Dormia (37 page)

Confused, the Dormians wondered how this could have happened. And then they remembered: many centuries before, one of the Dormians refused to stay in the valley, and had left heading due south. He had heard stories of the famous Yangtze River, and wanted to see it. As a memory of Dormia, he took with him a few of the seeds that no one had successfully germinated. And thus the Dormians made two epic realizations. The first was that a Founding Tree could be born only outside Dormia. The second—and more profound—was that the fate of the Dormians and their Founding Trees were intertwined. Dormians depended on the Founding Tree for life; and the Founding Tree depended on Dormians to spread its seeds throughout the world, where they could be germinated, and then eventually returned to their indigenous soils, deep in the Ural Mountains.

The ancient scholars eventually discovered that only Dormians who grew up in Dormia—under the canopy of a Founding Tree—could develop the powers of active sleeping. The one notable exception to this rule were the Great Sleepers. These very special people, who often were born in distant lands, developed extraordinary sleeping powers. Typically, a Great Sleeper will emerge whenever a Founding Tree is dying, and that Great Sleeper will not rest until he or she has hatched a new tree and delivered it to Dormia. The connection between the Great Sleep
ers and the Founding Trees is powerful, fascinating, and wholly mysterious.

Under the protection of the first Founding Tree, the people of Dormia grew prosperous. Over successive generations, they explored the valleys and peaks of the Urals, and found ten more trees, each as beautiful and mysterious as the original. They settled under each of the trees, and these settlements became the eleven cities of Dormia.

After reading this first chapter, Alfonso skimmed over the ensuing pages until he came to a chapter heading that seized his attention. He began reading again, very astutely.

Chapter XXVI

The Rise of Nartam

At the height of Dormia's power, there were a total of eleven cities, yet one by one these majestic cities vanished from the face of the earth. Four were lost because the Great Sleeper failed to arrive in a timely fashion. Five were ravaged by Dormia's ancient and eternal enemy—the Dragoonya. One city's fate, the ancient capital of Jasber, remains uncertain, but it too has likely vanished. Now only Somnos exists.

The only hope we Dormians have in fighting the Dragoonya
lies in what precious little we know about them. "Know thy enemy," the ancient sages tell us. Tragically, the Dragoonya leader—Nartam—is Dormian. He was born Milos Brutinov Nartam in the city of Dragoo in the year2365. By all accounts, he was a brilliant child and excelled in math, physics, and poetry. He was particularly skilled with the use of a shortsword and was a gifted harpsichordist.

At the age of just sixteen, Nartam became a member of the Dragoo Society of Sages and Scholars. Here he devoted himself to the Scorial Sciences, which study the uses and properties of the purple ash that is produced in very small quantities when a Founding Tree is burned. At the age of nineteen, Nartam authored the book
Scorial Science & the Future of Dormia
, which argued that Dormians should occasionally burn portions of their Founding Trees and use the powers of the ash to their advantage. This was the only way, he concluded, that Dormia could survive in the face of other competing civilizations. Many people denounced this book, and it was even banned in several Dormian cities. Others, however, hailed Nartam as a hero who possessed the courage to challenge the sacred rules of the past.

By the age of twenty, Nartam had become a leading political figure in Dragoo. Before long, he demanded that the city's
Grand Vizier—Cecil Cyrus—burn at least one leaf from the city's Founding Tree. When Cyrus refused, as he was obligated to do by ancient Dormian law, Nartam accused him of being both weak and a coward. Nartam then threatened to burn a leaf himself. Cyrus decided to move against Nartam, but this proved problematic. A band of armed thugs—who called themselves the Dragoonya—had sworn their loyalty to Nartam and promised to deliver "hellish retribution" if anyone came after their leader. Defiant in the face of this threat, Cyrus gave the orders for Nartam to be arrested. The plan failed. Nartam went into hiding and, a day later, a gang of Dragoonya thugs set fire to Cyrus's house, creating a terrible inferno that consumed much of the city. The death toll included Cyrus, his family, and several hundred other residents of Dragoo as well. During this fire, three leaves from the Founding Tree of Dragoo were burned and the powder fell into the hands of the Dragoonya.

