Chameleon mounted Imbri, and they took off through the wall and headed for the local gourd patch.
"I have another task for you," Chameleon said when they were alone. "I do not believe that either the Gap or Irene's plants can stop the Mundanes for long, and we'll never eliminate the Horseman unless we first trap him and prevent his escape. This will require a lure he can't resist, and some desperate measures on our part."
"I want to kill the Horseman if I find him," Imbri sent. "I'm not sure he'll tell us how to nullify his enchantment. He deceived me once, but he will never trick me like that again." She swished her tail, smashing imaginary flies.
"He is extremely elusive, and I think I know why," Chameleon 'said. "It would be quite unfortunate if I am wrong--and I'm not yet at my peak of intelligence, so I may be-therefore I will not voice my suspicion. But if I am right, he will take King Irene, and he will also take me, immediately following. He will suppose that will make him the tenth King, the chain complete, but we can prevent that by acting first. There must be one more King of Xanth designated, one he can't send to the gourd. That is the King who can finally break the chain."
"Yes, Magician Humfrey's prophecy makes the tenth monarch vital," Imbri agreed, diving into a gourd. Neither of them paid attention to the gourd world, which now seemed commonplace, being absorbed in their conversation. "But who is it to be? Anyone you select can be enchanted."
"Anyone but one," Chameleon said.
"Who?"
"You."
Imbri veered into the wall of the City of Brass, one of the subdivisions of the gourd, where the brassies labored on metallic aspects of bad dreams. Of course the brass wall didn't hurt her, as it was insubstantial in her present state, but by the time she straightened out, she had startled several of the laboring brass folk. "Who?"
"Who are you looking for?" a brassie man inquired, thinking she was addressing him.
Embarrassed, Imbri covered by naming the one brassie she knew of who had seen the real world. "Blythe."
"You're in the wrong building," the brassie man said. "She's in B-Four."
"Tell her I may need her help soon," Imbri sent, realizing that she might turn this blunder to advantage. Blythe Brassie just might be able to help in the crisis of Xanth. "Right now I'm on my way elsewhere."
"Yes, carrying garbage to the dump," another brassie remarked, eying Chameleon.
Imbri hastily trotted on through another wall, feeling an unequine burning in her ears. "The brass folk are very insensitive," she sent to Chameleon. "They have no souls and no soft tissues."
"I am used to this sort of thing," Chameleon said. "People assume that because I am ugly I must be bad, and they treat me that way, then find confirmation when I do not react with delight. If they approached me in my off-phase the way they do when I'm pretty, they would find me easy enough to get along with."
There was much truth in that, Imbri was sure. She remembered how Smash the Ogre had been considered brutish and violent because of his size and appearance, when in fact he was a most decent creature. People tended to become what others deemed them to be. Perhaps that was another aspect of the magic of Xanth.
Chameleon resumed her discussion. "I am designating you to be the final King of Xanth, Imbri. If I am correct, and I hope I am, you are the only one who can do it. This is the real reason the Night Stallion sent you out into the day. He knew what he was not permitted to tell, so he did what he could to save Xanth by making it possible. It was a course requiring much grief, including Good Magician Humfrey's shame, but the only likely way to save Xanth. You are the key. You must be the tenth King."
"But I'm a horse!"
"Yes, I had noticed. Are you any less a creature of Xanth?"
Imbri snorted. "I think I liked you better when you were beautiful, and not just because of your appearance."
"Everyone does. But on certain rare occasions, intelligence is more valuable to a woman than beauty."
"Oh, of course! I didn't mean--"
"I will be beautiful again, Imbri. I can not afford to remain King then; I would defeat Xanth through sheer stupidity. If the Horseman had the intelligence to banish Irene and keep me in power, he could certainly work his will during my other phase. I must provoke the crisis now, while I have the wit to handle it. Things may move quite rapidly once I return to Castle Roogna. Just you be ready to do your part, mare."
"I don't understand this at all!" Imbri sent in a dreamlet of darkly roiling nebulosities. "You aren't even King yet, but you talk of getting banished to the gourd. If you designate me King, no citizen of Xanth would accept it."
