Authors: Piers Anthony
Night Mare (36 page)
“But what can I do without my body?’ Imbri asked, dismayed. She remembered her awful fall into the Void—and the arrival of Chameleon. Nothing in between.
“That’s part of what we arranged,” Chameleon said. “Humfrey’s spell took care of the paper work, or whatever, so it’s all right. We all love you, Imbri, and we all thank you, and we owe our lives and our hopes to you, and we want to be with you often. So you will be a true day mare, carrying daydreams and pleasant evening dreams, much as you have been doing. Only now it is official, and forever. Whenever we daydream, you will be there with your new associates, making sure each dream is properly delivered and enjoyed.”
Imbri liked the concept. She no longer liked bad dreams. Still, she was perplexed. “My associates?”
Now several other mares appeared, trotting prettily through the air. They were of pleasant colors—red, blue, green, and orange. “Welcome, black mare,” one sent, perking her ears forward in a friendly fashion. “Oh, the Day Stallion will like you! You have such an individual color!”
“The Day Stallion?” Imbri sent, an unpleasant association forming.
A male horse appeared, flying winglessly through the air, bright golden as the sun. “I assign the daydreams,” he sent. He swished his tail negligently. He was the handsomest stallion Imbri had ever seen. “But you may choose any you like to deliver. We are very informal here and seldom take things very seriously. This present daydream is an example; we’re all linked together in it, and we’re all helping with it, so as to introduce you to the nature of your new work gently. All the recent Kings of Xanth and their friends are sharing it. Soon they must revert to normal consciousness, to transform the Mundane Wavers back into men, one at a time—King Trent transformed them all to stinkweeds, and the castle smells awful—to see if they’re ready to swear allegiance to the present order, and to see about King Trent’s retirement so he can spend more time with his wife, and about King Dor’s permanent assumption of the throne of Xanth—these things must, after all, be accomplished with the appropriate ceremony—but first they wanted to see you properly established in your own new employment. We have never had a King among our number before.”
“But I’m not King any more!” Imbri protested. “Now that the real Kings have been freed—”
“You will retain the honorary title, King Mare Imbrium,” King Trent said with a smile. “You are the one who saved Xanth. We shall fashion a statue in your likeness and never forget you.”
There was a murmur of agreement from all the others in the collective daydream—her friends.
Suddenly Imbri knew she was going to like this duty. With that realization, she looked up and saw that it was day. Time had passed between her descent into the Void, the final breaking of the chain of Kings, and her reanimation as a soul-horse. Now the sun was up, but there was a light shower, as if the clouds were shedding tears of joy at the salvation of Xanth. Perhaps it was some weather overlapping from her region of the moon, the Sea of Rains.
There, in the bright misty sky, was the many-colored rainbow she had always longed to see, spanning her horizon.
Piers Anthony
is one of the world’s most popular fantasy authors and a
New York Times
bestseller twenty-one times over. He lives in Inverness, Florida.
Books by Piers Anthony
THE MAGIC OF XANTH
A Spell for Chameleon
The Source of Magic
Castle Roogna
Centaur Aisle
Ogre, Ogre
Night Mare
Dragon on a Pedestal
Crewel Lye: A Caustic Yarn
Golem in the Gears
THE APPRENTICE ADEPT
Book One: Split Infinity
Book Two: Blue Adept
Book Three: Juxtaposition
INCARNATIONS OF IMMORTALITY
Book One: On a Pale Horse
Book Two: Bearing an Hourglass
Book Three: With a Tangled Skein
Book Four: Wielding a Red Sword
Book Five: Being a Green Mother
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®
Book
Published by Ballantine Books
Copyright © 1982 by Piers Anthony Jacob
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 82-90817
eISBN: 978-0-345-45435-5
v3.0
