In the City of Dreams

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1: Secrets and … Fibs!

  2: Room of Gloom

  3: To the Carpet!

  4: Streets of Water

  5: Going Shopping

  6: So Many Wings

  7: The Dream Crown

  8: Mirror, Mirror, in the Hand

  9: Adventures in Dreamland

  10: A Special Boy

  The Adventure Continues …

  Also Available

  Copyright

  “Eric Hinkle?”

  Mrs. Michaels peered down from the auditorium stage at the students sitting in the front row. “Eric, are you there?”

  No answer.

  “Where in the world is Eric?” Mrs. Michaels asked her students.

  While her classmates turned and looked around at one another, Julie Rubin whispered to her friend Neal Kroger, “That’s just the problem, isn’t it? Eric isn’t in this world at all!”

  It was true. Eric wasn’t in this world.

  For the past three days he had been far away in the mysterious land of Droon.

  Droon was the secret world the kids had discovered under Eric’s basement. It was a marvelous land of fantastic creatures, adventure, and magic, both good and bad.

  Eric had fallen to bad magic.

  “Can someone run back to the classroom and see if Eric is there?” asked Mrs. Michaels.

  Julie raised her hand eagerly. “I’ll go!”

  “Me, too!” said Neal. “We’ll also check the cafeteria. Eric might be sneaking crackers from the kitchen closet … or wherever they hide them.”

  “Thank you,” said the teacher. “We need to start rehearsing this play.”

  As Julie and Neal hustled out to the hall, they recalled the frightening events of three days before. The friends had been far in the snowy north of Droon, when Eric was wounded by an ice dagger aimed at the wizard Galen Longbeard.

  Hurled by one of Emperor Ko’s fiendish Nesh warriors, the ice dagger carried a dangerous poison intended to fulfill a prophecy — to strike down one of the sons of Zara: Galen, Lord Sparr, or Urik.

  While Galen and Sparr had been present, the man thought to be Urik had turned out to be the mysterious Prince of Stars. But that didn’t matter, because when the poisoned dagger was thrown, Eric thought only of protecting the wizards.

  He threw himself in the way.

  Galen was saved, but Eric was hit.

  Within seconds, he grew icy cold and slipped into unconsciousness.

  Galen hurried Julie and Neal home to the Upper World, then rushed Eric to Jaffa City to try to reverse Ko’s dark magic.

  That was three very long days ago.

  Neal and Julie had heard nothing since.

  “I can’t understand why Keeah doesn’t call us to Droon,” said Neal grimly as they walked down the empty hall. “We need to see our friend. But we’ve had no dreams of Droon. And the magic soccer ball hasn’t given us any messages. Should we be worried? I mean … really worried?”

  Julie frowned. “I don’t want to think about it. Worrying about Eric isn’t going to help him. Besides, we’ve got enough to worry about here at home. Every time I pretend to be Eric, I feel like I’m lying. Being him — and me — for the last three days is more than I can handle. Our poor parents don’t even know!”

  “At least you can change shape,” said Neal. “That scratch you got from a wingwolf lets you transform into anyone —”

  Julie gave Neal a sharp look. “I’m pretty sure your genie magic lets you do the same. Why am I the one who always has to change?”

  “Because Eric and I are always together,” said Neal. “It would be weird if Eric hung out with you. No offense.”

  “Let’s just do it,” Julie grumbled.

  Checking first that no one was watching, Julie twirled on one foot. When she stopped, she looked just like Eric.

  “I wish you really were him,” said Neal.

  “I know,” said Julie. “Come on. Let’s go back and do our best.”

  The two friends, now looking like Eric and Neal, reentered the auditorium and took the stage.

  “Good, you’re here,” said Mrs. Michaels. “Now, Eric, let’s rehearse your scene with Neal. Page one. Ready? Begin.”

  And the two friends began to run lines.

  As difficult as it was for Julie and Neal to pretend that Eric was with them, it was harder still being unable to get to Droon to see their friend.