"They won't need to," Chameleon said. "I would explain more thoroughly, but I fear that would disrupt the prophecy. You must tell no one of this--until the time. Meanwhile, after we take down the bridge, you must go and fetch help for Irene's plants. The throne of Xanth has come at last to women; it behooves the women to defend it with greater efficacy than the men did. Go fetch the Siren and the Gorgon from Magician Humfrey's castle and locate Goldy Goblin; we'll need their talents for the final confrontation."
"But if I go there, how will you get back to Castle Roogna?" Imbri had never dreamed such an office would come to her, and as a night mare, she had dreamed a great deal, but did belatedly see the logic of it. She was immune to the Horseman's power, so could stop him in a way no other creature could. But practical details of organization remained. "At least I must take you back there before--"
"We shall see what works out," Chameleon said enigmatically. That was another annoying aspect of her intelligence; obviously there was a lot Imbri was missing.
They plunged out of the gourd near the bridge and galloped to the brink of the Chasm. But there was a problem. The Mundanes had set guards there. Imbri faded back into the dark forest, before the enemy spied her, and halted. "What now? I could approach invisibly, but would have to materialize to attack the bridge."
Chameleon considered, tapping her fingers idly against Imbri's mane. "Well have to get rid of them. I'll devise a slingshot, and you can power it. Make sure I don't grab the wrong kind of vine."
They quested quickly through the jungle, locating several large elastic bands, which they harvested and tied to firm ironwood trunks, making a huge sling. Chameleon set a big stone in the net, and Imbri drew it back with all the weight of her body. Chameleon had fixed a temporary kind of harness from vines to make this possible.
Following Chameleon's directions, Imbri adjusted her position until the slingshot was aimed right at the Mundanes. At Chameleon's command she phased out, releasing the bands, and the rock hurtled up and across.
It scored a perfect hit on the near side of the bridge, sweeping the two Mundane guards into the Chasm. Chameleon knew exactly what she was doing in this phase! The two of them hurried across and discovered that the stone had also ripped away the bridge. The job was done already!
Two more Mundanes stood across the Chasm. They nocked arrows to strings--but Chameleon jumped on Imbri, and Imbri phased out again, and the arrows passed harmlessly through them. Nevertheless, they retreated from the Chasm, so that there would be no threat.
They heard a noise from the west. "A centaur's coming!" Imbri sent.
"No, I suspect it's a horse."
Indeed, in a moment the white day horse appeared. Imbri projected a dreamlet of greeting to his mind.
"Is the bridge still there?" he asked worriedly. "I heard a crash, so came running. The best grazing is south, but I have a good hiding place on the other side, and it's getting late."
"No bridge," Imbri sent. "We just took it out. You couldn't have used it anyway; the Mundanes had set guards on it."
"The Mundanes!" his dream figure cried. "I understood they were way up north!"
"That was yesterday. Now they are here. Tomorrow they'll be crossing the Chasm, and the day after that they'll be at Castle Roogna."
"I must flee!"
"If I understand his reactions correctly," Chameleon said, "you have informed him of the proximity
of the Punic army, and he wants to get away from here."
"Yes," Imbri agreed. "He is very nervous about Mundanes. I can expand the dream to include you so you can talk to him directly--"
"No, don't bother. When I was fair and stupid, I felt at home with the normal equine intellect; now that palls. But I do need transportation. Tell him I shall be the next King of Xanth, the ninth, and ask him if he would like to carry me back to Castle Roogna. That's on his way south, away from the enemy."
Imbri did as she was bidden. "That's Chameleon?" the day horse asked, amazed. The night was dark, since it was no longer a good phase of the moon, but his excellent equine night vision showed him her appearance well enough. "I know she changes, but this creature is ugly, even for the human kind!"
"But she's the same inside," Imbri sent to both.
"The hell I am!" Chameleon snapped.
"And she's going to be Queen of Xanth?" the day horse asked, daunted.
"King of Xanth." Imbri did not have the nerve to say who would follow Chameleon in that office.
The day horse shrugged. "She's ugly, but I liked her once and can carry her, if there are no Mundanes there."
