Night Mare

by Piers Anthony

  How could they make it dark? Sometimes, Imbri understood, the moon eclipsed the sun, rudely shoving in front of it and blocking it out. But the sun always gave the moon such a scorching on the backside when the cheese did that, that the moon hardly ever did it again soon. There was very little chance of it happening right at this moment; the moon wasn't even near the sun.

  Sometimes a big storm blotted out most of the light, turning day to night. But there was no sign of such a storm at the moment. Count that out, too.

  There was also smoke. A bad, smoldering blaze could stifle the day for a time. If they could gather the makings of a fire, then start it going--

  "Chameleon," Imbri sent in a dreamlet. "If I let you off behind a stone, so the monster doesn't see you, could you make a fire?"

  "A fire?" The woman had trouble seeing the relevance, naturally enough.

  "To stop the centycore."

  "Oh." Chameleon considered. "I do have a few magic matches that I use for cooking. All I have to do is rub them against something rough, and they burst into flame."

  "Excellent. Make a big fire--" Imbri projected a sequence in pictures: Chameleon hiding behind a stone column, dashing out when the monster wasn't near, gathering pieces of wood and dry moss and anything else that might blaze. "A big, smoky fire. Keep it between you and the centycore." Actually, the monster could go around the fire to get at the woman, but that wasn't the point. The fire was merely the mechanism to generate smoke.

  "I can do that," Chameleon agreed. Imbri accelerated, leaving the centycore puffing behind, veered near a megalithic column, and braked as rapidly as she could without throwing her rider. Why hadn't she tried a fast deceleration, or bucking, when the Horseman had ridden her? Because she, like a dumb filly, hadn't thought of it. But she suspected it wouldn't have worked anyway; the man understood horses too well to be deceived or outmaneuvered by one. Hence his name--the man who had mastered the horse.

  Chameleon dismounted and scurried behind the megalith while Imbri galloped ostentatiously off, attracting the monster's baleful attention. It worked; the centycore snorted after her, never glancing at the woman. It probably preferred the taste of horsemeat anyway. Imbri was relieved; if the monster had turned immediately on the woman, there could have been real trouble.

  Imbri led the monster a merry chase, keeping tantalizingly close so as to monopolize its attention. Meanwhile, Chameleon dashed about, diligently gathering scraps of wood and armfuls of dry leaves and grass.

  In due course the blaze started. A column of smoke puffed up.

  "Ho!" the centycore exclaimed, pausing. "What's this?"

  Imbri paused with him, not wanting him to spy the woman behind the column. "That's a fire, hornface," she projected. "To burn you up."

  "It won't burn me up!" the centycore snorted, the points of his antler quivering angrily. "I will put it out!"

  "You couldn't touch it," Imbri sent, her dreamlet showing the monster yelping as he got toasted on the rump by a burning brand.

  "So you claim," the centycore muttered, glancing at his posterior to make sure there was no burning brand being shoved at it. He approached the flame. Imbri skirted it to the other side and reached Chameleon, who climbed eagerly on her back. The woman evidently had been afraid, with excellent reason, but had performed well anyway. That was worth noting; she might not be smart, but she had reasonable courage.

  The centycore kicked at the fire. A piece of wood flew out, starting a secondary blaze a short distance away. "You won't put it out that way, bearsnoot," Imbri projected with a picture of a burning branch falling on the monster's antler and getting caught in it. The dream centycore shook his head violently, but the brand only blazed more brightly, toasting his snoot. In a moment the antler began to burn.

  "Stop that!" the monster snapped, shaking his antler as if it felt hot.

  "You'll burn to pieces!" Imbri dreamed, causing the image's antler to blaze more fiercely. Jets of flame shot out from each point, forming bright patterns in the air as the monster waved its antler about. The patterns shaped into a big word: FIRE.

  "Enough!" the centycore screamed. He leaped for the moat and dunked his horn. That doused the dream flame; reality was too strong for it. But Imbri did manage to dream up a subdued fizzle where the points entered the water.

  "Hey!" the nix protested, picking up the dream image. He froze the water around the antler, trapping the centycore head-down. The monster roared with a terrible rage and ripped his head free, sending shards of ice flying out. The nix changed to a fish and scooted away, daunted.

  Now the centycore scooped icy water toward the fire with his antler. But the fire was too big and too far away; only a few droplets struck it, with furious hissing. Hell had no anger like that of a wetted fire, as Imbri knew from experience.

  The centycore considered. Then he scooped up a hornful of muck from the edge of the moat and hurled that toward the fire. There was a tremendous hiss as the blob scored, and a balloon of steam and smoke went up.

