Piers Anthony - Xanth 06 - Night Mare

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file:///F|/rah/Piers%20Anthony/Anthony,%20Piers%20-%20Xanth%2006%20-%20Night%20Mare.txt

Chapter 1. To See the Rainbow

The stork glided to a landing before Stunk's

residence and squawked for attention.

"No, it can't be!" the goblin cried in panic. "I'm not

even married!"

" 'Snot that," the stork said through his long bill. "In the

off-season I deliver mail." He produced an official-looking

letter.

"Off-season for what?" the goblin demanded.

"You wouldn't understand. Take the missive. I have

other idiots to bug."

"But I can't read!" Stunk protested, his panic shifting to

embarrassment. Few goblins could read, but like most illit-

erates, they didn't like this advertised.

"I will read it to you, bulbnose." The stork opened the

envelope and oriented an eye on the document inside.

"Greetings."

"Same to you, birdbrain," Stunk said politely. Goblins

had excellent manners, though for some reason other crea-

tures seemed unable to appreciate them.

"Don't answer back, dolt," the stork said. "I'm reading

the letter, not talking to you. Don't you know what 'Greet-

ings' means?"

Stunk didn't answer.

"Hey, stupid, I asked you a question," the stork said,

irritated.

"I thought you were reading the letter, needlebeak, so I

didn't answer back. I'm trying to be polite to one not worth

the effort. Of course I know what it means. It's an ungob-

linish salutation."

"Salutation, ha! You dope, it means you have been

drafted!"

2 Night Mare

"What? I wasn't aware of any draft. It's a very quiet

day; no breeze at all."

"Abducted into the army, moron! Caught by the offi-

cial press gang. Your happy civilian life is over."

"No!" Stunk cried, appalled. "I don't want to fight. Not

that way, with weapons and rules and things. Tell me it

isn't true!"

"I'll bet you wish you'd had the baby instead, huh, gob-

lin!" the stork gloated, cradling the letter with his wings.

"Why would I be summoned to war? We're at relative

peace with the dragons and the griffins!"

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"It's the Mundane invasion, oaf. The Nextwave of con-

quest. The horrible Mundanes are coming to make dragon

stew and goblins too."

"No! No!" Stunk screamed, his horror growing by stum-

bles and lurches and faltering footsteps. "I don't want to be

goblin stew! I'm only a young, ignorant lout! I have my

whole ornery life ahead of me! I won't go!"

"Then you are a draft evader or a deserter," the stork

said, licking his beak with an orange tongue. "Do you

know what they do to deserters?"

"I don't want to know!"

"They feed them to dragons." The stork was gloating;

waves of gloat radiated out from him like ripples on a

greasy puddle. Behind him a dragon loomed, snorting up

little warm-up snorts of purple smoke.

"They'll never get me alive!" Stunk cried, working up to

a superior degree of cowardice. He charged out of his hole

in the wall, fleeing the draft notice. But already the dragon

was pursuing him hungrily, pumping up extra-purple

smoke, the kind that not only roasted goblins, but smelled

pretty bad, too. Salivary smoke.

Stunk fled screaming, feeling the monster's fire hot at

his back. He paid no attention to where his feet were going.

He was beginning to outdistance the dragon, but knew he

was not yet out of its range; that tongue of flame could

reach him any time.

Suddenly he was at the brink of a ledge, unable to stop.

His horror doubled as he fell off. He saw the hard rock of

the bottom of a canyon rushing up at him as his stubby arms

windmilled futilely. Better the dragon than this, and better

Night Mare 3

the draft than the dragon—but now it was too late for ei-

ther.

It was too much. Bawling out his terror, be woke.

Imbri leaped through the wall, phasing into intangibility.

She had misjudged the client's reaction to the dream and

had almost been caught visible. ,It was very bad form for

any night mare to be seen by a waking person, even one as

insignificant as a goblin. She galloped out into the night,

leaving only a single hoofprint behind as a signature. That

signature was important; Imbri was a perfectionist, and

liked to put her personal stamp on every bad dream she

delivered.

Dawn was threatening. Fortunately, this was her last

call; now she could go home and relax and graze for the

day. She galloped across the land, passing through trees

and bushes, until she came to a patch of hypnogourds.

Without pause she dived into a ripe gourd—a feat that

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would have surprised anyone who was not conversant with

magic, as horses were much larger than gourds—and was

instantly in an alternate world.

Soon she was on the dusky plain, with the other mares of

the night mare herd converging, all returning from duty.

Their hoofprints bore maps of the moon, with its green

cheese and holes, and the names of the individual mares

highlighted thereon. MARE HUMERUM, MARE NU-

BIUM, MARE FRIGORIS, MARE NECTARIS, MAKE,

AUSTRALE—all her old immortal friends, all with seas of

the moon named after them, in honor of their nocturnal

performance over the centuries.

Another mare galloped up to intercept Imbri. It was

Crisium, serving as temporary liaison to the Night Stallion.

She projected a dreamlet the moment she came within

range. It was the scene of an elf, waving his arms in ani-

mated speech. "Imbril" the elf exclaimed. "Report to Tro-

jan right away!" The brief dream faded.

A summons from the Dark Horse himself? That was not

to be ignoredl Imbri whirled on a hoof and charged across

the plain, heading for the stable. Her relaxation would have

to wait.

The Night Stallion was awaiting her. He stood huge and

4 Night Mare

handsome, midnight black of hide and mane and tail and

hoof in the same fashion as all the mares, but on him it

was more impressive. Any male was impressive in the

realm of equus, for the real power lay with the few stal-

lions.

