Waking in Dreamland (13 page)

“It’s all right,” Roan said, soothingly, reaching out to grasp her shoulder. “We’re together. Stay close.”

Mustering lanterns, pocketknife lights, torches, even bright ideas to light their way, the small group marched onward. The needle in the miniature compass that was attached to the side of Roan’s pocketknife pointed toward the Castle of Dreams off toward the right, so he knew he was headed west. The ground underfoot was dry and relatively even.

Something with dozens of cold, tickly legs landed with a plop on the back of Roan’s hand, almost making him drop the knife. Not again! he thought. He jumped in surprise and slapped at his hand, but hit only his own flesh. There was nothing there. Another illusion.

Something else tickled the nape of his neck under his left ear. He jumped and turned. A glowing face leered at him. Roan gasped, and the face vanished. Some of the guards shouted. Roan turned, and another face loomed ahead of them, with vacant eye sockets and a grinning mouth. Lum raised his quarterstaff and struck out at the face, but hit nothing except more tree branches. The glowing mask vanished with a chilling laugh. A gargoyle face with horns, pointed ears, and a forked tongue, more horrible than the first two, appeared right in front of Roan, who jumped, startled. Leonora screamed.

“Nightmares,” a familiar voice said, cheerfully. “Harmless.”

Roan let out a relieved breath. “Bergold. You’ve changed again.”

“Hmm,” Bergold said, scratching his ear, and frowning when he discovered the point at the top. “Bad?”

“Horrendous,” Leonora said, firmly. “You glow in the dark.”

“Interesting,” Bergold said, unperturbed. “Then I ought to go first, and lend my countenance to this expedition.” He pushed forward, and walked beside Lum.

“Easy does it,” Bergold said. “Wait, whoa,
hold
!”

In between the “wait” and the “whoa,” the ground rolled under Roan’s feet and heaved itself up into a hummock. By the time Bergold got to “hold,” he had fallen backwards onto his friend, knocking Roan into Drea, who toppled into the file of guards, and they all collapsed on one another into a hollow full of scratchy tree roots.

“This wasn’t here just now!” Lum exclaimed. “We just walked over that spot, and it was flat as a pancake. I do most earnestly beg your pardon, Your Highness,” he added, moving off the princess’s legs in extreme embarrassment.

“Is it alive?” Leonora asked, scrambling to her feet. She hadn’t really noticed the imposition in the confusion. Her nurse was beside her, helping her up. They clambered out of the hollow as quickly as they could.

“If the trees can move, so can the ground,” Bergold explained, grimacing and showing about eighty pointed teeth. “It’s not alive as we know it, but it’s got a kind of consciousness, and a sense of malicious mischief. Not very nice, is it? Is anyone hurt?”

“No, sir,” Spar said, counting heads and noses, and finding an equal number of each.

“Look!” Felan said, behind him. “A light! They’re here!”

“That’s it, sir,” Lum exclaimed. “That’s what we saw!”

“Shh,” Roan whispered. “Brom’s people will hear you.”

“They won’t hear a thing,” Leonora murmured from beside him. “Listen to all the noise they’re making.”

Roan stood silent. He heard numerous voices talking in low tones, plus many other sounds that were unfamiliar: liquid burbling, mechanical chuckling, and odd, tinny music. But there was no sensation of alarm or urgency.

“They’ve made themselves right at home,” Spar whispered.

Roan put his hand in front of his borrowed lamp so it would be visible to the others, and cocked a finger to beckon them close.

“They don’t know we’re here,” he whispered. “We’ll make ready, then charge into their encampment. Remember, we want to destroy or disable the Alarm Clock. And don’t let the group get close together. Their influence is surprisingly strong when they touch.”

“I remember,” Spar hissed. “A dragon, out of thin air.” He drew his sword, and motioned for his soldiers to do the same. Roan opened his red pocket knife, this time selecting a heavy cudgel studded with steel knobs. The princess moved back in the ranks to stay with Bergold who, as a winged gargoyle, could protect her if necessary.

“Now, don’t charge until you see where everyone is,” Roan warned them. “Don’t let anyone sneak around us.”

The clearing ahead of them glowed with a blue-white light so bright it was difficult for Roan to make out details from where he crouched. Figures, looking oddly attenuated, moved back and forth before the light source. The machine sounds were unfamiliar, but that was unsurprising. Only the Sleepers knew what other machinations Brom had come up with. Roan made himself a wager that the scientists had more technical advancements in hand than they would ever show the king.

