The Sandman and the War of Dreams

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Heart Becomes the Hunted

  The War of the Dream Pirates was vicious and bloody. The pirates knew that if they lost, they would never again be as powerful as they were at that very moment. So they became more clever, devious, and cruel with their tactics: They would destroy whole planets. Extinguish stars. Eliminate entire Constellations.

  For eons the pirates had been seen as dangerous criminals. Now the people of the Golden Age viewed them as an evil that had to be eradicated. Soon hate became the center of how this war was waged, and hate is a powerful force. It can make bad men worse and good men nearly mad.

  Lord Pitch had been noble and fair at the start of his campaign. He’d fought honorably against the pirates. When he bested their ships, he took the survivors prisoner. He fed them well and urged them to renounce their wretched ways.

  But the pirates saw this thread of humanity as a weakness, a weakness that could be used against Lord Pitch. They’d thus far failed in their attempts to assassinate him, and their attempts had been many. Now, however, they realized with cold calculation, if they failed to kill him in body, they would simply destroy his spirit.

  They began to hunt for that which mattered most to the valiant sailor: his family. Lord Pitch kept his wife and child housed safely on the small moon of a planet deep in the heart of the Constellation Orion. It was a lovely moon and was well protected by the many asteroids that encircled it. Each asteroid was a small fortress, armed with a platoon of the elite of the Golden Age Armies.

  Emily Jane

  Lord and Lady Pitchiner were doting parents, their palace a thrilling place to raise their young daughter, Emily Jane. She was a wild and joyful child, with raven-black hair as thick and flowing as a horse’s mane, which was fitting, as she was always on the run. Like her father, she loved to sail. She was constantly in her own small schooner, venturing around her moon and its asteroids.

  Lady Pitchiner, ever vigilant in her care of their only child, often ordered Emily Jane to stay close, to take a guard with her, or simply to stay home. But Emily Jane disobeyed her mother frequently. She couldn’t stop herself from slipping out alone and doing as she pleased. Her father loved his girl’s wild heart, so he turned a blind eye to her disobedient sailing ways.

  Fate can be as peculiar as any dream or story, for it was one of these little secret adventures that saved Emily Jane’s life.

  Dream Pirates had been reported off the tip of Orion’s sword. Lord Pitch hurriedly said his farewells to his wife and daughter before preparing to hunt down the scoundrels. The family never liked saying good-bye; they tried not to think of the dangers that would be faced. But this time Emily Jane had made for her father a silver locket containing her picture. He was very pleased by it and put it around his neck as he kissed her.

  “I’ll be back soon,” he told her.

  “Promise?” she said.

  “On my soul,” he replied.

  Lord Pitch was a man of his word. And he reassured himself that his family was safe. Their moon home had many defenses against a large attack.

  But the Dream Pirates had not planned a large attack. They had something more intimately sinister in mind.

  Several dozen pirates, shadowy and expert, slipped past every guard, every outpost, every defense and made their way to Lord Pitch’s villa.

  The villa was spacious, columned, almost castlelike. It was carved from moonstone, so the rooms had a soothing, cool glow of reflected light, even in the darkest night. But this night seemed particularly dark.

  All in the villa were asleep except one—Emily Jane. After bedtime she had slipped out her bedroom window and into her schooner docked close by. She hadn’t yet traveled far when she spied a school of Star Fish, swimming low in the moon’s atmosphere. She loved Star Fish—a favorite game was to tie her schooner to the leader and ride along with them as they swooped and dove through the canyons near her home.

  Star Fish

  The Dream Pirates, so intent on infiltrating the villa, had not seen the girl sneaking out. Emily Jane had already cast off when the pirates were surrounding the villa and readying to strike. They could feel the sleeping dreams of Lady Pitchiner and of the entire household. To the Dream Pirates, dreams were like blood to a vampire. Dreams made them hungry and sometimes stupid. Could they feel the dreams of Lord Pitch’s daughter? They were too impatient and crazed to make sure. “She must be in there somewhere,” they reasoned.

