by A Corrin
The truth was, I wanted more answers. I hadn’t even been told yet exactly why I was considered a prince, despite all of the times I’d asked on the way here. I got knocked out by a frying pan, and the next thing I knew, I’d washed up on the shores of a place fraught with danger. Then Peter appeared, took me in, taught me how to fly, and I was expected to obliterate the massing Rankers? That was like giving a three-year-old kid a calculator and telling them to sit down and do trigonometry. Peter had asked for a story suggestion, and I gave him one. It was his turn to give back.
Chapter Fifteen:
Peter’s Secrets
I blinked at Peter expectantly, pasting a polite smile on my face to hide my desperation for answers, my thirst for the truth. Mariah and Kayle continued to stare at us uncertainly but I managed to ignore them. Peter gave me a sad sort of smile in return, then fixed his stare back on the ceiling and began to speak. I sat in the space between both beds, made myself comfortable, and listened.
“It was one day, some time ago, maybe about four or five months…a year and a half…three years…that I arrived here in the Land of Dreams. I had been sleeping one night, and I had a vision—I thought then that it had been a dream—of what looked like a grand pure-white eagle but with the hind body of a lion, watching me from atop a rock sticking out of the ground. His eyes were a penetrating shade of yellow, and when he spread his wings, I saw all my hopes and longings flash in them like they were television screens or something. But when I blinked, they were feathered and white. The next time I blinked, it was all gone. Everything was black, and just as had happened during recent nights, I was tormented with nightmares of men shrouded in black cloaks and hoods.”
“Rankers,” I said.
Peter nodded. “More and more, I had the vision about the lion-bird until it even pushed away my nightmares. One day, I had a dream that I was in a thick forest full of pines and firs, and this time I couldn’t wake up. I discovered the hard way that I had changed into the same creature as the white lion-bird, and it confused and startled me. I wandered in the shadows and silence for what felt like an eternity, lost and scared.”
Just like me, I thought.
“And just when I had given up hope of returning home, something bright caught the sun streaming through the trees. I spun around real quick and was shocked to find myself no longer alone.
“It was another creature just like me. He was thin—wiry, you could say—and built like a cheetah. He had a tuft of feathers that swept back on his head and sharp, falcon-like wings. He was the color of flame, a bright scarlet, and had a relieved look on his face. Sitting all calm-like on his back was a little weasel-type fellow.” Peter glanced my way, and I saw his cheek twitch as if to smirk. “A charlatan.”
“Did he beat you with a frying pan?” I had to ask.
“No.”
“Coffee mug?”
“Uh, no. He seemed pleased to meet me.”
“Hmmm.” I settled down again as Peter resumed his tale.
“These new arrivals took me in and explained everything they could: who they were, how I had gotten there, where I was, and why I was there. The charlatan, whose name was too complicated to remember except for the first five letters, R-E-X-U-S, Rexus, told me that I was expected by Michael, the ‘White Griffin,’ a sort of guardian of the land. I was to be briefed on my mission to find someone: a young man who would save our lives, though at the time, we didn’t know that that meant finding the new king.”
I looked down at my legs uncomfortably.
“At first, I didn’t want to go. I wanted to return to my own world, but there was no way I could until my job was done.”
Again, I felt a strange and unexpected stirring of empathy for Peter. I couldn’t imagine what it had been like for him to appear in the dreamworld all alone, just wandering around until someone found him. The stench of the bog leaking through the window, the unsettling sound of the floorboards—or something beneath the floorboards—clicking and creaking, faded away as I became more immersed in the story.
“The scarlet griffin worked closely with the White Griffin. Josiah was his name—your school counselor, Jon.”
I shook my head with a small smile, mystified that my counselor, who played games on his phone during our meetings, could’ve kept such a secret from me. How many other people had I met in my life that were cognizant of the power of the dreamworld?
“He explained that, soon, I would be able to transform into my human form as well as the one I was already in, and showed me himself how easy the transition would become. I asked why the charlatan could not shift, and Josiah said it was because he was not of our world. He had been created from the mind of some sleeping dreamer and was a native of the land.
“So we traveled, through thick and thin, danger and calm. And as we went, Rexus and Josiah filled me in on the war with the Rankers, who and what they were, and the effect they were having on our world. Josiah told me to write three books as we journeyed. He told me that the books would help the mysterious hero be prepared for what lay ahead.” Peter looked significantly at me, and I thought of the thick books that had appeared mysteriously in my room. Peter had made those just for me? I felt a gentle stirring of gratitude and offered him a wan smile that he readily returned as he continued speaking.
“For a time, our job was to constantly check on allied towns, supplying them with what provisions they needed to support themselves and rebuild after Ranker skirmishes, evaluating what fortresses we had across the land. It was at one of these fortresses that I met King Brody for the first time...” Peter’s mouth stretched into a solemn line. His face betrayed such anguish that I found myself mimicking the expression in sympathy.
“He was older than you, Jonathan, by about five years. Strapping kid, healthy, real quiet. But, boy howdy, he had a way with words! Josiah and I joined his company for a few months while he went about inspiring loyalists with speeches both grand and honest. He was easy to talk to. We got along really well.
