Waking in Dreamland

by Jody Lynne Nye

“It says ‘Game Over’!” he said.

  “Good!” Bergold said, pleased. “We’re free.” The sound of clicking continued on, and the senior historian listened with dismay. “Oh, dear. That sounds ominous.” More letters appeared. Roan read “emaG eerF” on the ceiling.

  “Run, everyone,” Bergold shouted. “We’ve triggered a free game!”

  “Oh, no,” Colenna said, hopping onto her steed. “I’m not going through all that again. Which way?”

  Now that Roan’s eyes were accustomed to the dark pit, he could see the shadow of two tunnels that led off the main chamber. He shone his bicycle lamp down them. They looked equally uninviting, but a loud rumbling started to come from the tunnel on the left.

  “Come on,” he said. “I don’t want to find out what that is.”

  He led the party through the tunnel on the right, another perfectly smooth, perfectly round passage, until they came to a slotlike opening in the earth. At the top, Roan heard the sound of falling rain.

  “I knew it was too good to be true,” Spar said, pulling his hat brim down to his eyebrows. “That Arcade thing took us right out of our way, didn’t it? The only question is, did we fall, or were we pushed?”

  “Brom, do you mean?” Colenna asked. Bergold frowned.

  “That would mean a huge amount of power,” he said. “The Arcade is a natural phenomenon. It comes and goes throughout the Dreamland. Could he harness something like that?”

  “I think it’s possible,” Roan said. “Or if he couldn’t before, he can now. It may be that the influence of the crucible is increasing.”

  “That’s terrifying,” Leonora said, her eyes wide and blue. “We have to catch him before they get so powerful we can’t stop them if we tried.”

  “On, then,” Spar said, grimly, leading them out into the rain. “Where to?”

  The only prospect that offered itself was a single-lane track that wound its way up into the hills above the pinball valley. It ended at a road that led back the way they had come. They followed it.

  The first turning they took, on a slight downhill slope, led them to a dead end at a rockfall on a jutting lip of land that overlooked unbroken forest below. Neither Roan nor Lum was satisfied that they going the right way, though there was enough distortion in the countryside to justify the attempt. They dismounted beside a blank cliff-face with a pool pouring out of a small crack at its base. It appeared as if at one time wheeled transport with the right kind of tire patterns had passed by here, but left no clear trace of where it had gone after that. The trail stopped near the cliff as if it had been turned off. There was even half a footprint. Roan tested the gravel beside it with a toe. His mark filled at once with rainwater. Nothing had passed here in the last several hours.

  “Could they have flown from here?” Colenna asked.

  “I doubt it,” Roan said, peering this way and that from under his hatbrim. “If they didn’t fly before, they must have some good reason for continuing to travel on the surface. But where did they go?”

  “The land could have shifted,” Misha said, examining the tracks. “I’ve seen something like this in property settlements, where each partner gets half of everything.”

  “I don’t think Brom negotiated a divorce right here in the middle of Wocabaht in the rain,” Felan said, scornfully.

  “I don’t like it around here,” Leonora said, huddled in her cape. “It feels . . . spooky. There’s something wrong with the land.”

  “That’s the distortion,” Lum said. “It seemed stronger up there, before we turned off.” He pointed up the last rise.

  “Then they stayed on the road,” Felan said impatiently. “We went the wrong way. What about it?”

  Roan was puzzled. “I would swear that we did come the right way,” he said.

  Bergold lifted the edges of his big poncho cape, and unfolded the map. Water slicked off it in sheets as he held it up for them to see.

  “Well, this is the only big road for several miles east or west. They have to take it to continue northward. If we stay on it we can catch them.”

  “My corporal isn’t stupid, as you’re all implying,” Spar said, with an impatient gesture. “They might be here somewhere.” He wiped rain off his face. “Guards! Start looking for clues.”

  “Chief!” Maniune shouted. The yell woke Taboret woke out of a sound sleep. She sat up in alarm. Everyone else had turned to look at the big mercenary, who was standing sentry at the door. “They’re outside! They’ve found us!”

