The Sandman and the War of Dreams

  Ombric said what each of them had suddenly realized. “Will this work without the final relics?” There were five relics from the Golden Age that Tsar Lunar had told them were necessary to defeat Pitch, and they had only three.

  Bunnymund’s ears suddenly began twitching wildly in opposite directions. Then, just as suddenly, they stopped. “Nightlight!” he yelled. “Your staff! Its powers, combined with the power of Ombric’s staff, might be enough . . . if my calculations are correct!”

  The others agreed and urged Nightlight closer. But Nightlight resisted—he knew they were wrong. Yet they needed convincing, so he walked up to them and raised his staff up to the other relics. Its diamond tip did indeed begin to glow. The moonbeam that lived inside—his moonbeam, sent by the Man in the Moon himself—flickered and shined brighter than ever. But it was not what was needed. Nightlight could feel the worry and disappointment of his friends as their collective light failed to grow brighter, despite the addition of Nightlight’s staff.

  “It’s still not powerful enough!” Ombric said in a strained voice.

  Nightlight felt frustrated. His fellow Guardians were all so knowing, but sometimes they failed to see the most obvious things. Or forgot to look.

  Again only Nightlight’s childish mind could understand the truth, but if Sandman had been brought to them by Tsar Lunar, then surely he had brought with him something invaluable to the Guardians. If Sandman was from the Golden Age, then so was his sand. Nightlight took up a few grains of Sandman’s sand and blew it into the light of the relics.

  A flash as bright as a dozen suns filled the room instantaneously. At that moment Katherine’s dream for North began its journey from the dimension of dreams to the realm of the real.

  In the same moment, every other tree in the forest began to uproot itself. Every other creature from Santoff Claussen began to be affected by the magic that was washing through the village. They began to feel that something amazing was about to happen to them.

  Half of this wondrous place would make the journey; the other half would stay and hold.

  Friends old and new would be separated. But for the good of all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Another Nightmare

  KATHERINE WAS RUNNING. SHE was in a forest. It was night. There was a bright moon, which made seeing easier, but it also made the shadows even denser and darker in contrast. There was no wind at all; the air lay thick and heavy all around her. There were no insects singing or the usual low commotion of a forest at night. Just an unnerving quiet. The only sound was her footsteps on the grass.

  And the sound of the Thing that was pursuing her.

  It seemed as though she’d been running for days. Even though she was going as fast as she could, her feet were as heavy as lead. She could barely raise them. She heard the Thing coming behind her. Its movements were smooth and agile. It was coming closer, and quickly.

  She had to hurry! Why were her feet so leaden? She seemed to be slower with each step.

  She’d glimpsed the Thing, but only for a few fractured instants as it moved from leafy shadows into the moonlight, then back into shadow. Light. Shadow. Light. Shadow. A horrible flickering. Never long enough to see the Thing clearly. It was a squirming, lumpy mass, as big as Bear, but not like a bear at all. Not like anything she could name. It was coiled and knotted, like a tangle of giant snakes, but there was an arm too; a man’s arm, Pitch’s arm, coming from the Thing’s center, clawing at the ground and pulling it forward. Large snaky tails, each as thick as a small tree trunk, twisted out from the main mass, helping the arm move its bulk over rocks and roots with a disturbing ease.

  Katherine was desperate to get away from the Thing. She had to go faster. But her feet grew heavier still. Stepping over tree roots grew harder, then almost impossible. The Thing was getting closer.

  Ahead was a small clearing where the ground was level. Katherine willed herself to reach it—maybe she could run faster from there. She staggered toward it. The sound of clawing behind her—a lean whisper of slithering—was getting closer. Now she didn’t dare look back.

  She reached the clearing. Her first dozen steps were a victory; swift and strong, she was gaining speed!

  Her feet were light now; she was running! She could feel the strength surging through her legs as they quickened their pace. She felt revitalized, as if she could run like this forever. Fists tight, she pumped her arms up and down in perfect rhythm with her stride.

