so it's reasonably clean now. But maybe if you ever have any other creature down there, you should set up some, uh, sanitary facilities, so it doesn't have to mess the floor."
"For sure," she repeated,
"And we found some letters."
"Letters?"
"I picked one up. I thought it might be important." He handed it to her.
Breanna studied it. "The Demon Jupiter! You bet it's important! This is from Mundania. How'd it get down in the dungeon?"
"There seems to be a—a mail slot. There's a pile of letters there. I guess you didn't know about that either."
"There's oodles we didn't know about running this castle," she agreed. "The Zombie Master didn't put much in writing, so maybe he didn't remember everything. At least I can take care of this letter."
"How can you deliver it? I understand he's far away."
"On another planet," she agreed. "I happen to know him. I'll forward this to him on the Internet."
"What kind of net?"
"It's an extension of the Xanth Xone. I've got a Mesh site there. Here, I'll show you. I'll send this as an E-mail attachment." She led the way to another chamber. "Com Pewter set up a station here," she explained, "so we can connect."
Umlaut saw some kind of metallic contraption with a glassy screen. Breanna punched some buttons, and the screen showed a series of little boxes and arrows. She punched more buttons, and words appeared: DEMON JUPITER: LETTER FORWARDED BY ATTACHMENT. She fed the envelope into a slot, and it disappeared. In a moment another message appeared: ATTACHMENT: LETTER TO DEMON JUPITER.
"Now I'll push the Send button and it's done," she said. She did so, and the screen showed a letter sprouting wings and flying away. Then it went blank. "Done."
"That goes to Jupiter?" Umlaut asked dubiously.
"For sure. Now let's see to your serpent."
"First I need to check around outside. There may be another serpent lurking."
"And they don't get along?"
"You might say that. I need to be sure it's not there."
"No problem. I'll have the zombies do a search." She went to the zombie standing guard. "Hey, Sludge! Tell Fay Tall to organize a search around the castle. Are there any serpents there?"
"Yeshum," the zombie agreed and shuffled off.
"Fay Tall is a zombie who appears to be fully alive for half a day at a time," Breanna explained. "Then he reverts to normal. He hates it."
"I guess I'd hate to revert to being a zombie," Umlaut said.
"You got that wrong. It's the fully alive state he hates. It sets him apart from the other zombies."
Umlaut was taken aback. He decided not to argue the case. "Anyway, if the way is clear, can you open the dungeon door so Drivel can slither out?"
"For sure. I wish we'd known he didn't belong. He didn't say anything."
Umlaut decided that the serpent's gender was no business of anyone else's. "Serpents don't talk."
"So how do you know so much about him?"
"He understands human talk. I talked and he agreed or disagreed. In time I got his story."
"I wish I'd thought of that! I just never realized he didn't belong there. There's a lot more to this job than I thought."
The zombie Sludge returned. "All schlear," it reported.
"All clear," Breanna repeated. "Let's go open the dungeon gate."
They walked down outside the castle, between the wall and the moat. There was a large door. "We closed this when there was a storm," Breanna said. "Then never got around to opening it again. Now I feel so stupid; of course that's when we trapped Drivel inside." She put her brown hands on a plank and pushed it up, freeing the door.
Umlaut
pulled it open. "Drivel!" he called. "It's all clear. We can leave now."
The serpent emerged, blinking in the bright light.
"I'm—we—we're sorry," Breanna said awkwardly. "I apologize to you for trapping you in there. We just didn't realize."
Sesame nodded. Then she glanced at Umlaut.
"He doesn't care to swim in that moat," Umlaut said. "No offense. He's not a zombie. Is it okay to use the bridge?"
"Sure. Whatever you want." Breanna got out of the way.
Sesame slithered smoothly up the bank and to the drawbridge and on across it. Umlaut followed. "Thanks!" he called as they reached the outer bank.
"We'll check those other letters," Breanna said. "Come back in a day or three and we'll let you know."
"Okay." Umlaut walked on, pacing Sesame's slither. But that reminded him of the letters. "Why don't we check where they came from?" he suggested. "You can smell the trail?"
She could. She slithered to the side to parallel the moat and soon picked up the scent.
