Night Mare (7 page)

“The ghosts at Castle Roogna are friendly,” Chameleon said, evidently not liking the spriggan.

“No doubt. I am supposed to convey greetings from the ghosts of the haunted house in the gourd to one of the ghosts of Castle Roogna. I haven’t yet had the opportunity.”

“Who?”

“One named Jordan. Do you know him?”

“Not well. He keeps mostly to himself. But I do know Millie, who is not really a ghost any more. They’re all pretty nice, I think, except for the six-year-old ghost, who—” She hesitated, not wishing to speak evil of the dead.

“Who is a brat?” Imbri supplied helpfully.

“I suppose. But the others are nice.”

“Spriggan are not. They are to nice ghosts as ogres are to elves.”

“That’s awful!”

Evidently Chameleon was not going to be much help on this one. Imbri skirted the fallen stone and started forward once more. There was another groan, this one to the left. Imbri shied right—and the column there began to crumble threateningly.

“Oh, I don’t like this!” Chameleon cried.

Imbri paused. She didn’t like this either. But there had to be a way through. There always was. This was the nature of the Good Magician’s defenses. He did not like to be bothered by frivolous intrusions, so he set up challenges; only smart, determined, and lucky petitioners could get through. Imbri knew King Trent would not have sent them here if the matter had not been important, so they had to conquer the challenges. Too bad the smoke had dissipated so she could no longer phase them through solid obstacles. That would have made it easy. But already the shadows were lengthening; soon it would be dusk, and that would solve her problem. All she had to do was keep from getting squished under a rock before then. She really would have been smarter to wait for night before trying to enter the castle, but now she was in it and would carry through with marish stubbornness.

She thought about the spriggan. They were distantly related to night mares, being both material and immaterial. In their natural forms they were invisible, but they could solidify their mouths to issue groans, and their hands to shove stones. They never touched living creatures directly, however; contact with warm flesh discombobulated them, and it took them a long time to get recombobulated.

There might be the answer! All Imbri had to do was make the giants show themselves, then advance on them. Maybe.

“I’m going to try something risky,” Imbri projected to Chameleon. Her dreamlet showed herself charging directly at a horrendous ghost. “Would you like me to set you down outside the megaliths, where it is safe?”

Chameleon was frightened but firm. “It’s not safe. The centycore is there. Maybe he’s gotten unstuck from the column. I will stay with you.”

Good enough. “Now we must provoke the ghost-giants into showing themselves. When they do, you must act terrified.”

A touch of humor penetrated the woman’s naiveté. “I will.”

Imbri nerved herself and took a step forward. There was an immediate warning groan. She projected a dream to the vicinity of the sound. “You’re pretty bold, hiding behind big stones,” her dream image said with an expression of contempt. “You wouldn’t scare anyone if you were visible.”

“Oh, yeah?” the sprig she bad addressed responded. “Look at this, mare!”

The ghost took form before her. He was the size of a man, but his arms were huge and hairy, and his face was dominated by two upcurving tusks. “Groooaan!” he groaned.

Chameleon shrieked in presumably simulated terror. But Imbri moved directly toward the ghost.

The sprig, startled, shrank to the size of a midget. Then, catching itself, it expanded to the size of a giant. “Booooo!” it boooooed, shoving at a ceiling stone. The stone budged, sending down a warning shower of sand. Chameleon screamed again. It seemed she didn’t like sand in her hair.

But as the mare neared the ghost, the sprig jumped out of the way, avoiding contact. They passed right through, and Imbri knew she and Chameleon had penetrated well in toward the castle.

There was another invisible groan, from another sprig. Imbri charged it, though another column was crumbling. Her ploy worked; the column crashed the other way, not striking her. The ghosts never pulled columns down upon themselves; thus where the spriggan stood was the safest place to be, despite the scary noises they made. All she had to do was keep charging them, and she would be safe.

It worked. Columns and ceiling stones tumbled all around her, but Imbri navigated from the groan to groan and threaded the dangerous maze successfully.

Abruptly they were inside the castle proper.

Chapter 4. Forging the Chain

“W
ell, hello Chameleon!” the Gorgon said. She was a mature, almost overmature woman, whose impressive proportions were verging on obesity. Life had evidently been too kind to her. Her face was invisible, so that there was no danger from her glance. “And the mare Imbrium, too! Do come in and relax.”

