Night Mare (24 page)

Tails? Imbri looked again—but too late. The creatures were gone.

Still the Mundane menace grew. The rest of their army seemed to have arrived in more or less of a mass, and individual vials were not enough. Some men were distracted by the fleeing canines, and some appeared to have been bitten by those, but there were too many intact Mundanes to stop.

“Time for the ultimate measures,” King Bink said. “Stand by to carry me to safety, Imbri; this may be worse than we anticipated.”

Imbri stood by. Bink lifted the bag of winds and started to untie it.

A huge Mundane charged at the King, slashing downward with his sword. He missed Bink, who had alertly dodged, but scored on the bound river. The tie was severed cleanly.

Instantly the coil sprang outward as the water was released. The floor flooded, the liquid getting deeper moment by moment. There was a lot of fluid in a river! The Mundanes cursed as their feet were washed out from under them. The one trying to attack the King was dumped and carried away by the torrent.

Then the string tying the mouth of the windbag came loose. The winds roared out of confinement. They swirled around the chamber of the baobab tree and whipped the surface of the rising water into froth. It became hard to stand, and not much fun to breathe.

Imbri tried to find King Bink, but he had been swept by the swirl, along with the Mundanes. Apparently the river, once released, had become a nonmagical force, so could act on him. Perhaps it was merely moving him without hurting him. No two-footed creature could keep on his feet in this! That was yet another inherent human liability—lack of a sufficient number of feet on the ground. Imbri did not care to gamble that Bink would not drown.

No—as she reviewed what she had been told of his talent, she decided he would not drown, because that fate would have been set up by magic—after all, the river had been magically bound—and therefore his drowning forbidden. But there were Mundanes mixed in that soup with him, and one of them certainly might hurt him, since they had been trying to do that regardless of magic. So her help was definitely needed.

She forged through the frothing water, squinting her eyes against the whirling wind. She did not know in what direction the wind wanted to go, because here in the tree it was still looking for the exit. She found the King. He was holding on to the edge of the Canem Cave. She nudged him, and he shifted his grip to her. He was carrying something that hampered him, but Imbri floated up under him and got him halfway clear of the violent torrent.

Now she half swam, half drifted with the current, moving out of the tree. Mundanes were also being carried along, burdened by their weapons and armor, gasping and drowning in the River Elba. Humfrey had prophesied correctly; able were they ere they saw Elba. She wasn’t sure she had the phrasing quite right, but certainly the elements from coil and bag were devastating an army.

Outside the tree, the tide diminished. Imbri found her footing and forged toward higher ground. A few Mundanes were doing likewise. At last Imbri stood on an elevated ridge overgrown with quaking aspen; the timid trees were fluttering with apprehension as the water surged toward their roots. “Are you all right?” she sent to King Bink.

“Tired and waterlogged,” he replied. “But whole. However, the battle is not yet over.” For more Mundanes were straggling up to the ridge.

“We can outrun them,” Imbri sent.

“No. They would only reorganize and march on Castle Roogna, where the women are. It has neither human nor zombie defenses any more. The ogre is there, but he can not be in all places at once. I don’t want our loved ones subject to the will of the Punics, treated like pseudonymphs. I must deal with the enemy here, now; I shall not return to Castle Roogna until the threat has been entirely abated.”

Imbri could appreciate his sentiment and admire his courage. But Bink was only one man against what appeared to be about twenty surviving Mundanes. He was fifty years old, which was getting along, physically, for a male of his species. He was likely to get himself killed—and his prospective successor, Arnolde Centaur, was still far away. Yet Bink was the King, and his decision counted.

“I see you have doubts,” he said, smiling grimly. “You are a sensible mare. But I am not yet entirely dependent on my own resources. I salvaged the Good Magician’s book of Words of Power.”

“I hope they are good ones,” she sent. “Here come two Mundanes!”

King Bink opened the book as the Mundanes approached him, spears poised. He fixed on the first one. “Oops—I don’t know how to pronounce it,” he said.

“Try several ways!” Imbri sent, for behind the two spearmen other Mundanes were coming, just as ugly and determined. One thing about these Punic mercenaries—they never gave up! If the King didn’t use magic to protect himself, the nonmagical assault of the enemy would quickly finish him.

