Read Up In A Heaval for Free Online

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.
    Sammy turned to face the river. Its surface was rippling, but it wasn't an allegory; they were staying well clear. An eye broke the surface, then another. These were followed by eyestalks, then by a glistening hump. Finally it slid entirely out of the water: a huge snail. There was a knapsack on its shell and printed words: MUNDANIA SNAILS.
    They all stared as the snail slid grandly on toward Castle Zombie. It completely ignored them. It crossed the speed demon path, paying no heed to the speeding demons, who veered crazily to avoid it. It passed within range of a tangle tree, but the tree's tentacles recoiled from it, evidently knowing better than to get stuck on it. It was sublimely untouchable, caring about nothing and nobody. It left behind a fresh trail of slime.
    “Let's not inquire further,” Umlaut said, and