Night Mare (18 page)

“Oh—you peeped into a gourd,” the Zombie Master said. “And got trapped inside.”

The phantom nodded.

“But I suppose one place is as good as another for your kind,” the Zombie Master concluded. “You can operate here as readily as in Xanth, and you have companions of your own kind. And the useful occupation of acting in cautionary dreams.”

The phantom made a gesture of appreciative agreement. Someone understood! Then it moved on, evidently having business elsewhere. Dreams were too important to be delayed by social meetings.

Imbri moved on also. She should have known that the Magician would not be frightened by routine horrors!

They passed through a region of spinning nebulae, avoiding the brightest and hottest of them. Then on into a forest so thick with giant spiders that Imbri had to weave between their legs to get through. Then on out the peephole of a gourd near Castle Roogna, and to the castle itself.

“You certainly have an efficient mode of travel,” the Zombie Master remarked.

The two widows were grieving by the two Kings, dry-eyed and sleepless, exactly as Imbri had shown them in her dream for the new King. Imbri brought the Zombie Master right into the bedroom where both Kings lay like corpses, side by side.

The Zombie Master dismounted and approached. “This ascension is not of my choosing,” he said to the women. “Allow me to verify their condition. Perhaps they can be revived.”

He put his hand on Dor’s forehead. “He does not respond to my power. He is not dead.”

“No, not dead,” Irene agreed in a whisper. “Ensorcelled.”

“Of course. We shall track down the source of that ensorcellment,” the Zombie Master said. “Magician Humfrey surely can do that. But at the moment we must stop the advance of the Nextwave, about which the good mare Imbri has kindly informed me. I have fought a Wave before, in my prior life; my zombies alone are not sufficient, but, abetted by a formidable natural barrier such as—what is it, something that crosses Xanth—”

“The Gap Chasm,” Irene said. “You moved too far from it, so have almost forgotten it because of the forget-spell on it.”

“Just so. The Gap Chasm. My zombies can guard the bridges and destroy them if necessary. I shall need a lieutenant who is familiar with Castle Roogna and the recent events. I can not afford to waste time updating myself about recent changes in the castle.”

“Grundy the Golem,” Irene said. “And Ichabod the Mundane; he knows all about the enemy. And Chet and Chem Centaur. And, of course, Mare Imbri.”

“Indeed,” the Magician agreed dourly, and left the room. Imbri followed.

Soon there was another council of war. Grundy and Ichabod reported all relevant details of their spy mission, and Chet Centaur gave the details of the battle with the Punics and the manner in which King Dor had been enchanted.

The Zombie Master pondered. “There seems to be a pattern here,” he remarked. “In each case the King was alone, though seemingly well guarded. In each case the enchantment occurred by night. I suspect we have a nocturnal enemy who can strike at a moderate distance, or who is able to pass guards unobserved. Whom do we know who could do that?”

“A night mare,” Imbri said in a general dreamlet. “My kind can become insubstantial and invisible by night and can project dreams from a small distance. But we can’t ensorcell.”

“A night mare,” the King repeated, removing the crown. It fitted him well enough, but he evidently was not comfortable with such trappings and preferred to dispense with them. “Could there be a renegade, one with special powers?’

“I know of no renegade among residents of the gourd,” Imbri sent. “The Night Stallion has special powers—but he is loyal to Xanth and never leaves the gourd. All other dark horses lack mental powers, other than dream projection, and regular horses lack even that. There are only the Mundane horses anyway, completely unmagical.”

“There’s the day horse,” Grundy said. “But he’s stupid.”

“Not completely stupid,” Imbri sent. “He seems smarter as he becomes accustomed to our ways. Still, I don’t see how he could be the sorcerer, even if he had night power. Twice he helped us against the Mundanes. He freed me from the Horseman and carried Chameleon on the spy mission.”

“I did not mean to implicate horses,” the Zombie Master said. “Could some other creature develop similar powers?”

Chet shrugged. The gesture started at his human shoulders and rippled down along his equine forepart. “Anything is possible. Perhaps a variant of a basilisk, who stuns instead of kills. Or a groupie-fish, stealing souls. Obviously
some
creature or person can destroy Kings.”

“One smart enough to recognize a King, since they’re the only ones taken,” Grundy put in.

