Night Mare (34 page)

Imbri whirled to the side, avoiding his approach—but soon crashed into a wall. The forgotten object in her mouth flung out and clattered across the floor. She could not see—and not only that, she could not phase out, because of the daylight the sunspot generated. The scheming Horseman had hit her with a double penalty. How cunningly he had laid his countertrap, knowing she was coming!

“I dislike this, Imbri,” the Horseman said, stalking her. “You’re such a beautiful animal, and I really do appreciate fine horseflesh. I am, I think, uniquely qualified to judge the best. But you have placed yourself between me and the throne of Xanth and have cost my
ad hoc
allies an extraordinary amount. So I must congratulate you on the way you organized those females, and dispatch you—”

Imbri lurched away again, caroming off a wall. Her vision was beginning to return, but slowly. Things were still mostly blurry.

“Mare—he’s got a magic sword!” a voice warned in her ear.

“Who are you?” Imbri sent to the unknown person. How could there be anyone else in the castle?

“I am Jordan the Ghost,” the person whispered, again in her ear. “We ghosts have been watching for the rescue attempt, and I was notified the moment you phased in. I know what you are doing, and the great effort you must make. I have friends within the gourd. I will help you, if you trust me.”

“I bear a message of greeting to you from them!” she sent as she continued to move. “I forgot to seek you out before, when I had the opportunity. Of course I trust you!” Now she deeply regretted her neglect. There were half a dozen ghosts in Castle Roogna, and Millie, the Zombie Master’s wife, had been one of their number for eight hundred years. Naturally the ghosts supported the legitimate Kings of Xanth! “Help me. Get on my back and guide me till my sight returns.”

“I’m on,” Jordan said. Imbri felt nothing, but that was normal for a ghost. “One body length ahead, turn right. There’s a door. Hurry, he’s about to strike at your flank!”

Imbri leaped forward and veered right. She misjudged slightly and banged her shoulder, but got through the doorway.

“Two body lengths,” the ghost said. “Turn left.”

She obeyed and found another opening.

“It is dark here,” Jordan advised her.

Glory be! Imbri phased into immateriality and walked through a wall. She was safe now, thanks to the ghost. “Thank you, Jordan,” she sent. “Are you still with me? I mean, now that I’m—”

“Oh, yes, I’m still riding you,” he said. “The state of your materiality makes no difference to me.”

Now Imbri’s sight was firming. “Did the Horseman follow?”

“He did not. He remains in the light, sword ready. He is eyeing the box you brought, but not touching it.”

“He doesn’t know what’s in it,” Imbri sent. “Neither do I. It’s a complete gamble, which I plan to open only when there is no hope. That way it will be unable to hurt me if it is bad, and may help me if it is good.”

“That makes sense. But he has control of the box right now and doesn’t dare open it.”

“Then we are at an impasse,” Imbri sent “He can’t hurt me in the dark, and I doubt I can hurt him in the light. If that’s a typical magic sword, it will skewer me before I can hurt him.”

“It is,” the ghost confirmed. “Of course, you could borrow some other weapon from the arsenal.”

That sounded good. Imbri knew she had little time to dispatch the Horseman, for she could hear the Mundanes pounding at the outer wall. “What is there?”

“Oh, lots of things,” Jordan said. “Magic bullets—only we don’t know what they are or how they are used, whether they are for biting or for making people feel good. Vanishing cream, which we can’t see at all, let alone drink. Healing elixir. Fantasy fans—”

“What’s a fantasy fan?” Imbri asked.

“A bamboo fan that has a magic picture on it when spread open,” Jordan explained. “It also makes you think you’re cooler than you are, especially when the picture is of a snowscape. Periodically these fans gather together from all over Xanth for some big convention where they shoot the breeze and blow a lot of hot air and decide who is the secret master of fandom.”

Oh. Imbri didn’t need any fantasy fans. In fact, none of the items seemed useful for her present situation. “Is there anything to nullify his sword?”

“Oh, yes. Magic shields, armor, gauntlets—”

“I can’t use those things! I have no hands!”

