But Forrest’s problem had been solved. The chamber was now normal, and so were his emotions. “Thanks for your help, demoness,” he called out one doorway, then walked out the other, into the main castle.
3
IMBRI
Ayoung woman greeted him in the hall. “Hello, Forrest Faun,” she said. “I am Wira, the Good Magician’s daughter-in-law. He is ready to see you now.”
“Just like that?” He was surprised to have such ready acceptance, after the complications of the Challenges.
“He has been most interested in your progress. This way, please.”
Magician Humfrey had been following his case? The Challenges had seemed designed to confuse or discourage him.
Forrest followed the woman through dull passages and up a dark stairway. He wondered how she could be so sure-footed, in such poor lighting.
Soon they were at a study so gloomy that “dingy” would be inadequate to describe it. Within it a gnome sat hunched over a huge tome. “Forrest Faun is here, Good Magician,” Wira said.
The gnome looked up. “Thank you, dear.” It was probably illusion, but there almost seemed to be a nuance of affection when he spoke to her. “Send him in.”
Wira turned to Forrest. “Go on in,” she said. There was something odd about her gaze, which did not quite meet his own.
Then he realized what it was: she was blind. That was why she was indifferent to darkness.
Embarrassed for no reason he could settle on, he walked on into the Magician’s crowded study. “My Question is—”
“Yes, yes, of course,” the Magician said impatiently. “Imbri will be here in a moment.”
“But how can you Answer, if you don’t hear my Question?”
“I am not going to Answer, because I won’t charge you a Service. Now stop wasting my time.”
Forrest experienced an unusual emotion. After half a pause he recognized it: anger. “You mean I took all this trouble to come here, and to brave your Challenges, for nothing?”
“Not for nothing. For the Solution to your problem. That requires neither Question nor Answer. The mare will clarify it in due course.”
“But how can I get a Solution, without—?” He stopped, because he saw that Humfrey was paying him no further attention. The grumpy old Magician was lost in his tome.
Wira reappeared. “Come on downstairs. It will be all right. It always is.”
“This isn’t what I expected.”
“It seldom is.”
So he followed her back through the dusky passages.
Hello, Faun. Are you the one I am to guide?
Forrest looked around, startled. No one was there.
You can’t see me, the voice said. I am Mare Imbri, the day mare. I can speak to you only in daydreams.
“In my dreams?” he asked, surprised.
Wira turned. “Oh, she’s arrived? Good. Sit down here and talk with her. I will return when you need me.”
Distracted, Forrest entered the room the woman indicated, and sat in a comfortable chair.
I was once a night mare, but I lost my body and became a day mare. I am invisible. Would it help if you could see me?
“Yes.”
Then close your eyes and make your mind blank.
Forrest did as asked, bemused. In a moment a horse appeared in his mind, a black mare with white socks on her hind legs. Or perhaps if I assumed girl form, her voice said. The horse twisted and changed, becoming a pretty young human woman. “Is this better?” she asked.
“I can hear you!” he exclaimed. “That is, I could before, but now it seems more like speech.”
“Yes, it is easier to imagine a human form speaking. It is your own mind doing it; I merely send the thoughts. This is a day dreamlet. You don’t need to speak aloud, either; I can hear you if you just imagine yourself speaking. I can use speech balloons, if you prefer.”
“Speech balloons?” he said aloud, then caught himself, and resolved to speak silently next time.
A cloud appeared above the young woman’s head, with part of it pointing down at the woman image. IN THIS MANNER, the words in the balloon wrote.
“Regular speech will do,” he said. Then caught himself again, and added without moving his lips: “But tell me, what is this about guiding me?”
The dreamlet girl frowned prettily. “I must perform a Service for the Good Magician. That Service is to guide you to Ptero, and safely through it.”
“I don’t know where Tero is.”
“Ptero,” she said, spelling it in a speech balloon.
“Wherever. In fact I don’t know anything about this. I came to ask the Good Magician a Question myself, but he wouldn’t even listen to it. I have gone to all this trouble to try to help a tree, and he won’t even listen!”
“The ways of the Good Magician are often inscrutable to ordinary folk,” she said. “Tell me more of your situation.”
So he told her the whole story. She was a very good listener, even making dreamlet scenes to illustrate what he described. That way he knew she understood, because he could see the details, and make corrections when they erred. “So here I am,” he concluded. “Ready to ask the Good Magician how to find a companion spirit for the clog tree, and I guess he’s mad because for some reason he can’t use me for a year’s Service, so he won’t talk to me at all.”
Imbri shook her head. “Humfrey is old and grumpy, but he doesn’t waste energy on anger. He always has some obscure reason for what he does. We simply have to figure it out. Obviously he has something in mind for you, because he informed me that my Service is to help you. We just have to understand what you are doing.”
“What I want to do is find a spirit for the clog tree, so it won’t fade. I have to do it within a month. I don’t know anything about this Ptero place. Why should I go there?”
She considered. “As it happens, I am one of the very few folk in Xanth who do know something about Ptero. Not a lot; nobody knows a lot about it. But some, because on occasion I have delivered daydreams there. It’s a very strange place.”
