"Could be." Certainly no better prospect offered.
Chex flicked herself again, making her body so light that it just about floated up by itself, and pumped her wings strongly. She rose. She hoped it would not be necessary to fly as high as the moon. That route would be faster than the ground route, but it would be best if she could make it though without stopping.
Fracto saw her climbing. He swelled up even more rapidly, his cloud face forming eye patches and a frowning mouth region. He blew out a wet gale, trying to mess her up.
"Try that again, cabbage-breath!" Grundy called.
Oh, no! The golem just couldn't resist hurling a good insult. Grundy had battled Fracto before, and they had a long-standing feud. Now the cloud would try even harder!
Indeed Fracto did. Bubblelike excrescences formed on his surface, indicating the fury of his turbulence.
"Keep at it, toad-face!" Grundy called encouragingly. "You going to wet on somebody next?"
"Don't aggravate him!" Chex gasped as she tried desperately to climb out of reach.
"Aw, it's better to work him up," Grundy said. "Then he loses what little wit he has and is even easier to outsmart."
Fracto evidently heard that, because he sent out such a gust of sleet-speckled wind that Chex almost did a somersault.
"Is that your best shot, smog-rear?" Grundy demanded. "What made you think you could blow up anything more than a teakettle? Better go back for training—or training pants!"
"Grundy, I wish you wouldn't—" Chex started. But she was cut off by the cloud's furious blast of snow. For a moment she was blinded and wasn't sure which way was up.
Then her head emerged from it, and she discovered that she was higher than before. "It lifted us!" she exclaimed.
"That's the idea," Grundy said. "Might as well use Fracto's energy instead of yours." Then, to the cloud: "Is that what you call a squall? Even a dumb anvil head can do better than that!"
But Fracto was finally catching on. Instead of blowing again, he simply concentrated on building up his mass, higher and higher. The air was not thin, but Chex still couldn't get over the storm.
"What a view!" Grundy exclaimed.
Chex looked down. The panoply of Xanth lay beneath them, just like one of her dam's maps. Chem Centaur's magic talent was map projection, and she had explored most of Xanth in the course of perfecting her maps. Now the long coastal outline showed clearly, except where Fracto's grotesque burgeoning mass blotted it out and the nebulous region to the north where it was possible to cross into Mundania. Not that any sensible person would want to do a thing like that. The sea extended out, featureless except for the bits of cloud floating above it. Part of the great Gap Chasm showed, and it did resemble cleavage, just as the ghost writer had noted. The overall scene was beautiful. She should have done this before, just to enjoy the view. But of course she had remained mostly landbound, because Che couldn't yet fly. What an experience awaited him, when his wings formed well enough for the heights!
"I guess we'll have to stop at the moon," Grundy said, sounding not too regretful. "Well, I've always wanted to visit the big cheese."
Chex had had no intention of visiting the moon—not without Cheiron! But she seemed to be stuck for it. She was getting dangerously fatigued and had to rest; she doubted she could even get down to the ground without Fracto blowing her into the sea. So she angled to the side and flew straight toward it. Fortunately she was now higher than the moon, so the effort of reaching it was not great.
Fracto saw what she was doing and tried to stop her. But he couldn't grow fast enough to block both Mount Rushmost and the moon, and knew that she would zip past him and fly south if he gave her the chance. So he could only blow snow at her.
There was a crack of thunder. Then a lightning bolt zapped past her. Oops—Fracto had more than snow to hurl!
"You missed, sizzle-snoot!" the golem cried gleefully.
"Grundy!" Chex hissed.
"Don't worry, old diaper-bottom couldn't hit anything smaller than Xanth itself, and half the time he misses that too," the golem said reassuringly.
Then a bolt zapped just past his head, singeing his hair. "Lucky shot, vapor-brain!" he yelled, but his confidence seemed slightly shaken. He kept quiet while Chex winged on toward the moon.