  And so they charged.

  A Dream Pirate attack is swift and ragged. Like awkward phantoms, the pirates often fly in lurches and jerks, and they usually destroy everything that gets in their way.

  Lady Pitchiner startled awake as the pirates smashed their way through the house, coming closer and closer to where she lay. She could hear the alarms sounding, but would help come in time? She doubted it. She ran into Emily Jane’s bedroom and locked the door. But the bed was empty. The covers hadn’t even been pulled down.

  Good! Lady Pitchiner thought. She’s out on her ship! For once, she was thankful rather than angry that her daughter was so rebellious.

  The pirates were smashing down the door. Lady Pitchiner had only an instant to act. They’ll be looking for us both, she thought. So she grabbed a large doll and held it in her arms, as if it were Emily Jane, and sat very still. The door splintered into pieces, and the pirates poured in. Lady Pitchiner knew the awful fate of those taken by Dream Pirates—their souls sucked dry of dreams, leaving them to become mindless slaves . . . or worse.

  They must be made to think that we have died, she thought desperately as the pirates clamored closer. Keeping just enough of the doll exposed under her cape so the pirates would see it, she ran for the window. Straight into and through it. The glass shattered. Lady Pitchiner was gone.

  The pirates pressed at the window, staring down. The fall was more than a mile.

  Emily Jane had heard the alarms and the explosions echoing through the canyons she was coasting. She knew the ruckus could only be coming from her home. She knew the sound of a Dream Pirate attack. They had attacked her father’s ship when she and her mother had first come this moon. And though she was wild, she was not foolish. She stayed with the Star Fish. Perhaps if she rode among them, she would not be seen. The Star Fish swam swiftly through the canyons, in a near panic from the sounds of battle.

  Between gaps in the canyons peaks, Emily Jane watched in horror as her palace was riddled with explosions. She could make out the window of her own room, then the awful sound of shattering glass, and there was the unmistakable figure of her mother falling.

  Emily Jane turned away. She closed her eyes tightly and would not open them; she let the Star Fish take her where they would. The Star Fish darted on and on, away from the embattled moon, through the rings of meteors, and out into the ocean of space. Soon Emily Jane could no longer hear anything but the lulling sound of the wind as she was pulled farther and farther from her doomed home and into the eternity of space.

  CHAPTER NINE

  A Little Girl Lost and a Titan Found

  And so Emily Jane traveled far from her home and far from her sorrow, until she came to an unexpectedly safe place—the Constellation called Typhan. Before the War of the Dream Pirates, Typhan had been a maker of storms and was a powerful ally of the Golden Age. He could conjure up solar winds so vast and terrible, they would scatter whole fleets of Dream Pirate galleons when required.

  But the wily Dream Pirates had managed to ravage him and render him harmless: They had extinguished the stars that had been his eyes. Once blinded, he could no longer see the pirates as they attacked. And they had been merciless, killing so many of his stars that his once-vivid outline was nearly gone. He was now a forgotten ghost of his former self, and he had lost the will to make storms or to fight. He was a mournful, pitiful Titan. Only the harmless Star Fish ever swam among Typhan’s few remaining stars and moons.

  Now, as the Star Fish weaved their way past Typhan’s head, Emily Jane was a
s blind to the damaged giant as he was to her. Her thoughts were only of her poor mother, her vanished home, and the feeling of being as lost as any child could be. “Father,” she cried at last. “Come find me! Please! Please!! I am so alone!”

  Typhan heard these cries. He had only heard the taunts and laughter of the Dream Pirates since his sight was destroyed. He thought he would never again hear a voice that was not forged by cruelty.

  “Child?” he whispered. “How come you here?”

  Even in a whisper, his voice could fill a galaxy, but his was a strong, unthreatening voice, like a summer storm that has recently passed.

  Startled, Emily Jane looked up and saw what remained of the starlight giant. Like all Golden Age children, she had been schooled in the names and shapes of the Constellations, so she immediately recognized his dimmed face.

