Night Mare

by Piers Anthony

  Hasbinbad, it seemed, had attempted treachery, but Bink had anticipated him. The King had indeed been alert and understood the nature of his opponent. Imbri, working it out, was relieved. But what had happened then?

  She quested and found two trails in the night. Bink following Hasbinbad. The wronged pursuing the guilty. The truce had been violated, relieving the King of any further need to be trusting, and now the fight had resumed in earnest. Bink had shown himself to be stronger in direct combat, yet had held back for what he deemed to be ethical reasons, without being naive. Hasbinbad had blundered tactically as well as ethically, and sacrificed any respite he might otherwise have claimed.

  Imbri followed the trail with difficulty, knowing that she was losing headway. Bink and Hasbinbad had evidently moved rapidly in the predawn hour; Imbri was moving slowly, lest she lose the subtle traces. This was not ideal tracking terrain; there were rocky patches and boggy patches and the crisscrossing tracks of foraging animals, obscuring the human prints.

  Her eye caught something in a hollow to the side. Imbri detoured briefly to investigate. It was a corked vial, containing yellowish vapor or fluid. Another of Magician Humfrey's spells, borne here by the transient tide, unbroken. What should she do with it? She did not want to leave it, but would have to carry it in her mouth. That would be awkward, especially if she happened to chew on it and break the glass. Suppose it was an ifrit? Still, there were many dangers in Xanth, and she might need the help of a spell. So she picked it up and carried it carefully with her lips.

  The trail seemed interminable. Hours passed as the two men's traces bore north. Imbri was sure now; Hasbinbad wanted to get away, having found King Bink too much for him. The Punic was trying to rejoin his other army, the one nominally commanded by the Horseman, so he could lead another and more devastating thrust at Castle Roogna. The first army had eliminated the opposition; the second would complete the conquest.

  There was a hiss. A flying snake was orienting on Imbri, feeling that its territory had been invaded. This was one of the wingless kind that levitated by pure magic, wriggling through the invisible columns of the air. It was a large one, twice Imbri's own length, and poisonous saliva glistened on its fangs. Probably Hasbinbad's passage had roused it, but Bink's presence had balked it. If magic could not harm the King, how could a magical creature? Bink could go anywhere in Xanth with perfect safety as long as he remained careful about nonmagical hazards. Perhaps, ironically, Hasbinbad had been protected by Bink's ambience, as Imbri herself had been protected when she stood close to him. Now it was her misfortune to encounter the serpent fully roused and by day, when she was vulnerable. Yet she could not detour around its territory; she would never be able to locate the fading trail again in time to do any good.

  She hesitated, but the snake did not. It hissed and launched itself at her, jaws gaping. Involuntarily, Imbri bared her teeth, bracing for battle--and cracked the vial she had forgotten she held. Immediately she spit it out-- but a trickle of fluid fell on her tongue. It was not yellow--that turned out to be the color of the glass--but colorless, and also tasteless. Plain water?

  The snake struck, burying its fangs in her neck. Disaster! Imbri felt the poison numbing her, spreading outward much faster than had been the case when she had been bitten on the knee before. This was a larger, more deadly snake. How she hated snakes!

  Imbri flung her head and lifted a forehoof, lashing at the snake's body, knocking it to the ground. The reptile hissed and struck at her again, but she stomped its head into the ground, killing it. The thing had been foolish to attack a fighting mare; horses knew how to deal with serpents. But Imbri herself had been critically slow, owing to fatigue and the distraction of the breaking bottle; otherwise the fangs would not have scored.

  Now she assessed her situation. She had been bitten, but she was massive enough so that the poison might dilute to a nonfatal level by the time it spread through her body. If it happened to be a poor bite, and if this happened to be a mildly toxic variety of snake instead of a supertoxic one, she would survive. But she would certainly suffer, and would probably lose the trail.

  Yet she didn't feel too bad. The numbness was constricting, retreating back around the puncture. Was her body fighting it off? How was that possible? She had no special immunity; in fact, her condition should have been aggravated by the weapon released from the vial. Too bad it hadn't destroyed the snake!

