Night Mare Part 17

Then an eye popped open in the nearby wall. Print appeared beside it. MUSH! MUSH! YUCK!

"Go to your room, children!" the Zombie Master snapped. "Go make your own dreams!"

Cowed, the eye and print faded. The Zombie Master kissed his wife, who responded pa.s.sionately. If there was one thing Millie was really good at, it was pa.s.sion.

Then the Magician's eyes went blank. He froze in place.

"Jonathan," Millie asked, alarmed, "what's the matter?"

But the Zombie Master did not respond. He simply stood there, staring through her.

Imbri was abruptly out of the dream--for there was no longer a mind to receive it. "He's been taken!" she sent to Grundy. "Right while he was dreaming!"

"But no one's here but us!" the golem protested. "Imbri, you didn't--?"

"No! I don't do that to people! I can't. And wouldn't if I could. This was not the work of any night mare. I would have recognized any who came, and none came, anyway!"

"I'll investigate this," Grundy said. "Make us solid, quickly."

She materialized, there in the tent. Grundy jumped down. He made a whispering, rustling sound, talking to a patch of gra.s.s within the tent. "The gra.s.s didn't see anything," he said.

"Maybe outside the tent--"

Grundy lifted up the flap and scrambled out. Imbri phased through the wall and trotted to Chet. "The King's been ensorcelled!" she sent to the centaur. "Just now!"

"But Grundy was on guard!" he cried, snapping alert.

"So was I. But the King went from right under my nose--in the middle of a dream I sent!"

"Hey, I've got it!" Grundy cried from the tent area. "This tree says there was a man here a moment ago. He climbed in the tree, then jumped down and ran away."

Chet galloped over to the golem. "Who was it? Anyone we know?"

"The tree can't identify him," Grundy said. "All men look alike to trees. Anyway, it was dark, and he seems to be a stranger to this glade. He could be anyone, Xanthian or Mundane."

"He must be Xanthian," Imbri sent. "Obviously he has magic: he threw a spell to blank out the King, then ran away."

"Why didn't it blank us out, too?" Grundy asked.

"We weren't material. The spell must have pa.s.sed right through us."

"Or it was aimed specifically at the King, as the other spells were," Chet said. "I agree; it has to be Xanthian. Someone with the power to cloud men's minds. A traitor among us, taking out our Kings in the midst of a crisis so we can't organize a good defense against the Nextwave."

"Exactly as Hasbinbad threatened," Imbri sent. "This is no coincidence; this is enemy action."

Grundy was pursuing the trail, questioning gra.s.s, bushes, and trees. But soon the path crossed a rocky region that led into a river, and was lost. "King Dor could have handled this; he talks to the inanimate. But--"

"But King Dor has already been taken," Chet finished. "Oh, we're in terrible trouble! What will we say to the others?"

"The truth," Grundy said. "We were watching the King, instead of the surroundings, and we got skunked. We need a new King--again."

"I'll go!" Imbri sent. "I can reach Castle Roogna quickly. The Queens must be told."

"Take me with you," Grundy said, leaping onto her back. "Chet, you notify the zombies. They'll have to defend the Gap Chasm as well as they can without their master."

"Yes," the centaur agreed. "I fear the Punics will pa.s.s the Chasm. But we should have a few days to prepare for their next onslaught." He looked at the fallen King. "And I'll carry him back to Castle Roogna."

This was becoming almost commonplace, this disposition of the Kings of Xanth! Imbri felt the shock, but not as hard as it had been when King Trent and King Dor were taken.

Imbri phased out and charged through the night toward the nearest gourd patch. She knew the location of most of the hypnogourds of Xanth, since the night mares used them for exits. "Brace yourself for a strange environment," she warned the golem.

"It can't be worse than what we know now in Xanth," Grundy muttered.

Imbri feared he was right. The Kings were being taken faster now; where would it end? How could the loyal defenders of Xanth stop it, when the sorcery could happen right while they were watching?

Chapter 9: Good King Humfrey.

Queen Iris met them at Castle Roogna. "Somehow I knew it," she said. "Every time we get our defense going well, we lose our King. I have been mourning for my husband when I should have been protecting his successors. You two go directly to Good Magician Humfrey; he must be the next King. Don't let him put you off; the old curmudgeon can't refuse this time! I'll send word to Millie the Ghost, if a regular night mare hasn't beaten me to it, and will organize things here at the castle. Tell Humfrey this is preemptive; he's the last male Magician of Xanth and must a.s.sume the office immediately, and no gnomish grumbling."

Imbri realized that the old Queen still had considerable spirit and competence. Now that the crisis was deepening, she was putting aside her personal grief and shock to do what needed to be done. She was providing some leadership during the vacuum. Grundy had commented with innocent malice on the uselessness of the Queen, whom King Trent had married mainly out of courtesy; now Imbri knew directly that there was much more to it than that. Queen Iris's grief was genuine, but so was her mettle.

