Night Mare Read online

  She backed off and looked at one of her hoofprints. It matched the visible moon, as it always did, even to the phase. The prints of night mares became obscure as the moon waned, unless a mare made a special effort, as for a signature. Imbri had never liked dream duty when the moon was dark; her feet tended to skid, leaving no prints at all. But there was no such problem tonight; the moon was full almost to the bursting point.

  She trotted on through the Xanthian night, just as if bearing a fresh load of dreams to sleeping clients. But this time her only burden was her message: beware the Horseman. She didn't know what that meant, but surely the King would. Meanwhile, her equine heart beat more strongly with anticipation as the dread dawn gathered itself. Always before she had fled the rising sun, the scourge of day; this time she would face the carnage it did to the darkness.

  The stars began to fade. They wanted no part of this! Day was coming; soon it would be light enough for the sun to climb safely aloft. The sun hated the night, just as the moon despised the day; but Imbri understood the moon had the courage to encroach on the edges of the day, especially when fully inflated and strong. Perhaps the lady moon was interested in the male sun, though he gave her scant encouragement. As long as the moon was present, a night mare could travel safely, though perhaps uncomfortably, even if the edge of day caught her. But why take chances?

  Still, Imbri had to brace herself as the light swelled ominously. She knew the spell of the Night Stallion and the presence of her half soul would enable her to survive the day-­but somehow it was hard to believe absolutely. What would happen if the spell were faulty? She could be destroyed by the strike of a deadly sunbeam, and her sea on the moon would fade out, unremembered. She trusted the Stallion, of course; he was her sire and he ruled the Powers of the Night. Yet surely the sun was an aspect of the powers of the day, and perhaps did not know she was supposed to be exempt from its mischief. Or if it knew, maybe it refused to recognize the fact. "Oops, sorry, Horse; you mean that was the mare I was supposed to spare? Fortunately, you have others..."

  The brightening continued inexorably. Now was the time; she would have to stand-­or break and run home to the gourd. Her legs trembled; her nostrils dilated. White showed around the edges of her eyes. Her body was poised for flight.

  Then she remembered the rainbow. She would never see it--unless she faced the sun. Or faced away from it; it was always a creature's shadow that pointed to the rainbow, she understood; that was one of the special aspects of the magic of Xanth, that secret signal; But the sunlight had to fall on that person to make the shadow appear--shadows were reputed to be very strict about that--so the shadow could perform.

  The mare Imbri stood, letting the dread sun ascend, watching its terrible beams lance their way cruelly through the mists of morning. One launched itself right toward Imbri, amazingly swift, and scored before she could react.

  She survived. The only effect was a shine on her coat where the beam touched. The protective spell had held.

  She had withstood the awful light of the sun. She was now a day mare.

  After the tension of the moment, Imbri felt an enormous relief. Never had she suspected the Night Stallion of seeking to eliminate her by tricking her into braving the sunbeam, yet she realized now that some such suspicion had made an attempt to harbor itself deep in her being. How glad she was that her trust had been justified!

  She took a step, feeling the soundness of her legs, the solidity of the ground, and the springiness of the air she breathed. Not only did she seem whole, she seemed twice as real as before. She was now conscious of the weight of her body, of the touch of weeds against her skin, and of the riffle in her mane as a teasing breeze sought it out.

  OUCH!

  She made a squeal of protest and swished her tail, slapping her own flank smartly. A fly buzzed up. The brute had bitten her!

  She had become a creature of the day, all right! No fly could bite a true night mare. Few flies abounded at night, and the mares were solid only when they willed themselves so. Now it seemed she was solid and bitable--without effort. She would have to watch that; getting chomped by a bug wasn't fun. Fortunately, she had a good tail; she could keep the little monsters clear.

  There was a certain joy in solidity. Now the sunbeams were bathing the whole side of her body, warming it. The heat felt strangely good. She was more alive than ever. There was something about being all-the-way solid that was exhilarating. Who would have believed it!

