"Anthony, Piers - Xanth 06 - Night Mare" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

There was a certain joy in solidity. Now the sunbeams
were bathing the whole side of her body, warming it. The
heat felt strangely good. She was more alive than ever.
There was something about being all-the-way solid that was
exhilarating. Who would have believed it!

She walked, then trotted, then pranced. She leaped high
in the air and felt the spring of her legs as they absorbed
her shock of landing. She leaped again, even higher-

Something cracked her down in mid-prance: She
dropped to the ground, bright white stars and planets orbit-
ing her dazed head. Those stellar objects had certainly
found her quicklyl What had happened?

As her equilibrium returned, accompanied by a bruise on
her head, Imbri saw that nothing had struck her. Instead,
she had struck something. She had launched into a pome-
granate tree, cracking headfirst into its pome-trunk, jarring
loose several granate fruits. She was lucky none of those
rocks had hit her on the way downl

Now she understood on a more basic level the liabilities
of being substantial all the time. She had not watched
where she was going, because she usually phased through
objects automatically. As a day mare, she could not do
that. When solid met solid, there was a brutal thump!

She walked more sedately after that, careful not to bang
into any more trees. There was nothing like a good clout on
the noggin to instill cautioni Though muted, her joy re-
mained; it merely found less physical ways to express itself,
deepening and spreading, suffusing her body.

But it was time to go about her business. Imbri ori-
ented-

And discovered she had forgotten what her business was.

That knock on the head must have done it. She knew
she was a night mare turned day mare, and that she had to
go see someone, and deliver a message-but who that per-
son might be, and what the message was, she could not
recollect.

She was lost-not in terms of the geography of Xanth,
which she knew well, but in terms of herself. She did not

know where to go or what to do-though she knew it was