  Weapon? Imbri licked her lips, detecting a faint aftertaste. That was no weapon; that was healing elixir! No wonder she was not suffering; she had blundered into the universal restorative, the one thing that could counter the snake's bite and restore her waning energy. She had had the luck of King Bink!

  Luck? In Bink's case it wasn't luck; it was his magic talent. She knew now that it had operated in some extremely devious ways to protect both his health and his anonymity all the prior years of his life. It could not be limited to his direct personal experiences; it had to extend back to affect whatever magic threatened him indirectly, Suppose he was in trouble, and magic was responsible-- how would his talent counter the danger by seeming coincidence?

  It could arrange to have the vial of elixir float conveniently near, for him to discover when the snake attacked. But the snake had not attacked him; it couldn't, because his magic prevented it more directly. So why the elixir, unused?

  This could be operating on a more subtle level. Bink was threatened by a Mundane person--yet in the ambience of magic that was Xanth, Hasbinbad almost had to have had the benefit of some magic, because no one could avoid it here. So in a devious fashion, the threat against Bink was also magical, and therefore his talent would act to protect him against it. But extremely subtly, for this was a borderline case.

  His talent just might arrange to have magical help come to him, to protect him from the Mundane. Maybe he would need healing elixir to abate a wound inflicted by Hasbinbad, so here it was. Imbri herself had become a tool of the King's magic, and was being deviously protected by that magic so she could fulfill her mission.

  She checked the ground. By an amazing chance, the bottom section of the vial had dropped upright and nestled in the grass, containing some fluid.

  Chance?

  Imbri found the loose cork, picked it up delicately with her teeth, and set it in the ragged new neck of the vial. She tamped it carefully with her nose. It just fit, sealing in the precious fluid. There was no room remaining inside the truncated container for more than a few drops, but that didn't matter. The amount would be sufficient for its purpose, whatever and whenever that was. She had what King Bink would need.

  She moved on, carrying the vial again, feeling more confident. She made better progress, and the trail began to warm. Still, she had a fair amount of time to make up.

  It was mid-afternoon by the time she followed the trail to the Gap Chasm. Here there was a change. There were signs of a scuffle, and some blood soaked the ground, but there were no people.

  She sniffed, explored, and formulated a scenario: Hasbinbad had, naturally enough, forgotten the Gap Chasm. Most people did. He had been suddenly balked, and King Bink had caught up. There had been a desperate fight, with one of them wounded--and one of them had fallen into the Chasm.

  Anxiously she sniffed in widening half-spirals, since the Chasm was too deep at this point to show any sign of the victim within it, assuming the Gap Dragon had not already cleaned up the mess. Which man had survived? It should be the King, according to her revised theory of his magic-- but she was not sure her theory was correct.

  She found a trail leading away. Joy! It had the smell of Bink! There was blood on it, and the prints dragged, but the King had won the final contest. He was the lone survivor of this encounter with the Wave.

  She followed it on to the west. Bink must be going to intersect the path to the invisible bridge across the Chasm so he could follow it safely back the other way to Castle Roogna. The path was charmed against monsters; Bink might not need that protection, but still, a path was
easier to follow than the untracked wilderness, especially when a person was tired and hurt.

  Imbri speeded up, no longer sniffing out the specific traces. Now she knew where he was going; she would catch up, administer the healing elixir, and give him a swift ride home. Maybe there had been yet another level to his power: it had preserved her from the flying snake so she could come and help him now, apart from the elixir, by becoming his steed. All would be well; King Bink had survived his campaign and should have centaur support for the next one. The centaurs were excellent archers; if they lined up on the south edge of the Gap, the Mundanes would never get across!

  As she neared the invisible bridge, in the last hour of the day, she spied a figure. It was the King, resting on the ground. She neighed a greeting.

  But as she came to him, her joy turned to horror. Bink was sitting unmoving, staring at the ground, in a puddle of blood from a wound in his chest. Was he dead?