The moon was somewhat larger than it appeared from the ground, because of the special inanimate magic called perspective. Each object and part of the landscape liked to think it was larger than it was, so it pretended that everything else was smaller, and the farther away anything was, the smaller it could safely be considered. Thus some quite large objects were made to seem quite small by those far enough away to get away with such belittling. The moon was at a serious disadvantage in this respect, because it was far away from everything else, so had no supporters. It got even by pretending that the whole of Xanth was small. The moon was actually big enough to walk and run on, and a number of flying centaurs could camp on it—if there only had been more than two to do it. But in time there would be Che—
Chex had a horrible thought. When Che got old enough to mate, who would there be? Certainly he could not do it with a sister! Before Chex, there had been only Cheiron, and Chex herself derived from mixed ancestry. Well, maybe there could be another mixed mating, to produce another winged centaur. But it seemed doubtful, because Chem had been unusually liberal for her kind, and perhaps no other centaur would consider crossbreeding. Unless one happened to run afoul of a love spring.
"Watch it, mare!" Grundy cried.
Chex realized that she was about to land in a big dish of thoroughly moldy semiliquid cheese. The smell was terrible! She pumped her leaden wings and lurched up, but came down almost immediately in another dish of cheese. This one wasn't moldy, but the smell was if anything worse. It couldn't be helped; she landed squarely on all four hooves and slid to a gooky stop.
"Ugh!" Grundy said. "Did you have to pick Limburger?" He was right: she saw the slimy little limbs embedded in it.
Chex folded her wings and stepped ahead. Each foot came out with a slurp and a belch of awful odor. Those must have been zombie limbs used to prepare this batch! What a mess! She had had no idea that the near side of the moon was this bad. She wanted to hold her breath, but was still breathing hard from her exertion.
A horse appeared. It was midnight black and not glossy; it was hard to see at all. It trotted toward them purposefully.
Suddenly Chex was dreaming. In her dream a jet-black centaur mare appeared. "What are you doing here in my retreat?" she demanded.
Astonished, Chex could only answer "Who are you?"
"I am Mare Nectaris, and this is the Sea of Nectar, where I relax between deliveries. You are tracking it up!"
"You're a night mare!" Chex exclaimed.
"Of course. And you are out of your pasture, aren't you?"
"I'm Chex Centaur, and I was trying to fly to Mount Rushmost, but Fracto, the evil cloud, blocked my way, and I had to detour—"
"Fracto! No wonder! My cheese is all gooky from the last time he rained on it! And the moon is supposed to be dry. He has no respect at all."
"That's right," Chex agreed. "I have an urgent mission, and he—"
"Very well, I can see it's not your fault. Come over here to my fountain and wash off your hooves."
Then Chex snapped awake, and saw the black mare leading the way to a much smaller disk, where water squirted up. Relieved, she followed.
The fountain was big enough so that Chex was able to stand in it and get her feet entirely clean. Beyond was a region where the cheese was dry and hard, probably sun-baked Cheddar, so she could walk on it without getting gunked. "Thank you so much, Mare Nectaris," she said. "I really am sorry I landed in your cheese. I need to move on as quickly as I can."
She looked up. One of the odd things about the moon was that it made Xanth seem up instead of down. Probably that was more of the magic of perspective. But there was Fracto, staying right between her and Mount Rushmost. He wasn't go
ing to let her get through without a hassle.
The dream reappeared. "We don't like Fracto," the black centaur lady said. "He tries to interfere with our delivery of bad dreams. He can't touch us physically, of course, but he fogs everything up so it's hard for us to see where we're going. That puts us behind schedule, so that the dreams may be delivered late in the night, and sometimes folk even wake up and remember them. That is bad form, and we get the blame."
"I suppose there's nothing you can do about it," Chex said, worrying about how long it would be before she could get through to Cheiron. If only Fracto hadn't picked this occasion to get difficult! That was his magic: to appear at the very worst time for anyone else. How absolutely maddening it was to be stuck here like this, unable to get around the evil cloud! "I wish you could give him a bad dream!"
Mare Nectaris was so surprised that the dream dissolved. But in a moment it reappeared. "I wonder if we could? That would be a dream come true, if you will pardon the expression."