“We are here to see Good Magician Humfrey,” Chameleon said. “King Trent sent us.”

“Of course he did, dear,” the Gorgon agreed. “We have been expecting you.”

Chameleon blinked. “But you tried stop us!”

“It’s just Humfrey’s way. He’s such a dear, but he does have his little foibles. Those creatures wouldn’t really have hurt you.”

Imbri snorted. She was not at all sure of that!

“You both must be hungry,” the Gorgon continued blithely. “We have milk and honey and alfalfa and oats in any combination you two may desire.”

“Milk and oats,” Chameleon said promptly.

“Honey and alfalfa,” Imbri projected in a dreamlet.

“Ah, so it is true!” the Gorgon said, pleased. “You really are a night mare! What a cute way of talking!” She led them to the dining room, where she brought out the promised staples. Chameleon’s oats were cooked over a little magic flame, then served with the milk and a snitch of honey from Imbri’s soaked alfalfa. It was an excellent dinner.

Then they were ushered into the surly presence of Good Magician Humfrey. He had a tiny, cluttered study upstairs, stuffed with old tomes, multicolored bottles, magic mirrors, and assorted unclassifiable artifacts. Humfrey himself hunched over an especially big and ancient volume. He was gnomelike, with enormous Mundane-type spectacles and wrinkles all over his face. He looked exactly as old as he probably just might be. “Well?” he snapped irritably.

“Chameleon and the mare Imbrium are here for advice,” the Gorgon said deferentially. “You have them on your calendar.”

“I never pay attention to that bit of paper!” the Good Magician grumped. “I’m too busy.” But he looked at a chart on the wall. There, in large letters, was the note FAIR & MARE. “Oh, yes, certainly,” he grumbled. “Well, let’s get on with it.”

There was a pause. “The advice,” the Gorgon reminded the Magician gently.

“Have they paid the fee?”

“They’re on the King’s business. No fee.”

“What is Xanth coming to?” he mumbled ungraciously. “Too many creatures expecting a free lunch.”

“That was dinner,” Chameleon said brightly.

Again there was a pause. The Gorgon touched Humfrey’s elbow.

He looked up, startled, almost as if he had been dozing. “Of course. Beware the Horseman.” His old eyes returned to his book.

“But we’ve already had that message,” Imbri protested in a dreamlet.

Humfrey’s brow corrugated yet farther. Such a thing would have been impossible without magic. “Oh? Well, it remains good advice.” He cogitated briefly. “Break the chain.” He looked at his tome again.

“I don’t understand,” Chameleon said.

“It isn’t necessary to understand Humfrey’s Answers,” the Gorgon explained. “They are always correct regardless.”

Imbri wasn’t satisfied. “Don’t you folk realize there’s a war on?” she projected in an emphatic dream. Her picture showed brutish Mundanes tromping like ogres through the brush, frightening small birds and despoiling the land with sword and fire. The image was taken from her memory of the Lastwave. “We have to find out how to defend Xanth!”

Humfrey looked up again. “Of course I realize! Look at my book!”

They crowded closer to peer at his open tome. There was a map of Xanth with portions marked in color.

“Here is where the Mundanes are invading,” Humfrey said, pointing to the northwestern isthmus. “They have not yet penetrated far, but they are well organized and tough and determined, and the auspices are murky. Divination doesn’t work very well on Mundanes, because they are nonmagical creatures. But it seems the Nextwave of conquest is upon us. It will be the end of Xanth as we know it, unless we take immediate and effective measures to protect our land.”

“The Nextwave!” Chameleon repeated, horrified.

“We knew there would be another Wave sometime,” the Gorgon said. “All through the history of Xanth there have been periodic Waves of conquest from Mundania. All human inhabitants derive from one Wave or another, or did until very recently. But each Wave sets Xanth back immeasurably, for the Mundanes are barbaric. They slay whatever they do not understand and they understand very little. If this Wave succeeds in conquering Xanth, it will be a century before things return to normal.”

“But how do we stop it?” Chameleon asked.