  She walked, then trotted, then pranced. She leaped high in the air and felt the spring of her legs as they absorbed her shock of landing. She leaped again, even higher--

  Something cracked her down in mid-prance: She dropped to the ground, bright white stars and planets orbiting her dazed head. Those stellar objects had certainly found her quickly! What had happened?

  As her equilibrium returned, accompanied by a bruise on her head, Imbri saw that nothing had struck her. Instead, she had struck something. She had launched into a pomegranate tree, cracking headfirst into its pome-trunk, jarring loose several granate fruits. She was lucky none of those rocks had hit her on the way down!

  Now she understood on a more basic level the liabilities of being substantial all the time. She had not watched where she was going, because she usually phased through objects automatically. As a day mare, she could not do that. When solid met solid, there was a brutal thump!

  She walked more sedately after that, careful not to bang into any more trees. There was nothing like a good clout on the noggin to instill caution! Though muted, her joy remained; it merely found less physical ways to express itself, deepening and spreading, suffusing her body.

  But it was time to go about her business. Imbri oriented--

  And discovered she had forgotten what her business was.

  That knock on the head must have done it. She knew she was a night mare turned day mare, and that she had to go see someone, and deliver a message--but who that person might be, and what the message was, she could not recollect.

  She was lost--not in terms of the geography of Xanth, which she knew well, but in terms of herself. She did not know where to go or what to do--though she knew it was important that she go there and do it promptly, and that the enemy not discover whatever it was she had to do.

  Imbri concentrated. There was something--ah, yes! That was it! The rainbow! She had come to see the rainbow. That must be her mission--though where the rainbow was at the moment, and what she was supposed to say to it, and why this was important to the welfare of the Land of Xanth--these things remained opaque.

  Well, she would just have to look for it. Eventually she would find the rainbow, and perhaps then the meaning in this mission would become apparent.

  Chapter 2

  The Day Horse

  Mare Imbri was hungry. There had always been plenty of grazing in the gourd, but she had been too busy and too immaterial to graze while on dream duty and evidently had not consumed enough during the past night to sustain the elevated material pace of the real world. Now she had to graze--and didn't know where to find a decent pasture, here in dayside Xanth.

  She looked about. She was in the deep jungle forest. Dry leaves coated the forest floor; there were few blades of grass, and those that she found were wiregrass, metallic and inedible. No doubt this was where the brassies harvested some of the wire for their constructions. She was roughly familiar with this region, of course, since she had been all over Xanth on dream duty--but by day it looked different, and now that she was fixed solid, it felt different. She had never paid much attention to the potential grazing here. Where would there be a decent pasture?

  Well, this was not far west of Castle Roogna, the humanfolk capital. She recalled that there was a large clearing north of here, and that should have plenty of excellent grazing. The problem was, there was a minor mountain range between herself and that pasture, and in her present solid state it would be at best tedious and at worst dangerous to climb over that range.

  There
was good pasturage at the castle, however. But she had seldom gone there, as the bad dreams for the royal human personages were generally carried by night mares with seniority, those who had been in the business for three centuries or more. Imbri would be likely to blunder in that vicinity, especially by day, and she didn't want to do that.

  But she remembered that there was a pass through the mountains, little known but adequate. It had a mildly interesting history--

  She paused in her thought. There was a nice patch of grass, super verdant! She could graze right here, after all.

  She trotted to it and put her nose down. The grass reached up and hooked in her tender nostrils and lip.

  Imbri vaulted backward, her nose getting scratched as the awful greenery ripped free. That was carnivorous grass! She couldn't go near that; instead of being eaten by her, it would eat her.

  No help for it. She would have to cross the mountains. She set off at a trot, bearing north. She skirted tangle trees and danglevines and the lairs of dragons, griffins, basilisks, nickelpedes, and other ilk, knowing they were now dangerous to her. She had, after all, illustrated such hazards in the dreams she delivered to deserving creatures often enough. Soon she came to the mountains.

