Dream a Little Dream by Piers Anthony

for them to pass through it. Before they exited the chamber he said, “I will make the arrangements tonight, but it will take some time. After dinner, you must travel on with this woman.” He gestured to Nola. “Get to the Source and destroy the dam. Our world and hers depends on it.”
    “The palace thanks you for your help, Daree’,” said Mich. He bowed and left the old man to his reading.
    Mich and Nola stayed almost until nightfall. They were served a feast of piglets and luberry cake. Nola wasn’t fond of the idea of eating piglets, but she tried them and decided the taste wasn’t too bad. She just had to imagine them in some other way, lest she toss her “cookies” and humiliate herself.
    After dinner, Greyden suggested they get going before moonrise. The Fren were diurnal creatures, so it would be safest that they travel by night. At this hour, the Fren would be resting and it would not be likely that they would run into them.
    Snort, Heat, and Spirit were waiting anxiously for them just south of the town, right where expected. Once together again, Mich looked at the map and instructions that Madrid left him. They must continue southward along the river. It would lead them past the newly established Fren Cliffs and into the most dangerous place in Kafka, the Forget Mists, where they were to meet someone who could help.
    The group traveled most of the night unmolested along the river. They reached the Fren Cliffs a few hours before dawn.
    What a forbidding and ominous place it was! Mich and Nola werevery nervous as they walked below the towering cliffs. They seemed to rise forever through the early morning mists. Their faces were covered with small dark caves. The area smelled awful. They walked close to the cliff walls and finally made it through to the meadow beyond.
    Nola stopped and breathed, it seemed, for the first time. “Couldn’t we just have flown over this region?” she inquired plaintively. “Or around it?”
    “No. The cliffs rise forever and it is impossible to go around without being captured by guards.”
    Spirit suggested that they mount and ride from here to the sea and the Forget Mists.
    “What a disgusting place!” Nola said, mounting Spirit.
    Yes, it is, Spirit agreed.
    “Who would have dreamed up a place like that?” she asked.
    I don’t think it is a dream, Spirit thought. No one really knows who the Fren are, but I think that they are the leftovers of good dreams that were not forgotten, but destroyed. I felt nothing there but hate and regret.
    “Destroyed by whom?”
    Probably just someone who doesn't care about whose dreams he has to step on to push his reality on others.
    At that moment, Snort growled menacingly and blew some steam through his nostrils.
    “What’s wrong?” Mich asked.
    Heat translated for him, He said he smells something.
    “Is it a Wood Troll?”
    No, it smells sweet and delicious.
    Mich wondered if it was some kind of food. “Well? What is it, Snort?”
    A nymph. More specifically, a Foliar Nymph.
    Now Mich knew exactly what Snort had smelled. No wonder itexcited him so much. “It’s just a foliar nymph,” he relayed to the others.
    “Oops!” Nola said.
    Mich turned and looked at her. “Don’t tell me!” He put his hand over his brow and shook his head. “You created the plant nymphs as well?”
    Nola shrugged. She wondered how closely it would resemble her dream nymphs. In her dreams, they’d appear occasionally when she was lost. They helped her to find her way, though they were often unreliable and flighty. The strangest thing was that they spoke as if they knew everything about everything.
    Spirit scuffed his hoof through the grass as a form appeared out of the dim morning light. It was a small woman, about four feet tall. There was no doubt she was a woman, for she was very well endowed. Her slender torso was scantily covered in blue flower petals. Her green hair grew down to her ankles and matched her pale green skin. Her tiny feet