“I told you,” Humfrey snapped. “Break the chain.”

Imbri exploded with full night marish ferocity. Storm clouds roiled in her dream image, booming hollowly as they fired out fierce jags of lightning. “This is no time for cute obscurities! We need a straight Answer to a serious problem! Do you have an Answer or don’t you?” A jag struck near Humfrey.

Humfrey gazed soberly at her, one hand idly swatting away the jag of lightning, though it was only a dreamlet image. “There are no simplistic Answers to a complex problem. We must labor diligently to piece together the best of all possible courses, or at least the second best, depending on what is available.”

The mare backed off. She did realize that some answers could not be simple or clear. Magic often had peculiar applications, and predictive magic was especially tricky, even when Mundanes weren’t involved.

“Night nears,” the Gorgon said gently. Indeed, the cluttered scrap of a window showed near-blackness outside. “You will be able to travel more freely then. We must let Magician Humfrey labor in peace.” She led them to another room, where there was a couch. “You will want to rest first. I will wake you at midnight.”

That was good enough. There were sanitary facilities and a pleasant bed of straw. Imbri lay down and slept. She could rest perfectly well on her feet, but suspected the Gorgon would worry about hoofprints and droppings and such, so lying down was best. Actually, there was hardly any place in Xanth that could not be improved by a nice, fertilizer-rich dropping, but human beings tended not to understand that.

A night mare visited her, of course. Imbri recognized her instantly. “Mare Crisium!” she exclaimed in her dream. “How is everything back home?”

“The Dark Horse is worried,” Crises said. She, like Imbri, could speak in the human language in the dream state. “He says the menace advances, and you are the only one who can abate it, and you have fallen into the power of the enemy.”

“I did, but I escaped,” Imbri replied. “I delivered the message to King Trent. Now I’m on a mission for him.”

“It is not enough. The King is about to be betrayed. You must tell him to beware the Horseman.”

“I told you, I told him that!” Imbri flared.

“You must tell him again.”

Imbri changed the subject. “Where’s Vapors?” She had a special affinity for both Crises and Vapors, for those two mares had picked up half souls at the time Imbri got hers. But the others had not retained them. Their halves had been replaced by the halves from a demon, cynical and cruel, which gave them a certain competitive edge: their bad dreams were real terrors, and they got the most challenging assignments. Even so, they had not been satisfied and had finally turned the half souls into the central office. So Imbri was now the only night mare with any part of a soul. But still, she felt closer to those other two; they understood the impact a soul could have.

“Vapors is with Chameleon. In a moment the woman will wake screaming; then you both must go and warn the King.”

Imbri started to protest, but then Chameleon’s scream sounded, and both woman and mare were jolted rudely awake. Instantly Vapors and Crises bolted, leaving only their signature hoofprints. Imbri was saddened; she was now considered a mortal creature, who was not permitted to see a nightmare in the waking state. That wrenched at her, for she had spent most of her long life in the profession. How quickly the prerogatives and perquisites of employment were lost, once a creature retired! But that was the price she paid for the chance to see the rainbow.

She went to Chameleon, who clutched at her hysterically. “Oh, it was awful, Imbri! Such a bad dream! Is that really what you used to do?”

“Not that well,” Imbri sent, with a tinge of regret. Obviously Mare Vaporum retained the terrifying touch that Imbri had lost. “What did you dream?”

“I dreamed King Trent was close to death, or something almost as awful! We must go right back and warn him!” She was still breathing raggedly, her lovely hair in disarray.

A simple premonition of danger to another person—and the client was in shambles. Imbri realized that she had retired none too soon; she would have had to bring in a firebreathing sea monster to achieve a similar effect. She was just too softhearted.

“Get on my back, woman,” Imbri projected. “We’ll ride immediately.”

The Gorgon appeared, carrying a lighted candle that illuminated her empty head oddly, showing the snakelets that were her hair from the inside surface. “Midnight,” she said. “Time to—oh, I see you’re ready. Do come again soon!”

“We will!” Chameleon called, her mood lightening because of the contact with the familiar facelessness of a friend. Then Imbri plunged through the wall and they were off.