  Up ahead there was a huge tree. It looked familiar. It was Big Root! Faster! FASTER! If she could just make it to the door, she knew she’d be safe. She tried to call out—someone would hear her, help her.

  “Nightlight!” she gasped, but she was too winded. She didn’t dare slow down. The Thing was right behind her. It would catch up. She tried again, “Nightlight, help!” But her voice was barely a gasp. Faster. Faster. Faster.

  Then her foot came down onto ground that was like mud—softer even. Her leg sank past her knee; her next desperate step went even deeper. She tried to push herself forward, but it was no use. She was sinking.

  She could hear the Thing hurrying behind her. She was too afraid to look. She was sinking quickly. She struggled to free herself from the sucking mud, looking yearningly at Big Root all the while. The tree began to pull away from her. How could that be? The distance between them—the ground itself—began to pull up into the air. Were her friends leaving her?

  The Thing. She didn’t dare turn around, but she knew it was only steps away. As it covered the last bit of distance between them, she heard it reach the mud. It couldn’t be more than ten feet away. Five. She closed her eyes. It did no good. She could still see the Thing in her mind. Then she felt the hand of it on her collar.

  She tried to scream. But nothing came out. Not even a whimper. If her friends could only hear her, they would come. They always had. Why couldn’t they hear her?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  At Last a Kind Wind

  SANDERSON MANSNOOZIE HAD BEEN extremely busy. He had scoured the entire planet searching for Katherine with no success.

  He had not searched in any conventional manner. He did not prowl about actually looking with his eyes to find her. Nor did he ask people or creatures if they had seen her or noticed anything unusual that might lead him to her. He could have asked any passing cloud about her—he had the ability to communicate to clouds and to other natural phenomena, such as wind and rainbows, but he knew they would not tell him a thing. He’d come to realize they were under the influence of Emily Jane. Of course, they did not know her by that name. They only knew her as Mother Nature. In fact, he was sure they were watching him and reporting to her his every move.

  He was not entirely surprised by this. The many tragedies of Mother Nature’s previous life had turned her into a solitary and mistrustful being. It wasn’t unexpected that she had watchers everywhere. Still, he hoped that if she were being informed of his whereabouts, their old friendship would perhaps spur her to contact him—and hopefully help—but so far no such gesture had come. This did not surprise him either, for even as a girl, she didn’t often reach out to others. There were some creatures that were willing to tell him what they knew of how Emily Jane became this nature matriarch. Sea creatures were more sympathetic to his mission. Especially seashells and mermaids. They had become familiar with Mansnoozie and his island during his long sleep and had watched over him. They saw what had happened when his island had first formed. They’d seen the explosion of his star, and the girl who had been freed by its destruction. They too did not know her as Emily Jane. To them she had no name at all. But they saw the power she had over wind and clouds and natural phenomena. They saw her use the magic she had learned from Typhan. But she remained a mysterious force to them. Always moving. Never resting. Calm one day. Stormy the next.

  So Sandy searched for Katherine the best way he knew how: by listening for her dreams.

  Nearly every living thing has dreams. Dogs, frogs, gazelles, cen
tipedes, guppies, and certain plants, such as dandelions and weeping willows. Sandman could hear the dreams of every creature—and every person—on Earth. He was certain he had not heard Katherine’s. The dreams of the Guardians were distinct from any other dreams he had ever encountered. Not only were their dreams extraordinarily vivid (they had a lifelike clarity unlike any others), but he could also tell that the Guardians had the ability “to dream-share”—their minds could bond while dreaming. But in Katherine’s case, that bond had been damaged, and now, perhaps, destroyed. Even creatures as powerful and mysterious as Pitch or Mother Nature had dreams, though Sandy had no clue what those were like; they both had successfully blocked his efforts to read them. But he could still feel the distant presence of their dreams, so he knew they were somewhere.