Within a week, Nartam had seized control of the city. Over the following months, Nartam burned several large limbs from that magnificent Founding Tree of Dragoo. He and his men grew addicted to the Founding Tree's purple ash, which led them to burn the entire tree within a year's time. By the year 2386, Nartam—at the age of twenty-one—had destroyed the
city of Dragoo and named himself Prince of the Dragoonya. Eventually, he and his men wandered far to the north and founded Dargora, which means "city of twilight" in the ancient tongue.

Alfonso tried to keep reading, but his eyes had become too heavy. It didn't matter—he had a good sense for what happened next. Nartam and his Dragoonya legions would constantly search for the remaining Dormian cities; and, as
McBridge's Book of Mythical Plants
had described, the Dragoonya would conquer huge areas of the Asian landmass. The only limit to their lust for power and violence was their supply of ash.

Alfonso yawned again. He laid the book on the floor and slid under the bed's luxurious covers. He would read more in the morning. Sleep came very quickly, but it was not peaceful. In fact, it was one of the strangest spells of sleep that Alfonso ever had because—for the first time in his entire life—he had a dream. The dream was set in a valley covered with snow, much like many of the valleys that Alfonso had crossed during his trek through the Urals. Directly in front of Alfonso stood a boy of his own age. The boy's face looked oddly familiar, though Alfonso couldn't recall who the boy was or how he knew him. The boy's eyes were firmly shut, as if he were sleeping.

"Excuse me," said Alfonso. "I'm sorry to wake you, but I feel certain that I know you."

The boy's eyes flicked open and, to Alfonso's surprise, they were entirely white.

"My name is Kiril," replied the boy calmly. "Oh," said Alfonso rather dumbly. "What are you doing out here?"

"The heartless wretches kicked us out of the city—
after we fought for them
—and now my family members have all died in the snow," he replied softly as a lone tear ran down his cheek. "Are you a Gahno too?"

"No," replied Alfonso.

"That's good for you," said the boy. "I should have known. Your eyes aren't white like ours. You should be glad for that. After the battle, they said we couldn't be trusted. They said that we had become addicted to the purple ash and that in time we would become traitors. Some said we already were traitors."

"So you're all by yourself now?" asked Alfonso. "What will you do?"

"Oh, thankfully, I'm not alone," replied the boy. His voice suddenly had an eerie calmness about it. "I have met a man who saved my life. He wants to be my father."

"And who is that?" asked Alfonso.

The boy laughed suddenly.

"Why, that's a silly question, Alfonso," replied the boy. This gave Alfonso a start because he had not yet introduced himself by name. "I think you know perfectly well who he is. As a matter of fact, my father is someone you know."

"I see," replied Alfonso. "Well, in that case, can you take me to him? I would like to know who he is for certain."

"Oh, don't worry," said the boy. "You'll meet him again soon enough."

Alfonso awoke from his dream with a start. It was the middle of the night. He was breathing rapidly; sweat covered his forehead and stung his eyes. It took him a moment to realize that he had been dreaming. He tried to remember every detail. One particular sentence echoed in his mind:
My father is someone you know.

D
ESPITE
his extreme exhaustion, Alfonso couldn't sleep much that night. At first it was because of the dream. Then he was awakened by a great flapping noise that sounded like a ship's sail fluttering in the wind. At dawn, he crept out of bed to investigate. His bedroom opened directly onto a large stone patio that wrapped all the way around the guesthouse. Once outside, he looked up and gasped in amazement. Directly above him hung the largest leaf he had ever seen. It had to be at least two hundred feet long and fifty feet wide and, as it rocked back and forth in the heavy morning wind, it made a great deal of noise—
thwap, thwap, thwap.
It was a leaf from the Founding Tree of Somnos.