As his eyes adjusted, he squinted through the harsh light looking for the Alarm Clock. A light touch on his arm from Lum made him glance to his right. Some of the figures were moving around a humped shadow. It looked large enough. Roan nodded to the corporal, who tiptoed silently back into the undergrowth. In a moment, Roan felt three taps between his shoulder blades.

In a move calculated to startle, Roan burst out of the woods into the clearing. Slack-limbed with surprise, the shadowed figures turned to stare at him. He saw their eyes, looking huge and dark in their faces.

“Ladies and gentlemen, you are under arrest in the name of the king!” Roan announced, hefting his staff. “Please do not attempt to escape. If you cooperate and come quietly, it will be better for you.”

“Stop them!” Felan cried, a silhouette to Roan’s left. “They’re running away!”

“Get them!” Spar roared, charging into the clearing. “In the name of the king!” He set off in pursuit of the shapes scampering across the open glen. Roan joined in the chase. Brom’s minions had a head start, but on his long legs he should catch up with them in no time.

“There’s a cave up there!” Lum shouted, pointing at a low hemisphere of shadow many yards ahead. The scientists were pouring into it. For a moment, in the gleam of the light, Roan got the impression that they weren’t wearing any clothes. Had he interrupted some weird scientific ritual?

“We have them now,” Spar said, gleefully, waving his sword. He gestured to his guards. “You two, stay out here and guard the door. Lum, inside with me!”

“No!” Leonora cried, her voice rising above their war cries. “Don’t go in! Look!”

Roan, only steps away from the cave mouth, windmilled his arms to bring himself to a stop. At last, he was close enough to see one of the figures he had been chasing. It turned a startled, ash-white face toward him. The enormous eyes didn’t belong to any minion of the Ministry of Science he had ever seen. The creature had thin lips and no nose, and the cave it was running for was not dark inside. There were jewel-colored lights everywhere, and a flat, altar-like table in the center floodlit by a hot, white beam. Four of the white-faced beings stood around it, beckoning to him ominously. Roan backed away in haste.

Suddenly, he was the quarry, and they the hunters. A handful of the odd beings grabbed for his arms and legs, seeking to drag him into the cave. Roan threw himself to the ground and rolled away, feeling the drag of their long fingers on his shoulders, his cloak, his hair. Leonora shouted as the soldiers reached him and pulled him free. The last of the beings dove into the strange cave as Roan scrambled back to his feet.

A door slid across the cave mouth, sealing it, and the whole hill vibrated with a deafening hum. Red and white beams of light chased themselves around its surface, and the whole hill and surrounding ground, including the place where Roan had just been standing, shot up into the air. Roan and the others stood gawking upward at it. The saucer-shaped mass stopped a thousand feet above them, emitted a five-tone musical burst of sound, then arrowed away toward the south.

“Bless my soul,” Bergold said, breaking the silence. Roan blinked and came back to earth. His friend’s gargoyle face was wreathed with a happy smile that was positively terrifying with his current features. “Where are my notebooks? I must get that down on paper before I forget a single detail.”

“Take mine,” Colenna said, rummaging in her capacious bag. She beckoned one of the guards over with his little lantern. The yellow beam seemed suddenly inadequate and insignificant after that blinding white glare, but it was much friendlier. Bergold took the proffered notebook and began to scratch away, talking to himself all the while.

“Well, that wasn’t them,” Felan said. “What now?”

“It appears to me,” Roan began, “that Brom and his people never did come into the forest. We would have found at least a trace of them by now if they had. They might even have joined forces with . . .” he gestured upward, “with whatever that was. We should count ourselves lucky. Let’s get out of the forest, and set up camp for the night.”

“Right you are,” Captain Spar said, briskly, slapping his sword into its sheath. “I for one am hungry and thirsty, and I could use a solid night’s sleep. Corporal!”

“Sir!” Lum said, coming to his side and saluting.

“Lead us out of here, lad.” Spar lined everyone up in a double file behind his corporal, and took the rear himself.

