Waking in Dreamland (52 page)

“Did they go down?” Leonora shrieked.

“No, they went through!” Roan shouted.

“Through!” yelled Misha. “Impossible!”

“Not for the gestalt!” Glinn shouted at him. “It still has power!”

“We need to go faster!” Bergold yelled. “We must fly if we are to catch them!”

Fly? Roan wondered. Could they? They hadn’t been able to achieve flight before. But this close to the Sleepers, even the smallest thought should be enough to precipitate change. Keep thinking of the job at hand, Roan thought. Concentrate. All things depend upon this. He pulled back on Cruiser’s reins, pulling the water horse’s head higher and higher. Cruiser lifted up. He grew wings, finned feet became hoofed and with a mighty leap, he was airborne!

“Follow me!” Roan shouted.

Roan heard cries behind him as the others pulled their steeds up and into the air. He heard Leonora scream. Roan turned, worried that she was frightened, but her face was filled with wild delight. Bergold added his whoop of joy as his beast spread pink wings beside Schwinn’s gold. They were airborne. Spar and the other guards flew by in bubble-shaped craft with a big gold star on each side, a spinning propeller on the top, and a flashing blue light on the tail.

It was a glorious feeling to fly again. The exhilarating wind whipped his cheeks and hair. If only it hadn’t been such an urgent errand, Roan would have enjoyed the experience more. The sky here seemed more blue, and the clouds whiter and higher than anywhere else he’d ever been.

The face of the cataract was just ahead, a pillar of sapphire stretching upward to the very edge of the sky. The spray soaked them all, and the wind caused the flying horses to dip and flutter their great wings. No one in recorded history had ever passed into the great cataract and lived to bring the story home to the Historians. But Brom had gone in. Roan must repeat the feat he had just witnessed, and bring them all safely through or all existence was forfeit. Would the force of the water dash them down into the pool? Could their mission end in watery failure? It must not, Roan thought. They had to catch Brom. If the scientists could pass through, so could they. Onward!

“Have no fear,” Roan shouted, steeling himself. “Believe you can do it, and we will!” He aimed Cruiser straight at the moving wall of water. Pumping his great wings, Cruiser shrilled a war cry. Roan bent over his neck and held tight to the steed’s feathery mane, willing the cataract to open, willing them through.

He was so full of determined force that the thundering flood felt no stronger than a shower on his back as he passed under the curtain, and into a giant cavern. He was alive. He pinched his arm just to make sure. He steered Cruiser toward a shelf of stone. The pegasus spread his wings and soared lightly in a descending spiral.

“Please don’t let me crash this time,” he prayed the Sleepers. “Too much is at stake. No falling dreams! Not here!”

The Sleepers must have heard his plea. The winged horse touched down onto solid footing, trotted a few paces, and shook himself dry. Roan swung off Cruiser’s back and looked around him, filled with wonder.

What a place this was! He had never seen such a huge cave. It felt older than time itself. The waterfall seemed to be both above and below this place, but the sound was oddly muffled. The river also ran underneath the floor of the cavern. The second flow joined the first behind the curtain of the falls, as if adding a secret ingredient that the cook didn’t want anyone else to see. Lit by the azure light that filtered through the waterfall, the cavern’s walls and floor were a rich, amber-colored stone. Glittering chunks of bright gemstone glowing from within were inlaid in patterns too complex for simple human minds to comprehend. At the back of the cavern, on the peak of a smooth stone ramp, stood the arch of a vast doorway through which came the softest light Roan had ever seen. There was no sign of the scientists or the Alarm Clock. They had to have gone through the door already. Doom could come at any moment. He started running toward the threshold. The others would follow.

“Hyahhhh!” came a wild cry. A body landed on him from behind, driving him down to his knees.

The bigger of Brom’s two mercenaries dragged Roan up, and the smaller aimed a fist for his stomach. Quickly, Roan drew on his influence to wiggle free. He tried to drop down into the stone shelf, his old trick, but it resisted him. The material of the Sleepers’ own home threw off ordinary influence. Instead, he made himself too slippery to hold. The big man grabbed for him as he squeezed free. Roan ducked, and came up directly into the way of the small man’s punch. The blow stung, but squirted off, doing little damage. Roan hit back, dodging blows as best he could. The mercenary struck doggedly, driving him back against the wall of the cave, where the other thug was waiting. Roan glanced at the high doorway, and his heart pounded. Brom must be nearly ready to set off his device. He must get free!