"There are none," Imbri reassured him. "Even Ichabod retired to a human village, after Arnolde the Centaur King got taken out. There are only women inside Castle Roogna now, with King Irene."
The day horse snorted acquiescently. Women were no threat to him. Chameleon mounted, and they set off at a gallop for Castle Roogna.
Imbri headed for Magician Humfrey's castle, via the gourd. As she traversed a fraction of the night world, she wondered idly how Chameleon had guessed she would find convenient transportation back. The woman was hideously smart in her proper phase, but this smacked of prophecy.
Soon she reached the Magician's castle and trotted across its moat and through its wall. "Grundy!" she sent in a general dreamlet. "Is the Gorgon back yet? Tell her not to look at me!"
"I am back," the Gorgon replied in the dream. "The golem returned not long ago to Castle Roogna to help fight the final battle. I am thoroughly veiled. Just let me wake up, and I will introduce you to my sister the Siren and Goldy Goblin, who also returned with me."
So the goblin girl had been serious about helping! "Don't wake up," Imbri sent. "You surely need your sleep, and I already know the Siren. I will talk to you all in one dream." She expanded the dream to include the others, now that she knew their identity.
"Oh, you are the night mare Smash the Ogre knew!" Goldy exclaimed as she saw Imbri. "The Siren told me about you. You carried Smash from the Void."
"Well, not exactly," Imbri demurred, somehow flattered. "But I did help and I received half of Chem Centaur's soul for the service. That enabled me to go dayside."
"I know how that is," the goblin girl said. "The ogre arranged for me to have this magic wand, and that gave me great power among my kind. Soon I will marry a goblin chief. I was down in the mines, picking out a trousseau of precious metals, or I would have come to help the centaurs fight the Mundanes. I didn't know until too late, so I sent a messenger who may not have reached you--"
"He reached me," Imbri sent.
"Then the Gorgon picked me up before I heard from him. Now I'm ready." She waved her wand in the dream, and objects flew about, touched by its power of levitation.
"Magician Humfrey told me to fetch my sister," the Gorgon explained. "And she told me that we should gather some of her other friends, so we tried. But Fireoak the Hamadryad can't leave her tree for such a risky venture, and John the fairy is expecting offspring--I don't think you know these people anyway--and we couldn't reach Blythe Brassie, and have still to get the word to others like Chem and Tandy--"
"Chem and Tandy are already at Castle Roogna," Imbri sent, flashing an image of the castle in the background. "And I can fetch Blythe any time if she wants to come. She expressed interest before, and I left a message at the City of Brass for her to be ready."
"It would be so nice to get together again," the Siren said. "And to see the ogre again, too; he made it all possible."
"Chameleon asked me to fetch help to defend Castle Roogna," Imbri sent. "I can take you there one at a time."
"No, we'll use the magic carpet," the Gorgon said. "We used a bottled conjure-spell to send the golem back, so we saved the carpet. We can start in the morning and keep whistling it back until all three of us are there. Will that be time enough?"
"It should be," Imbri agreed. "We expect the Mundanes there in two days. King Irene will grow plants to stop them--"
"King Irene!" the Gorgon exclaimed. "What happened to the Centaur King?"
Imbri quickly updated them on recent developments. "So Chameleon will be the next King," she concluded.
"This is moving almost too swiftly for me," the Siren said. "We've got to stop losing our Kings!"
"And stop the Nextwave army," the Gorgon added. "I believe I can do much of that myself, if I can get a good look at them."
"Yes," Imbri agreed. "Take care that no Xanth defenders are near."
The Gorgon nodded. "We certainly shall. You go fetch Blythe; we'll meet you at Castle Roogna."
Imbri let them lapse back into dreamless sleep. She trotted out and to the gourd patch and soon was back at the City of Brass.
All the brassies of Blythe's block were frozen into statue form, which was normal for them when at rest. Imbri pressed the activation button with her nose and they came to life. "Will you come with me to the real world, Blythe?" Imbri asked the pretty brassie girl. "Your friends have asked for you, and you did mention to me--"
"I'd love to!" Blythe exclaimed. "It's a strange place out there, with all its living things, but I liked the ogre and the girls."