“SCHNEZL!” Bink read aloud, with a short E.

Nothing happened. The Mundanes drew nigh.

“SCHNEZL!” he repeated, this time using a long E.

The two Mundanes broke into uncontrollable sneezing. Their eyes watered, their breath got short, and they doubled over in nasal convulsions, trying vainly to blow their lungs out through their noses. Their buttons popped off, their belts snapped, and their eyes bugged in and out. They dropped their spears and staggered into the murky water, still firing out achoos. The other Mundanes paused in wonder and admiration at the cannonade. It seemed the King had pronounced the Word correctly the second time. Even Imbri felt an urge to sneeze, but she hastily suppressed it and stood closer to Bink. That helped; he did seem to have an ambience of immunity.

“Odd,” Bink remarked. “The print has faded from the page. That Word is no longer written there.”

“It must be a one-shot spell,” Imbri sent. “How many more do you have?”

Bink flipped through the pages of the book. “There must be hundreds here.”

“That should be enough.” She was relieved.

Another Waver was charging up, sword swinging. Bink read the next Word. “AmnSHA!” he cried, accenting the second syllable.

The Mundane did not sneeze. He continued charging.

“AMNsha!” Bink repeated, this time accenting the first syllable.

Still the Mundane came, seemingly unaffected.

“AMNSHA!” Bink cried, with no accenting and hardly more than one syllable. And ducked as the man’s sword whistled at his head. The blow missed.

The Mundane stopped and turned. He looked perplexed. “What am I doing here?” he asked. “Who are you? Who am I?”

“The Word made him lose his memory!” Imbri sent in a pleased dreamlet. “Too bad all the remaining Mundanes weren’t within range of it!”

“Good thing you were in contact with me so it didn’t catch you,” King Bink responded. “Humfrey would have made better use of it and harmlessly abated the entire Mundane threat. My son Dor reported a similar use of a forget-spell eight hundred years ago at the Gap Chasm.”

That was another mystic reference to something Dor obviously could not have been involved in. Maybe it was a memory of a dream. “We had better deal with the Mundane,” Imbri reminded him in a dreamlet.

King Bink addressed the soldier. “You are an immigrant to the Land of Xanth. You will find a good homestead and a willing nymph, and will settle down to be a productive citizen. Congratulations.”

“Yeah, sure,” the man said, dazed. He lumbered off in search of his homestead.

But three more Mundanes were coming, and these did not look at all forgetful. The last Word had faded from the page. Bink turned the leaf and read the next one. “SKONK!”

There was a sudden terrible odor. The stench spread out from the sound of the Word, forming a bilious cloud that drifted in the path of the enemy soldiers. Unheeding, they charged into it. They had learned to be concerned about tangible magic, but to ignore mists and apparitions.

Immediately they scattered, coughing and holding their noses. They had received the brunt of the stench, though the peripheral wash was enough to make Imbri gag. That was bad, because horses were unable to regurgitate. A coincidental drift of wind had carried the mist away from the King, so he did not suffer. Coincidental?

The three Mundanes plunged into the water, trying to wash away the smell. A murk of pollution spread out from them, and small fish fled the region. It seemed it would take a long time for the men to cleanse themselves.

Yet another Mundane was attacking as the fog dissipated. This one paused just beyond it, fitting an arrow to his bow.

The King consulted the book. “KROKK!” he yelled at the bowman.

The Mundane changed form. His jaw extended into a greenish snout bulging with teeth. His limbs shrank into squat, clawed extremities. His torso sprouted scales. Unable to hold on to his bow or maintain his balance, he fell forward, belly-flopping on the ground with a loud whomp. He scrambled to the water and paddled away, propelling himself with increasing efficiency by means of a massive green tail that sprouted from his hind part.

“He turned into a gator,” Bink remarked, impressed. “I didn’t know the Good Magician had any transformation spells.”

“He collected all kinds of information,” Imbri sent “Many people owed him favors for his services, and he knew exactly where to find useful bits of magic. He’s been accumulating things for over a century. Once I brought him a bad dream about a box of quarterpedes, and he promptly woke and fetched it from the place the dream identified it. I didn’t even know what they were and had forgotten the matter until that box turned up in his collection of spells in the baobab tree. He never missed a trick.”