  “Roan? Here?” Brom’s long lab coat fluttered behind him as he hurried over to see. He put an eye to the peephole in the right-hand door. “Tenacious man. They’ve managed to get by the first puzzles we set them.”

  “They’ll try to get in,” Acton said. He drew his sword.

  “Put that thing away,” Brom said, with his face against the door panel. Acton resheathed the sword, but not without an expression of resentment. “They don’t know we’re here. This stronghold looks like a mountain on the outside. It’s pure chance that they’re here.”

  “Yeah, but they’re looking.”

  “We ought to take ’em out,” Maniune said. “Finish them now.”

  Taboret stared at the mercenary, horrified. Finish off the princess? All those innocent people?

  “Nonsense,” Brom said, to her relief. He pulled away from his observations to glare at his henchman. “An inappropriate use of force? How then will we continue with our little game?”

  “Yeah, but look at them,” Acton said, staring through the left-hand peephole.

  “What about them?” Brom said.

  “What if they sniff us out? We ought to, like, dissuade them.”

  “Well, then,” Brom said, with amusement in his voice if not in his face, “let us use subtlety. Why use a Buick when a flyswatter will do?”

  “What’s a Buick?” Acton asked.

  Brom waved the question away impatiently. “We’ll make minor use of the gestalt. That should be adequate to drive them away before they discover our creche. Dowkin, Doolin, you’ll do. Come here.”

  The Countingsheep brothers, in the middle of another one of their private grievance sessions, looked up.

  “Why us?” Doolin asked. “How come we have to do extra work? Why not everyone else?”

  “Because you have sufficient strength to carry out a minor task. Come here! Now!”

  The brothers, looking more like a pair of donkeys than usual, shuffled over to Brom. The two mercenary soldiers moved well out of reach. They were learning respect for the power of the gestalt, as they saw it demonstrated again and again. Taboret had begun to understand the two men better. Where she had been terrified of them as bullies before, in a remote part of her mind—which she guessed belonged to Brom—she knew that they could be mastered by a show of confidence.

  Reluctantly, Dowkin and Doolin offered their joined right fists. Brom covered their hands with his own, and the white cloud appeared overhead. Taboret felt a drawing upon her own energy, and concentrated on giving instead of resenting the interruption to her sleep. She did think hard about making the effort a benign one that wouldn’t hurt the princess or anyone with her, and hoped her will would have an effect on the results.

  The process didn’t take long. Within moments, Brom broke the connection, and sent the brothers back to their cots.

  “There,” he said. “That will give them the equivalent of a psychic hotfoot. We want them to go on their way at once. We have also given them some red herrings to follow, so they will waste energy following a confused path.”

  Maniune was unimpressed. He crossed his arms. “We can still snuff ’em, chief,” he said, hopefully. Acton added a vigorous nod, and put his hand to his sidearm.

  Brom’s eyelids lowered halfway over his glittering eyes. “No need. It’s a game, a contest, and we are winning. They have lost our trail, almost certainly irrevocably. They’re ahead of us now. We can carry on freely to our destination,” Brom said. “Go to sleep. We have much wor
k ahead of us tomorrow. We are making an early start.”

  “Nothing,” Spar said, disgustedly, returning to Roan. The princess and Colenna huddled in the shelter of a small overhang at the edge of the path a dozen yards from the end, sharing a single umbrella. Ivy and other plentiful plant life on the mountainside gave them a windbreak as thick as a bower on the southwest side of the road. “They’ve got clean away.”

  “It’s this rain,” Misha said. “We might be able to find them again when it stops.”

  “We need to find a place to camp for the night,” Roan said. He looked around.

  “Why not here?” Felan asked, sweeping a hand out. “It’s flat. And, look, there are grapevines. I can send a message back to the palace.”

  “The flat part, as you point it out,” Bergold said, very patiently, “is a public thoroughfare, my friend.”

  “It’s a dead end,” Felan said. “No one will come this way.”

  “I’d rather not stay,” Leonora said, clutching the umbrella handle with both hands. “I don’t like the atmosphere. Something feels wrong. The steeds sense it, too.”