“Oh, yes, I see. Xanth hasn’t had a handless King before! Let me consider. It’s the sword you must be wary of. You can’t avoid it; the moment he gets within range, it will strike for the kill. I presume that if it weren’t for that, you could dispatch him in the light.”

“Yes.” Imbri knew that even if the Horseman got on her back and used his spurs, he could not control her now; she would ignore the pain and launch into darkness, where she would be in control in either phase. No, the Horseman would not dare try to ride her this time!

“I’ve got it!” Jordan cried, snapping his ghostly fingers without effect. “The melt-spell!”

“Will that melt metal?”

“Indubitably. That is what this one is for. The Mundane scholar, Ichabod, was cataloguing the spells of the armory for King Arnolde, and that was an old one he discovered before the men were sent away from this region. Too bad he didn’t have the chance to finish the job; there’s a lot of good stuff here that even we ghosts don’t understand.”

They trotted down to the armory. The spell was in a small globe, as many were; Imbri wondered what Magician had packaged such spells, for they seemed to keep forever. She picked the globe up in her mouth, carefully, for the ghost could not carry anything physical. She phased back, phasing the spell with her, and trotted off to the main floor.

She heard the crashing of the Mundanes attacking the wall. By the sound of it, they were making progress. Their ramp and fire had nullified the moat and plants in that vicinity, so they were free to batter the stones as much as they craved. In just a few more minutes they would break in. She had to finish with the Horseman before then, for otherwise the Mundanes could go on the rampage and kill the ensorcelled Kings regardless of the outcome of her conflict. Imbri hurried.

In fact, she thought now, she had better make sure that, if it seemed she would beat the Horseman, she finished him off quickly so that he would have no chance to take the true Kings with him.

She came in to the lighted room, where the Horseman awaited her, sword ready. He looked even more arrogant now, his thin lip curling up from half-bared teeth, his brass bracelet gleaming with seeming malevolence in the light of the sunspot.

She was prepared for the light, and the sunspot was no longer as brilliant, so this time she had no trouble with vision. She turned solid in the room, however; any light stronger than moonlight did that to her.

“Ah, I thought I might see you again, King Mare,” the Horseman said with a supercilious sneer. “You must meet me—or forfeit your cause.” He strode forward, the sword moving with an expertise that was inherent in it, not in him.

Imbri spit out the spell. It flipped through the air toward the Horseman. The sword alertly intercepted it, slicing it in two—and therein lay the sword’s demise. It wasn’t intelligent it didn’t know when to desist. Had the spell been allowed to pass unmolested, or had the Horseman simply caught it in his left hand, preventing it from breaking, he would have been all right. But as the globe separated into halves, the vapor of the spell puffed out, clouding about the blade of the sword.

The blade melted. First it sagged, then it drooped, like soft rubber. At last it dripped on the floor. It was useless.

Now Imbri leaped for the Horseman with a squeal of combat, her forehooves striking forward.

The man dodged aside, throwing away the useless weapon. He tried to jump on her back, but Imbri whirled, bringing her head around, teeth bared. Most human beings did not think of equine beings as teeth fighters, but they were. However, all she caught was his sleeve; he was moving too fast for her. He was scrambling onto her, ready to use his awful spurs.

She lunged to the side, slamming into the wall, trying to pin him against it, to crush him and stun him. Again he was too fast; he certainly understood horses! He rolled over her back and off the other side, landing neatly on his feet.

Imbri swung about and lashed out with her hind hooves. The double blow would have knocked his bones from his body, had it scored, but he had thrown himself to the side, anticipating her attack with uncanny accuracy.

But she was a night mare, with a century more experience than he had in life. She knew far more about this sort of thing than had any horse he had dealt with before. She spun on her hind feet as they touched the floor and leaped for him again. She knew she had him now; he could not safely leave the lighted chamber, for in the darkness the advantage would be entirely hers. In moments she would catch him, in this confined space, with hoof or teeth or the mass of her body, and he would be done for.

The Horseman had fallen to the floor, getting out of her way. Sure enough, she had surprised him with her speed and ferocity. He had misjudged her exactly as she had misjudged the day horse, assuming that the personality that showed was the only one inhabiting that body. He was accustomed to tame Mundane horses, who tolerated riders because they knew no better. Now he scrambled on hands and knees as she reoriented for the kill. He was too slow this way, she knew she had him.

