Esrever Doom (Xanth) Read Free Page B

puff of smoke emerged from its snoot.
    “A smoker!” Kody said. Somewhere he had heard that dragons came in several types, one of which was the smoker. If that thing chose to rev up its smoke it could make a cloud around the tree and literally smoke them out. He understood that in house fires, more people died from smoke inhalation than from direct burning. This thing was dangerous!
    Then the dragon shrugged and moved on. It had concluded that they weren’t worth the effort. It would have required a lot of smoke to surround a tree this size.
    “But if you hadn’t warned me, I’d have run right into it on the path. It could have smoked me with one puff, and swallowed me whole.”
    “Tweet,” Tweeter agreed.
    “Well, look who’s climbing trees!” a female voice screeched.
    Kody looked, but didn’t see anything.
    “A silly tweety bird and an ignorant Mundane oaf,” the voice screeched.
    Now Kody saw the source, perched in a distant tree. It looked like a vulture, except that it had an ugly human head.
    “That’s a harpy!” he exclaimed, amazed.
    “Tweet,” Tweeter agreed.
    “Lo, the light dawns!” the harpy screeched. “I’m Sniper, mistress of the long-distance verbal attack! What are you two doing there—making love?”
    “That’s one foul mouth on that creature,” Kody remarked.
    “Get it straight, idiot!” the harpy screeched. “I have a fowl mouth, not a foul mouth!”
    Kody was getting annoyed. “And your face is uglier than your mouth.”
    This set the harpy back. “Ugly?”
    “Repulsive,” Kody clarified.
    “But since the Curse I’ve been beautiful!”
    Curse? Then Kody caught on: the reversal that made lovely women seem ugly, and ugly harpies seem beautiful. “Too bad, Sniper; I see you as you are.”
    Tweeter was amused. “Tweet!”
    “Oh, yeah?” the harpy screeched. “Well, you’re another!” Then she spread her motley wings and took off, evidently overmatched.
    “Tweet.”
    “You’re right,” Kody said. “That was sort of fun.”
    They dismounted from the tree and resumed travel along the path. Now Kody appreciated his need for a competent guide. It wasn’t just a matter of finding a man, but of knowing what dangers to avoid. The bird knew.
    They came to a bushy clearing. Tweeter flew ahead, then returned. “Tweet.”
    “Right. Go this way.” He followed the bird to where a young man was kneeling before a melon.
    The man glanced up. “Hello. Tweeter tells me you’re Kody, a fellow Mundanian, newly arrived, and you want to compare notes.”
    “Uh, yes, in essence,” Kody agreed, taken aback. All that from one tweet? Well, maybe it did fit within 140 characters.
    “I’m Bryce. Just let me capture this pun, and I’ll be with you.”
    Now Kody saw that the melon had legs, head, and tail. It was a sadly fat little dog! Bryce opened a bag and put it over the creature. When it was safely inside, he closed the bag and stood up. “That’s a melon-collie, a gourd dog. More pun than guardian, I fear. We’re trying to capture the most egregious puns first.”
    “So I see,” Kody said.
    “So how did you come to Xanth, Kody?”
    “I was being anesthetized for surgery, and they warned me there could be side effects, such as mood reverse. I got mood backward and it came out doom. Esrever doom. Things seem to have regressed from there.”
    “Could you have died?”
    “Not that I know of. I’m in a controlled coma.”
    “So you should return when they bring you out of it.”
    “Yes. Then the dream will end.”
    Bryce smiled. “Funny thing about dreams. Some turn out to be true. Take me: I’m eighty-one years old and in ill health.”
    Kody repressed a smile. “You don’t look it.”
    “I know. I was magically youthened when I came here, and now am twenty-two, physically, and absolutely healthy. And being courted by a princess. For some men, that would be the stuff of dreams.”
    “For some men,” Kody agreed cautiously.
    A lovely teenaged girl approached,