Chex had made the remark in an off-hoof manner, not taking it seriously herself. Now she reconsidered. "Well, are your dreams limited to living folk? Fracto is a demon, as I understand, who assumed cloud form and crowned himself king of the clouds. I suppose the real clouds are too fleecy-gentle to make an issue of the matter. But if you—I mean, do demons dream?"
"Demons don't dream," Nectaris said. "But Fracto is no longer exactly a demon, because of all the natural cloud substance he has clothed himself with. Maybe that would make him mortal enough to dream. Let me ask the Night Stallion." She trotted to a gourd she had at the edge of her sea of cheese. She disappeared—and the dream ended. Chex was standing alone, except for Grundy, who didn't count.
"So this is where the night mares spend their time off!" the golem exclaimed. "I never dreamed it!"
"I suppose it makes sense," Chex said. "They can't work all the time, and they do have the seas of the moon named after them, and this gives them a chance to peek at Xanth by day. I'm surprised I was able to see Nectaris."
"They must relax their invisibility here, as they do in the gourd. I'm glad to meet one when she's off duty; she doesn't seem at all frightening. But of course Mare Imbri isn't frightening either." "Well, she's a day mare; she's not supposed to scare folk."
"But she once was a night mare. I wonder who has her moon sea now?"
Mare Nectaris reappeared. It was evident that the gourds served as a handy direct route to the realm of dreams, no matter where they were. The dream reformed. "The stallion says to try it!" the centaur mare exclaimed. "He doesn't like Fracto either!"
"Great!" Grundy cried. It seemed that he received the dream just as Chex did. "Give him a mental hotfoot, get him out of there, and we can go on to Mount Rushmost."
That was exactly what Chex wanted, but she was sensibly cautious. "How long will it take to fashion a suitable bad dream for Fracto?"
"Oh, not more than a few days," the mare replied. "We want this to be a truly effective dream; Fracto has a lot to answer for."
That was what she had feared. "But I need to get past that evil cloud now, or at least very soon!"
"But a dream can't be crafted in a hurry," Nectaris protested. "The workers in the gourd are craftsmen. No inferior bad dream receives the stallion's stamp of approval."
Chex stamped her own hoof in frustration. "I can't wait more than a few hours. My foal is the captive of goblins, and I must tell Cheiron, who will know what to do."
"That is not our concern," the black centaur replied. "We have no onus against you, but we cannot compromise our standards of dreamsmanship. The Night Stallion—"
"Maybe I had better talk to the Night Stallion," Chex said desperately. "I have to make him understand—"
"Ixnay," Grundy murmured at her ear.
"I don't care how fearsome he may be to others," Chex continued heedlessly. "My foal's in awful danger, and I must get through!"
"There are some big gourds that can be used for transport," the black centaur said. "But none on the moon. You would have to get down to the ground first."
Chex gazed at Xanth. Fracto waited, uglier than ever. She spread her wings tentatively.
The cloud rumbled. "I can translate that," Grundy said. "He says 'Make my day, clod-head!' "
Chex could have survived without that translation. Not only that, her wings were still too tired for more than the merest coasting. She needed more time to rest them, and she needed Fracto gone.
"Yes, I must talk to the stallion," Chex decided. "We need a dream crafted in the next two hours, and I don't care what it takes."
"Ouch," Grundy murmured. "You've done it now, wings-for-brains! The Night Stallion is Trouble with a capital offense."
There was a shimmer before them. This resolved itself into the statue of a giant stallion mounted on a pedestal. This was Trojan, the horse of another color. "What brings you here, quarterbreed?" the statue demanded without moving its mouth. This was a stronger dream; they now seemed to be in a fancy pavilion.
"Fracto, the evil cloud, blocks my way, and I had to land here to rest," Chex said bravely, though daunted by the dread apparition. "I want to drive Fracto away with a bad dream, so I can continue my flight to Mount Rushmost, so Cheiron can help me save our foal."