  Through tears, she told Typhan who she was and all the awfulness of her journey. This stirred Typhan, and for the first time since his blinding, he felt an echo of his former might. They had both been victims of the Dream Pirates and had been left to lonely fates. He summoned up a breeze that took Emily Jane and her Star Fish to a moon near the stars of his right ear. The travellers were exhausted, and resting was very welcome. As they landed among the powdery craters, Typhan spoke once more.

  “Child,” he said. “You are not alone.”

  Those words were like a shield of comfort for Emily Jane. She felt safer, and even hopeful. And as she fell into a long, weary sleep, she thought over and over: Somehow, my father will find me.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Dream Becomes a Nightmare

  When word reached Lord Pitch that his home and family were under attack, he knew he had been duped. There were no pirates waiting where he had been told. So he pushed his fleet to return with a speed none thought possible. The palace, and most of his moon, was now nothing but scorched ruins. The pirates were reboarding their sleek escape vessels when Lord Pitch’s warships surrounded them. They never expected him to return so swiftly.

  Lord Pitch wanted these pirates alive. “My wife and child may be among them,” he told his lieutenants.

  The pirates were impossibly outgunned. They knew it was hopeless to fight, and they also knew they could count on Lord Pitch’s compassion. They surrendered without the firing of a single shot.

  But as they were hauled aboard Lord Pitch’s flagship, they did not face the same noble warrior they had come to begrudgingly respect. They faced a man on the brink of madness.

  “My wife and daughter? Where are they?” Lord Pitch demanded.

  The captain of the Dream Pirates said with a sneer, “We were denied the pleasure of draining them of their dreams.”

  “Because you were caught?”

  “No, my lord.”

  “Have you harmed them?”

  “No, my lord,” replied the captain. Its lips curled into a small, satisfied smile. “They are dead.”

  Lord Pitch stood stoically. He was a gentleman of the Golden Age, a commander of its armies. Even now, he felt he must maintain his judgment and composure. But the pirate captain was too keen to bring forth his hurts.

  “Your lady so feared our company that she threw herself to her doom, and the child with her,” the captain gloated.

  Lord Pitch could barely speak. He looked from one pirate to another. “Is this true?”

  The captain grinned. “ ’Tis true, my lord. I saw it myself. As did we all.”

  Lord Pitch, bringing his face within inches of the captain’s, said with a measured calm, “Then feast your eyes on mine. They are the last things you will ever see.” And with startling suddenness, he drew his sword and cut the captain’s head from its body.

  He stepped quickly to the next pirate, and before another word could be said, he sliced again. Another head tumbled to the deck. The pirates gasped and pulled against their chains, but Lord Pitch continued on.

  His own crew shuffled and murmured uneasily. Was this their general? The most gallant of the Golden Age? Lord Pitch was methodical and never paused. All the pirates, and Lord Pitch’s mercy, were dead in less time than it takes to sing a song.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A Stormy Relationship

  Emily Jane’s life with Typhan suited her nature. He had been a god of storms, and now he delighted in conjuring up tempests for her to ride. At first she rode her Star Fish over the waves of solar wind that Typhan blew, but in time he taught her the trick of making storms herself. He anointed her as his daughter, and from then on, she could wield the power of the heavens. Wind, starlight, gravity were hers to command. She now was a sister of the heavens and was honor-bound to use her power only for good.

  Emily Jane never tired of summoning playful squalls; she rode them until she was exhausted. It was the only peace she knew from the heartaches that ate away at her. Where was her father? Why did he not come to find her? Typhan was kind; he even loved her. In time she regarded him with awe, but awe is not affection or love. It didn’t heal her pain. She stayed with Typhan because she hoped against hope that if she remained in one place, there was a chance her father could still find her. But while the Star Fish swam as far as they dared to try to send word of Emily Jane, they could never make it far enough. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, months into years.