  Now where was that pass? A little westward, she recalled. She trotted in that direction. She knew the general lay of the land, but exact details of placement were vague, since material things not relating to clients had not had much importance to her before.

  Something was coming toward her. Imbri paused, not frightened but careful. She realized that she was now vulnerable to monsters, though she had confidence she could outrun most of them. Few things moved faster than a night mare in a hurry! But there were so many things to remember when one's body was stuck solid.

  The reality was a pleasant surprise. It was a magnificent white horse, trotting eastward along the range. He had a fine white mane, a lovely tail, and his appearance was marred only by a thin brass band about his left foreleg, at ankle height. Imbri had never heard of a horse wearing a bracelet--but, of course, the only horses she knew were those of the gourd.

  He halted when he spied Imbri. She became conscious of the distinction between them: she was a black mare, he a white stallion. She had understood there were no true horses in Xanth, only part equines like the sea horses, horseflies, and centaurs. Her kind, the night mares, existed separately in the gourd and did not roam freely when not on business. There were also the daydream mares, but they were completely invisible and immaterial, except to others of their kind. What was this creature doing here?

  She decided to ask him. She could have neighed, but wasn't sure she could define her question well enough that way. So she stepped forward somewhat diffidently and projected a small dream. It was technically a daydream, since this was day--a conscious kind of imagining, much milder in content and intensity than the night visions she normally carried. It was also less perfectly structured, since she had no original text to work from. Anything could happen in an extemporaneous dream!

  In this dream she assumed a talking form, that of a young human woman garbed in black, with lustrous long black hair in lieu of a mane and a skirt instead of a tail. Skirts weren't as useful as tails, since they were no good for swatting flies, but did serve to render mysterious that portion of the anatomy that profited by such treatment. Human people almost always wore clothing over their functional parts, as if they were ashamed of such parts; it was one of a number of oddities about them. "Who are you?" the dream girl inquired with a fetching smile.

  The white horse's ears flattened in dismay and suspicion. He wheeled and bolted, galloping away back west.

  Imbri sighed through her nose. He had been such a handsome creature! But apparently he was afraid of human people. Had she known, she would have projected something else, such as a talking bird. If she should encounter him again, she would be much more careful.

  She proceeded west and in due course located the pass. And there, standing within it, was a man. He was of good stature for his kind, with pale hair and skin, with muscle on his limbs and handsomeness on his face in the humanoid manner. Naturally no human person was as handsome as a horse; that was another of the discomforts the human species seemed to have learned to live with.

  "I say, pretty mare," the man called when he saw her. "Have you seen a runaway white stallion? He is my steed, but he bolted. He wears my circlet on his foreleg." And the man held aloft his left wrist, where there was a similar short circlet. There could be little doubt he was associated with the horse.

  Imbri projected a dreamlet; herself in woman form, again garbed in black, her female parts carefully covered. She did not want to scare off another creature! "I saw him shortly ago, man, but he bolted from me, too. He ran in this direction."

  The man looked startled. "Is that you in my mind, mare, or did I imagine it?"

  "It is me, man," she said, continuing the daydream for him. "I am a dream equine. I project dream visions to your kind, but by day they lack the conviction they have at night." She had not realized it before, but obviously there was no qualitative difference between the dreams of night and those of day. It was just that the conscious minds of waking people were much less credulous, so the impact was less. They could readily distinguish fancy from reality. But the dreams remained excellent for communication.

  "Ah. And did you project such a dream to my steed, the day horse? No wonder he spooked!"

  "I fear my visions can frighten creatures who are not prepared," she projected, her woman image spreading her hands in the human signal of gentle bewilderment. If only she had been able to inspire such fright in her bad dream duty! "I am the night mare Imbrium, called Imbri for brief."