“Precisely,” the Zombie Master said. “And I am surely the next target. There is one thing you should know about me: I was a zombie for eight hundred years. I was restored to life by a special elixir Dor obtained, and I owe him an eternal debt of gratitude. I retain the power to animate myself as a zombie, should I suffer an untimely demise. So if the mysterious enemy should strike me down and I die, you must locate my zombie and question it. Perhaps the identity of the mysterious enchanter will be revealed.”

They all nodded sober agreement. What a grim way to locate an enemy!

“Now I must rouse the Castle Roogna guardian zombies and march them tonight to the Chasm. It is surely our only chance to get there before the Nextwave does. Timing is critical.”

“The zombies are already mostly roused,” Grundy said. “Dor and Irene got married less than a week ago in the zombie graveyard.”

“That would rouse them,” the Zombie Master agreed with a gaunt smile. “Zombies love weddings and similar morbidities. Now I must go organize them into an army. The rest of you get some sleep. Report to the Chasm at dawn, armed. I may need some of you living folk to be captains, as zombies do not think too well.” He left the room, going to gather his forces.

“Captain of a zombie troop!” Grundy said. “Well, why not? Zombies aren’t bad people, once you get used to the smell.”

Imbri remembered the brief dream contact she had had with one zombie at the wedding: maggoty blood pudding. Zombies might not be bad people, but they were hardly pleasant companions. Still, as warriors against the Mundanes, the zombies had definite promise.

At dawn, imperfectly rested, they reported as directed. The King had already ranged his zombies along the Chasm and behind trees. The Mundanes could cross only where the bridges were, and since one bridge was one-way from south to north and another was invisible, the third was the obvious choice. It was visible and solid, with a well-worn path to it.

The Mundanes had had a full intervening day to regroup and travel, and they had not wasted it. At midmorning they arrived at the Gap Chasm, following the main path. They had evidently learned that straying from the path was to invite assorted and awful hazards. The wilderness of Xanth had ways to enforce its strictures.

Immediately the zombies closed on them, throwing chunks of rotting flesh and fragments of bone in lieu of missiles.

The Nextwavers reacted exactly as they were supposed to. They screamed and retreated in confusion. Mundanes were prejudiced against zombies, as they were against ghosts, ghouls, vampires, werewolves, and similarly innocent creatures, and tended to avoid physical contact with them.

Then Hasbinbad appeared, gesticulating. Again he rallied his errant army. The potency of a good leader was manifest; the motley crew became a determined force. The Mundanes began attacking the zombies, shooting arrows into them. Naturally the arrows had no effect; they could not kill what was already dead. Other Mundanes hacked at the zombies with their swords. This was more effective, for Zombies could not function well without limbs or heads.

But the Mundane’s aversion to the zombies handicapped them, and many living men were brought down by the walking dead. Soon the ground was littered with bones and flesh, fresh-dead mixed with un-dead.

Now Hasbinbad led a charge to the main bridge. His surviving men followed in a hastily formed phalanx, their overlapping shields brushing aside the zombies. The Mundanes were winning the battle.

“We have to deal with that leader,” the Zombie Master muttered. “Without him, they are nothing with him, they will prevail.”

Imbri had to agree: leadership made all the difference. Had King Trent remained active, the Wave would not have gotten this far. King Dor, too, had been winning. How could Xanth defend itself when it kept losing its leaders just as they got the hang of it?

A picked squad of zombies guarded the bridge. These were zombie animals, more formidable than zombie people.

Hasbinbad came up against a zombie wyvern. The small dragon was in bad condition, even for its kind, and shed scales and flesh with every motion. The Mundane chief hacked at its snout with his sword. The snout exploded like a rotten log; teeth, tongue, nostrils, and eyeballs showered down around the Mundanes. Then the wyvern fought back, exhaling a belch of fire. The fire was as decrepit as the creature, drooling out greenishly and licking at Hasbinbad’s feet. It was hot, though; the Mundane danced back out of the way with a green hotfoot.

When the gasp of fire faded, the Nextwaver advanced again. He lopped off the rest of the wyvern’s head. Ears, brains, and tonsils flew up in slices, showering the Mundanes again. But the bare neck thrust forward, jamming into Hasbinbad’s face, squirting candy-striped pus, forcing him to retreat a second time.

