Night Mare Part 9

"We don't use that sort of thing in Xanth. Creatures carry people only when they choose to. Imbri, here, is giving me a ride because she knows I can't get about the way she can. You don't see any bit in her mouth, do you?"

In the end, the day horse was swayed by the golem's persuasion and agreed to carry Ichabod, on condition that there be no direct contact between him and the Mundanes. "I don't even want to see a Mundane," he insisted. "If I saw them, they might see me, and if they see me, they will chase me, and they might catch me."

"You could outrun them!" the golem protested.

"Then they would shoot me with arrows. So I don't want to go near them at all."

"Fair enough," the golem agreed.

They departed the tree, picked up the archivist, and headed north. Sure enough, Ichabod was unsteady on horseback and had to hang on to the day horse's mane to stop from sliding off one side or the other. But gradually he got used to it and relaxed, and the horse relaxed also. The lack of a bit and reins made all the difference. Soon they were able to pick up speed.

Imbri became aware of another aspect of group interaction. She picked up Chameleon without thinking, but realized by the reaction of the day horse that the woman had not been mentioned before. At first the day horse had hesitated; then, when he saw how pretty Chameleon was, he watched her with interest. If it had been Chameleon who had needed the ride, it would have been easier to persuade this animal!

The day horse was a fine runner, making up in brute strength what he lacked in intellect, and Imbri found herself reacting on two levels to him. She liked his body very well, but was turned off by his slow mind. Yet, she reminded herself, she liked Chameleon well enough despite her slowness. Maybe it was that Chameleon was not a potential breeding object.

Yes, there it was. The presence of a fine stallion meant inevitable breeding when Imbri came into season. As a night mare, she had been immortal and ageless and never came into season, or at least not seriously. But as a material animal, she was subject to the material cycle. She would age and eventually die, and so there would be no one to carry on her work and maintain t.i.tle to her sea of the moon unless she had a foal. Material creatures had to breed, just to maintain their position, and she would breed if she had the opportunity. This was no imposition; she wanted to do it.

But she also wanted to produce a handsome and smart foal. The day horse was handsome but not smart. That boded only half a loaf for the foal. Yet the day horse was probably the only other possible stallion extant in Xanth, in or out of the gourd; without him there would be no breeding at all, unless she searched out one of the winged horses of the mountains. She understood those types hardly ever deigned to a.s.sociate with earthbound equines, however. That kept the options severely limited and made the decision difficult.

Would there be a decision? When a mare came into season--and this was a cyclical thing not subject to her voluntary control when she was material--any stallion present would breed her. Nature took it out of the province of individual free will, perhaps wisely. Human folk were otherwise; they could breed at any time, and the complexities of their individual natures meant that often they bred at the wrong time, or to the wrong person, or did not breed at all. That probably explained why horses were so much stronger and prettier than human beings. But humans were generally more intelligent, probably because it required a smart man to outsmart and catch a difficult woman, or a smart woman to pick out the best man and get him committed to the burden of a family. The midnight scene in the graveyard had ill.u.s.trated that! Prince Dor had no doubt played innocent to avoid getting married, but had this time been out maneuvered. And unless Imbri found a way to control her own breeding, she would have a stupid foal. So if she didn't want that, she would have to place distance between herself and the day horse when her season came on. Fortunately, that would not occur for a couple of weeks; she would have time.

Soon they arrived at the great Gap Chasm, which separated the northern and southern portions of Xanth. Few people knew about the Gap because of the forget-spell on it; it didn't even appear on many maps of Xanth. Since they were on the King's business, they had access to the invisible bridge that spanned it. Most people forgot about the bridge along with the Chasm, but it was there for those who knew how to find it. Imbri, as a night mare, felt very little effect from the forget-spell, so had no trouble.

The day horse, however, was hesitant. "I don't see any bridge," he neighed.

"No one can see the bridge," Imbri projected. In her daydreamlet she made the bridge become visible as a gossamer network of spider-silk cables. In her night dream duty she had not needed to use the bridge, but had known of it and the two others, as well as the devious paths down and through the Gap. She had perfect confidence in all the bridges, and in the charms that kept monsters off the paths, though she would be wary of descending into the Gap when the Gap Dragon was near. No spell ever stopped that monster; it ruled the Chasm deeps. That was another thing normally forgotten, which meant the dragon caught a lot of prey that didn't know it existed--until too late.

"It's all right, day horse," Ichabod said rea.s.suringly. "I have been across it before. I know magic seems incredible to Mundane folk, such as are you and I, but here in Xanth it is every bit as reliable as engineering in our world. I have no fear in crossing."