"I'll have to clear it with the Night Stallion," Imbri sent. "But I think it will be all right."
Blythe mounted her, and they made an arrangement to have the brassie building turned off again after they departed it, then went on to check on the seven Kings.
Imbri received a shock. Now there were nine Kings. Both Irene and Chameleon had been taken.
"Now it is up to you. King Mare," Chameleon said. "Only you can stop the Horseman."
"But how did he get to you?" Imbri asked, flustered. Chameleon had warned that things might proceed rapidly, but this was hardly to be assimilated.
Chameleon smiled unpleasantly. "I brought him inside Castle Roogna. My plan worked perfectly."
"You what?"
"I confirmed my suspicion and lured him into the trap, using myself as bait. The moment he was inside, we sent all other living occupants of the castle outside, and King Irene grew the plants she had set out, and they quietly confined him to the castle while he was occupied with us." She made that nasty smile again. "For a while he somehow thought Irene found him handsome, but when he realized she was only stalling for time for her plants to complete their growth, he banished her to the gourd. Then I assumed the crown and told him we knew his secret and would never let him escape the castle, and of course he banished me, too. So my tenure as King was very brief: no more than two minutes. He was very angry about being outwitted, particularly by one he had regarded as stupid."
"But he never met you before!" Imbri protested. "You were in the forest with the day horse when Grundy and Ichabod and I met him!"
"Not precisely. Now you must go and dispatch him, and that will not be easy," Chameleon concluded.
"It will be easy!" Imbri sent. "I will gladly kick that monster to death!"
Chameleon shook her head. "No, not easy at all. You can't kill him."
"Certainly I can, King Chameleon!" Imbri sent hotly.
"Because it may be that only he can abate the enchantment he has put all of us under. You must first make him free us--and he won't do that voluntarily."
Of course that was true; they had been over it before. Imbri was letting her equine temper run away with her. "But I can still kick him into submission. Before I finish, he'll be glad to tell me all." But uncertainty was gnawing at her.
"Not so," Good Magician King Humfrey said. "There is an aspect we may have neglected to clarify."
"You see," Chameleon continued, "he is the offspring of a stallion and a human woman. The result of a liaison at a love spring. That's why he calls himself the Horseman. He is a crossbreed, like the centaurs."
"Like the centaurs?" Imbri asked, confused. "But he's a man!"
"He is a werehorse."
Slowly the terrible realization came across Imbri. "The-- day horse?"
"The same. His mind could occupy two forms, each one quite natural to him. No one suspected, because no such creature has manifested in recent times."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Imbri sent, appalled. "All this time I--he--"
"I realize that was cruel," Chameleon said. "But I was not quite sure. If I were wrong, I would have maligned a good and innocent animal. If I were right, it would have been dangerous to inform you, because your reaction could have alerted him and made him avoid our trap. So I had to deceive you, and I regret that."
"All the time, with us--the Horseman!"
"Whose magic talent is to connect a line of sight between any two places--such as a human eye and the peephole of a gourd, as we surmised. That is how he enchanted all of us. But if you try to kick him, he will change into his horse form--and he is more powerful than you."
"Not by night!" Imbri protested. But she remained appalled. She had thought the day horse was her friend! Now she remembered how the animal had always been in the general vicinity of the Horseman. Certainly this had been so when she had first encountered both of them, the one purporting to be fleeing the other. What a cunning camouflage--and she had been completely deceived. The horse had even freed her from captivity by the man--how could she suspect they were the same? Then, when she, Grundy, and Ichabod had spied on the Mundane army, while Chameleon slept, the Horseman had appeared in the Mundane camp. And the Horseman's uncanny ability to travel-- naturally he had used his stallion form to gallop in hours what might have taken his human form days, while the man form could navigate the special passes and shortcuts that might have balked the animal form. The best of both forms! As the day horse, pretending to be stupid, he had learned the secrets of Xanth--the invisible bridge, the projected lines of Kings--and they had thought him their ally and had told him everything!