  “I don’t like it much myself,” Spar said. Roan nodded, spattering raindrops. “Something evilish happened here, it feels like. I don’t like not being able to see all the way around. Let’s go.”

  “Then we’d better move on,” Bergold said. “I’m wet through, and I’d welcome a chance to rest, but not here.”

  Roan suddenly found that he couldn’t wait to continue. “Agreed,” he said, hopping onto Cruiser. “It’s uphill, but it’s fairly gradual.”

  “But, the grapevines?” Felan asked, pointing back toward the curtain of leafy trailers.

  “Send your message and catch up with us,” Roan said impatiently. “We should be easy to find. There’s only one road. Hutchings, you stay with him.”

  “Yessir,” the guard said, looking miserable.

  The party had no choice but to turn around into the teeth of the rain, and begin pedaling uphill again. The downpour had lessened for a time, but it had resumed in full force. Cruiser’s tires slipped again and again on the gravel path.

  At the first crossroads, Roan turned them toward the right. According to the map they were heading roughly north by northeast. The leaden sky was no help to orienteering, showing neither sun nor compass points among the blue isobars. Both right and left paths seemed to lead further up. It felt as if the upward angle got sharper the moment he started climbing. The next turn offered only more rising slopes.

  “I don’t remember mountains this high on the map,” Bergold said, panting.

  “I think I’m right,” Misha said, after a while. “These hills are moving. We should be hitting downslopes, but we’re always pedaling uphill.”

  “The landscape is playing with us,” Colenna said, stoically. “Press on. That’s all we can do.”

  By this time, Roan didn’t know if he was soaked with rain or sweat. The others were tiring quickly, and the sky grew darker. Leonora held out heroically, but at last she ran out of strength to pedal her golden steed. Roan tied a rope to Schwinn’s frame and helped pull them up a steep stretch of road, until he couldn’t ride any farther, either. Everyone dismounted and walked their weary steeds upward. Above him, Roan caught a glimpse of flat hilltop sheltered by trees with rain-heavy crowns.

  “What about that?” Bergold said, poking him in the ribs from behind.

  “It’ll do,” Roan said. “It had better. I hope it clears up before morning.”

  At the crest of the hill, Roan turned to look back at the ground they had just covered. The countryside looked rather pretty in the rain, like a watercolor painting. The slopes that they had struggled to climb had subsided into green and gold meadows and downs. He hoped it didn’t mean the Dreamland itself was conspiring to allow Brom to reach his goal. Could even the Sleepers be curious about the scientist’s theory?

  Though it was still raining hard, Roan and the guards took great care to make up the princess’s pavilion. Together, Roan, Misha and Bergold used their influence to join all of their cloaks into one big waterproof sheet to protect the rest of them. They attached it with a rope to the trees, creating a makeshift roof. There wasn’t quite enough room under it for the steeds, who clustered together out in the rain.

  “I hope they won’t rust before morning,” Felan said, giving his steed a final pat.

  “It shouldn’t hurt them,” Lum said. “They’re supposed to be all-weather beasts. Mine’s been through worse.”

  With her all-purpose firelighter, Colenna made up a huge bonfire and lit the brazier inside the princess’s pavilion. Leonora thanked them all, and disappeared into her small tent. The others sprawled before the fire, grateful for the warmth. They let their outer clothes dry out somewhat before changing to crawl into their bedrolls to sleep.

  Roan’s muscles ached. He thought of the tub of salve in his bag, but he was too tired to get up and use it. He listened to the pattering on the top of the tent and the murmuring of the wind in the trees.

  “I may never move again,” Felan said, slipping into his cot with a sigh. “I don’t know how Brom got so far ahead of us, carrying that heavy load.”

  “We’ve got to catch up with them tomorrow,” Spar said, from his regulation bag a few feet away. “I want a word with that Brom. A personal word.”

  Chapter 17

  A delicate clinking sound woke Roan. He was glad to escape from the troubling dream he was having. It was the same as the night before. He had been juggling dozens of eggs to constant applause. He knew that if he dropped one it would destroy the world. At the same time, he felt that he was an impostor, substituting for the real juggler. At any moment, he feared the audience would discover the imposture and walk out on him.