“One day during a routine patrol flight, Josiah and I were joined by two others. Kayle and Mariah, back from reconnaissance, who said they had arrived in the land shortly after me. We got to talkin’, them and I, and Kayle told me more about Brody.
“Brody had been a brave, hard-working youth that was a few weeks into college in our world. He was hit by a speeding truck when he was on his way home from work. Nearly half the bones in his body were broken on impact, and he had to be life-flighted out of there to the nearest hospital. For days, he was in a deep, impenetrable slumber, hooked up to machines that were basically living for him. Then, he dreamed, and the White Griffin found him.
“Just as Josiah helped me, the White Griffin helped him get used to his new gifts and told him that he was to be the next king. For years, Brody led battles against the Rankers, concocted plans of defense, and, despite the fact that his physical body was comatose, he even stopped attacks in reality by warning important world leaders of Ranker-caused potential disasters through dreams.”
“We can do that?” I interrupted, absently shooing a mouse-sized beetle away from my knee with a few lazy sweeps of one hand.
“He could,” Peter replied gravely, and I settled in to listen further, in awe of my predecessor.
“Everyone thought that he was the one who would fulfill an ancient prophecy carved thousands of years ago into the foundation stones of the capital itself—we all thought he was the fabled Destroyer of Shadows, destined to cleanse the dreamworld of mounting evil. But one day, when I was out writing in my journals, I received word that the king was dying. I went to him as fast as I could, and got to his side just in time to exchange a few words and say goodbye. His ravaged body lost its fight with death.” Peter bowed his head, his eyes anguished and tired. “And our hopes, our desperation that the prophecy was anything more than just ancient, silly scribblings, died with him.”
What a loss. Th
e king had lost his life; Peter, Kayle, and Mariah had lost a friend; and the kingdom had lost what sounded like a great guy and a much more capable ruler than the one they were about to be punked with.
“How did he die in reality?” I asked.
“It’s a difficult concept to explain, but I will try to tell you as I told Peter,” Kayle said, leaning forward to see me better. “If someone on earth is deathly injured, as the king was, as they lay unconscious, recovering, they dream and, of course, arrive here while their bodies try to heal. But sometimes the wounds are too extensive to heal and take a bad toll on the body, sapping its strength. So while his brain began shutting down, the Rankers closed in, killing his imagination, breaking into his dreams. In a last valiant fight, the Rankers slaughtered the king and his guards at the same time that his mortal body died. What affects you in reality affects you here. Does that make sense?”
My mouth was hanging open. I shut it abruptly and then said falteringly, “I think so…”
“Think of it this way,” offered Mariah, gesturing as she spoke. “If you were having a nightmare in reality and, as you tossed and turned in your sleep, you bonked your head against the wall, then your brain would have kick-started, thinking it was being physically attacked, and in your dream the Ranker tormenting you would have struck out at you—possibly at your head—at the same time you bumped it in reality.”
I jumped to my feet. “Well, my body is currently lying abandoned in a house! How do I know that wild animals aren’t eating me as we speak?”
Peter brushed one of the huge, creepy cockroaches onto the floor where it scuttled into the shadows beneath his bed and said slyly, “You’re being guarded, don’t worry.”
I settled down a margin, secretly hoping that my guardian wasn’t that pan-handling charlatan. If it came down to wild animals catching a whiff of me lying unconscious like a free buffet all for them, I wouldn’t trust him not to take the first bite.
“After many days and nights,” Peter continued, “we all arrived in the capital city with Brody’s body, and I beheld wondrous sights that no human has ever seen before. There is beauty everywhere there; trees and all other manner of flora cover the buildings. A magnificent palace, your palace, rises up into the sky, almost past the mountains surrounding it. When we arrived, all the people and animals crowding the streets and steps, enjoying the warm sun and fresh air of the day, stopped to stare as we passed. They saw the king’s body and started weeping and howling with grief. I didn’t know what to do.
“I had discovered by now how to transform at will and was in my human form as you see it now. I was trying not to weep, myself, scouring the faces and bodies for the White Griffin I was supposed to meet here.
“We came to the palace and passed under an archway into a courtyard. People in black clothes of mourning stood in the shadows there, their faces sticking out from between the columns, silent and sad. We followed the path that leads up to the castle doors. Two rows of men in blue suits stood by the steps, facing each other at attention across the path, waiting. The king’s body was taken inside.
“Sitting above everything on top of the corridor’s roof was the White Griffin, the ancient, ethereal advisor of past griffin rulers. He slowly turned his massive head in my direction and then his eyes. Josiah and I shifted and flew up to join him, bowing respectfully.
“He told me that he was pleased to meet me, and introduced himself. I had just enough time to share my name before the palace doors below creaked outward. The whole city was quiet. The row of soldiers facing one another unsheathed their swords and crossed them forward, forming a tunnel of blades. A procession of black-clad men stepped out, balancing a coffin on their shoulders.”
I took in a sharp breath.
“It was a beautiful work of craftsmanship, perfect for a king like Brody had been. When the bearers passed into the city, we followed. Rexus climbed onto Josiah’s back, and we three griffins took to the air to guard and honor the procession. It was a touching ceremony...” Peter quieted.