Encouraged by that, and by now well aware that Ichabod was Mundane yet harmless but not stupid, the day horse followed Imbri out into midair over the Chasm. "Don't worry," Grundy called back. "You can't fall. It has rails on both sides. Except for the center, where a stupid harpy crashed through them and left a blank stretch."

The day horse stumbled, horrified, for he was now approaching the center. The golem laughed.

"It's not true," Imbri projected immediately. "Don't listen to the golem. He has an obnoxious sense of humor."

The day horse recovered his balance. He glared at Grundy, his ears flattening back. He dropped a clod on the bridge, a symbol of his opinion. Grundy had made an enemy, foolishly. It was one of his talents.

They got across without further event and trotted on north. They still had a long way to go, and would not reach the region of the Mundane line this day.

Now the terrain became rougher, for they were traveling cross-country. Northern Xanth was less populated by human folk than was central Xanth, so there were fewer people paths. One good trail led directly to the North Village, where Chameleon's husband Bink had been raised. But they intended to avoid human settlements, to keep their mission secret; the Mundanes surely had spies snooping near the various villages, Ichabod warned. So they went east of the North Village, threading the jungle between it and the vast central zone of Air in the center of northern Xanth.

The jungle thinned to forest, with cl.u.s.ters of everblues, everyellows, and evergreens, and then diminished to wash and scrub. As if to compensate, the ground became rougher. Their trot slowed to a walk, and the walk became labored. Both horses shone with sweat and blew hot blasts from dilated nostrils. Chameleon and Ichabod, unused to such extended travel, were tired and sore, and even the obnoxious golem was quiet, riding in front of Chameleon where he could hang on to Imbri's mane. The trouble with travel was that it was wearing.

In addition, it was hungry business. Horses had to eat a lot, and it was hard to graze while trotting. They would have to stop at the next suitable field and spring they found. But there was no suitable spot here; the land was pretty much barren. Certainly there was no spring on the hillside, and no river.

"Maybe we should cut west, toward the North Village," Grundy said. "Much better terrain there."

"But it would delay us, and perhaps expose our mission," Ichabod protested. "There must be a better alternative."

Imbri reflected. She had not been to this region recently, because there were very few people in it, and therefore few calls for bad dreams. "There are some lakes scattered through this region, with lush vegetation around them, but I can't place them precisely," she projected to the group. "The local plants and animals should know where they are, however." She gave her mane a little shake, waking Grundy, who, it seemed, had had the indecency to nod off during her reflection.

"Huh?" the golem said. "Oh, sure, I can check that." He began questioning the bushes they pa.s.sed. Soon he found a fruitfly who had been seeded at a lake to the north. "But the fly says to beware the sphinx," the golem reported. "The sphinx got a sunburn and is very irritable this week."

"Beware the sphinx?" Chameleon asked. "I thought we were to beware the Horseman."

"That's good advice!" the day horse neighed. "How often have I felt that monster's spurs!"

"You mean like Imbri's flanks?" the golem asked. "I find it hard to believe anyone would want to poke holes in the hide of a living horse. What kind of a monster is this Horseman?"

The day horse did not like Grundy, but this question mellowed him somewhat. "A human monster."

"Spurs are an indefensible cruelty," Ichabod commented. "The typical horse will perform to the best of his ability for his rider. Spurs subst.i.tute the goad of pain for honest incentive, to the disadvantage of the animal."

The day horse nodded, evidently getting to like the archivist better. There was always something attractive about a well-expressed amplification of one's own opinion.

Imbri agreed emphatically. "And the bit is almost as bad," she sent.

"I don't see any scars on your flanks," Grundy said to the day horse.

"I learned long ago to obey without question," the day horse replied. "He hasn't used the spurs on me in some time; the scars are now so faint as to be invisible. But if he caught me now, after I escaped him, it would be terrible. There would be blood all over my hide."

Imbri visualized bright red blood on the bright white hide and flinched. What horror!

"Surely so." Ichabod nodded. "Man has a very poor record in his treatment of animals. In Xanth it is not as bad, for animals are much better able to defend themselves."

"Dragons are!" Grundy agreed, laughing. "And ant lions and basilisks and harpies."

They were mounting a steep, bald hill that barred their way north. Aggressive carnivorous vines and nettles to east and west made this the best route, laborious as it was. But soon they would be over it and might be able to relax a little going down the other side, where the sweet lake was supposed to be. Imbri and the day horse dug their hooves into the reddish turf, scuffling the spa.r.s.e dry gra.s.s aside. The slope was spongy and warm from the sun.