  He listened. The rain had stopped falling. It was almost perfectly silent on the hilltop. He heard just the lightest tinkle of birdsong sound in a tree over his head, but that hadn’t been the sound that roused him. The air was dry and fragrant with flowers—and something else. He drew in a deep breath. It was the tantalizing smell of hot toast and scrambled eggs that tickled his nose. The warm scent came closer, mixed with an indefinable and exotic perfume. He opened his eyes. Leonora was standing over him, wearing her traveling clothes. She knelt beside him and put a finger to her lips.

  “Would you like to have breakfast with me?” she asked in a whisper. Roan nodded. He flicked aside the cover of his sleeping bag and rolled to his feet.

  It was just before false dawn. By the dim, rosy light, Roan could see the shadows that were the others asleep in their bunks. He walked carefully so he wouldn’t wake them. The princess, going soft-footed and silent, led him toward her pavilion.

  Inside the little tent, a delicate little table was set for two. On it burned a pair of candles whose warm glow illumined silver chafing dishes, a china bowl heaped full of berries beside a matching pitcher, rows of gleaming silver utensils, a crystal jam pot and spoon, china, napkins edged with lace, a bud vase containing a single rose, and even a cut crystal water pitcher.

  Roan helped Leonora to sit down, and waited for her nod to seat himself. He realized that there was soft music playing, quiet enough that the morning birdsong trilled louder.

  “Now,” said the princess, flicking out a napkin with pleased satisfaction, “we can have a nice, leisurely breakfast without delaying anyone else. May I help you to some berries?”

  “Allow me,” Roan said, reaching for the slotted silver spoon. He was full of admiration for her. After two days of hard travel, she had arisen early to make her toilet and prepare this regal setting with all the accouterments that she was accustomed to at home. Leonora was going to keep her promise, on her own terms. She might be having to live in a tent in the middle of nowhere, but she would do so in gracious, royal style. “It’s the very least I can do.”

  “I’ll do it,” Leonora said, plucking the server out of his hands. She spooned berries into two shallow bowls and poured a liberal dollop of cream over each
.

  “How long must you have been awake to accomplish all this?” Roan asked, watching her slim hands move. “Hours?”

  “I’m sure it isn’t quite that long. Will you have sugar?”

  “Just a bit. And I’m sure it must be hours,” Roan said. “It’s as if a whole army of serv—” He stopped.

  “No,” Leonora said, appearing not to notice his slip. “Just me.” She picked up a silver pot. Fragrant steam drifted out of its spout.

  “Coffee, tea, or cocoa?” she asked.

  “Coffee,” Roan said. She poured coffee for him, and, after a pause during which the silver pot thickened slightly and grew a broader spout, cocoa for herself. Both smelled ambrosial. Roan took a sip, and let out a sigh of pleasure. “Delicious.” Leonora beamed at him between the tapers.

  “You do look beautiful in candlelight, my dear,” he said.

  The dimple appeared in her cheek. “Thank you. You’re very gallant for such an early hour.”

  “You inspire me,” Roan said. Hastily, he took a spoonful of berries.

  “Don’t you wish you could fly after Brom, like you did when you came into Mnemosyne this last time?” Leonora asked, looking at him playfully over her cocoa cup.

  “No,” Roan said, savoring the intimate, affectionate tone of her voice as much as he did the flavor of the berries. Their argument of the day before was forgiven, forgotten and gone. He was happy. “I can’t possibly picture anything I would have enjoyed more than this.”

  “In spite of all the danger, in spite of the fear that this could be the end of the Dreamland?”

  “I would sacrifice all comfort for a moment like this one, to be here with you,” Roan said, with all his heart in his words. “If the world ended now, I would have few regrets.” Leonora shook her head impatiently, disturbed by a thought of her own.

  Roan reached for a morsel of bread and rolled it between thumb and forefinger into a penny. He offered it to Leonora. She took it, smiling at the childhood custom, but still looked worried. Roan waited patiently. Soon, she broke the silence.