Grundy nodded appreciatively. "You have a diseased mind."

"Thank you. Now we must rehearse our parts, so that when the Night Stallion gets his act together, we are ready to animate the dream. I will take the female parts, and you the male parts. Remember, don't overact; what we want is verisimilitude."

"What?"

"Plausibility. I thought you knew all words in all languages."

"I do. I wasn't sure you did."

Again she refrained from flicking him. All centaurs had competent vocabulary, as he knew. "Perhaps you confused me with a certain demoness who has trouble getting her words straight."

"No, you're not as pretty as D. Metria."

What an effort to keep her tail still! "And not half as mischievous, either," she agreed. "Now remember: this will be a narrated play, in essence. The stallion will provide the actors, but we must speak their parts because there is no time for rehearsal and we don't want to have to do it more than once. Some dreams are like that, so there is precedent. We can ad-lib, but we have to stay with the general story line. Can you play it straight, for once?"

"Look, Chex, I can do it if I want to!" he said, annoyed. "I know you have to do this to get to Cheiron and save your foal. I may have an offspring of my own some day!"

"Yes, of course," she agreed quickly. "I apologize, Grundy."

"Thank you." He seemed surprised; evidently he did not receive many apologies. "Now let's see just how good a dream we can do." And they worked on the details, waiting for the stallion's return.

In due course the stallion arrived, and with him a troupe of denizens of the gourd bearing assorted props. Soon the region was littered with painted scenes of pleasant glades and beaches, and little containers of dream fragments. A larger pavilion was erected, shrouded by cheesecloth, so that Fracto would not be able to see what was being done here.

"Just how is a dream recorded or animated?" Chex asked.

"We have camcorders," the stallion explained, showing a creature with a lenslike snoot. "They note all details of a scene, and the mares take the finished dreams to their recipients. When you are ready to record a scene, just say 'take one' and when you want to end it, say 'cut.' They will do it."

Chex wasn't sure about this, but had to assume that the stallion knew his business. "First we want some nice background scenes of a lovely castle and mountain with flowers. Can this be done so that it looks alive? I mean, not like a picture?"

"Certainly. How's this?" The stallion wiggled an ear, and a mare stepped forward.