Suddenly the bank exploded into a bunch of sticks. Chameleon screamed. Both horses reared and plunged to the sides, startled.

"Flying snakes!" Grundy cried. "Fend them off! I recognize this species; they're mean and unreasonable and some of them are poisonous. No use to try to talk to them; they only respect a clout on the snoot."

Chameleon and Ichabod had staffs they had harvested from a forest of general staffs. They had been using these to brush away clinging vines and such. Now they used them in earnest as the snakes darted through the air, jaws gaping. They were not big serpents, but they might be poisonous, as Grundy had warned. Imbri dodged away from them as well as she could, avoiding a green one and a red one, but a yellow one got through and bit her on her left front knee. She reached down with her own teeth and caught it behind the head and tore it loose, but the punctures hurt. She had never had to worry about this sort of thing as a full night mare!

A few moments of vigorous action got them away from the snakes, who could not fly very fast. Air simply was not as good to push against as ground. They resumed plodding up the hill.

"It is strange that both the Night Stallion and the Good Magician provided the same warning,'* Ichabod reflected aloud. It was one of his annoying habits. He talked a great deal about obscure aspects of situations, boring people. "Since the Horseman is an obvious enemy and perhaps a leader of the invading Mundanes, naturally loyal Xanth citizens should avoid him. Why waste a prophecy belaboring the obvious?"

"I fell into his power anyway," Imbri confessed. "I carried the warning, but I did not recognize the Horseman when I met him. If the day horse hadn't helped me escape--"

"I couldn't stand to see a mare as pretty as you in the power of a man as cruel as that," the day horse said in the community dream Imbri was providing. "I was terribly afraid to come so close to his camp."

"You didn't seem at all afraid," Imbri returned, complimenting him.

"Thank you," the day horse said. "I look bolder than I am, I suppose."

That seemed to be true. The day horse's fear of the invading Mundanes amounted almost to a fetish. Imbri felt he was overreacting. But outside of that, he did look bold, with his brilliant white coat and flaring mane and tail and muscular body. All factors considered, it remained a pleasure being with him.

With a final effort, they crested the red knoll. Now the Land of Xanth spread out around them in a sufficient if not marvelous panoply, like the clothing of an ill-kempt giant. In the distance to the south was the barely visible crevice of the Gap Chasm; to the west was a faint tail of smoke rising from the cookfires of the North Village; to the north-- "A lake!" Ichabod exclaimed happily. "With rich green color around it, surely suitable grazing for the equines and fruits for the unequines. There's our evening campsite!"

So it seemed. "But there's an awful mess of corrugations between us and it," Grundy said.

"I can travel a straight line to it," Imbri sent. "I am used to holding a straight course, regardless of the view, once I know where I'm going."

"Good enough," Grundy said.

Imbri started down the slope, leading the way--and stumbled. She went down headfirst, and Grundy and Chameleon were thrown off. They all went rolling down the rough slope helplessly, until they fetched up in a gully on' the side of the knoll.

Grundy picked himself up, shedding red dust and bits of gra.s.s. "What happened, horseface?" he demanded grumpily. "Put your foot in it?"

"My knee gave way," Imbri projected, abashed. "That never happened before."

Chameleon righted herself. Even dirty and disheveled, she looked lovely. It was not necessarily true that women grew ugly as they aged; she was the impressive exception. "Is it hurt?" she asked.

Imbri rolled over, got her forefeet placed, and heaved herself up front-first in the manner of her kind. But she immediately collapsed again. The knee would not support her weight under stress.

Chameleon looked at it as she might inspect the sc.r.a.pe on the leg of a child. She was not bright, but that sort of thing did not require intelligence, only motherly concern. "You were bitten!" she exclaimed. "It's all swollen!"

The day horse arrived, picking his way carefully down the slope. "Bitten?" he neighed.

"So those snakes were poisonous!" Grundy said. "Why didn't you tell us one got you? We could have held it for interrogation and maybe found the antidote."

"Horses don't complain," Imbri sent. She had never been bitten before and had not properly appreciated the possible consequence. Her leg had hurt, but she had a.s.sumed the pain would ease. It had done so--but the extra strain of the downhill trek had aggravated what she now realized was not a healing but a numbness. Her knee had no staying power.

"I will carry all the people," the day horse offered. "I can handle it."

After a brief consultation, they acceded. The stallion was tired and sweaty, but still whole and strong; he could bear the burden. Chameleon and Grundy joined Ichabod on the day horse's broad back. It was a good thing he was along; the whole party would have been in trouble had it been Imbri alone for transportation.