Alfonso dashed over to the stone railing at the edge of the
patio. He now had a perfect view of the entire city of Somnos and his eyes focused immediately on the city's centerpiece: the Founding Tree. Its trunk rose from the center of the city, traveling high up into the sky, and then exploding into a giant tangle of branches. Despite the fact that the tree was near death, there were still a few dozen leaves left, each of them as big as the one flapping directly over the guesthouse. It was impossible to tell exactly how tall the Founding Tree was. The marble towers were quite tall, at least twenty stories in Alfonso's estimation, and the Founding Tree was roughly three times taller than these towers. More impressive than the height of the Founding Tree, however, was the size of its canopy. Indeed, the tree's many branches covered much of the city like an enormous umbrella.

Alfonso noticed that in certain sections the trunk of the tree was gleaming. It was hard to see from this distance, but it looked as if tendrils of ice were creeping their way up the tree. Several of the Founding Tree's branches were entirely bare and looked as if they were already dead. Alfonso could see teams of workers, standing on various limbs of the tree, cutting or pruning its deadened branches with giant hacksaws. Other teams were using ropes, nets, and pulleys to make sure that the severed limbs didn't crash down to the ground below. Alfonso shivered as an icy wind blew across the patio.

Alfonso turned his attention to the city's six marble towers. The towers were connected to one another by a series of walls that formed a hexagon. The towers themselves were made of a light pink marble and were decorated with beautifully detailed carvings. Armies of stonemasons must have labored to turn these giant slabs of rock into beautiful works of architecture, complete with windows, doors, columns, terraces, ladders, and
stairways. The nicest homes appeared to be the ones, like his guesthouse, which were built on the flat tops of the towers. He noticed that the sturdy roads that coiled up the sides of the towers were congested with a great deal of traffic—hundreds of men and women on donkeys, in horse-drawn chariots, and on foot.

Within the city walls, the buildings were also made of pink marble, and while they were much smaller in height than the towers, they were equally beautiful. Their roofs were mostly domed and, from this perch, they looked like bubbles waiting to be popped. The streets were narrow and winding, but all of them converged at the center of the city, where the Founding Tree rose from the ground.

"Amazing!" Alfonso said to himself. "I just can't believe it."

"Believe it," said a voice from behind him. "Welcome to Somnos—the last city of Dormia."

Alfonso spun around and discovered that the voice belonged to General Loxoc. It was as if he had appeared out of thin air. He was clothed in his dress uniform. He wore knee-high leather boots, a black wool shirt and pants, a dark green velvet hat, and a matching velvet cape. Around his waist was a heavy belt made of silver chainlinks that held two throwing daggers and a full-length sword. Several medals glittered on to his shirt. The general was a big man, almost as large as Bilblox, with neatly combed silver hair and a pronounced forehead and chin. His face was expressionless and his eyes were firmly shut.

"I didn't know you were here," said Alfonso.

"Oh, I am an early riser," said the general stiffly. His eyes snapped open as he became fully awake.

"How is it that you speak English so well?" asked Alfonso.

"I learned to speak Wanderer when I was a boy," explained the general. "It is taught in all of our schools, thanks to our last Great Sleeper, Aldwyn Blodeuwedd. He was a schoolteacher from the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. He arrived in Dormia roughly three hundred years ago with a Dormian bloom, a collection of William Shakespeare's plays, and a great love of the English language. You see, it is customary that all Dormians learn a second language, which we call the 'Wanderer dialect.' It is crucial that our Wanderers know how to communicate with others when they venture into the outside world—otherwise they would have little chance of surviving. Prior to Blodeuwedd's arrival, our Wanderer dialect was the language of the Romans. Blodeuwedd said that English was the language of the future and he convinced the Grand Vizier at the time. You'll find that most Dormians speak English reasonably well and a few—those who hope to become Wanderers—speak it exceptionally well. It's almost become something of a problem with the younger generations. Many of them speak Wanderer better than Dormian."

"Well, I guess he was right about English, or Wanderer as you call it," said Alfonso. "It is a pretty popular language in the outside world."

"Tell me," said the general, "What's it like being a Dormian in the outside world—never belonging—always being so fundamentally different from everybody else?"