Then he transformed into his other form. Suddenly the day horse stood before her, massive, white, beautiful—and male. She had, in a pocket of her mind, doubted that her horse friend and her man enemy could really be the same; now that doubt had been banished.

Imbri hesitated. The masculinity of this magnificent creature struck her like a physical blow. She was in season, ready to mate, and this was the only stallion she knew. If she destroyed him, she might never again have the chance to breed.

He was the enemy; she knew that. Had she retained any doubt, the presence of the brass band on his left foreleg, just above the foot, would have removed it. She had believed that that band was the token of his slavery to the Horseman; now she was aware that it was much more than that. The form of the creature had changed; the form of the inanimate band had not. How ready she had been to believe whatever he told her! She had gone more than halfway to delude herself, wanting to believe that no horse could be evil.

She knew his nature now—but all her being protested against violence in this case. No mare opposed a stallion—not when she was in season. It was as contrary to her nature as it was for a human man to strike a lovely woman. It simply wasn’t done. This was no decision of intellect; it was a physiological, chemical thing. With equines, intellect was not allowed to interfere with the propagation of the species. She had always before considered this an advantage. But advantage or disaster, it was so.

The day horse turned toward her, lifting his handsome head high. He snorted a snort of dominance. He recognized his power over her. It did not matter that they both knew him to be her enemy, her deadly rival for the Kingship, or that he was only stalling for time until the Mundanes completed their break-in. The Horseman had occupied her as long as he could, using up precious time; now the day horse was doing the rest of the job. Nature held her as powerless as she had been when blinded.

“Imbri! Don’t let him dazzle you!” Jordan the Ghost cried in her ear. He was still with her; she had forgotten him during the intense action. “No male is worth it! I know, for I am a worthless male who ruined a good girl, and now suffer centuries of futile remorse. Don’t let it happen to you! Xanth depends on you!”

Still she stood, virtually rooted, smelling the compelling scent of the stallion. She knew she was being totally foolish, as females had always been in the presence of virile males. She knew the consequence of her inaction. Yet she could not act. The mating urge was too strong.

The day horse nipped her on the neck. Imbri stood still. There was pain, but it was exquisite equine pain, the kind a mare not only accepted from a stallion but welcomed. He was dominant, as he had to be, to be a worthy stud.

He marched around her, taking his time. This, too, was part of the ritual. He sniffed her here and there and snorted with affected indifference. Oh, he certainly had her under control! The ghost had given up, knowing Imbri was lost. Her glazing eyes were fixed on the box on the floor, the one that had the word PANDORA printed on it. All it would take would be three steps to reach it and strike it with a forehoof, opening it, releasing whatever it contained—but she could not force herself to take those steps.

There was a loud crash from the distant outer wall. The Mundanes had broken in at last. Imbri quivered, trying to break free of her paralysis, but the stallion snorted, quieting her. She simply could not oppose him, though all her reason protested her folly. She had fatally underestimated the compulsion of her own marish nature.

“Hey, General—where are you?” a Mundane called.

The day horse shifted momentarily into his human form. “Here in the throne room!” he called back.

That broke the spell. Imbri jumped, moving like the released mechanism of a catapult, turning on him. But as she faced him, poised for the strike, he converted back to stallion form. He arched his neck, eyeing her with assurance, completely handsome and potent. He tapped the floor with his left forehoof.

Imbri, in the process of freezing again despite her best resolution, saw the brass band on that leg. The band that advertised exactly who and what he was.

She struck out with a forefoot, catching him on that front leg, attacking the band. The blow was not crippling or even very effective; its significance lay in the fact that she was opposing him. His shift of form, and his direct recognition of alliance with the Mundane enemy, had disrupted the equine mood. He was not a horse in the guise of a man, but a man in the guise of a horse. Imbri did not breed with a man in any guise. Now she knew, subjectively as well as objectively, that he was no friend of hers. All she had to do was look at that band, to see him as he was.