Ogre, Ogre (Xanth 5) Read Free

ridden the Diggle behind her mother, traveling to the far reaches of Xanth to place emeralds and opals and diamonds, but this was different. The Diggle moved slowly and evenly, phasing through the rock as long as someone made a tune it liked. The nightmares, she was sure, moved swiftly and unevenly. How could she catch one--and how could she hold on?
    Tandy was an agile girl. She had climbed all over the caverns, swinging across chasms on rope-vines, squeezing through tiny crevices--good thing she was small!--swimming the chill river channels, running fleetly across sloping rockslides, throwing chunks at the occasional goblins who pursued her. If a nightmare got close enough, she was confident she could leap onto its back and hang on to its flowing mane. It would not be a comfortable ride, but she could manage. So all she really had to worry about was the first step--catching her mare.
    The problem was , the nightmares came only during a person's sleep. She might pretend sleep, but she doubted she would fool them--and if she grabbed one while awake, it would surely dissipate like demon-smoke, leaving her with nothing but a fading memory. Nightmares were, after all, a type of demon; they could dematerialize in much the way Fiant did. That was how they passed through walls to reach the most secure sleepers. In fact, she suspected they became material only in the presence of a sleeper.
    She would have to ride the nightmare in her sleep. Only that would keep it material, or enable her to dematerialize with it.
    Tandy set about her task with determination. It was not that she relished the prospect of such a ride, but that she knew what would happen to her at the hands--or whatever--of the demon if she did not ride. She set up a bolster on two chairs, and practiced on it, pretending it was the back of a horse. She lay on her bed, then abruptly bounced off it and leaped astride the bolster, grabbing a tassle where the mane should be and squeezing with her legs. Over and over she did this, drilling the procedure into herself until it became fast and automatic. She got tired and her legs got sore, but she kept on, until she could do it in her sleep--she hoped.
    This took several days. She practiced mostly when her mother was out setting jewels, so that there would be no awkward questions. The demon did not bother her by day, fortunately, so she was able to snatch some sleep then, too.
    When she was satisfied, and also when she dared delay no longer, because of Fiant's boldness and her mother's upcoming overnight journey to set diamonds in a big kimberlite pipe--a complex job--she acted.
    She wrote a note to her mother, explaining that she had gone to visit her father and not to worry. Nymphs tended not to worry much anyway, so it should be all right. She gathered some sleeping pills from the recesses where they slept, put them in her pockets, and lay down. One pill was normally good for several hours before it woke, and she had several; they should keep her in their joint sleep all night.
    But as the power of the pills took their magic effect on her body, drawing her into their slumber, Tandy had an alarming thought: suppose no nightmares came tonight?
    Suppose Fiant came instead--and she was locked in slumber, unable to resist him? That thought disturbed her so much that the first nightmare rushed to attend to her the moment she slept.
    Tandy saw the creature clearly in her dream: a midnight-colored equine with faintly glowing eyes--there was the demon stigma!--set amidst a flaring forelock. The mane was glossy black, and the tail dark ebony; even the hooves were dusky. Yet she was a handsome animal, with fine features and good musculature. The black ears perked forward, the black nostrils flared, and the dark neck arched splendidly. Tandy knew this was an excellent representative of the species.
    "I'm asleep," she reminded herself. "This is a dream." Indeed it was. A bad dream, full of deep undertow currents and grotesque surgings