Again the man struck. Vertebrae, muscles, and stringy nerves flung out, festooning the Waver’s sword arm. But still the man pressed forward—and received a faceful of watery blood that pumped out of the truncated torso. He shook himself off as if not quite believing this was happening, wiped the gook out of his eyes with the back of his left fist, then slashed some more, heedless of the guts and tatters of skin that burst out and wrapped about his body. He now resembled a zombie himself.

“That Mundane is determined,” the Zombie Master remarked.

“He’s the one who brought them through the snow-covered Mundane mountains of Halp,” Grundy said. “From Ghoul to Hitaly. He’s one smart, ruthless cuss.”

A zombie ant lion pounced at the Mundane leader. This was a relatively new zombie, not very far decayed. The lion-head roared, showing excellent teeth, and the ant-body had six healthy legs and a stinger. The creature was alert to the strikes of the sword, dodging out of the way. Few zombies had any sense of self-preservation even Hasbinbad recognized this as unusual.

Another Mundane emerged from the phalanx, aiming an arrow at the ant lion. But three zombie goblins charged at him
,
grabbing for his legs.

Then the other Mundanes got into the action. Soon they had dispatched the ant lion and goblins, together with zombie frogs, rabbits, and a watery-eyed hydraulic ram. As the ram fell into the Gap, the gore- and rot-strewn men stood at the very edge of the bridge.

On the bridge, however, was a zombie python, buttressed by zombie roaches, a zombie flying fish, and a zombie cockatrice. The Mundanes concentrated on the python, apparently not recognizing the genuinely dangerous monster, the cock. Hasbinbad tackled the snake’s head, distracting it so that two other Mundanes could skirt it and start across the bridge.

“That chiefs valor has just preserved his life,” the Zombie Master murmured.

The two Wavers on the bridge trod diligently on the roaches, which popped and squished with assorted ghastly sounds, depending on their state of preservation. The Wavers swished their swords at the flying fish, who darted around their heads, squirting mouthfuls of stagnant water. Then the first Mundane came face to snoot with the cockatrice.

There was a moment’s pause before the Mundane dissolved into green goop and slurped off the bridge. A living cockatrice could convert a living creature to a corpse by the mere force of its gaze, but a zombie cockatrice lacked full power. Instead it halfway melted creatures to muscle rot.

The second Mundane charged the little monster—and he, too, melted into putrescence and plopped into the Chasm. There was a choking sound from below, the Gap Dragon had arrived on the scene and snapped up the gob. Now the poor dragon had mild indigestion.

“Avert your gaze! Use your shields!” Hasbinbad bawled, so loudly that Imbri heard it all the way across the Chasm.

One brave Nextwaver obliged. The man pulled his helmet over his eyes, raised his shield, and edged out onto the bridge, guided by the guardrails. Listening to yelled instructions from his leader, he oriented on the cockatrice and finally used the bottom edge of his shield to sweep the little monster off the bridge.

The cockatrice fell, and the Gap Dragon had recovered enough to snap it up. There was a gulp, then a kind of stifled belch. Now the dragon had a real pain in the gut.

“I don’t like this at all,” the Zombie Master muttered. “Those Nextwavers are too strong for us. We may be forced to destroy the bridge.”

“I can bring them down singly as they cross,” Chet said, holding his bow ready.

The Zombie Master considered. “It seems worth a try, though I am skeptical of its eventual success. There are quite a number of Mundanes who have not yet seen battle; the bridge is too small a compass. We have held them so far only because they can not bring their full force to bear, but they will surely overwhelm us before long.”

Hasbinbad had by now dispatched the zombie serpent. Now the Nextwave started across the bridge, single file.

Chet nocked an arrow, aimed, and let fly. The shaft arced across the gulf, then thunked into the face of the leading Mundane. The man collapsed and fell into the Chasm.

The second Nextwaver elevated his shield to protect his face. The centaur’s second arrow struck him on the exposed thigh. The man screamed, lost his balance, and fell.

The third Nextwaver held his shield low, but waited until the centaur aimed, watching closely. When the arrow flew at his head, he used his shield to intercept it—and got caught by Chet’s second arrow, aimed at his leg.

In this manner, Chet methodically dispatched six Mundanes, using as many arrows on each as were necessary to do the job. Then he ran out of arrows.