  He also knew North and the others had received a dream from Katherine while he had been searching for her. He had felt their dreams while they experienced this message from Katherine. But he had not felt this dream. How could that have been? He was suspicious of Katherine’s dream, even though it seemed to be of good intent. How had she sent it? Or had she sent it?

  For with Katherine, he could feel nothing. Only one thing could stop a person from dreaming, and this was what worried Sanderson Mansnoozie as he sat drifting over the Earth on his cloud of Dreamsand. He was trying to avoid asking the question he most dreaded, but the time had come: Was Katherine no longer alive?

  The thought was so dark and sad. Though he had not met this girl, he had heard her dreams many times during his great sleep. So he knew how extraordinary she was.

  Could Pitch have been so evil as to end her?

  Sandy felt sadness well up inside him, and his cloud of Dreamsand began to drizzle. It was a light rain made of drops of pure sorrow. That poor girl, he thought. As alone and lost as Emily Jane . . . and now perhaps lost forever.

  Dense, dark clouds began to form spontaneously and billow toward him. They were gigantic and stormlike, but they held no wind or thunder. Once Sandman was fully encircled by the storm, he heard a familiar voice bloom around him. It came from the clouds.

  “I can stand anyone’s tears but yours.” It was Emily Jane Pitchiner, now the Queen Mother of Nature! “Besides, I control the rain here. Hold on, I’ll send you to the girl.”

  She will take me to the girl, Mansnoozie thought as relief flooded to even the tiniest grain of sand in his being. Katherine must be alive!

  He looked up into the cloud nearest to him as it began swirling ever more tightly, narrowing into a sort of tunnel. For the briefest moment, he saw Emily Jane standing at the opening. Her majestic robes whirled around her, and it seemed as though they were what powered the clouds. He felt a deep satisfaction at seeing her at last. She had grown up without his realizing it. Even more gratifying was knowing that his time with her had left some echo of kindness in her soul.

  He nodded gravely to her, and she returned the nod. Old friends sometimes need no words to understand each other. Then her winds guided him swiftly up and away, toward Katherine.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  A Dream That Becomes Real

  THE COMBINED POWER OF the three relics with the Dreamsand was extraordinary. Their collective energy was nearly nuclear, but smooth and efficient rather than destructive. A quadrillion molecules had been released, all with the intent of instantaneously transporting many of the vast resources of Santoff Claussen to a spot nearly halfway around the planet without damage or upset. Trees from the enchanted forest; books from Ombric’s library; the bear; North’s elves; dozens of forest creatures of every species, including a small herd of the mighty reindeer; Mr. Qwerty; the robot djinni; Guardians and their helpers—all found themselves in a wondrous frozen landscape.

  But there was even more!

  From the Lunar Lamadary came dozens of Yetis, the clock that could enable time travel, the magnificent flying tower—accompanied by a note from the Lamas:

  May come in handy. Or perhaps useful. Or perhaps necessary. Or even essential. Or not. But perhaps.

  Everything arrived and landed at its final destination according to a precise design that had been formulated in North’s imagination. North was thunderstruck. He had been working on plans for this “New City to the North,” as he called it, ever since Katherine first sent him his dream of the future. But he’d done so alone, during moments of quiet. He’d shown his fellow Guardians a paper model of the city, but that had been a simplistic thing, barely more than a childlike sketch. This . . . this was as if he’d witnessed part of his imagination unfold into reality.

  Another reality was that where they had landed was cold. Very cold. They huddled together in a large group, looking around at the icy landscape that surrounded them. They were on a snow-covered peak—miles and miles of snow and glaciers spread before them in every direction. The towering cedar and pine trees from the enchanted forest that had uprooted themselves only a short time ago in Santoff Claussen had been magically replanted around the base of the peak, forming a wall around the city-to-be.

  Ombric stroked his beard, cleared his throat, and looked at North inquisitively. His former apprentice had become a wizard of rather astounding accomplishments. And though the old wizard might never admit it aloud, in some ways, North was now more than Ombric’s equal.