  "Ha ha, mare, he's putting it out!" the nix called from a safe distance across the moat. Apparently he felt that it was best to join sides with the monster. "I guess that knots your tail!"

  "You shut up!" Imbri projected in a dream that encompassed both nix and centycore. "He won't get it all!"

  "That's what you think, horsehead!" the nix cried.

  Encouraged by this, the monster indulged in a fever of mudslinging. His aim was good; more gouts of smog ballooned out. The fire was furious, but was taking a beating.

  "Curses, he's doing it!" Imbri projected with wonderfully poor grace.

  Indeed he was. Soon the fire was largely out and smoke suffused the entire region, making them all cough. The light of the sun diminished, for sunrays didn't like smelly smog any better than anyone else did.

  Was it dark enough? Imbri wasn't sure. "If this doesn't work, we're finished," she projected privately to Chameleon. "Maybe you should dismount."

  "I'll stay with you," the woman said loyally. Imbri chalked up one more point for her character, though she realized it might be fear of the monster that motivated Chameleon as much as support for Imbri.

  Now the centycore reoriented on them. "You're next, mareface!" he cried, and charged.

  Imbri bolted for the megalith nearest the fire, where the smoke hovered most thickly. The centycore bounded after her. He was sure he had her now.

  The mare leaped right into the stone column--and phased through it. Chameleon, in contact with her, did the same. The darkness was deep enough!

  The monster, following too closely, smacked headfirst into the column. The collision jammed several points of his antler into the stone, trapping him there. He roared and yanked, but the stone was tougher than the ice had been, and he could not get free. That particular menace had been nullified.

  Actually, Imbri now recognized an additional concern she hadn't quite thought of before. She had not been certain she could phase a rider with her. She had brought the ogre out of the gourd, but he had already been in it, his body separate. She had carried the girl Tandy once, but that had been in genuine night. When she phased out of the Horseman's pen, she had left the hobble behind, and it had certainly been in contact with her body. So the precedents were mixed. Apparently she could take someone or something with her if she wanted to, and leave it behind if she chose. It was good to get such details straight; an error could be a lot of trouble.

  Now they could explore the center of the stone structure. They moved in cautiously.

  There was a rumble, as of a column wobbling in its socket and beginning to crumble. Some sand sifted down from one of the elevated slabs. Both mare and woman looked up nervously. What was happening?

  The noises subsided as they stood. Apparently it was a random event, possibly the result of the heat or smoke of the recent fire.

  Imbri took another step forward. There was a long, moaning groan to the right, causing their heads to snap about. It was just another massive stone column settlin
g, doing nothing.

  Again Imbri stepped forward. The huge rock slab above slipped its support and crunched down toward them.

  Imbri leaped backward, whipping her head around and back to catch Chameleon as the woman tried to fall off. The massive stone swung down where the two of them had been the moment before, thudding into the ground with an awesome impact.

  "This place is collapsing!" Chameleon cried. "Let's get out of here!"

  But Imbri's memory was jogged by something. "Isn't it strange that it should collapse the very moment we enter it, after standing for what seems by the cobwebs and moss to have been centuries?" Actually, cobwebs could form faster than that, but Imbri wasn't concerned about minor details. "This resembles the handiwork of the spriggan," she concluded in the dream.

  "Spriggan?"

  "Giant ghosts who haunt old castles and megalithic structures. They are destructive in nature; that's why old structures eventually collapse. The spriggan keep shoving at columns and pulling at cross pieces, until there is a collapse."

  "But why right now?" Chameleon asked, since Imbri hadn't directly answered her own question. A creature had to make things quite clear for this woman.

  "To stop us from proceeding farther. Don't you remember the nature of Magician Humfrey's castle?"

  "Oh, yes. I had to ask him a Question once, before I married Bink, and it was just awful getting in! But not like this."

  "His castle is different each time a person comes to it. I've seen it on my way to deliver dreams. Never the same."

  "Yes, I remember," she agreed. "He must spend a lot of time getting it changed."

  "So this is Humfrey's castle now. A megalithic structure. We have passed two hazards and are encountering the third--the spriggan. They are preventing us from advancing by shoving the stones down in our path."

  "Oh." Chameleon was not entirely reassured. "But we don't have a Question. We're on the King's business."

  "Yes, I understand the Good Magician is not supposed to charge for official business. He must not have realized we were coming."

  "But he's supposed to know everything!"

  "But he's old and absent-minded and set in his ways," Imbri's dream image reminded her. Still, she was not pleased at having to run this gauntlet. "So we must find out how to get past the ghosts," Imbri concluded. "Then we will be able to consult the Magician despite his forgetfulness."

  "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 had 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

  “Well, 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 to 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 PAIR & 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.