Fortunately, Imbri's century and a half of night labors had inured her somewhat to busy nights. The golem remounted and they galloped for the Good Magician's castle.

She used the same gourd patches she had taken with Chameleon, but her rider was different and so the gourd terrain differed. This time they charged through a region of carnivorous clouds that reached for them with funnel-shaped, whirling, sucking snouts and turbulent gusts. They whistled with rage when unable to consume this seeming prey. Clouds tended to be vocally expressive.

Then there was a forest of animate trees whose branches clutched at them and whose leaves slurped hungrily, but these, too, failed. Finally they threaded through a field of striking weapons--swords, clubs, and spears moving with random viciousness, nooses tightening, and metallic magic tubes belching fire, noise, and fragments. Yet again they pa.s.sed through safely, for Imbri was long familiar with this region. The world of the gourd had to supply everything that was required for bad dreams, and weapons were prominent.

"This is a fun scene you have in your gourd," Grundy remarked, relaxing once he realized they were safely through.

They emerged near the Good Magician's castle and charged through its walls and into its halls. Humfrey was in his study, as usual poring over a huge tome. He looked up glumly as Imbri and Grundy materialized. "So it has come at last to this," he muttered. "For a century I have avoided the onerous aspect of politics, and now you folk have bungled me into a corner."

"Yes, sir," Grundy said. The golem was halfway respectful, for Humfrey had enabled him to become real, long ago when he had been unreal. Also, Humfrey was about to come into considerably more power. "You have to bite the bullet and be King."

"Xanth has no bullets," Humfrey grumped. "That's a Mundane anachronism." He scowled as his old eyes scanned a shelf on which sat a row of magic bullets, giving him the lie. "I'm not the last Magician of Xanth, you know."

"Arnolde Centaur doesn't count," Grundy said. "His talent only works outside Xanth, and anyway, he's not human."

"Both arguments are specious. His turn will come. But first must come Bink; he will be King after me."

"Bink?" the golem cried incredulously. "Dor's father? He has no magic at all! King Trent had to cancel the rule of magic for citizenship, just so Bink could stay in Xanth."

"Bink is a Magician," Humfrey insisted. "Possibly the most potent one alive. For the first quarter century of his life, no one knew it; for the second quarter, only a select few knew it. Now all Xanth must know it, for Xanth needs him. Bear that in your ugly little mind, golem, for you will have to pa.s.s the word. Perhaps Bink will break the chain."

"Breaking the chain!" Imbri sent. "That's your advice for saving Xanth from the Nextwave!"

"Yes, indeed," Humfrey agreed. "But it is proving hard to do. I shall not succeed, and I am unable to prophesy beyond my own doom. But I think Bink is the one most likely to break it--or perhaps his wife will."

Golem and mare exchanged a glance. Had the Good Magician lost what few wits remained to him?

The Gorgon appeared in the doorway. A heavy opaque veil covered her face completely. "I have packed your spells and your lunch, my love," she murmured.

"And my socks?" Humfrey snapped. "What about my spare socks?"

"Those, too," she said. "I might forget a spell, but never something as important as your spare socks." She smiled wryly under the veil and set a tied bag before him on the desk.

"Not on the open tome!" he exclaimed. "You'll muss the pages!"

The Gorgon moved the bag to the side of the book. Then she dropped to her knees before Humfrey. "Oh, my lord, must you go into this thing? Can't you rule from here?"

"What's this 'my love, my lord' business?" Grundy demanded. "The Gorgon kneels to no one!"

Humfrey picked up the bag. "What must be must be," he said. "So it is written--there." He jammed a gnarled finger on the open page of the tome.

Imbri looked. The book said: IT IS NOT FOR THE GOOD MAGICIAN TO BREAK THE CHAIN.

The Gorgon's veil was darkening as moisture soaked through it. Imbri was amazed; could this fearsome creature be crying? "My lord, I implore you--at least let me come with you, to petrify your enemies!"

Grundy looked at her with sudden, horrified understanding. "To petrify--and she wears a concealing veil she wouldn't need for an invisible face. The Gorgon's been loosed!"

"Her power must not be loosed prematurely," Humfrey said. "Not till the King of Xanth so directs, or it will be wasted and Xanth will fall. She must fetch her sister for the time when the two of them are needed."

"But how will we know?" the Gorgon demanded. "You restored the Siren's dulcimer and have it waiting for her here. But we may not even have a King of Xanth, let alone one who knows what to direct!"

"Someone will know," Humfrey said. "Mare Imbrium, I must borrow you until I recover my flying carpet. Golem, you must baby-sit this castle until the girls return."

"Me? But--"

"Or until need calls you elsewhere."

