Night Mare Part 10

Then she had a notion. She pumped her dream projection up to maximum strength and sent the sphinx a vision of absolute peace and contentment. Imbri wasn't expert at this sort of dream; all her experience had been with the other kind. But she did have half a soul now, and it was a gentle soul, and it helped her fashion a gentle dream.

Slowly the irritated sphinx calmed. It submitted to the dream of soft, sunny pastures with little sphinxes gamboling on the green. Cool mists wafted across its burning pate. Its eyes closed, broken eyelash and all, and the rumbling diminished.

Carefully Imbri left the cavern of the ear and hobbled back along the huge cheek toward real ground. But her hooves irritated the sunburned skin, resuming the waking process. The monster was not nearly as deeply asleep as it had been before; any little thing could disturb it now. A creature of such ma.s.s had considerable inertia, whether heading into sleep or out of it, and at the moment it was almost in balance. She had to retreat to the safe ear.

Unable to depart during daylight, Imbri settled down for a nap herself. She kept the sphinx pa.s.sive by projecting a nominal sweet dream, just enough to lull it back to sleep when it thought about waking. Fortunately, sphinxes liked to sleep; that was why they were very seldom seen wandering around Xanth. There was a myth about one who had retreated to Mundania to find a suitably quiet place, and who had found a nice warm desert and hunkered down for a nap of several thousand years. The ignorant locals thought it was a statue and knocked off its nose. There would be an awful row when it woke and discovered that...

Meanwhile, it was easy for this one to doze off when no one was trotting on its face or blasting off its nose. This was just as well, considering the situation of Imbri's party.

When she woke, it was dark. Now she could move freely. Her bitten leg did not need to support any weight, now that she was able to dematerialize. She got up and galloped through the sphinx's head, where sweet dreams still roamed; her hooves got coated with sugar and honey. She emerged from the other ear and moved on north toward the lake. Soon she found it, trotted across it, and found the camp of the others.

Chameleon was the first to spy her. "Mare Imbri!" she screamed joyfully. "You got away!" She hugged Imbri fiercely, and the mare remained solid for the occasion. It was easy to like Chameleon despite her intellectual handicap, especially at a time like this. No creature except a basilisk would object to being hugged by a person of Chameleon's configuration.

"She wanted to return for you," Grundy said, "but we told her no. All we could have done was get ourselves in trouble and maybe make things worse for you."

"My son the King told me to listen to the golem," Chameleon said apologetically, her lovely face showing her distaste.

"It was best," Imbri agreed in a general dreamlet. "I hid in the sphinx's ear until night, then shifted to immaterial form."

"Your leg seems better," Ichabod observed. "It isn't. But it's no worse. Maybe it will improve by morning."

They settled down for the remainder of the night. Chameleon, Grundy, and Ichabod slept, while the day horse and night mare grazed on the rich pasturage and snoozed. Imbri had to go solid to crop the gra.s.s, but she could phase out while chewing it, and she moved slowly enough so as not to aggravate her knee. And indeed, as the pleasant nocturnal hours pa.s.sed, the numbness faded and strength returned. She had at last thrown off the lingering effect of the snake's venom.

In the morning, rested, they all were feeling fit. Chameleon stripped and washed in the shallow edge of the lake; Ichabod turned his back self-consciously, but Grundy openly goggled. "Age sure comes gracefully to some folk," he remarked. "But you should see her in her off-phase."

"I have," Ichabod said stiffly. "She has the most remarkably penetrating mind I have encountered."

"And the aspect of the most horrendous hag," the golem said, smirking.

"She merely manifests the properties of all women, with less ambiguity. They all begin lovely and innocent, and end ugly and smart."

"I guess that's why you like looking at nymphs," Grundy retorted. "They don't have minds, so there's nothing to distract you from their important points."

"Oh, I don't look at the points," Ichabod protested. "I look at their legs."

"Why don't you look at Chameleon's legs? They're as good as any and better than most."

"Chameleon is a person and a friend," the archivist said severely.

"Oh, she wouldn't mind." The golem was enjoying himself, needling the man. "Hey, doll, is it all right if Ichabod looks?"

"Silence!" Ichabod hissed, flushing.

"Certainly," Chameleon called back. "I'm under water."

"She was under water all the time!" Ichabod said, catching on as the golem rolled on the ground with mirth. "There was nothing to see!"

Something stirred across the lake. There seemed to be a cave just below water level. Now several heads showed.

"Tritons!" Grundy said. "Stand back from sh.o.r.e; they can be ornery."

Indeed, the mermen approached with elevated tridents.

Chameleon tried to rise, then remembered her nakedness and settled back in the water, not smart enough to realize that her modesty could be fatal. Imbri charged back to guard her, and the day horse joined them.

