Waking in Dreamland

by Jody Lynne Nye

  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.

  According to the diagram, there were exactly ten thousand gears and wheels inside the clock mechanism. One hundred to the power of two. Though the gestalt was broken, there was still a vestigial trace of overlap and synchronicity of movement with the other apprentices. She found herself looking up occasionally when the others did. The Countingsheep brothers were the only ones who truly mourned the loss of concord. The atmosphere was brisk, but not unfriendly. She concentrated on her job to avoid thinking about what was going to happen in a few moments. Brom would wind up the clock with the key in his hands. The bells would ring, and the Sleepers would all wake up.

  If only Glinn could have been there with her, there at the end of the world, she could discontinue happily. A thought intruded into her mind.

  But I am, said a voice in her mind.

  She looked up. Glinn was walking toward her, healthy, handsome and whole. He had to be an illusion. He was dead.

  No, said the silent voice. I’m here. He smiled.

  “Glinn,” she said out loud. And all calamity broke loose.

  The single spoken word caused another ripple of movement among the Sleepers. A scatter rug the size of an island rolled itself up, and would have taken Roan with it if he hadn’t thrown himself onto the stone floor. Bats came down from the ceiling in swift, silent clouds and blanketed all the humans, stifling them in huge, flannel wings to stop the intrusive sound. Roan pushed them away, trying not to make any noise, but it was almost impossible. The impact of a shoe on the floor, a gasp, or a cry of pain set off more reaction from the Sleepers, which gave rise to further clusters of illusion. Each sound was swal lowed up in silence almost as soon as it was made, but they all disturbed the Sleepers’ repose and created more illusions to defend them. Roan had to muster all his sanity to keep from being driven mad.

  Luckily, the scientists were as beset as themselves. Roan fought free of the enveloping folds of bat-cloth, and kicked off his boots. Running lightly on the balls of his bare feet toward Brom, he opened out his quarterstaff and padded it with the fabric of his cloak.

  Brom clawed the last of the bats off his face, and threw it away from him. He turned and saw Roan coming toward him. His red eyes glaring, he thrust out his hand, palm outward to halt Roan.

  A burst of power rushed toward Roan and struck him in the chest. Roan staggered but did not stop. He stalked Brom, and held out his open hand, silently demanding the key. The red eyes flashed fire, and Brom whirled the key around in a circle, making it into a huge brass staff.

  I’ll give you the key, a voice said in Roan’s head. In your insides!

  Brom feinted with the wards toward Roan’s head, then quickly twisted the looped end upward, aiming for Roan’s crotch.

  Roan had nearly forgotten what a dirty in-fighter Brom was. He jumped backward, just saving himself from disabling pain. He brought the padded staff around and connected with Brom’s shoulder. Brom glared at him, his face red, but he had his teeth gritted together to keep from crying out loud. Clearly, he did not want to trigger the Sleepers’ defenses before his experiment was rea
dy. He waved to his assistants, who, with nervous looks over their shoulders at the giant forms of the Sleepers, rushed to join the fray.

  Brom swung the key at Roan’s head again. Just in time, Roan brought up the staff to stop the blow, and pushed the brass rod down toward the ground. He swung his foot over it, intending to trap the key on the floor so Brom couldn’t use it as a weapon, but the chief scientist was too quick for him. He snatched it away, and shot it forward into Roan’s stomach.

  Gasping, Roan staggered backward, and Brom slammed the key down on his bare foot. Tears flooded Roan’s eyes, but he swallowed the yell that came bubbling up his throat. Must not scream. Must not scream. It was hard to fight someone without making any noise.

  Brom swung again. Roan ducked, and ducked again, trying to time the swings so he could reach up and disarm his opponent. The other apprentices surrounded Roan, reaching for his arms and legs. Luckily, they were more suited to scientific tasks, not strategic ones. They got in one another’s way more often than they impeded the King’s Investigator. Roan threw handfuls of influence in every direction, padding them well so they would cause an impact but no noise. Scientists went flying in every direction, much farther than Roan was normally capable of making them go. The proximity of the Sleepers seemed to cause an overload of reaction. He tightened his control, and threw only pinches of power instead. Unfortunately, making his enemies land softly enabled them to get up and attack again, almost at once.

