Isle Of View (10 page)

“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 Rush most, 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 Rush-most,“ 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 of 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. “The 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.

“Grundy, you must have a notion,” she said. “You've talked with creatures all over Xanth. What's the most sickeningly sweet story you ever heard?”

“That was your courtship of Cheiron Centaur,” he said promptly.

She refrained from flicking him hard with her tail. They were not as heavy here on the moon, for some magical reason, and she was afraid that if she made him lighter he would fly into the air, and she would have to take off after him, and Fracto would get them both. That wasn't worth the effort, especially since it was now getting dark and it would be hard to see their way. Anyway, it was probably his notion of a compliment.

“Aside from that,” she said.

“Probably the tale of the Princess and the dragon,” he said. “The bird that told me that one swore he had seen it happen himself, but I'm not sure.”

“Why not?” she asked innocently.

“Because he was a lyrebird.”

This time she did flick him. Fortunately he hung on to her mane, and did not fly off into Fracto's waiting storm.

“Tell me the tale,” she said grimly. She knew that she could not afford to be overly choosy at this point.

“There was a lovely Princess who met a strange handsome foreign Prince,” he began. She listened attentively, until the conclusion. “And so they lived happily ever after."

“I think you're right,” she said at the end. “That's so nice a tale it will drive Fracto right up the wall and into distraction. But we'll have to fit him into it, so that he identifies.”

“But he'll just rain on it!” the golem protested.

“No, the beauty of a dream is that a person has to dream it its way, not his own way. Otherwise no one would even tolerate a bad dream. He will be there, but unable to rain on the proceedings.”

Grundy nodded appreciatively. “You have a diseased mind.”

“Thank you. Now we must rehearse our parts, so that when the Night Stallion gets his act together, we are ready to animate the dream. I will take the female parts, and you the male parts. Remember, don't overact; what we want is verisimilitude.”

“What?”

“Plausibility. I thought you knew all words in all languages.”

“I do. I wasn't sure you did.”

Again she refrained from flicking him. All centaurs had competent vocabulary, as he knew. “Perhaps you confused me with a certain demoness who has trouble getting her words straight.”

“No, you're not as pretty as D. Metria.”

What an effort to keep her tail still! “And not half as mischievous, either,” she agreed. “Now remember: this will be a narrated play, in essence. The stallion will provide the actors, but we must speak their parts because there is no time for rehearsal and we don't want to have to do it more than once. Some dreams are like that, so there is precedent. We can ad-lib, but we have to stay with the general story line. Can you play it straight, for once?”

“Look, Chex, I can do it if I want to!” he said, annoyed. “I know you have to do this to get to Cheiron and save your foal. I may have an offspring of my own some day!”

“Yes, of course,” she agreed quickly. “I apologize, Grundy.”

“Thank you.” He seemed surprised; evidently he did not receive many apologies. “Now let's see just how good a dream we can do.” And they worked on the details, waiting for the stallion's return.

In due course the stallion arrived, and with him a troupe of denizens of the gourd bearing assorted props. Soon the region was littered with painted scenes of pleasant glades and beaches, and little containers of dream fragments. A larger pavilion was erected, shrouded by cheesecloth, so that Fracto would not be able to see what was being done here.

“Just how is a dream recorded or animated?” Chex asked.

“We have camcorders,” the stallion explained, showing a creature with a lenslike snoot. “They note all details of a scene, and the mares take the finished dreams to their recipients. When you are ready to record a scene, just say 'take one' and when you want to end it, say 'cut.' They will do it.”

Chex wasn't sure about this, but had to assume that the stallion knew his business. "First we want some nice background scenes of a lovely castle and mountain with flowers. Can this be done so that it looks alive? I mean, not like a picture?''

“Certainly. How's this?” The stallion wiggled an ear, and a mare stepped forward.

Suddenly there was a dream. It was of an ornate mountain with a path spiraling up it, and Castle Roogna perched at the very top. That wasn't exactly what Chex had had in mind, but it would do. There were flowers at the base of the mountain, at least.

“And a separate scene,” Chex said as the dreamlet ended, “an escarpment or barren rocky place where a dragon might live.”