  Every afternoon after school, they had tramped down to his basement closet. They’d closed the door behind them. They’d switched off the light. And they’d waited.

  The staircase to Droon had not appeared.

  Each day, the two friends woke up more worried than the day before. Each day, they went to sleep not knowing.

  Then it happened.

  Just as they were finishing up the first scene of the play, Neal turned to Julie and said, “I think I see the moon —”

  And something round and white dropped straight from the ceiling.

  Whump! It struck Neal on the head.

  “Owww!” he cried, falling to his knees.

  Whump! It hit him again, and he fell forward onto his hands.

  Whump! It smacked him a third time, and he dropped facedown onto the floor.

  “Neal, are you all right?” called Mrs. Michaels, running over.

  “I guess,” grumbled Neal. Then he saw what had struck him on the head.

  It was not the moon.

  It was a soccer ball.

  Neal gasped. Julie! he said silently. The soccer ball. It’s our magic soccer ball!

  Two hastily scribbled words suddenly seemed to float across the surface of the ball.

  Ylkciuq Emoc.

  They were the words, written backward, that both friends had been hoping for every moment of the last three days.

  Ylkciuq emoc meant Come quickly.

  Hooray! Julie said silently, looking at Neal. We’re going to Droon!

  Mrs. Michaels helped Neal to his feet. “Everyone take a break while I try to figure out how that soccer ball got up there!”

  “You bet!” said Julie, in Eric’s voice. “We’ll be outside, running our lines.”

  “Or just plain running,” Neal whispered, scooping up the soccer ball.

  Five minutes later, the two friends were dashing through backyards, across driveways, and straight up the sidewalk to Eric’s house.

  Without being seen, the two friends slipped quietly through the side door and flew down the basement stairs. By the time Neal had safely stowed away the soccer ball, Julie had changed back into herself.

  “We’ve never actually gone to Droon without Eric before,” said Julie, entering the closet under the stairs and reaching for the ceiling light. “It’s weird, you know?”

  Neal nodded. “Let’s hope this is the first and only time.”

  “And that Eric comes safely back with us,” said Julie. She tugged the chain on the light — click! — and the bulb went dark.

  All at once — whoosh! — the floor of the closet vanished. In its place was the top step of a long, curving staircase. The wispy pink clouds of Droon’s sky swirled below.

  “Eric, here we come!” said Julie as the two friends ran down the stairs together.

  The moment they pushed past the clouds, they spied the familiar towers of Jaffa City.

  But the closer they came, the more changes they noticed to the jaunty, springtime capital.

  Gloomy pennants were draped on the city walls. Black flags flew atop the towers. And inside the gates, throngs of somber-clothed citizens streamed toward the royal palace.

  “Oh, no,” said Neal. “Oh, no.”

  Rushing down the stairs, the two friends hurried to join
the crowd. Julie stopped a woman dressed in black, who was hobbling toward the palace. “Tell us, how is Eric Hinkle?”

  The woman raised her eyes. They were moist. She tried to speak, then cupped her hand over her mouth and hid her face.

  The two friends shared a frightened look.

  “Come on!” said Neal, grabbing Julie’s hand. “We can’t waste a second!”

  Julie and Neal hurried up the palace steps.

  “Eric is in the royal bedchamber,” said the first guard they passed.

  “Please go quickly!” said the second.

  The two friends raced through one glittering hall after another, from staircase to golden staircase, all the way to the uppermost room.

  They stopped in surprise when they reached the hall outside the royal chamber. It was crowded with many old friends.

  Pacing back and forth in front of the door was Shago, the whiskered master thief whose skills had often helped them on their journeys. He smiled sadly when he saw the friends.

  “To see you again like this,” Shago said, sniffling. “Eric is so weak….”

  “But he will rally once he senses you are here!” said Khan, king of the Lumpies. His boots were dusty from his journey from the distant desert of Lumpland.