  “Nicely done, my boy,” he said. Now, where exactly are we?

  North could tell that his old teacher was much impressed. In the past he’d have gloated and said something to vex the old man, but he knew this wasn’t the time for that. They had the most important mission of their lives ahead of them, and time was short.

  North swept his arms wide, as though to include everyone in his response. “We are at the magnetic pole of the northern hemisphere,” he called out, loud enough for all to hear. “The first city of the new Golden Age will be here.”

  “The North Pole,” Bunnymund murmured thoughtfully. “I remember when I first magnetized it. Good choice.”

  Toothiana, her troops, the Warrior Eggs, the Yetis, reindeer, and everyone seemed to agree.

  Nightlight just smiled. He was glad to have helped, but he had plans of his own.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Something Perhaps Worse

  EMILY JANE AND SANDMAN arrived on their clouds at the entrance of a small cave outside the town of Tanglewood in the northeast part of a country called America. The surrounding forests were thick with craggy pine and hemlock, and a great many bats flittered through the trees and in and out of the mouth of the cave. An old, well-worn Indian trail led to the cave, and if Nightlight had been with them, he’d have remembered this dark and mournful place as the spot where Pitch had been frozen for centuries, pinned by Nightlight’s diamond dagger embedded in his heart.

  Emily Jane enshrouded both herself and Sandman within dense cloud cover so as not to be seen, then said to her old friend, “This is as far as I will go. He is, after all, my father—for good or ill.”

  Sandy nodded again. He never spoke except through dreams or thoughts. But he understood her reasoning. So he was surprised when she said more, giving voice to her fears.

  “He promised me he would not make the girl his princess,” she told him, “but he did something perhaps worse.”

  Sandy frowned.

  “You’ll see for yourself,” she said, knowing Sandy so well, she knew his question without the asking. She took his hand just for an instant. “Be careful. Father is past saving and is now . . . savage, through and through.”

  Then she turned away hurriedly, her robes swirling around her. Within seconds, her cloud had billowed away into the night sky, taking her with it.

  Sanderson Mansnoozie had faced countless dangers in his long and varied life, but this time he felt a fear that was darker than the depths of space.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  A Place of Endless Possibilities

  THOUSANDS OF MILES AWAY at the North Pole, things were progressing with astounding speed and ease. A small but fantastic city was t
aking shape.

  The varied talents of the Guardians and their allies were on full display. The strength of the Yetis, Bear, and the robot djinni had been put to great use in cutting and forming the ice and wood that would make up many of the city’s fanciful structures. Toothiana and her tooth fairies zipped in and out of the towers and outer buildings, carving intricately ornate windows and doors through the solid ice walls.

  Bunnymund was busy everywhere. From digging out massive blocks of ice to burrowing a network of elaborate tunnels that would connect every building in the city to the rest of the world, he was a blur of city-creating activity.

  The North Pole

  Ombric and North focused most specifically on the great central tower that would officially mark North’s city. The centerpiece for this was the original flying tower of the Lunar Lamadary, and once they had it in place—a tricky maneuver that at first seemed to defy the laws of gravity—they started in on building an extension to that older structure. They made it taller, bigger, and even more grand.

  North had it all planned out: This tower would become a beacon to the world. It would generate a multicolored shimmering of light that could reach almost to the heavens and that he had already named the “northern lights.” These lights would be capable of sending forth all sorts of messages to the Guardians and their allies, no matter where on Earth they might be.

  Additionally, the tower’s precise placement would enable North to see any part of the planet beyond. Best of all, it could also fly. Its transportive power was unlike any that had ever been since the old Golden Age. It could break past the Earth’s atmosphere and fly out into the cosmos.

  “Think of it, old man,” North said to Ombric excitedly. “We will be able to visit the Moon. Meet Tsar Lunar himself! In person!”