The forest once again tried to block their way and confuse them, but its efforts were half-hearted. It seemed to have given its best shot with the attempted abduction. Everyone stayed close together, refusing to be separated out for individual terrors. Roan found he was less frightened by the invisible spiders that dropped down on him, by the phantom auditors that whispered in his ears, by pop-quizzes flapped in front of him, by the monsters that paced the party threateningly. He realized he had to run for them to chase him, so he did not run. He was too tired to be scared. In a very short time, the party was alone.

“Shh!” Bergold said, tilting a sharp ear to the left. “I hear rustling!”

“Check it out,” Lum directed his soldiers. They squeezed between the bushes, but the others kept their lamps trained on their backs. In a moment, Roan heard glad cries, and Alette returned, smiling.

“It’s the steeds!” she said.

“Really?” Leonora asked, at once solicitous. “Are they all right?”

“Yes, Your Highness. This way!”

Leonora and Roan followed their guide into a small hollow where the four missing bicycles were clustered in a frightened mass. Leonora knelt between Cruiser and Golden Schwinn, and soothed, petted, and complimented them both until they huddled around her shoulders.

“There,” Leonora said, pleased. “They’ll be fine, now.”

Roan checked the packs. “Everything is still in the panniers,” he said. He patted Cruiser, glad to have his silver friend back with him. They followed the lights back to the path. Corporal Lum again took the lead.

A hundred yards later, Roan could see murky starlight through the tree branches.

Suddenly, a log ten feet thick crashed to the ground in front of Lum, strewing spiky branches everywhere. The bark was thickly coated with thorns as long as fingers. The bicycles reared and squeaked. Roan put a hand on Cruiser and Golden Schwinn, to keep them from bolting again. He threw his head back.

“All right!” he shouted at the forest. “You win! You’ve driven us away! We’re leaving. We can’t take your horrors any more. All we want is to go!”

The rocking log paused, appearing to consider his words. Then, just as abruptly as it fell, it broke in half. Each half, hollow as an eggshell, rocked on its spiky exterior, and collapsed into several sections no thicker than bark, spraying decayed wood-dust in every direction. Lum caught the full cloud in the face, and choked until Colenna pounded him on the back.

“It’s dead and dust!” Spar shouted in surprise.

“Let’s go before something else falls on us,” Leonora said.

“Right you are, Your Highness.”

The group tiptoed warily over the remains of the tree, looking around for more booby traps, but Roan knew there would be none. The Forest had released them at last.

“Whew!” Bergold said, brushing himself off as they passed the last overhanging tree branch. The phosphorescent quality of his face began to fade, until he was merely grotesque. Gradually, he became an ordinary man again, though this time with a mass of curly dark hair going gray and a sharp nose. “Roan, how did you do that?”

“I learned a lesson earlier,” Roan said, humbly. “Show respect, and menace loses all its power over you. I wish I’d known that twenty years ago.” He hadn’t completely banished the bogey of his childhood, but he’d beaten it back, for once.

“Well, we’re exactly where we went in,” Spar said, in disgust, looking around at the night-bound land. “Waste of time. They never came this way. Brom must have skirted the woods, never passing through.”

“No, but we had to check,” Roan said.

“I’m truly sorry,” Felan said, humbly, striking himself in the side of the head with his hand. “The trail seemed so very clear.”

“We could have been following the path that tree made,” Roan said. “I believed it, too.”

“Well, so long as you forgive me,” Felan said, with a shame-faced grin.

“What seems so incredible to me,” Roan said, thoughtfully, “is that after escaping from me, Brom and his minions made it as far as the Nightmare Forest, and turned back again.”

Bergold pursed his lips together and emitted a long whistle.

“Goodness,” he exclaimed. “I hadn’t thought of the difficulty of such a journey. Theirs is a very considerable power.”

“Unique,” Felan said, in a low, respectful voice.

“Well, we’ve lost them for tonight,” Bergold said, throwing his hands up. “I’m ready to drop. We’ll have to stop for tonight, and backtrack to where we lost them tomorrow morning.”

“I agree,” Roan said.

“Oh, no!” the princess protested. She had seemed to perk up once they’d left the forest, but she looked alarmed again. “We can’t stop! They’ll keep going. We can find the trail, now that we’re out here.”

“My dear, we have to get some sleep to be of any use tomorrow,” Bergold said reasonably, taking her hand. Dismayed, Leonora looked from one person to the next for support. The others shook their heads apologetically.