  “Everyone, stand aside!” said Queen Ortha while Batamogi, the Oobja king, waved the way clear for Neal and Julie to enter the room. Ortha, ruler of the clever Bangledorn monkeys, bowed as the children passed. Batamogi did the same. Like the others, both showed signs of long and weary travel.

  The chamber itself was crowded but nearly silent, except for the continuous murmur of a low voice in the corner.

  The sorcerer, Lord Sparr, blind and old before his time, sat rocking back and forth on a small stool, whispering to himself. His tattered cloak was draped low over his face, obscuring all but his thin gray beard. His hands were locked together atop a rusty saber that he used as a cane.

  Crowded nearest to the bed were Galen; Max, the spider troll; the royal couple, King Zello and Queen Relna; and Princess Keeah.

  Eric himself was lying motionless in an ornate four-poster bed, his face as pale as the midday moon, his slight body barely showing beneath the heavy blankets.

  “Oh …” Julie gasped.

  Keeah rose to greet her friends. Her eyes were red from crying.

  “Dear friends,” she said, hugging them. “I’m glad you’ve come. Expeditions have been sent all over Droon to find a cure for Eric’s dark wound.”

  “But none has been found,” said Max.

  “We hope that Eric senses you are here,” said Relna, “and this will help him heal.”

  “Hope!” said Galen, storming from one end of the chamber to the other. “In my youth, I could move stars. I fought armies single-handed. I braved dangers unknown! But I cannot help a little boy. Eric is like a son to me. A grandson. An old friend. A brother! And yet …”

  “Even Sparr cannot help,” said Zello, gesturing to the sorcerer, still rocking on his stool. “Since Eric was struck, he has been in a dark world of his own.”

  “Yet we cannot give up hope,” said Max. “We must never give up hope.”

  “Never,” said Galen, turning to a large, elaborately framed mirror and studying it closely. The children knew it was a magic mirror through which the wizard could see all of Droon.

  “No rock, no pebble, no grain of dust shall remain unturned in our quest to find a cure for this terrible wound!” the wizard said.

  Keeah put her hand on Eric’s forehead.

  “So pale, so cold!” she said, pulling another blanket to his chin. “It’s as if Eric’s spirit has left him and gone far away. If we only knew where his spirit has gone!”

  * * *

  Where my spirit has gone!

  Eric’s eyelids felt as heavy as lead. He struggled to open them. When he finally succeeded, he saw a room filled with people. There were his friends from home, Julie and Neal. And there were Galen and Max and Queen Relna and Khan, the pillow king.

  “Hi, everyone!” he said. But his words sounded strange and far away, as if someone else had said them. “What’s up?”

  His friends all looked down at the bed, though none answered him. Their expressions were … what? Sad? Worried?

  Why? he wondered.

  And here was Keeah, bending to him, her fingers extended to touch his forehead. She pulled them away. Strange. He hadn’t felt her hand on his skin.

  Instinctively, he reached for the bandage on his shoulder. The wound under it was open, raw, and unhealed. He remembered that.

  And yet … the wound didn’t hurt.

  With great effort, Eric propped himself up in the large bed, pushed the blankets aside, and slid down to the floor.

  “I feel pretty good for someone who’s supposedly injured,” he said.

  All the sad faces were still looking down at the bed. He followed their gaze.

  He shuddered.

  On the bed he saw — himself!

  “What?” he said. “But I’m over here!”

  His face — his face — was as white as the pillow behind it. His hair was damp and matted, as if wet cloths had been applied to his forehead. His eyeglasses were placed lovingly on the side table next to a goblet of water.

  Eric touched his own face. His glasses were right there atop his nose. How could that be?

  “How could I still be in the bed? Am I asleep? Am I dreaming? Hey! Anyone?”

  No one spoke.

  Then, all at once, something strange happened.

  The air … rippled … across the room like a wave. It seemed to come from the big mirror. It flowed past him and settled on the boy in the bed.

  His pale white face grew paler still!

  “This is so weird!” Eric said. “Hey! People!”