“That explains why you are supposed to be the guide. But what about me?”
“All I can think of is that the spirit you are looking for is there.”
“There are people there?”
She laughed, and little HA HA’s went out from her image. When the demoness had made such laughter, it had been derisive; Imbri’s laughter was friendly. “There are more folk there than anyone can count.”
Forrest found this confusing. “How can there be more? Any person who exists can be counted.”
“That’s the thing. Not all of them exist.”
“Now I’m really confused! How can there be people who don’t exist?”
“It’s hard to explain. Ptero is where all the folk who ever lived in Xanth stay, and all the folk who ever will live in Xanth, and all the folk who ever might live in Xanth. So there are a lot of folk there. But what’s really strange is the way they live. They—do you know anything about quantum mechanics?”
“Huh?”
“I guess not. It’s a concept I picked up from the mind of a former Mundane scientist. His dreams were really weird! I think Ptero is a quantum world. That is, nothing is certain there; everything exists in all its possible states at once. It’s only when the folk there visit regular Xanth that things start making some sort of sense, for a while.”
Forrest shook his head. “I don’t want to go there. I just want to find a faun for the tree.”
“But maybe that faun is there.”
A glimmer began to form. “A faun for the clog tree?”
“Since all the folk who ever might exist in Xanth are on Ptero, your faun could be there. Then you could bring him to the tree.”
The glimmer expanded. “I think I am beginning to make some dim sense of the Good Magician’s attitude. I don’t need his Answer; I just need to go to Ptero and fetch that faun myself.”
“That must be it,” she agreed. “And I must guide you t
here, and through Ptero too, as well as I am able.”
“Can you get me through it and back home within a month?”
“I can do whatever you wish. But you must decide how long your search is. I don’t know how long it will take to find him. I have delivered daydreams there, but I don’t know the actual landscape. I may not be much help, though I will try my best.”
Forrest nodded. “I’m sure you will help a lot. At least I won’t be blundering there alone.” Then he thought of something else. “This is your Service. What was your Question to the Good Magician?”
She smiled wistfully. “I was foaled as a night mare in 897, and became a day mare in 1067. I wasn’t the best night mare; I was too tender hearted. It has been better as a day mare, because at least I bring pleasure to dreamers instead of horror, but I’m still not quite satisfied. Now I would like to gallop in some other pasture. The Good Magician will find me that pasture, after I have completed my Service.”
Forrest was impressed. “You are as old as I am! You were foaled the very year I adopted a sandalwood seedling and became a responsible creature. You were a night mare for a hundred and seventy years, and a day mare for thirty years. So you are two hundred years old.”
“Yes. I don’t mean to complain, but it does get dull after a while. Maybe I’m just a misfit.”
“Well, I hope the Good Magician has a good new pasture in mind for you.”
“I’m sure he does. Let’s find your faun.”
“Let’s find my faun,” he agreed, feeling better. “Where is Ptero?”
“At Castle Roogna.”
“This strange land with uncountable folk is at the human capital?”
“In its fashion.”
“Oh, you mean that’s where the magic is to reach Ptero?”
“That is where the access is. Humfrey will have to give you a spell to cross to Ptero.”
“Then I had better wake up and get that spell. I don’t want to waste any time.”
“I will be with you. Just clear a little place for me in your mind when you want to talk to me.”
“I will. Thanks.”
He opened his eyes. There was the cell, the same as before, but now it didn’t seem so dingy. “Wira?”
In a moment he heard her light footsteps approaching. “Have you finished talking with Imbri?”
“Yes, for now. I need the spell to—”
“Here it is. The Good Magician said to give it to you when you asked for it.” She held out a tiny stoppered bottle.
“How do I use it?”
“Imbri knows. Just keep it safe. You may need it to depart Ptero, too.”
“I’ll keep it safe,” he agreed, putting the spell into his knapsack.
“Would you like something to eat?” Wira asked. “I’m sure the Designated Wife will be glad to fix you something before you go.”
Designated Wife? Forrest decided not to inquire. “Thank you, no. Chlorine gave me a dough nut, and I haven’t been hungry since.”
“They do stick to your ribs,” Wira agreed. “Then I will show you out.”
She led him to the front gate. This was now completely clear; there was no wall and no set of tracks. The drawbridge was down, and the moat was calm, with no sign of fire. It was evident that the Good Magician could change his castle around at will. “Thank you,” he told her.
“I wish you good success,” Wira replied, with a rather pleasant smile that lacked any trace of the mischief of the demonesses. Then she looked embarrassed. “Oh, I almost forgot: here is your lost sandal.” She held it out.
“But that had become reverse wood! How did you—?”
“The Good Magician has ways. It is a good sandal; he thought you would need it.”
Not half as much as he needed a good Answer. But he stifled that remark. “Thank you,” he said, taking the sandal and putting it in his knapsack. Now he had a complete reserve pair, again.
“And this,” she said, holding out a piece of paper.
He took it and looked at it, but it had indecipherable scribblings. “I can’t read this.”