  Quickly she crunched through the piece of vial and smeared the dripping elixir across his wound with her nose. Instantly the gash healed and turned healthy, and the King's color improved. But still he did not respond to her presence, and when she sent him a dreamlet, she found his mind blank.

  "But it can't happen to you!" she wailed protestingly in the dream, assuming the image of a weeping willow tree in deep distress. "You are the one person who can not be harmed by magic!"

  Yet the fact belied the logic. King Bink had defeated one enemy physically, only to fall prey to the other magically. He had, after all, been taken by the Horseman.

  It was night by the time she got him to Castle Roogna, draped across her back. A man might mount an unconscious horse, but it was another matter for a horse to cause an unconscious man to mount.

  Arnolde and Chameleon had arrived fortuitously within the hour. The centaur had given her a ride, after the day horse had tired from the night's hard travel. Day horses were not night mares; they had to proceed carefully through darkness, instead of phasing through the vagaries of the terrain. The stallion had stopped at the brink of the Gap Chasm, too nervous to trust the one-way bridge.

  "The one-way bridge?" Imbri sent, perplexed. "It is one-way north; how could you use it south?"

  "We had to," Arnolde explained. "We knew the main bridge was out."

  The answer was simple: Queen Iris had seen them coming, using an illusory magic mirror, and had sent old Crombie the soldier and his visiting daughter Tandy out to meet them. Tandy's husband the ogre had offered to go and hurl the folk across the Chasm, but they declined his helpful notion by pointing out that he was needed to guard Castle Roogna from surprise attack. Tandy had crossed first, making the bridge real before her, stopping just shy of the north anchor. Crombie had stopped just off the south end, keeping the bridge real between himself and his daughter. Arnolde and Chameleon had crossed safely while it was thus anchored. Had Grundy remained with them, they could have used the magic carpet to ferry across, one by one, but the golem had long since flown back to the Good Magician's castle to keep watch until the Gorgon returned with her sister the Siren. Actually, Arnolde confessed, he would hardly have trusted his mass to a carpet designed for human weight. Once the travelers had crossed, Crombie and Tandy had jumped to land at either end, letting the bridge fade. Tandy would walk around to the invisible bridge and return to Castle Roogna later in the night. The day horse, professing to be too tired to go farther, had settled in place to graze and sleep.

  They had not argued with him; Mundane creatures did tend to be nervous about things they could not see, and he had not wanted to admit his fear of the bridge.

  "But Xanth isn't safe at night!" Imbri protested. She was displeased at the day horse's recalcitrance; he was a big, strong animal who should have been able to carry Tandy to the other bridge before retiring. He would have done so for Chameleon, or if Imbri herself had been along. But, of course, Mundane animals were neither the magical nor the social equals of Xanth animals; this was a reminder of that fact. It was useless to be angry at a Mundane creature for not being Xanthian.

  "She is the wife of an ogre, and the path is enchanted; even a tangle tree would hesitate to bother her," Queen Iris said, a touch grimly.

  Imbri remembered how Smash the Ogre had torn up the Mundanes in combat. No one with any sense would antagonize an ogre! The Mundanes who had penetrated to this region had all been dispatched. So it was true: Tandy should be safe enough.

  But that was the only light note. King Bink had been taken, and Xanth had a new King. Chameleon now had both a son and a husband to mourn. The grief that the Horseman had brought to Xanth in the name of his ambition for power!

  "This development was not, unfortunately, unanticipated," Arnolde Centaur said in his didactic way as Queen Iris broached the matter of the crown. "As an archivist, I am conversant with the protocols. Xanth must have a Magician King. It is not specified that the King must be a man."

  "He can be a centaur," Queen Iris agreed. "The framers of Xanth law did not anticipate a centaur Magician."

  "Perhaps not," King Arnolde agreed. "They may also have overlooked the mischief wrought by the Horseman. That was not precisely my meaning, however. Where is the Council of Elders of human Xanth?"

  "Roland is here," Queen Iris said. "Bink's father, Dor's grandfather. He is old and failing, but retains his mind. He was rousted from his home at the North Village when the Mundanes pillaged it. He can speak for the Elders, I'm sure."