Now it was up to Imbri to get herself on her feet. She set her good right leg under her and heaved herself up. Now that she wasn't depending on her left knee, it couldn't betray her.

She tried her left leg, but the numbness remained. It was better to hold it clear and hop along on the other three. It was possible to walk, jerkily, slowly, this way.

"Perhaps we could fas.h.i.+on a splint," Ichabod said. "To keep your knee straight so you can at least put weight on it."

That was an apt notion. They scouted around and found a projecting ledge from which several fairly stout poles sprouted. Ichabod dismounted and took hold of one, but though it wiggled crazily under his effort, it did not come loose from the ground.

"Cut it," Grundy said.

Chameleon had a good knife. Where she kept it Imbri wasn't sure, for it had not been evident before, but this suggested the lovely woman was not entirely helpless. She stooped beside the pole, applied her blade, and sawed at the base.

The ground shook. There was a rumble. Chameleon paused, looking askance at the others. "No meaning in a rumble," Grundy said. "Except to get out of here before an earthquake decides to visit."

"Earthquakes don't decide to visit," Ichabod protested. "They are natural, inanimate phenomena--merely the release of stresses developing within or between layers of rock."

There was another rumble, closer and stronger. "Not in Xanth," the golem said. "Here the inanimate has an ornery personality, as is evident when King Dor converses with it Everything has its own individuality, even a quake."

The archivist had to step about to keep his feet during the second shaking. "There is that," he agreed nervously.

Chameleon sawed again at the pole. Her blade was sharp, but the pole was tough; progress was slow. A gash appeared, from which thick red fluid welled.

"I wonder what kind of plant that is?" Grundy said. He made some noises at it, then shook his head. "It doesn't answer."

"Maybe we can break it off now," Ichabod said, becoming increasingly uneasy. He wrenched the pole around more violently than before.

Suddenly the entire horizontal ridge of poles lifted up. A slit opened in the ground beneath them, revealing a moist, gla.s.sy surface crossed by bands of white, brown, and black. It was pretty enough for a polished rock formation.

"That's an eye!" Grundy exclaimed.

Ichabod, hanging from the pole, looked into the monstrous...o...b.. aghast. "What's a hill doing with an eye?" he demanded. "And what am I suspended by?"

"An eyelash," the golem said. "I should have realized. It's alive, but it's not a plant. I was trying to talk to the eyelash of an animal. Naturally it didn't answer; eyelashes don't."

Ichabod dropped to the lower eyelid. One foot jammed accidentally into the eye. The eye blinked; the lid smashed down like a portcullis. The man wrenched out his foot and scrambled away.

"Get on the horse!" Grundy cried. "Get out of here!"

The three of them scrambled aboard the day horse, who moved out rapidly. Imbri hobbled after them.

Suddenly Imbri caught on. "The sphinx!" she broadcast.

"This is the sphinx!"

"We were warned to beware of it," Grundy agreed. "As usual, we walked right onto the danger without recognizing."

The ground shook again and buckled. The monstrous face of the sphinx was opening its mouth. A tremendous bellowing roar came forth in a hurricane blast of air.

"When it pains, it roars!" Grundy cried.

"Oh, for pity's sake!" Ichabod grumbled. "This is no time for idiotic puns."

"Xanth is mostly made of puns," the golem told him. "You have to watch where you put your feet, or you end up stepping on puns."

"Or something," Chameleon said, noting where some horse clods had fallen.

Meanwhile, the day horse was galloping off over the flexing cheek of the monster toward the shoulder. The tremendous sphinx was reclining, its face tilted back, so that the slope was by no means vertical. The pink knoll they had climbed was its sunburned pate. Every hoofprint must have aggravated the monster, but it had not become truly aroused until its eyelash had been attacked.

"Imbri!" Chameleon called from far ahead, realizing that the mare was not maintaining the pace.

"Keep going!" Imbri projected. "I'll follow!"

But she could not follow well on three legs, with the face of the sphinx shaking all over. She lost her footing and rolled toward the mouth, which was now sucking in a gale of breath. She scrambled desperately and managed to avoid it--but then rolled helplessly across the cheek in the wrong direction. Now the mouth was between her and her friends.

She fetched up against another projection. It was the huge, curving outcropping of the ear. Beyond it the face dropped unkindly far to the cracking and shuddering ground.

Imbri decided to stay where she was. At least the ear could not chomp her.

But what about her friends? They could be caught and tromped! They were on the dangerous part of the face.