  It was then that he realized something else. When that ripple had passed over, the people standing by the bed looked both sadder and strangely different. Eric found himself struggling to recall the names he had just had in mind.

  That boy with blond hair was a friend, right? And the girl in the red T-shirt. He knew her, for sure. The tall wizard … his name began with a G or something. And the pretty blond girl with the crown and the wet eyes — she was a princess … wasn’t she?

  Eric stepped over to the mirror. At first he saw only mist. Looking more closely, he began to make out tall buildings and domes, canals and bridges, and streets paved with stones of different colors. A city?

  A wild city!

  In the center of the streets stood a large palace of colorful stones. It had curving walls and steps circling up the highest tower.

  “What is that place?” he asked.

  You know its name….

  Eric spun around to see a dark-cloaked man seated on a stool. The man’s head rose slowly to reveal eyes that flashed under his hood.

  “You heard me?” asked Eric. “But … who are you?”

  The man’s lips did not move, but his words sounded in Eric’s head.

  The city’s name is Saaa …

  And the name of the wild city came to Eric.

  “Saaa …” he said to himself.

  * * *

  There was a sudden commotion at the chamber door. Shago and Khan jumped aside as Ortha called out, “Make way, everyone! Pasha comes!”

  The crowd parted, and Pasha, the diminutive carpet weaver with the striped cap and long mustache, scampered into the room, cradling a small green bird in his hands.

  “Friends!” he panted. “Since Lord Sparr’s blindness, I have cared for his little bird, Isha. Now Isha brings word of a miraculous cure from the very fringes of the Dark Lands —”

  “And look here!” said Galen suddenly, staring into the magic mirror. “The image clears. I see a city of bridges, water, domes, and streets of many colors —”

  “Eric is moving!” cried Keeah as Eric twitched suddenly and his lips parted.

  “Isha has described a magical city in the east,” Pasha went on. “A city of wonder.” br />
  “I know this distant place!” said Galen, staring at the mirror’s image. “It is —”

  “The city of …” Pasha continued.

  The moment Pasha and Galen spoke the name together, Eric sat straight up in bed and shouted at the top of his lungs —

  “Samarindo!”

  Then, as if the effort to speak was more than he could bear, Eric sank back into the sheets, his breathing slowed, and he grew even paler than before.

  “The cure will be found in Samarindo!” cried Galen. “Samarindo, city of magic! City of danger! Keeah, you must go at once!”

  Princess Keeah rushed to the door. “City of danger? I don’t care about danger. I’m going there now! Julie, Neal, come with me —”

  “Wait!” said Max. “In the mirror!”

  The moment the children looked in the mirror, they saw the air tremble away from the city’s palace like water from a pebble dropped in a pond. The ripple spread from street to street, and the long, broad avenues leading from the palace changed their direction like writhing worms.

  “Legends call Samarindo the City of Dreams,” said Galen. “Now you see why.”

  A bridge arched here; a river snaked there. Buildings vanished for a moment before re-forming, altered, somewhere else. Paved plazas with fountains became bare clearings, hills became valleys, streams crossed by bridges became streets, twisted and crabbed.

  And through it all, the colorful palace in the center of the city did not move. But its colors dimmed a little, fading so they appeared almost gray.

  “Legends say the city’s ruler wears a Dream Crown,” said Galen. “The crown is the source of this powerful magic.”

  “But the City of Dreams is a city of nightmares for anyone looking for something,” said Julie. “How will we find the cure?”

  “Lord Sparr will not mind if I offer little Isha as your guide,” said Pasha, petting the bird. “Dreams or not, her sense of direction is first-rate. She’ll help you find the cure.”

  Keeah looked at Sparr, rocking and whispering to himself, then turned back to Pasha. “If you come, too,” she said.

  The little rug weaver beamed. “Me? Really? A mission? Do you mean it?”

  “We do,” said the princess.

  “Then I’d be honored!” he said, bowing so low that his nose touched the ground. “Now I can test my latest carpet innovation, invisibility threads. I’ve made a completely undetectable flying carpet!”