"What it is? Human?"
Sesame tried but was unable to convey what had delivered the letters, except that it was neither human nor serpent. There had been a number of trips, and the scent trail seemed to have existed for at least six months.
"Why would anyone or anything deliver letters from Mundania to Castle Zombie?" Umlaut asked rhetorically.
The serpent had no idea.
The trail bore west through the deepest jungle. Here dragons and other dangerous creatures lurked, but Sesame smelled none of them by the trail. The trail itself was a bit sticky, as if someone had poured noxious goo on the ground to mark it. Maybe that repelled the other creatures.
Then it crossed a small river. They had no trouble with this; they both swam across. There were leathery-backed tooth-mouthed green allegories in it, but they eyed Sesame and decided not to make an issue.
But there was no trail on the other side. The serpent sniffed and sniffed and could not find it.
"It must go lengthwise under the river," Umlaut said. "It could come out anywhere. We'll have to search the whole length of it."
Sesame sighed. They started in, following the river upstream. It wound around, trying to distract them, but they held firm—and did not find the trail.
"I wish we had some magic help," Umlaut said.
At that point a cat appeared. It was male, reddish, and reasonably plump. It approached them as if it wanted to make their acquaintance.
Umlaut considered, then decided to question the cat in the same manner he had questioned the serpent. "Do you understand me?" he asked.
The cat nodded.
"Are you looking for us?"
Another nod.
"Do you know where the letter trail resumes?"
Another nod.
Well, now. Umlaut focused, questioning the cat in more detail. Suddenly he recognized it: "Sammy Cat!" he exclaimed. "The one who came with Jenny Elf, before she got married and settled down. The one who can find anything."
Except home, it turned out. It seemed that Sammy Cat had felt a bit out of place among the werewolves—Jenny was now a princess of werewolves—so had decided to go on his own mission. He had changed his mind but was unable to return to the werewolf island and Jenny because that was now home.
"Maybe we can make a deal," Umlaut suggested. "You help us find the letter trail, and we'll help you find Werewolf Island." He glanced at Sesame to make sure she agreed.
Sammy agreed to the deal. Then he headed downstream.
"We were going the wrong way!" Umlaut said ruefully. But of course their choices had been upstream or downstream; they had been as likely to go wrong as right.
They followed the cat as he plunged through the jungle. Sesame had no problem, but Umlaut found it hard to squeeze through cat or serpent-diameter holes in the thick foliage. "Urn, could you find a path that I can follow?" he called.
Sammy reappeared. He was sorry. When he searched for something, he just tended to go for it. Jenny Elf had always been crying, "Wait for me!" but he still tended to do it without thinking. But he would try.
Thereafter, the route was easier to follow. Unfortunately it soon led to a tangle tree. "This isn't safe!" Umlaut cried.
But it turned out that it was safe: The tangle tree had fed recently and was quiescent. They followed its nice path in, skirted the deadly trunk, and followed another path out. The one out was not nearly as nice as the one in. Umlaut appreciated that the tree wanted creatures to come in, not go out, but wasn't sure how it managed to make the paths that way. There were many things about the Land of Xanth he didn't properly understand.
Progress downstream was much quicker than it had been upstream, perhaps because it was downhill. Reasonably soon they reached the sea. Sammy stopped.
"You mean the path never does cross the river?" Umlaut asked, dismayed. "It goes straight on into the sea?"
That was the case.
"But we wanted to see who was delivering the letters."
Sammy made a stiff-backed circle. That wasn't what Umlaut had said. He had asked for the trail, not the carrier.
"I guess I wasn't very clear," Umlaut admitted. "You're right. Now we'd better go find Werewolf Island. It must be somewhere along the coast here."
But then Sammy changed his mind. Home could wait. Would it be all right if he stayed with them for a while, sharing their adventure? One reason he had changed his mind before was the danger; it had seemed as if every predator had a taste for fat cat. But with Sesame along, the danger was much less.
Umlaut exchanged another glance with Sesame. They had come to understand each other pretty well, so that a glance could convey a lot. "Sure. We could use your talent to find interesting things."