“What’d you do after the funeral?” I asked.
“I started a collage of the rulers that had governed this land in previous years and added it in one of the books,” he said solemnly, then smiled and concluded. “After that, I spruced them up, sent them to your house, and we left to get you. Here we are.”
We sat in silence. Once more, miraculous thoughts filled my head, dizzying me. It didn’t seem like Peter knew much about the White Griffin. It was a bit confusing, the whole dream-reality thing, and I wondered how my body was doing and what it would be like when I woke up to it again. The nights got cold in Colorado, especially in winter. I didn’t want to come to and find that I had frostbite.
“And don’t worry about time here,” Kayle said. “If there’s something important going on in the dreamworld, time will slow down. But if something important is happening in reality, time will speed up. It’s one of the land’s paradoxes.”
“Huh?” I asked.
Mariah came to my rescue again and said, “If you’re stuck in a battle, for example, time in the dreamworld will become condensed so you can finish the battle before you wake up. It might feel like you’ve been in the Land of Dreams for a week, but in reality, it’s only been eight hours.”
“And under normal circumstances, when you aren’t comatose, if something pressing is calling you to reality, it may feel like you’ve been in the dreamworld for only a few hours, but you’ve actually been asleep for eight. A paradox.” Kayle yawned massively. I saw that he was missing a couple teeth toward the back of his mouth. Not enough to be ugly, but he must’ve been in one heck of a fight. I watched as he moseyed over to a candle and started teasing the flame with his careful fingers. Of course, I’d hate to see the other guy.
Thinking about Kayle getting in fights made me wonder about his and Mariah’s past lives again. Last time I had brought up that subject, Mariah had given me the cold shoulder. And I was too exhausted to ask anything more at the moment. Traveling and flying had really taken it out of me. And I knew that the others weren’t feeling their best.
As if reading my mind, Peter sat up and said, “Let’s hit the sack, kids. Our stay here might be long and certainly unpleasant. But first, let us eat.”
Oh, yeah! Food! Just thinking about it made my stomach begin to growl in preparation. Mariah couldn’t grow food any ol’ time we were attacked with the munchies because it used up energy she wanted to conserve, so any meal was much appreciated.
Reaching into his pack, Peter extracted a small loaf of bread. It didn’t look like the kind you’d find in a store, cut up into even slices and stuffed into a plastic bag. It more resembled something you’d find in a medieval bakery. It was deep brown, thick, and shaped like an oval.
Pulling a mini cutting tray out of the pack, and a knife from a pocket, Peter set down the bread and began slicing four thin pieces off the end. The sound of the crust crackling and the knife blade sawing back and forth in a poetic rhythm into the bread’s soft center made my salivary glands perk up and start working overtime. I was afraid to look away, afraid the wondrous food would disappear.
Eventually, when Peter had wrapped the rest of the loaf in a green cloth and put it, the knife, and the tray back, he turned to face us with the slices in his hands and a grave expression.
“This bread will put us in a deep sleep, which will ward off nightmares—very important.” He looked up at me as he passed Kayle a piece of the bread. “When you’re stuck here like us, in comas, you’re blessed and cursed with dreams within dreams. These dreams can go deep into memory—reveal parts of your subconscious that are strange and surreal. Or they can transform into beautiful landscapes reaching up from the ancient foundations of the dreamworld.” He gave Mariah her piece, still gazing intently at me. “The nightmares, however, can destroy you, especially in a place like this, where evil breeds. I dearly hope you won’t have to find o
ut how. Eat it all, and sleep well.”
I accepted my food gratefully and scarfed it down, trying to cling on to a measure of manners, but instead leaving tiny crumbs all over my sweatpants and almost gnawing off my own fingers.
Peter was already asleep. Mariah sleepily wished Kayle and I good night and gave her bed a once-over for critters before crawling beneath the covers. Kayle went around the room blowing out the candles. He flicked on his lighter long enough to situate himself in a cozy area on the floor, using his folded-up sweatshirt as a pillow. Then he turned it off and bathed the room fully in darkness.
I frowned grumpily and felt my way to an area that seemed less dusty than the rest, joining the others in a silent slumber.
One second I was sound asleep, the next wide awake…and eye to eye with a cockroach.
I cried out and clambered away, stubbing my fingers against the wall and falling over myself numerous times until I got to my feet. The large bug had been startled and scurried off into a hole in the corner wall.
Faint light filtered in through the stained-glass window, turning the room a dark bluish gray. I calmed myself down enough to realize that I didn’t feel any bites from the roach’s gnarly mandibles. It must’ve been looking for somewhere warm to camp out, attracted to my body heat. I shuddered involuntarily and focused on the more important matter. What had awakened me? Surely not the insect.
I tilted my head to one side, waiting for a sound. One came in the form of a slow clawing from the direction of the door.
I jumped, heart racing and sweat springing from my forehead. The quiet clawing came again, this time punctuated with a plaintive keen. I was frozen in place, my eyes struggling to take in as much light as possible to glean clues as to who was outside the room. Or what.