"What need?" the golem asked, baffled.

"You will know when it manifests." Humfrey c.o.c.ked a forefinger at the miniature man. "Do not diddle with my books. And leave my spells bottled."

"But suppose I'm thirsty?"

"Some of those bottled spells would turn you into a giant--"

"A giant!" the golem exclaimed happily.

"--purple bugbear," the Gorgon concluded, and the golem's excitement faded.

The Magician climbed onto Imbri, using a corner of his desk as a stepping block. He was small, old, and infirm, and Imbri was afraid he would fall. Then he hauled up the heavy bag of spells and almost did fall as it overbalanced him. "I'd better use a fixative spell," he muttered. He opened the bag and rummaged in it. He brought out a bottle, worked out the cork, and spilled a plaid drop.

A plaid banshee formed and sailed out through the ceiling with a trailing wail.

"Wrong bottle," the Gorgon said, standing. "Here, let me get it." She reached into the bag and drew forth a white bottle. She popped the cork and spilled out a drop. Immediately it expanded into a white bubble that floated toward Imbri and the Magician, overlapped them, and shrank suddenly about them, cementing Humfrey and his bag firmly to the mare's back.

"You see, you do need me," the Gorgon said. "I know where every spell is packed."

"Stay," Humfrey said, as if addressing a puppy. "Move out, mare."

Imbri moved out, phasing through the wall and leaping down to the ground beyond the moat. In her insubstantial state, such leaps were safe.

They were on their way to Castle Roogna, but Imbri was dissatisfied. "Why didn't you let her be with you?" she sent reprovingly to the Magician. "The Gorgon really seems to care for you."

"Of course she cares for me, the idiot!" Humfrey snapped. "She's a better wife than I deserve. Always was."

"But then--"

"Because I don't want her to see me wash out," he said. "A man my age has few points of pride, and my doom will be ignominious."

That seemed to cover it. Humfrey loved the Gorgon; his way of showing it was subtle. Still, Imbri had a question. "If you know you will fail, and are only going to your doom, why do you go at all?"

"To buy time and allow my successor to return from Mundania," Humfrey replied. "Xanth must have a King, a Magician King, and Bink is the next. But he is in Mundania. Without a King, Xanth will fall to the Nextwave."

"But to go to your death--"

"It is not death, precisely," Humfrey said. "But since I can not be sure it will not in due course become death, I do not care to temporize. My wife will perform better if not handicapped by hope. I have locked up hope."

"That is a cruel mechanism," Imbri sent, shuddering as they entered the eye of a gourd.

"No more cruel than the dreams of night mares," he retorted.

The raw material of those bad dreams now surrounded them. Mirrors loomed before them, distorting their reflections, so that Humfrey resembled now a goblin, now a squat ghoul, now an imp, while Imbri pa.s.sed through stages of bovine, ursine, and caprine resemblances. They entered a region of paper, where nothing existed that was not formed of painted paper, and the birds and animals were folded paper.

"This is fascinating," Humfrey said. "But I have more immediate business. Mare, I mean to unriddle the ident.i.ty of the hidden enemy before he takes me out. I will record his name on a magic slate and hide it in a bottle he can not find. You must salvage that bottle and recover that Answer so that my successor may have it."

"You are the Magician of Information," Imbri sent "How is it you do not know the Answer?"

"Some knowledge is self-destructive," Humfrey replied. "Some Answers I could fathom, but my fathoming would cause the situation to change, perhaps creating uglier Questions than the ones answered. But mainly, I can not accurately foretell a future of which I am an integral part, and the discovery of the ident.i.ty of the ensorceller is in that future. Answers might seem valid but be false, because of my conflict of interest."

Imbri could not quite understand that, but decided it probably made humanish sense. After all, the Good Magician was supposed to know.

They emerged from the gourd in the patch nearest to Castle Roogna and trotted toward the castle. Dawn was threatening, for Imbri's travels did take a certain amount of time. But she phased through the stone ramparts and delivered the Good Magician to the throne room, where Queen Iris awaited him.

"Excellent," she said. "The resources of this castle and of Xanth are at your disposal, Good King Humfrey."

"Naturally," Humfrey grumped. "Just let me dismount." But he was unable to dismount, for the adhesion spell held him securely on Imbri's back. He had to fish in his bag for an antidote. He did not get it right the first time, instead releasing a flock of green doves, then a fat book t.i.tled Mundane Fatuities; remarking that that had been lost for some years and would now be useful for entertainment reading, which was probably why the Gorgon had packed it, he then brought out a rolled pair of polka-dot socks. The Gorgon had indeed remembered! Finally he found the antidote and was free to return to his own two feet.

"Now let's review the situation," King Humfrey said. "We've lost five Kings, with five to go--"

"What?" Queen Iris asked, startled.