  Bergold appeared beside Roan in the shape of a fat-bellied python. He flicked his forked tongue playfully before lashing out his long tail to trip one of the two identical apprentices about to leap upon Roan. Misha pushed the other twin, who fell into Bergold’s coils. The historian-snake snapped around him and squeezed. The twin exhaled and turned red.

  The apprentices seemed to beset the king’s party from every side. Misha used a measure of influence to form a rope. The young man vanished in the center of a coil the size of a well. The identical twins scaled the sides of the heap and jumped on him. Roan lost sight of them when a couple more of the apprentices tried to jump him from behind with the tarpaulin from the Alarm Clock. He wrapped them in their own rug, and turned just in time to avoid a blow from Brom. He countered, trying to knock the key from Brom’s hands. Without it, the Clock was useless.

  A man in blue and white sought to capture Colenna in a lacy potpourri puff the size of a barrel. She produced a scissors and cut it into tiny segments of net and herbs. Roan worried the snick of the scissors would cause a further backlash from the Sleepers, and he was right. The pieces of net fluttered up, instead of down, and grew into strands that tied Colenna up with her attacker. Roan heard the snick-snick-snick of her scissors, but didn’t watch the results.

  Two women chased Leonora around the sleeping chamber, trying to corner her. Roan was torn whether to abandon Brom to defend her, but he did not have to. Where influence reigned, she was self-sufficient. She ran to the shelter of a tremendous plush teddy bear, which she animated and sent after them. The last time Roan saw the women, they were fleeing from the amiable-looking stuffed toy, lurching glassy-eyed after them. Leonora was getting the hang of the enhancement to her normal gifts. In fact, it looked as if she was enjoying herself. Roan admired her. When they had first set out after Brom, he had thought Leonora to be a helpless court lady, skilled in coping with domestic and diplomatic crises, but unfit to handle danger. She had proved herself the equal of any of her experienced companions.

  Roan had no time to appreciate the irony. Three of the male apprentices separated and began to move in on him. Roan swung his staff around, making them jump backward. He caught the third one solidly in the temple, and the young man collapsed with a gasp. He wouldn’t get up for a while. Before Roan could turn around, another of them rushed up behind him, swung out a leg, and tripped him to the ground. All three sat upon him, striking him with their fists, reason and caution forgotten. Gritting his teeth, Roan heaved upward with a burst of influence, sending the men hurtling toward the ceiling. So they wouldn’t make any noise when they landed, he formed a huge net to catch them and tie them up. No more soft landings. He had to keep them from coming back at him. The price of failure was too great.

  As soon as he regained his feet, he saw Brom. The chief scientist had taken advantage of the melee to run back to the Alarm Clock. Nothing seemed to deter him from his evil purpose. Brom inserted the long brass key into the back, and began to wind it. Roan ran at him, knocking him backwards, away from the device. He must not activate the Clock. Roan would die rather than let him set it off.

  Brom still maintained a hold on the key. He used it as a bludgeon to batter Roan over the head and shoulders. Roan tried to shield himself, but Brom was as powerful as he. The scientist pushed away Roan’s protective shell of influence, leaving him vulnerable to the attack. Blood running into his eyes, Roan fell to his hands and knees, and Brom raised the key over his head for the coup de grace.

  Suddenly, a huge shadow passed silently overhead. Bergold, in the shape of an immense red owl, flew over them. He extended his talons, and snatched the key out of Brom’s hands, and winged upward, leaving him unarmed. Roan staggered to his feet. He leaped at Brom, clasping him around the arms, and formed a glass bubble about them both. The glass around them was thick, and acted as a magnifying lens. Everything around them looked bigger than before. Roan felt like a dust mote in the presence of the universe, and only he stood between it and destruction.

  “Stop, you fool, “ he said to Brom, in an urgent hiss. “If you waken them it will be the end of all of us.” He grabbed Brom by the hair and tilted his head back toward the nearest bed, where his avatar slept. “You must not awaken him.”