In that case, Sammy indicated, he would show them the letter carrier.
"You can do that? Why didn't you say so before?"
Sammy gave him a look of patient tolerance. Umlaut hadn't asked, of course.
They crossed the river. First Sesame swam, with Sammy perched on her head, glaring the colored loan sharks away. Then she swam back to accompany Umlaut as he swam. The sharks looked eager to take one of his arms or legs, but Sesame wouldn't let them. They were clearly disgusted. Umlaut had come to think of the big serpent as harmless but realized that that was because she was his friend. She remained a formidable predator, probably equivalent to a dragon, only without fire, smoke, or steam.
They followed the river back upstream to the place they had first come to it. Then Sammy settled down for a catnap.
"I guess it's not time yet," Umlaut said. "Why don't we forage for food while we wait? We're not partial to each other's food, so maybe we should do it separately, then meet here in an hour or so."
Sesame agreed and slithered off. Umlaut spied a very nice looking pie tree and picked a pie. He bit into it and almost choked—it was a sweetie pie, revoltingly sweet. He looked at the others and saw that they were similar; this was a sweetie pie tree. So he suppressed his objection and ate it. He had been taught to eat any food he picked rather than waste it. Next time he would be more careful.
In an hour or so Sesame Serpent returned. She was a little thicker in the middle and looked satisfied; she had found her meal. Umlaut did not inquire.
But she looked askance at him. It seemed that he looked and smelled sickeningly sweet. The pie had had its effect. Umlaut was disgusted.
Sammy woke, looked at Umlaut, and turned his back, evincing annoyance.
"I can't help it!" Umlaut protested. "It was all there was to eat."
But Sammy had a cure. He sniffed out a nearby path that went north and south. It had a paved surface and a dotted line along its center. All Umlaut needed to do was stand there a moment, and he would no longer be too sweet.
He shrugged and tried it. Suddenly there was the blare of a horn and a demon zoomed toward him at impossible speed. "Watch where you're going, jerk!" the demon yelled. Umlaut threw himself to one side, just in time, and the demon swerved the other
way—and crashed into the sweetie pie tree. Pies flew up, and one landed on the demon. Rather, in the demon, for the thing's mouth was open to yell another imprecation. There was nothing for the demon to do but swallow it.
"What did you think you were doing, speeding like that?" Umlaut demanded angrily. "You could have run me over!"
The demon extricated himself from the tree. "Oh, I'm so sorry," he said with saccharine politeness. "But you know, I am a speed demon. It's my nature." Then he got back on the path and bbbrrnzzzpp! he was gone, except for a sweet cloud of smoke.
In a moment another demon zoomed by, stirring up a cloud of dust and leaves. "Those speed demons think they own the forest!" Umlaut griped. Then he saw Sesame and Sammy gazing at him. "What!?"
In third moment it came clear: He was no longer sickeningly sweet. The experience with the speed demons had wiped that right out of him. And the first demon had swallowed a pie and turned sweet. Served him right.
"Okay, you cured me, Sammy," he said grudgingly. "Now how about the letter carrier?"
Sammy shrugged. Not yet. He settled down for another catnap, assuming the aspect of a speed bump on the speed demons' path. Sesame settled down for a snooze or two of her own. She had reptilian patience and a full tummy.
Frustrated, Umlaut walked around the area, just in case there was anything interesting. He discovered a tree he didn't recognize, with small pretzel-twisted fruits. The trunk ascended, then bent down, then rose again, forming a giant letter N. He hesitated, then decided that the fruits were unlikely to be poisonous. He picked one and ate it. It was good, neither too sweet nor sour. He should have eaten this instead of the sweetie pies.
Suddenly he was very angry. He spat out the fruit, and the passion faded. The fruit must have caused his mood.
He tried another. This time he suffered a mental picture of the nearby region of Xanth, as if he could envision it without being blocked by the trees or mountains.
A bulb flashed over his head. "N-vision!" he cried. "It's an N-tree and has N-shaped fruits. The first one was N-rage." Then, curious, he tried other fruits and identified N-oble, N-sure, N-trance, N-shroud, and N-joy. Satisfied with that last one, he stopped picking and eating.