“I should have rescued that box,” Bink said regretfully. “Maybe when the water subsides—”

Another Mundane charged. He swung a battle-axe with hideous intent. Bink quickly glanced at the book again. “BANSH!” he cried.

The Mundane disappeared, axe and all. These were certainly useful spells, when they worked!

But about a dozen Punics remained on the ridge. They now formed into an organized company and advanced slowly on the King. This was a more serious threat.

Bink leafed through the book, looking for a suitable Word. “If only there were definitions given!” he complained.

A spear sailed at the King. “Dodge!” Imbri sent.

Bink dodged. But the spear caught the open book and knocked it out of his hand. He regained his balance and dived for it, but the volume fell in the water. The crockagator forged up and snapped the book into its big mouth with an evil chuckle, carrying it away. The King had been abruptly deprived of his magic defense by nonmagical means. True, the crock had been magically transformed—but an untransformed Mundane could have done the same thing.

“But see!” he cried, stooping to pick up a floating bottle. It was yellow and warty and somewhat misshapen. “Isn’t this the one containing the enormous squash?”

“I believe it is,” Imbri agreed. It seemed Bink’s talent was helping him compensate for the loss of the remaining Words. Maybe he wasn’t being harmed, but just shifted to a more profitable mode, as the Words were highly variable in effect.

“I’ll use this; you check the water for any other bottles.” King Bink popped the cork, then hurled the bottle at the Mundane formation. The thing grew enormously, as was its nature, until it popped down on top of several Mundanes and squashed them flat.

Imbri found another bottle and fished it out with her teeth. She got some water in her mouth, and it still reeked of Skonk, but that was a necessary penalty. She brought the bottle to the King as the remaining Mundanes skirted the squash and advanced. He opened the bottle immediately and pointed it at the enemy.

A series of specks floated out from it. These expanded, becoming balls. On each ball a face formed, scowling awfully. One directed its glare at Imbri—and suddenly she was coated with grime.

“Oh, I see,” the King said. “This is a bottle of dirty looks. Let’s get them aimed properly.” He reached out and turned each ball so that it faced the Mundanes.

The results were less than devastating, but more than inconvenient. The Punics turned dirty, their clothing badly soiled, their faces and arms gunked with grease and mud and sand. But they had been pretty dirty to begin with, so this was only an acceleration of a natural trend. They hacked and spit, trying to clear filth from their mouths. One aimed an arrow at King Bink, but the slime on his bow was such that the weapon twisted in his hand, fouling his shot. Another tried to draw a knife, but it was stuck in its holster, fastened by dirt and corrosion.

Imbri found two more bottles. One turned out to contain jumping beans. They bounded all over, peppering the Mundanes annoyingly; one man was blinded as the beans happened to score on his eyes, while another got one up his nose. That put him in immediate difficulty, since his nose bobbled about in response to the bean’s continued jumping.

But six determined Punics remained, closing in on the King. The odds were still moderately prohibitive.

Bink opened the last bottle. A host of spooks sailed out “Go get ‘em!” the King ordered, and the spooks went after the Punics.

There ensued a fierce little battle. The spooks were supernatural creatures with vaporously trailing nether sections but strong clawed hands and grotesque faces. They pounced on the Mundanes, biting off noses, gouging for livers, and wringing necks. This was a reasonably pointless exercise, as spooks could not digest these tidbits, but old instincts died hard, and the Mundanes did find the approach somewhat disquieting. They fought back with swords and spears, lopping off limbs and transfixing faces. Blood flowed, ichor oozed, and bodies soon littered the ground.

As the sun dipped low, getting clear of the sky before night caught it, the mêlée subsided. All the spooks were gone; one Mundane remained standing.

It was Hasbinbad, the Punic leader, the toughest customer of them all.

“So you are the King of Xanth,” Hasbinbad said. “You’re a better Magician than I took you for. I knew the Transformer King was deadly dangerous, and I discovered the Thing-Talking King was tough, too; I certainly wanted no further part of the Zombie King, who turned my own dead against me, and the Information King knew entirely too much. But you had the reputation of possessing no magic, so I figured you’d be safe.” He shrugged with grim good nature. “We all do make mistakes. I should have taken you out, too, to promote the Centaur King, who I know has no magic power in Xanth.”