A stuttering splash and a cry made them all look up. Bergold had won through the cascade. His winged steed lost altitude for a moment, its waterlogged wings and the battering of the water pounding it down. In a heartbeat, it recovered, flying toward the ledge. Bergold’s eyes were wide with alarm. He was followed swiftly by the others, popping through the translucent wall one at a time.

“Help,” Roan shouted to them. Seven combatants against two, they should be able to take care of their foes in no time.

Leonora and Colenna remained on their steeds fluttering in the air above the stone shelf. Misha, Bergold, Glinn, and the guards’ air choppers arrowed in towards Roan. But as soon as his friends touched down, two more mercenaries popped up and rushed toward them. Those two split into more and more, until Roan lost count of the throng. The two holding him started hitting him again, heading him off each time he tried to change direction. Roan realized they were trying to push him toward the edge of the shelf. If he fell into the falls, he would be sucked under. He couldn’t save himself from drowning in that current. He had to use his wits. With a snap of his wrist, he opened the staff attachment of his pocket knife, and went on guard.

Captain Spar climbed out of his helicopter, and took immediate assessment of the situation.

“Don’t you worry, sir!” he shouted. “His Majesty’s royal guards are prepared for any eventuality! You, Lum, over there! You, Alette, that way! You, Hutchings, up the middle. The rest of you,” he cried, swinging his arm forward over his head, “follow me!”

And dozens of Spars clambered down the helicopter steps after the original. The other three guards multiplied until they, too, were legion. With a cry of “The Dreamland!” the army of guards joined battle.

Roan ducked under the arm of the larger ruffian attacking him, and jabbed the smaller one in the kidneys with the end of his staff. The latter fell flat, but the originals were joined by plenty of reinforcements, all roaring obscene war cries. Roan threw himself back against the wall, striking and striking with the staff. Its length was slowly whittled away by the endless blows of swords and clubs. Every time he knocked down one foe, another took his place. The enemy never seemed to grow any fewer.

Suddenly, dozens of Hutchingses, side by side with as many Alettes, broke through the line of identical ruffians. Three Lums formed a defensive barrier, and pulled Roan to a stone ramp where they were defending Bergold and the women.

Down below, Roan watched a hundred Spars form a flanking maneuver against a sea of mercenaries, who began to recede. A host of Alettes in formation marched Glinn up to join them. Then, Misha tumbled through the crowd to land at their feet, his long limbs splaying like a spider’s.

Behind him, one of the smaller mercenaries broke through the cordon, sword out, lunging for Roan’s heart. Roan fumbled with his folding knife. There wasn’t room in such tight quarters to open out his quarterstaff. Instead, he leaped back, and the enemy charged again. Bergold flipped open the map, dropped it on the mercenary’s head, then bonked him on the head with his condensed archive. The villain swayed on his feet and dropped to the floor, unconscious.

“There,” Bergold said, shaking the map. “It’s the most good it’s done all this journey.” Miraculously, he was able to fold it up and put it away in his knapsack. “Wonderful! That’s the last time I’ll use
that
until I see Romney.”

All of the Spars lifted up their heads and shouted at Roan. “Get, get going, going, lad, lad. This is your, your chance!” Without waiting for a reply, they waded back into battle.

“How do you suppose they multiplied like that?” Roan asked, as he, Leonora, Bergold, Misha, and Glinn ran up the ramp toward the inner chamber.

“I seem to remember a slip of poetry from the Waking World,” Bergold said. “ ‘My strength is as the strength of ten . . .’ I can’t remember the rest. It seems to have hit a multiple chord with the Sleepers.”

Chapter 35

They stopped upon the huge stone threshold, and paused, staring into the chamber beyond. The first thing that struck Roan was the silence. They could no longer hear the fighting or the waterfall behind them. On the far side of the portal, all was quiet. It felt as though it had been silent since the beginning of time.