Three tritons drew up just beyond the kicking range of the horses. "Ho! What mischief is this?" one cried. "Do you come to muddy our waters?" His three-pointed spear was poised menacingly.

Imbri broadcast a pacifying dreamlet. She was getting better at this with practice. "We only pa.s.s by, meaning no harm," her dream figure of a black mermaid said. "We did not know this lake was occupied by your kind."

Now the triton peered at Chameleon, whose torso he had briefly glimpsed when she started to stand. "That one must have nymphly blood," he remarked appreciatively.

But several mermaids had followed the tritons from the cave. "That's a human woman," one said. "Leave her alone."

The triton grimaced. "I suppose these people are all right. They haven't littered the grounds."

"Say," Grundy asked as the tension eased, "do you folk know the Siren? She settled in a lake somewhere in this general region several years back."

"The half-mer? Sure, she comes by here sometimes. She can split her tail into legs, so she can cross between lakes when there's no waterway. She married Morris, and they've got a halfling boy like her, part human--but okay. Nice people."

"I know the Siren from way back," Grundy said, "And her sister the Gorgon, who married Good Magician Humfrey." He relaxed, seeing the tritons relax. "Where is the Siren now? Maybe we can pay her a visit."

"They live by the water wing," a mermaid said. "I don't think your kind could get there safely. You have to swim, or go through the zone of Fire."

The golem shrugged. "So we can't get there from here. It was a nice thought, anyway."

"Do you know any special hazards north of here?" Imbri asked in another dreamlet.

"Dragons on land, river monsters in the water, maneating birds in the air--the usual riffraff," the triton said carelessly. "If you got by the sphinx, you can probably handle them."

"Thank you. We'll try to avoid them," Imbri sent, and let the dreamlet fade.

The group organized, once Chameleon had gotten dressed, and trotted north. Imbri had no further trouble with her knee; the toxin had dissipated, leaving no permanent damage, and she carried woman and golem as before.

They kept alert, avoiding the dragons, river monsters, and predator birds, and by evening arrived near the Mundane front. The invaders had penetrated well into Xanth, which shortened the trip; the fleeing animals gave Grundy horrendous reports of their violence. It seemed the Mundanes were using fire and sword to lay waste to anything they could, and were such deadly warriors that even large dragons were getting slain. This did not bode well for the defense of Xanth.

"I think my turn has come," Ichabod said. "I must actually see the soldiers to identify them specifically; there should be details of armor and emblem that will enable me to place them, if not immediately, then when I return to my references. Already I know they are medieval or earlier, since they employ no firearms. That's fortunate."

"Firearms?" Chameleon asked, looking at her own slender limbs as if afraid they would flame up. Her gesture was touching in its innocence.

"Those are weapons utilizing--something like magic powder," Ichabod clarified. "Imagine, well, cherry bombs shot like arrows from tubes. I hope Xanth never encounters that sort of thing. I wish my world had never encountered it." He looked around. "Suppose I ride Imbri, while Chameleon rides the day horse? I don't believe King Dor intended his mother to expose herself to extreme danger."

"I'm sure he didn't!" Grundy agreed emphatically. "It was bad enough when she exposed herself to the tritons. That's why he sent me along."

"To look at his mother bathing?" Ichabod inquired with a certain faint malice. Grundy got on everyone's nerves.

"Go with the day horse. Chameleon," Grundy said, ignoring the gibe. "We'll spy on the Mundanes and rejoin you later."

"We?" Ichabod asked, frowning, and the day horse's ears flattened back. Neither of them was thrilled by the prospect of the golem's company.

"I'm coming with you. I can learn a lot by talking with the plants and animals--maybe enough to spare you the natural result of you own heroics."

Ichabod smiled with certain scholarly resignation. "There is indeed that. I confess to being somewhat of a Don Quixote at heart"

"Donkey who?" Chameleon asked, blinking.

"Donkey Hotay, to you," the archivist said, smiling obscurely. "It is not spelled the way it sounds, even here in Xanth. He was an old Don, a Mundane scholar, buried in his books, exactly as I was before Dor, Irene, Grundy, the ogre, and Arnolde the Centaur rousted me out of my sinecure and opened a literally fantastic new horizon to my perspective. Don Quixote set himself up as a medieval knight in armor and rode about the Iberian countryside, having adventures that were far more significant for him than for the spectators, just as I am doing now. There was an encounter with a windmill, a truly cla.s.sic episode--"

"What kind of bird is that?" Chameleon asked.

"Oh, a windmill is not a bird. It is--"

"We had better get going," Grundy interjected impatiently.

"Yes, indeed," Ichabod agreed. "We shall locate the two of you by asking the plants your location when we return. Do stay out of danger, both of you."

The day horse neighed. "You can be sure of that!" Grundy translated for him.

Chapter 6: The Nextwave.

