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she say no?
But how could she sing before these horrible creatures? It had been hard enough to sing to Che alone!
"Come on, come on, make up your stupid mind," Grotesk snapped. The circle of goblins standing
around them grinned, enjoying this.
She knew she had to do it. She had to give the centaur foal what little comfort she could. There would be
no other chance. At least they would have this memory of their friendship, before the hate came.
She moved to Che and took his head in her hands. She wanted this to be just for him, because she just
couldn't sing it for the goblins. She pretended that there was no one else here except the two of them.
She put her mouth to his ear, closed her eyes, and hummed. In a moment she was able to hum louder.
Her fancy began to form, a picture in her mind of the lovely castle on the mountain and the flowers at
the base and the Princess picking the flowers and singing to them.
There was a goblin voice somewhere, calling something. "Well, haul some more wood in from the
forest, then!" Grotesk said. "We need to keep the kettle hot, in case they don't eat."
Jenny sang louder, to squeeze out those awful words. The fancy firmed, and now the dragon was in it
too, in his real form, but not being ferocious. She knew that Che had joined her picture, and that he was
the dragon, hoping to carry her away to safety, if only he could fly.
There was a nasty cloud nearby, but even it didn't seem to want to make a storm. It was just watching,
and perhaps would float away and rain somewhere else.
"Hey, Chief!" a goblin called. "Aren't we going to make them race?"
The cloud jumped. Then there was a heavy hand on Jenny's shoulder that jolted her into silence. The
fancy faded away.
"What are you trying to do, you elven vixen?" the chief demanded. He seemed shaken. "Elves don't have
that kind of magic!"
"Magic!" Che exclaimed. "That's it!"
"Now for the race!" the other goblin said.
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"Naw, not right now," Grotesk said. "There's something funny about her. She's got magic. Look at those
ears!"
The goblins clustered closer. Evidently they hadn't noticed Jenny's ears before. She had never thought
her ears would save her from hate and death!
They were hustled back into the hut. As the door slammed, shutting them in, Jenny turned to Che. "You
know I don't have any magic!" she said. "I don't even know what it is, really. Where I live, only the High
Ones have anything like that."
"I think you do," Che said. "When you sang, I was in your dream about the Princess and the dragon,
with Castle Roogna, only it was perched on top of a funny mountain instead of in the jungle where it
really is. Then Grotesk was in it too, as the dark cloud. You have dream magic!"
"No I don't!" she protested. "I wasn't asleep, and neither were you, and certainly the goblin chief wasn't.
I was just imagining it." But she realized that it couldn't be as simple as that. How could they share her
daydream? She had never told either of them what was in it, and her song had not done it either; it had
been just made-up words. Yet she had known when Che was there, and when Grotesk was-and they had
known also.
"Night mares bring bad dreams to sleeping folk," Che said. "Mare Imbri and other day mares bring good
dreams to waking folk. Maybe you have day mare magic."
"I never heard of this!"
"Well, you haven't been in Xanth long."
He had a point. "These day dreams-do several folk share them?"
He frowned. "I don't think so. Also, the mares don't sing. But it must be something like that, because
Grotesk felt it, and now he's not sure he wants to cook us until he figures it out. Perhaps he likes to
exploit any captives fully before he eats them."
"But it didn't last," she said. "Otherwise I might have been able to keep singing, and we could just have
walked out of here."
"That is an intriguing notion," he agreed. "Why didn't it last?"
"Grotesk put his brute hand on me."
"But if he was in the vision-and he was, as the black cloud-why did he break it up? That vision is
pleasant. I did not wish to leave it, and I don't think he did."
"I don't know. I heard another goblin call 'Hey, Chief!' and-" She paused, remembering it. "The cloud
jumped! Then he was out of it."
"Because someone disturbed him," Che said, "woke him from the dream, in a manner. That suggests that
if that other goblin hadn't called, Grotesk would not have left it."
"I suppose so. It's too bad the other goblin wasn't in it."
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"Maybe he was out of range of your singing," Che said, becoming excited. "Maybe if you had sung
louder, we could have walked out of the camp!"
Jenny dreaded the thought of singing at all in such company, let alone loudly, but if it was that or their
lives, she had to consider it. "I suppose-I suppose we should find out if that's it. Because otherwise they
may cook us anyway."
"Yes. Sing to me now, and I will see whether I can break out of the vision. If I can, probably the goblins
can. But if I can't-"
"Yes!" She was excited too, for now they had a hope of escaping on their own.
She set herself, then began to hum. She just couldn't start singing cold; her throat balked. It was like
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