  Brom glared at Roan, then looked up over Roan’s shoulder, then back to Roan, and his face slackened into a mask of astonishment.

  “No!” he breathed. “Impossible!” Then he broke free of Roan’s grip. The bubble shattered into fragments and he began to fight like a dozen insane giants, battering and kicking with all the force that was left in him. “No!” he screamed. The Sleepers’ defenses flooded in upon the noise, stifling and smothering. Monsters and nuisances attacked Roan from all sides. Telephone solicitors implored him to buy siding. Girl scouts in green skirts offered him cookies. Men in long saffron robes stuck flowers in his face. All the while, Brom belabored him with his fists and feet.

  Roan defended himself as best he could, raising the staff to deflect blows, trying to avoid using any but the barest touches of influence to dispel the nuisances. He must stay focused upon his opponent, and not allow any distractions to claim his attention. He had a new advantage. Brom’s sanity had fled, and with it his superior control of influence. In fact, Brom ought to be vulnerable to control of influence, now. Roan dodged Brom’s fists, striking out with his staff, attempting to concentrate on a safe transformation for the chief scientist, but he slipped in a patch of his own blood as a miniature fury created by the sounds of the melee swooped down on him and clutched his hair. Roan tripped, hit the ground, and lost hold of his multiple-bladed weapon. The staff flipped out of its enveloping cloak and clattered to the floor, causing more disruption among the Sleepers. Roan crawled for it on hands and knees, but Brom grabbed it first, quick as a snake, and smashed him over the back with it. Roan fell flat.

  “Roan!” Leonora’s voice cried out and was swallowed up in stifling silence. Roan glanced about for the princess, letting his attention wander for only a second from Brom. The chief scientist took the opportunity to slam the staff down on his shoulder. Roan gasped and fell. Brom raised the staff again. Roan used influence to help him to his feet. He was whisked almost into the air, remembering too late to damp down on how much power he used. Brom swung for him. Roan reached delicately into the stuff of matter, and draped him in ropes and chains to hold him still until his fury passed. Brom dismissed it all with a sneer, and rushed toward him, weapon high. Roan was taken by surprise. Brom leaped on him and began to choke him against the floor w
ith his own quarterstaff.

  Leonora started to run to Roan’s rescue, then thought better of it. Instead, she picked up one of the metal rods on the floor, and struck the alarm bells as hard as she could.

  The ringing echoed throughout the hall. One of the Sleepers yawned in her sleep and began to rouse. Then, another twitched and felt out at the side of his bed for the gigantic, steaming mug that sat on his bedside table. Then, another moved, until they were all stirring. Everyone, scientists and defenders alike, stopped fighting for a moment, and stared at the huge beds. Leonora stood beside the device and saw what she had done. The Sleepers were waking up.

  “Yes!” Brom shouted, exultant. He stood up and threw away the staff. He raised his arms in joyful triumph. “Yes, my precious experiment! We will see the outcome at last! Wake up, everyone! Wake up!”

  “No!” Roan cried. He threw himself on the bell of the Alarm Clock, grasping the edge with his hands, to stop the noise. With a snarl, Brom pulled at his legs, trying to drag him off.

  The vibration of the bells drove right into Roan’s head. He gritted his teeth, ignoring the pain. The bells were trying to change him, but he, the unchangeable, resisted it. He used all his influence to stop the chiming.

  “Shush,” Roan whispered, willing it to be true. “Quiet. Silence!” The racket of the bell deadened slowly into silence. Roan let out a sigh of relief. The Sleepers slowly settled back into their dreams, but reality had been shaken. The room was full of illusions, nuisances, and influence—but not enough to destroy the world.

  Brom’s red eyes nearly popped out of his head.

  “You fool,” he said, snarling. He leaped for Roan, his hands out for the man’s throat.

  Roan slid down from the Alarm Clock, careful not to disturb it again. He backed away from it, drawing Brom into the midst of the chaos. Quickly, before the chief scientist could look back, he threw up a fountain of influence that enclosed the Alarm Clock in a ring of fire. That should keep the apprentices from trying to complete their master’s work.