The inner room was far larger than its antechamber. The Hall of the Seven Sleepers looked as Roan had always imagined it would, with a vast, vaulted stone ceiling supported by jeweled bosses. The lighting, coming from hooded sconces along the walls, was muted, so that it did not disturb those who reposed there. This was a place of rest.

The Sleepers themselves were giants. Each of the Seven lay on his or her high platform-like bed, surrounded by dressers and tables laden with precious things like photographs and stuffed animals and piles of books. Roan looked at them in awe. These were the Creators who had made his world. He removed his hat and shaped it and his suit into their most formal state. The others were as awestruck as he.

“It’s the Waking World,” Misha said, in a hushed voice. “If we step forward into it, we’ll cease to exist!”

“No. This room does not exist in any real, physical sense,” Bergold said, in the quietest of whispers. “It’s an echo of the Sleepers as they are in the far corners of the Waking World, gathered here on the edge of the Dreamland.” His mouth curled up in a wry smile. “You might say it’s the end of the world as we know it, and the beginning of theirs. We exist only in their postulata, but here we may interface. From here, this place, all things flow, and to here the answers to their questions return.”

“Why isn’t it better defended?” Misha asked. “There’s no door.”

“That waterfall is guardian enough,” Bergold said. “I don’t know how we got through it in one piece ourselves.”

“But someone must have tried before!”

“Would you dare the Sleepers?” Roan asked.

“We’re only here because we’re fated to be,” Colenna said with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh,” Leonora whispered, gazing at the vaulted ceiling and the distant walls. “It’s huge!”

Her voice died away into a susurrus that seemed to travel throughout the vast room, causing a disturbance. The Sleepers muttered and twitched in their sleep. One of the giants, a man with gleaming golden hair, muttered to himself and kicked at his pale blue silk coverlets with a foot. Another, a woman with teak-brown skin and a snub nose, breathed out a musical sigh under her intricately woven blankets. Another Sleeper turned over on his vast bed so he was facing them. He wore rust-colored pajamas, and his two blankets were red and blue. His eyes were closed, but one of the corners of his mouth turned up in a smile. His dark hair was tousled on his pillow. Roan stared at the face, feeling his own mouth drop open. Suddenly, the odd dreams he’d been having all his life made sense. The Sleeper looked like
him
. He goggled, appealing to the others to reassure him that he was seeing what he was seeing. They were all staring at the Sleeper. Blindly, Leonora put out a hand to make certain he was still standing beside her. She looked from him to the giant and back again. Her lips were parted in amazement.

“So you are dreaming one of the provinces of the Dreamland,” Bergold said, in a thoughtful whisper. “I wonder which one.” “It isn’t me,” Roan said, his voice rising. The Sleepers stirred at the sound. The noise died away in the heavy air.

“Shh!” Bergold whispered, clapping his hand over his friend’s mouth. “It
is
.”

“We’ll argue that later,” Glinn hissed. “We must deal with Brom! There they are!”

Dwarfed by the huge beds, the scientists were in the center of the floor, setting up the Alarm Clock, which looked like a toy compared with the huge Sleepers. A plump figure, Brom himself, stood a little apart from the others, supervising the construction. In his hand he held a brass key as long as his arm. The apprentices were working silently, making adjustments to the device with padded tools. Their shoes were covered in cloth bags to prevent accidental noises. The precaution seemed ironic, when Roan considered that in a few moments the chief scientist intended to set off the din to end the world. A few of the others were setting up monitoring devices, standing by with pads of paper, and big movie cameras complete with hooded lenses and side cranks, preparing to record the event.

The Alarm Clock, unveiled, looked thoroughly menacing. The perverted sun at the top of its glass-covered dial gleamed with an evil light. Roan was even more terrified now of having the Sleepers awakened. If he vanished in this world, would he—or rather, his dreamer—die in the other? He didn’t want to give up his life here. He wanted to go home and marry his true love.

Better not wait any longer. They did not know how long it would take until Brom was ready to proceed. The scientists could not retreat from here, or risk giving up their experiment. Roan’s most pressing and immediate goal was to disable the Alarm Clock before it could go off. Roan gestured to the others to spread out, and they began to move in.

Taboret worked with deep concentration on her task. Her long-standing final order was to oil the gears of the clock so they would run smoothly and silently. Brom told them he would give no verbal orders once they breached the hall. But they all knew what to do.