"I don't give one dropping about your foal!" the statue said. "You have no business on this side of the moon."
"Now we're in for it," Grundy muttered.
"And you, golem," the stallion said. "Did you not advise her against this trespass?"
"Leave him out of this!" Chex said. "We had no choice. All I want is a fast dream. Do I have to craft it myself?"
The stallion glowed slightly with ire. "It will cost you half your two souls just to get free of here. Do you wish to lose the other halves as well?"
"Half my soul!" Chex exclaimed, shocked.
"I told you," Grundy moaned. "He doesn't fool around."
"This is outrageous!" Chex fumed. "All I want is the chance to rescue Che!" But she remembered, now: that was the price of getting out of the world of the gourd, in certain circumstances. She hadn't realized that landing on this side of the moon would be so expensive!
The stallion blinked. His eyelids did not move; the whole statue flickered. "Who?"
"Che, my foal! The goblins have him, and I must get help to rescue him! If I have to throw away my soul in the process, then so be it, but I have to get on my way soon."
"The chosen of the Simurgh," the stallion said. "I had not realized. We must facilitate your progress without penalty."
"What a break!" Grundy whispered, his relief about twice as big as he was. "We keep our souls!"
"If I can just rest a little and then fly on to Mount Rushmost," Chex said, "that's all the facilitation I need. But if it takes a bad dream to move Fracto off—"
"It takes time to craft a proper bad dream," the stallion said. "The mares do not make the dreams, they only carry them, though at times they must add dreams from the common pool if the effect is not sufficient. An inferior dream would not properly disturb Fracto, who is bound to be a tough client. Two days is the minimum we can do it."
Chex saw that he was being candid. Now she realized that routine dreams of toothy dragons or ugly spooks would not do the job; it would require something very special to bother a cloud. It was a real problem. If she wanted fast service, she would have to figure out a way to craft an effective dream in a hurry.
Then she had a notion so bright that the bulb shattered over her head. Mare Nectaris flinched. "Fracto—he's not like other creatures!" Chex said. "He hates good things. He hates happiness."
"Yes," the stallion agreed. "That is why a phenomenally horrendous dream must be crafted. It will require the most terrible elements we can muster, integrated so as to leave no ray of hope or pleasure."
"No it won't!" she exclaimed. "It will take a happy dream!"
"You're crazy, feather-face!" Grundy said. "If Fracto's happy, he'll stay forever."
"Not so," Chex said. "T
he happier it is, the worse Fracto will feel, because that's his nemesis: the joy of others. If he is faced with a happy scene he can't rain out, he will flee in high dudgeon."
The stallion was amazed. "Mare, I think you are correct! Reverse psychology! But we are not equipped to make a happy dream."
"Maybe I can think of one," Chex said. "I am a happy person, normally."
"And the sets," the stallion continued. "Every scene has to be recorded with the proper background, with talented models. We don't have happy ones."
"But you must have scraps and snippets cut from prior dreams that weren't nasty enough for your purpose," she said eagerly. "If those were collected together, there might be an almost-nice effect. You could use up all those wasted bits!"
"Perhaps," he agreed uncertainly. "But the time—"
"It shouldn't take much time just to assemble them," she argued. "They've already been made; they just need to be tied together. The real challenge is the main sequence. Something so sickeningly sweet that Fracto will be revolted."
"Our models could not manage anything like that," the stallion said. "It would make them be revolted!"
"But could they pantomime?" she asked. "If Grundy and I spoke the words?"
"Say!" the golem said, getting interested.
"Possibly," the stallion agreed reluctantly.
"Very well. Collect your sets and models, and I'll try to come up with a suitable narrative."
The stallion seemed bemused. "Do it," he said to Mare Nectaris, and shimmered out of view.
The dream sequence abruptly ended, and Chex found herself standing with Grundy, otherwise alone by the lake of cheese. The minions of the night were doing their part; now she had to come through with her part.
What kind of a dream could she make, which she and Grundy could narrate, that the horrendous actors of the gourd could pantomime? Her mind was blank.
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