Imbri carried the golem and the Mundane scholar toward the terrible Mundane front. Xanth had not suffered a Wave invasion in a century and a half; this was an awesomely significant event.

"I believe I perceive some tension in you, Imbri," Ichabod said. "Am I imposing on you?"

"I was thinking how long it has been since the Lastwave," Imbri sent. "I was young then, only twenty years old,--but I remember it as if it were last year."

"You were there?" Ichabod asked, surprised. "That's right--I forgot that you are one hundred and seventy years old. Since the Lastwave, as I reconstruct it, was one hundred and fifty years ago--" He paused. "I have, of course, researched this historically, but have talked with no eyewitnesses. I would dearly love to have your personal impressions."

"Well, I only saw bits of it at night, on dream duty," Imbri demurred. "The big battles were by day, and I could not go abroad by day then."

"Still, I would be fascinated!" the scholar said. "Your impressions, in the context of historical detail, would help complete the picture."

"Maybe you had better give that context," Grundy said, getting interested in spite of himself, "so we all know exactly what we're talking about." The golem, of course, had not been around for the Lastwave and hated to admit ignorance on anything.

"Certainly," Ichabod said. Historical detail was dear to his old heart. "My friend Arnolde Centaur provided some considerable information. It seems that the Firstwave of human colonization occurred over a thousand years ago. Before that, there were only the animals and hybrids, such as the centaurs. They have a touching story about the origin of their species--"

"Get on with the recent stuff," Grundy said.

"Um, yes, of course," Ichabod agreed, irritated. "There were a number of Waves, perhaps a dozen, most of them quite brutal, as the Mundanes invaded and ravaged Xanth. After each Wave conquered the land and settled down, the children would turn up with magic talents, becoming true citizens of Xanth. Then in fifty or one hundred years, another Wave would come, destroying much of what the prior Wave had accomplished. Finally, one hundred and fifty years ago, the Lastwave was so savage that the people of Xanth decided to prevent any future invasions. Once things settled down, in about fifteen years, a Magician King adapted a magic stone of great potency to project a deadly shield that destroyed anything crossing through it, and set that shield entirely around Xanth. The shield kept Xanth safe from intrusions for one hundred and ten years, until King Trent, who had spent time in Mundania, a.s.sumed power after the demise of the Storm King and abolished the shield. It seemed that mankind had been diminishing in the absence of immigration. So it was better to risk another invasion than to suffer certain extinction of the human species in Xanth by stiflement. Thus for the past quarter century there has been no shield--and now the consequence would seem to be upon us. King Trent refused to reinstate the magic shield, preferring to fight off the invaders, and perhaps with his power of transformation he could have done it. But now--"

"Now King Trent is out of the picture, and King Dor doesn't know how to set up the shield," Grundy finished. "Anyway, the Mundanes are already inside Xanth, so that's no answer."

"I am not certain it ever was an answer," Ichabod said. "I believe King Trent was correct; there has to be freedom of the border and commerce between Xanth and Mundania. Unfortunately, not all Mundanes come in peace. The Lastwavers, as I understand it, were Mongol Mundanes, of our thirteenth century A.D., circa 1231, if I do not misremember my Asiatic history. They believed they were invading the peninsula of Korea. Today Korea is severed by a line very like the Gap Chasm, with a major city where Castle Roogna is, suggesting a most intriguing parallelism--" He noted Grundy's open yawn and broke off that conjecture. "But that's irrelevant to the present reprise. The Mongols were truly savage conquerors, and I can well understand the Xanthians' decision to have no more of that." He shook his head. "But it was Imbri's impressions I wanted. How did the Mongols look from this side, mare?"

"In the bad dreams I had to deliver, they were savage, flat-faced people," Imbri projected. "They killed all who opposed them, using arrows and swords. They rode horses--all those horses were killed, after the Wave was stopped, because of the terror the people of Xanth had for my kind after that. That was the equine tragedy; horses never intended mischief for Xanth."

"I am sure they didn't," Ichabod said consolingly. "The innocent often suffer most from the rigors of war. That is one of the appalling things about violence."

Imbri was getting to like this man. "Some of the dreams I delivered were to the Lastwavers. We night mares have always been fair and impartial; we deliver our service to all in need, no matter how undeserving. The Wavers suffered fears and sorrows, too, especially when their drive began to falter. They killed animals without compunction or compa.s.sion, yet they cared about their own families, left behind in Mundania, and about their comrades-in-arms. They saw Xanth as a terrible magic land, with deadly threats everywhere--"

"Well, of course it is, to Mundanes," Ichabod said. "Yet a person of Xanth would have similar difficulty going about in my own portion of Mundania, particularly if he did not know the patterns of highway traffic. Had I not been protected by my friends when first invited here, I would not have survived long. My first day in Xanth, I almost walked into a nickelpede nest. I thought the nickelpedes were units of currency."