This time there was no trouble from the spriggan, centycore, or nix. Imbri was in her night mare form, phasing through everything, and Chameleon phased with her because that was the nature of night mare magic. They galloped in a straight line toward Castle Roogna, passing blithely through trees and rocks and even a sleeping dragon without resistance. Chameleon was pleasantly amazed; she was a good audience for this sort of thing, and that made Imbri’s mood improve.

“Oh, no!” Chameleon exclaimed suddenly. “I forgot the elopement!”

That was right—this was the scheduled night for the marriage of Prince Dor. Chameleon was the mother of the victim; of course she wanted to attend. “We can make it,” Imbri sent.

“No, we can’t,” Chameleon said tearfully. “It was to happen at midnight, and we’re hours away, and it’s past midnight now!”

Imbri hated to have this lovely and innocent woman unhappy. “We can travel faster—but it’s a route you may not like.”

“Anything!” Chameleon exclaimed. “If we can even catch the end of it—my poor baby boy—I know he’ll be so happy!”

Imbri had a certain difficulty following the woman’s thought processes this time, but decided Chameleon had mixed feelings about her son and his marriage. Mothers were notorious for that sort of thing. “Then hold on tight and don’t be afraid of anything you see.” Imbri galloped into a patch of hypnogourds and plunged into a gourd.

It was dark as they phased through the rind and became part of the gourd world. Of course they were
not
part; they were alien visitors who normally would have found access only by looking through a peephole, instead of passing physically through. This was a gray area of magic, possible only because of Imbri’s special status as an agent of liaison.

Then they were in a graveyard. “Oh, are we there already?’ Chameleon asked. “The zombie cemetery?”

“Not yet,” Imbri projected. “Stay on me!” For if the woman ever set foot inside the world of the gourd alone, she would not readily get free. That was the nature of the region of night.

A walking skeleton appeared. It reached for Chameleon, its hollow eye sockets glinting whitely. “Go away!” the woman cried, knocking the bony arm away. “You’re no zombie. You’re too clean.” Startled, the skeleton retreated.

“They are a lot more cautious about visitors since an ogre passed through and intimidated them,” Imbri sent. It had taken weeks after the ogre’s departure for the skeletons to get themselves properly organized, since their bones had been hopelessly jumbled together. Probably some of them were still wearing the wrong parts.

Imbri charged into the haunted house. A resident ghost loomed, flaring with awesome whiteness at Chameleon. “Are we back at Castle Roogna already?” she asked. “I don’t recognize this ghost.” Disgusted, the ghost faded out, thinking it had lost its touch. Imbri knew the feeling; there were few things as humiliating as having one’s efforts unappreciated when one’s business was fear.

Now Imbri shot out the front wall of the house. She galloped along a short walkway, then out through the decorative hedge. She emerged into a bleak moor. The ground became soggy, opening dark mouths to swallow intruders, but the night mare hurdled them handily. The terrors of the World of Night were for others, not herself. She might be retired, but she was not yet that far out of it.

She passed on to a mountain shaped like a burning iceberg, galloping up its slope. Amorphous shapes loomed, reaching for Chameleon with multiple hands and hungry snouts. Misshapen eyes glared.

Now the woman was frightened, for she had had no prior experience with this type of monster. Zombies and ghosts were familiar, but not amorphous monsters. She hunched down and hid her face in Imbri’s mane. That was another trait of human folk: they tended to fear the unfamiliar or the unknown, though often it was not as threatening to them as the known.

Then they were out through the rind of another gourd, their shortcut through the World of Night completed. They emerged from a gourd patch much nearer Castle Roogna.

Night mares could travel almost instantly anywhere in Xanth, simply by using the proper gourds. This route was not available to Imbri by day, since she was solid then; fortunately, it was now night.

Chameleon’s fright eased as she saw that she was back in the real world of Xanth. “Is that really where you live?” she asked. “Among the horrors?’

“Daytime Xanth seems far more hazardous to me,” Imbri projected. “Tangle trees and solid boulders and the Mundanes—those are monsters enough!”

“I suppose so,” Chameleon agreed doubtfully. “Are we near the cemetery?”

“Very near.” Imbri veered to head directly toward it.

“Wait!” Chameleon cried. “We must go in costume!”

“Costume?” What was this creature thinking of now?