  "A night mare!" he exclaimed. "I have often met your kind in my sleep. But I thought you could not go abroad by day."

  "I am under special disposition to the day," she said.

  "But I do not remember my mission, except perhaps to see the rainbow."

  "Ah, the rainbow!" he exclaimed. "And a worthwhile goal that is, mare! I have seen it many times and have always marveled anew!"

  "Where is it?" she asked eagerly, so excited she almost forgot to project it in dream form; when she did, her dream girl was in partial dishabille, like a nymph. Quickly she patched up the image, for the dream man was beginning to stare. "I know my shadow points to it, but--"

  "There must be sun and rain to summon the rainbow," the man said.

  "But don't clouds blot out the sun during rainfall? There can't be both at once."

  "There can be, but it is rare. The rainbow formation is exceedingly choosy about when and where it appears, lest familiarity make it change from magic to mundane. You will not see it today; there is not rain nearby."

  "Then I shall go and graze," she said, disappointed.

  "That is surely what my steed is doing, though I feed him well," he said. "His appetite is open-ended; sometimes I think he processes hay into clods without bothering to digest them in passing. Left to his own devices, he eats without respite. But he's a good horse. Where could he have gone? He did not pass by me, and I have been walking east until I heard your hoof-falls."

  Imbri studied the ground. Horseprints curved into the gap between mountains. "He seems to have gone through the pass," she projected.

  The man looked. "I see his tracks now. That must be it. Had I been a little swifter, I should have intercepted him." He paused, looking at Imbri. "Mare, this may be an imposition, but I am not much afoot. Would you give me a lift through the mountains? I assure you I only want to catch up to my errant steed. Once I see him and call to him, he will come to me; he's really an obedient mount and not used to being on his own. He may even be looking for me, but have lost his way; he is not as intelligent as you are."

  Imbri hesitated. She had been ridden before, but preferred freedom. Yet she would like to meet the day horse again, and if she was going this man's way anyway--

  "Or if you would like to come home with me," the man continued persua
sively, "I have plentiful grain and hay, which I keep for my own horse. He is of Mundane stock, you know; what he lacks in wit he makes up for in speed and power. But he is very shy and gentle; not a mean bone in his body. I fear he will come to harm, alone in this magic land."

  Mundane stock. That would explain the presence of the horse. Some Mundane animals did wander into Xanth, randomly. Of course, it was not safe for such creatures here. Even Imbri herself, a creature of an aspect of Xanth, could have trouble here by day; there were perils all about. That was probably why the true daydream mares were intangible; it was a survival trait not to be able to materialize by day. "I will take you through the pass," she projected.

  "Excellent," the man said. "And in return, I will show you a rainbow, the very first chance I get." He approached, his voice continuing softly, soothingly. She stood still, with a certain nervousness, for ordinarily no waking person could touch a night mare. But she reminded herself firmly that she was now a creature of the day and touchable.

  The man sprang on her back. His boots hung down on either side, around her barrel, and his hands gripped her mane. He had ridden a horse before; if she had not known the day horse was his steed, she could have told by his balance and confidence.

  She started through the pass, the man riding easily, so that she was hardly aware of his weight. The ground was firm and almost level, and she was able to trot.

  "This is a strange configuration," the man said as they passed almost beneath the looming rocky cliffs of the sides of the pass. "So steep above, so level below."

  "This is the Faux Pass," Imbri sent in a dreamlet. "Centuries ago the giant Faux was tramping north, and there were clouds about his knees, so he did not see the mountain range. He caught his left foot on it and tripped and almost took a fall. He was a big giant, and such a fall would have wreaked enormous destruction in Xanth. But he caught himself, and his misstep merely kicked out a foot-sized piece of the range, creating a gap that ordinary creatures could use to get through. Thus it came to be named after him, though now people tend to pronounce it rather sloppily and just call it 'Fo Pa.'"