  "I must talk to him immediately."

  They brought Roland, for the King had spoken. Roland was King Trent's age, still sturdy and erect, but he moved slowly and his sight was fading. In the years of relative calm during King Trent's rule, the Council of Elders had had little to do and had become pretty much ceremonial. Roland retained his magic, however; he could freeze a person in place.

  "Roland, I have in mind a certain interpretation or series of interpretations of Xanth law," Arnolde said. "I would like your endorsement of these."

  "Interpretations of law!" Queen Iris protested. "Why waste your time on such nonsense when there is a crisis that may topple Xanth?"

  Arnolde merely gazed at her, flicking his tail tolerantly.

  "...your Majesty," she amended, embarrassed. "I apologize for my intemperate outburst."

  "You shall have an answer in due course," the Centaur King said gently. "Roland?"

  The old man's eyes brightened. This sounded like a challenge! "What is your interpretation. King Arnolde?"

  Imbri noted how careful these people were being with titles, in this way affirming the strength and continuity of the Kingship, so vital to the preservation of Xanth.

  "Xanth must have a King who is a Magician," the centaur said. "The definition of the term 'Magician' is obscure; I interpret it to mean a person whose magic talent is more potent by an order of magnitude than that of most people. This is, of course, a relative matter; in the absence of the strongest talents, the most potent of the remaining talents must assume the mantle."

  "Agreed," Roland said.

  "Thus, in the present circumstance, your own talent becomes--"

  "Oh, no, you don't!" Roland protested vigorously. "I see the need to promote new talents to Magician status for the sake of the continuing succession of Kings, and I endorse that solution. But I am too old to assume the rigors of the crown!"

  How very clever, Imbri thought. Of course Xanth would find its remaining Kings by this simple device! What a fine perception Arnolde had, and how well he was applying it to the solution of the crisis. It was certainly important that a person be designated to follow Arnolde as King, since Humfrey's prophecy indicated four Kings would follow the centaur. If Arnolde lost his position before attending to that matter, there would be chaos.

  "Well, then, the talents of younger people. Irene, for example, should now be ranked a Sorceress, since her magic is certainly beyond the average, and our top talents are gone."

  "True," Roland said. "I have privately felt she should have been diagnosed a Sorce
ress before; certainly her relative talent qualifies her now. But this will not profit the Kingdom, since she is a woman."

  Queen Irene was upstairs with Chameleon and their unfortunate husbands; otherwise, Imbri knew, she would have been quite interested in the turn this dialogue had taken. Queen Iris, however, was reacting with amazed pleasure.

  "In what way is the power of a Sorceress inferior to that of a Magician?" Arnolde inquired rhetorically.

  "No way!" Queen Iris put in. This had been a peeve of hers for decades.

  "No way," Roland echoed with a smile.

  "Then we agree that the distinction is merely cosmetic," Arnolde said. "A Sorceress is, in fact, a female Magician."

  "True," Roland acknowledged. "A Magician. The terminology is inconsequential, a lingering prejudice carrying across from prior times."

  "Prejudice," Arnolde said. "Now there is a problematical concept. My kind is prejudiced against certain forms of magic; I have experienced that onus myself. Your kind is prejudiced against women."

  "By no means," Roland objected. "We value and respect and protect our women."

  "Yet you systematically discriminate against them."

  "We do not--"

  "Certainly you do!" Iris put in vehemently under her breath.

  "I stand corrected," the centaur said with an obscure smile. "There is no legal distinction between the human sexes in Xanth."

  "Well--" Roland said. He seemed to have caught on to something that Imbri and the Queen had not.

  "Then you see no reason," Arnolde continued, "why a woman could not, were she in other necessary respects qualified, assume the throne of Xanth?"

  Queen Iris stopped breathing. Imbri, now discovering the thrust of the Centaur King's progression, suffered a dreamlet of a cherry bomb exploding in realization. What an audacious attack on the problem!

  Roland squinted at the centaur obliquely. He half chuckled. "You are surely aware that the throne of Xanth is by ancient custom reserved for Kings."