"Xanth natives avoid such things routinely," Grundy said. "But I do remember those metal dragons in your land, shooting smoke out of their tails and carrying people around inside them for hours before digesting them. It was awful! When a person gets into unfamiliar territory, he's in much danger. We walked right onto that sphinx's head, for example--and we had been warned to beware the sphinx."

"And to beware the Horseman," Ichabod added. "And to break the chain. The trouble with these warnings is that we seldom understand them until it is too late."

"I don't even know where the chain is, let alone how to break it," Grundy said. "Fortunately, that's not my worry. King Dor is no doubt pondering that question now. I somehow doubt there is any chain in the Castle Roogna armory."

Ichabod returned to the subject. "Are you saying, Imbri, that you found the Mundane invaders--the Mongols--to be human beings, that is to say, feeling creatures, like the rest of us? You know, I'm fascinated to converse with a person who shared, as it were, the same stage with the Mongols, who were centuries before my time."

"That was the strangest thing about it," Imbri admitted in the dream. "Among themselves, they were perfectly decent creatures. But in battle they thought of people as they did dragons and basilisks and salamanders. They actually liked slaying them."

"It is an unfortunately familiar pattern in Mundania," Ichabod said. "First one group dehumanizes another, then it destroys it. In Xanth no real line between human and creature exists; many animals are better companions than many human folk." He patted Imbri's flank. "And how are we to define the centaurs, who have aspects of both? But Mundania has no recognized magic, so all animals are stupid, unable to speak the language of man. This leads to terrible wrongs. I much prefer Xanth's way."

"Yes, it is handy for communication," the golem agreed. "Here the animals and plants speak different languages, while human folk speak only one. Vice versa in Mundania. So animals don't really speak the language of men; it's just that some have learned it, as you have. No one has ever figured out what enchantment makes all human folk intelligible to each other here, even invading Mundanes. It just seems that the moment any human type steps into Xanth, the language matches."

"There is much remaining to learn about the magic of Xanth," Ichabod said. "I only hope I live long enough to fathom some significant part of it."

Imbri's ears perked forward. She sniffed the breeze. "Mundanes!" she projected.

Instantly the others were alert. Soon they all perceived the smoke of a burning field. "Why do they destroy so wantonly?" Grundy grumbled. "They can't use burned-out land any better than we can."

Ichabod sighed. "I'm afraid I can answer that. The point of such destruction is not to preserve land for one's own use, but to deprive the opponent of its produce, to diminish his capacity for war. Starving creatures can't fight effectively. Since there is magic everywhere in Xanth, and the Mundanes have none, they hurt Xanthians much more than themselves by ruining the land for everyone. It is an unkind but effective ploy."

"We have to stop them," Grundy said.

"Of course. But it will not be easy. We must spy out their nature, then organize to contain them. That is why our mission is so important. A side can not prevail, militarily, without good information about the enemy."

Imbri continued forward, carefully watching for the dread Mundanes. There was a slight wind from the north, whipping the fire south, and small creatures were fleeing it. But fire was hardly unknown in Xanth; fire-breathing dragons, fireflies, firebirds, and salamanders started blazes all the time. So this one would burn out in due course, since rivers and dense, juicy vegetation were all over Xanth and did not ignite well. Possibly the fire would be put out when it irritated a pa.s.sing storm cloud and got rain dumped on it. The Land of Xanth put up with many indignities, but once properly aroused, it could find ways of dealing with nuisances. It seemed to Imbri that the Mundane Nextwavers had just about worn out their presumed welcome.

The trouble was, to remain downwind of the fire was to suffer the discomfort of heat and smoke. To cross to the upwind side was to risk discovery by the enemy. This scouting was awkward in practice, however necessary it was in theory.

"This will never work," Ichabod said, coughing, as a curl of smoke teased him. "I fear we are in an untenable situation. I don't like to counsel delay, but perhaps we should wait till evening--"

"Wait!" Grundy cut in. "I think I see an errant gust."

Imbri looked. Terns were wheeling to the west, first one and then another, taking turns in the manner they were named for. From the way they maneuvered and coasted and floated in the sky, she could tell the direction of the wind they rode. It was bearing north. It was indeed an errant gust, going counter to the prevailing wind. Probably it was a young breeze, not yet ready to settle down and pull with its elders.

"While the tern is wheeling, I'll not dream of squealing," the golem said in singsong. "Know what will happen when that gust dusts the fire?"

Ichabod, who had been wincing at something he must have taken as another pun, caught on. "Thick smoke-- back in their faces, blinding them--and can you phase through it, Imbri?"

"Yes, I can phase through smoke when it's thick enough," Imbri projected. That was what she had done to escape the centycore at Magician Humfrey's castle. "But it's unreliable. When it thins, I'll turn solid again."