  Occasionally, passing wrecks of abandoned ships drifted by the Constellation. Emily Jane became an expert forager. She discovered that the contents inside these ghostly vessels could supply her with all her needs. She positioned dozens of scavenged telescopes all over her small moon so she could be the eyes of Typhan. Food, supplies, clothes, furniture, books—everything she might need—all were found in the abandoned wrecks that strayed close enough to her moon that she or the Star Fish could retrieve them. The hull of a crashed galleon served as her home. So she lived in a sort of ramshackle magnificence. There was even treasure. Great heaping chests of it, which she stored in the moon’s small, hollow core. But the more treasure she amassed, the less the treasure came to mean to her. She even began to hate it. It reminded her of the past. Of her home. Of the Golden Age.

  In those early weeks and months with Typhan, she had scanned the heavens in every direction, each hour on the hour, ever hopeful, looking for her father’s flagship. But the years bore on without a single sighting. He has forgotten me, she decided one fateful day. It was the morning of her sixteenth birthday.

  She had tried to forget the date. Year after year, her only wish had been a simple one: that her father would come. But ten birthdays had passed, and each one left her harder and more bitter.

  On this day a ship finally appeared in the distance! Her hope came back. She could tell in an instant that it wasn’t a Dream Pirate vessel. Their ships were always twisted, spiked, and foul to look at. This was a Golden Age craft to be sure. Elegant of line and sail. It was beautiful . . . too beautiful. It was no warship. But it did not fly the flag of her father. It was a peaceful liner and nothing more.

  Why has Father never come? she wondered bitterly. And she felt an anger that clouded her good sense. She hated her father now. She hated the world that she had so ached to return to. She’d rather stay lost. And in that dreadful moment, something changed in her. Her heart became consumed with rage.

  Typhan could feel that something was terribly wrong.

  “Daughter?” he whispered. “What do you see? Friend or foe?”

  Her answer surprised even herself. “I see only foes!” And without warning, she raised up a murderous storm.

  Typhan knew the sound of pain and rage. He feared that she had lost her reason.

  “Daughter!” he cried out. “What ship approaches?”

  “Not the ship I hope for!” she shouted back. Her violent winds sped toward the helpless vessel.

  “Stop this tempest!” Typhan ordered her. “We never harm without cause!”

  “From now on, my cause is harm!” she screamed.

  Typhan knew then that she had gone mad, and gathering all his streng
th, he sent forth winds to counter hers.

  But her rage was equal to Typhan’s goodness, and she fought him, hurling a galaxy of hate-filled torrents at the ancient colossus.

  “Daughter! Stop!” he pleaded, summoning every last ounce of strength he possessed.

  “You are not my father!” Emily Jane shrieked.

  Meteors! Comets! Hunks of broken planets came smashing into Typhan’s stars and shattered the Golden Age galleon that neared.

  The old Constellation’s heart was cleaved by her words. He was stunned and heartsick. Her deeds were a betrayal that could not be forgiven. “From forever on, you are cursed!” he bellowed, stunned and heartsick. “You have broken your vow!”

  It scorched his soul to punish her so harshly, to cast her out of his life. But an oath had been broken. So with one mighty blast of his lungs, he sent Emily Jane’s moon shooting away from him. It flew at such a speed that it began to brighten, brighten till a hot white light burned, until the moon itself became a shooting star streaking through space like a spear.

  Emily Jane fled to the moon’s hollow core just as the old galleon where she had slept was burned to ash. Her telescopes disintegrated. In nanoseconds everything on her moon’s surface was gone. Because she had fled to the moon’s core, she became entombed by the melting chest of treasure for which she cared nothing. Emily Jane was indeed doomed. She would have to live within this new star’s center and never leave it until it crashed.

  If only she had known her father thought her dead.

  If only she and her father had known the truth.

  Two hearts that had once been united at the center of the Golden Age would not have become hardened, embittered, and so very cruel. These wounded hearts would not have brought an end to the Age of Wonders.

  CHAPTER TWELVE