“The Good Magician scribbled it in his very own handwriting,” she said, as if that were a special thing. “I’m sure he had excellent reason. Keep it with you; it may become useful when its time comes.”
What could he do? He thanked her, and tucked the paper into his knapsack.
Forrest set out for Castle Roogna. It was not a difficult trek, because he was on a magic path that was supposed to lead right to it. The funny thing was that again it was morning, though there had been no night, so that he should be able to reach it by evening.
He wondered about that, so he tried asking Mare Imbri. He closed his eyes briefly as he walked, making a place for her to appear. “Are you there, Imbri?” he asked silently.
“Always, as long as this Service lasts,” she agreed, appearing as the black haired woman. Now he saw that she rather resembled her mare form, in a pleasant way, with white socks on her feet and black gloves on her hands. Her dress was black too.
“I have noticed that it’s always morning when I start walking, though I am sure a couple of days should have passed since I left my tree. Is there some magic operating?”
Imbri considered. “Share your recent memories with me. Maybe I can see what is happening.”
One hoof tripped, and he had to open his eyes. He lost the image of her. This was awkward, walking with his eyes closed. So he stopped. “First—is it possible to see you without closing my eyes?”
Her voice came in his head. “Yes, if you can concentrate. Reserve a space about five paces ahead of you, and to the side, or wherever you want, so it doesn’t interfere with your view of the path. Think of me being there.”
He concentrated, and after some effort managed to see a fuzzy region. “That’s it,” Imbri said. “Just keep working on it as you walk, and I will clarify.”
He did, and she did. After a while he was even able to see her as a human sized person walking beside him. “Can anyone else see you?”
“No. Only you.”
“It’s like seeing a ghost.”
“Yes. It just requires the right concentration.”
“Now I will review my memories of the day.” He thought of his beginning of the trip to the Gap Chasm, guided by the Demoness Sire. Then of the ride through the Gap, on the back of the dragon ass. Then of the walk to the Good Magician’s castle.
“You are right,” Imbri said. “It’s always morning. The first morning may have been the work of Com Passion, because she likes you. She just wanted to give you more time, after you were nice enough to kiss her mouse, so she reset your day. Otherwise it would have been afternoon then. The second morning started when you got off the dragon ass. That’s a strange creature; I have no entry into its mind, or Chlorine’s. Which is funny, because she used to be an ordinary girl, rather plain and ill tempered, actually, with dreams as foolish as anyone’s. Now, suddenly, she is phenomenally lovely and intelligent and nice, and lives in the Nameless Castle with that dragon, and her mind is completely opaque. It’s as if she’s a different person.”
“You mean Chlorine really does live in that castle? I thought she was just pretending.”
“She really does live there. The castle sits on a cloud that floats across Xanth, so no one can see that it supports the castle. She lives like a princess, and that dragon assumes the form of a prince, and what they do at night, on those air mattresses that the floating castle has, is beyond any dream I could bring.”
“Do you mean, like fauns and nymphs?”
She made an equine snort. “Like fauns and nymphs in much the way Castle Roogna is like a wood cutter’s hut. I’m surprised that there hasn’t been a flight of storks so big as to darken the sky. They are surely in love. I wish I had been watching when they changed; I’m femalishly curious about what happened. They must have stumbled on fantastic magic. The oddest thing is that they don’t make anything much of it. That is, they just trundle around Xanth as a dams
el and dragon, doing favors for folk, asking nothing in return. It is very strange.”
“Yes. I thought so too. But how could they have made my afternoon become morning?”
“That would require good illusion, or very good magic. Maybe they have a sprig of thyme. At any rate, it does seem to have happened: they gave you more day to do your business. And more day again, when you left the Good Magician’s castle. Because the Good Magician would hardly bother to waste such magic so irrelevantly.”
“Well, whatever the reason, I appreciate it. It does help me save time, so that maybe I can return to my tree within the month.”
By evening they were approaching Castle Roogna. Forrest paused to brush out his hair and make himself presentable. After all, this was the royal human castle, and it deserved some respect.
When he started walking toward it again, Imbri spoke. “This time I caught it! It’s morning again.”
Startled, Forrest looked around. She was right: the sun was at midmorning level. He also felt fresh and vigorous, as if he had had a good night’s rest. “This is nice magic.”
“This is very strong magic,” Imbri said. “The rest of Xanth doesn’t seem to be changing. Just us. We just seem to have more time, without losing what we have done. It is as if we weren’t supposed to notice the favor.”
“Well, if it’s from the damsel and dragon, I will thank them when I see them again. But now I need to find Ptero.”
“I will guide you there. Go in and ask to see Princess Ida.” Forrest approached the castle. The moat monster reared up threateningly.
“This one I can take care of,” Imbri said. “Soufflé, it’s all right. This is Forrest Faun, and he is with me.”
The monster nodded, and sank back under the water.
“I thought you said no one else could see you.”
“Only those I know well, and show myself to. Soufflé has been around a long time. He baby-sits the royal triplets.”
“A moat monster takes care of children?”
Yon Ill Wind Page 40