Trojan projected a dream set in a lush human edifice

chamber, in which Imbri took the form of an elegant hu-

man person lady, and he was a gray-haired human creature

King.

"You are not doing well, Mare Imbrium!" the Horse

King said. "You have lost that special spark that truly ter-

rifies. I am dissatisfied."

"But I just drove a goblin to distraction!" Imbri-Lady

protested.

"After hauling in the dragon and the unforeshadowed

cliff," Trojan retorted. "You should have had him terrified

into oblivion before he ever left the house. Dream dragons

must not be brought in promiscuously, or the dreamers will

become acclimated to them and desensitized. That ruins it

for the other mares. You must avoid overexposure of emer-

gency elements."

Imbri realized it was true. The nucleus of the dream had

been the horror of the draft that was supposed to chill the

spine of the client and make him shiver. She had lost her

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competitive edge and made clumsy what should have been

precise. "I will try to do better," her lady form said peni-

tently.

"That is not enough," he replied. "The edge is not en-

tirely a matter of trying. It is inherent. Once you lose it, it's

gone. I'm going to have to trade you, Mare Imbrium."

"But this is the only work I know!" she protested,

stricken. She felt as the goblin had when receiving a dread

notice. After more than a century of dream duty, during

which time she bad earned and held her designated moon

sea, she wasn't ready for anything else.

"You can learn new work. There are daydreams—"

"Daydreams!" she repeated with contempt.

"I believe you have the inclination."

"Inclination?" She was stunned. "I never—"

"You were recently caught and ridden by a client," he

said firmly. "No night mare can be caught unless she tac-

, Night Mare 5

itiy acquiesces."

"But—"

"Why would you accede to being caught by a client?"

The King held up a hand to forestall her protest. "I will tell

you why. You saw, in the memory of another client long

ago, the image of a rainbow. You were fascinated by this

vision; you wanted to see the reality for yourself. But you

knew you could never do that as a night mare, for the

rainbow shuns the night. It is a phenomenon of day."

"Yes ..." she agreed, realizing it was true. The vision

of the multicolored rainbow had haunted her for years.

But no night mare could go abroad by day; the radiation of

the sun caused her kind to fade rapidly. So it had always

been a futile notion, and she had been quite foolish to let it

distract her.

"As it happens, you possess half a soul," the Stallion

continued. "You carried an ogre out of the fringe of the

Void and accepted in payment half the soul of a centaur,

when all you really wanted was the chance to see a rain-

bow. Logic has never been the strong point of females."

She remembered it well. The ogre had wanted to do her

a return favor, but she had not felt free to converse with

him in dreamlet fashion and had been unable to convey her

interest in the rainbow to him otherwise. He had been a

decent sort, for an ogre and for a male. The two concepts

overlapped significantly.

"As it happens," the Dream King continued, "that soul

has further dulled your edge, interfering with your dream

performance. It is difficult to be truly brutal when you

have a soul; that is contrary to the nature of souls."

"But it's only a half soul," Imbri protested. "A mere fil-

let of soul. I thought it wouldn't hurt."

"Any portion of a soul hurts in this business," he said.

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"Are you ready to give it up now?"

"Give up my soul?" she asked, appalled for a reason she

could not define.

"As you know, most mares who earn half souls soon turn

them in to me for storage, so that their edge will not be

dulled, and they receive bonus-credit for extraordinary

service to the cause. Souls are extremely valuable commod-

ities, and we grasp and hold any we can. You alone re-

6 Night Mare

tained your share of soul, passing up the advantage you

could have had by cashing it in. Why?"

"I don't know," Imbri admitted, ashamed.

"I do know," Trojan said. "You are a nice personality,

and you have grown nicer over the decades. You don't

really enjoy causing people misery. The soul enhances that

liability."

"Yes . . ." she agreed sadly, knowing that she was con-

fessing a guilty secret that could indeed wash her out as a

bearer of bad dreams. "I have drifted along an errant

path."

"This is not necessarily wrong."

Her ears perked forward—an incongruous thing, since

she remained in lady image in the dream. "Not wrong?"

"It relates to your destiny. It will one day enable you to

see the rainbow."

"The rainbow!"

"You are a marked mare, Imbrium, and you will set

your mark on Xanth, That time is near."

Imbri stared at him. The Night Stallion knew more than

any other creature in the World of Night, but seldom told

it. If he perceived a pattern in Imbri's incapacities, he was

surely correct. But she dared not inquire about it, directly.

"Imbrium, I am transferring you to day mare duty. A

more horrendous mare will assume your night duties."

"But I can't go into dayl" she protested with fearful

hope. She knew how brutal and awful some mares were,

with wild eyes and wilder manes; they had absolutely no

mercy on sleepers. It bothered her to think of her clients

being placed in the power of such a creature.

"One of the distinctions between night mares and day

mares is the possession of souls. The creatures of night

have no souls; those of day have no bodies. You will ac-

tually be a halfway creature, with half a soul and a half-

material body. I shall enchant you to be able to withstand

the light of the sun."

"I can go abroad in the real world by day?" The hope

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file:///F|/rah/Piers%20Anthony/Anthony,%20Piers%20-%20Xanth%2006%20-%20N\ight%20Mare.txtChapter1.ToSeetheRainbowThestorkglidedtoalandingbeforeStunk'sresidenceandsquawkedforattention."No,itcan'tbe!"thegoblincriedinpanic."I'mnotevenmarried!""'Snotthat,"thestorksaidthroughhislongbill."Intheoff-seasonId...

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