Waking in Dreamland (5 page)

She had a small square of crisp, smooth canvas in her hand that Roan recognized as the Great Map of the Dreamland. At the king’s signal, Romney began to unfold it. It doubled in size again and again until she was quite hidden behind it. Two footmen ran forward to help her place it on a map-stand near the throne. Once extended, the canvas filled with fine, black lines, dots, and lettering, and gradually brightened with color appropriate to the topography: blue for rivers and lakes, green for lowlands, and gradations of tan and brown for highlands. Romney strolled around to the front of the chart and pointed toward a large patch of brown.

“Currently, I can report an outbreak of mountains in the southwest of Rem,” she said. “Subsidence along the Lullay near Hiyume in Elysia over the last few months has replaced meadowland with low-lying jungle terrain. Very swampy and bad-smelling. We’re getting reports of some unusual wildlife. Not all of it is welcome. Mosquitoes the size of your fist. They’re banding together and carrying off farm animals.” People in the crowd gasped, and Romney nodded solemnly.

“That’s more up your street,” the king said, nodding to the Royal Zoologist, who penciled a swift note on his silk sleeve. Romney gestured energetically as she indicated change after change in the terrain that had occurred over the previous year. “Tangeray River has moved closer in toward the town of Osier,” she said, pushing the air with both palms as if helping the stream along. On the map, the thin blue line appeared to nudge the black dot marked “Osier,” which tried to avoid contact with it. “Resulting in the whole Tangeray valley shifting to the southwest. The chances are about sixty percent for flooding in the town.” Her hand swept down over the dot. “The citizens are being advised to take precautions. We’d like to scotch this situation before it becomes an emergency. I’m afraid if the Tangeray succeeds in flooding Osier, there may be other bank takeovers elsewhere in the province. More as it develops.” She pointed at a pair of high cliffs facing one another over the border of Rem and Wocabaht. “We’ve got an escalation going on I think we can attribute to rivalry between two villages on either side of the divide. These bluffs started off as low hills, but now there’s some substantial headlands on each side, and growing higher every day. They aren’t tall enough to interfere with climate. Nothing cloud-high as of yet. I’ve got an observer staying close to the action.” She stepped away from the map and folded her hands. “That’s about it, Your Majesty, but I spotted Master Roan over there. I’ll just keep the map open, with your permission. After he speaks I may have some updating to do.”

“Very well,” the king said, beckoning to Roan.

“Oh, my news is of little importance,” Roan said, casually, with a glance back toward the clutch of scientists. “It can easily wait until later. I would be happy to defer to Madame Carodil. The Minister of Science seems to have some interesting and, no doubt, vital news to impart.” He bowed deeply, both toward the throne and again in the direction of the Minister of Science. “I am most curious to hear what she has to say.” Carodil, now fully seven and a half feet tall, glared at him. He smiled at her, trying to look innocent and knowing that his face wouldn’t alter and betray him. Bergold, half-hidden behind him, nudged Roan in the ribs with an elbow and let out a chuckle.

“Yes, all right,” King Byron said, impatient with the infighting and the delay. “Call Carodil.”

“Call Carodil, Minister of Science!” bellowed the herald. Everyone turned to face toward the group at the back of the hall.

Chapter 4

Roan could tell that Carodil was very annoyed. She wanted to be the last to speak, but Roan’s polite deferral would have thrown too much emphasis on a second refusal. Instead, she stood her ground, and addressed the court from where she was, projecting her voice so the king could hear her.

“Your Majesty, the historian’s son is quite correct,” Carodil said, dismissing Roan with a flutter of her hand. “I am pleased to announce an important breakthrough. The statements made by the other department heads simply prove that what I have to say has not been a moment too soon in coming. The sighting of the precious pegasus would not have been so fleeting, nor would we have seen outbreaks of mountains or mosquitoes, if only the world had had access to the newest process that my staff have created.”

“This sounds exciting, Carodil,” King Byron said, sitting up alertly among his cushions. “What is it?”

Carodil was only too happy to expound. She raised the orb-headed cane in her right hand. The sphere began to glow. “My liege, ladies and gentlemen, we of the Ministry of Science are proud to announce our experiments in cooperative strength have proved successful. We have succeeded in learning how to combine our intellects, and have full control of reality. Using this technique, we are no longer subject to the whims of passing influences, and can, in fact, change reality even to the exclusion of the power of the Sleepers themselves!” She swept the cane down and thumped its iron ferrule on the ground in emphasis.

Her listeners waited precisely one and a half seconds before bursting into hysterical laughter.

“In your dreams,” Micah hooted, flapping his white beard at Carodil with his hand.

“It is fact,” the minister said, drawing herself up to greater heights until she stood some nine feet tall.

“I wouldn’t believe in atoms until you showed me,” Micah said, folding his arms and growing to ten feet so he could glare down on her. “I certainly won’t believe in such an outrageous claim as this. Prove it.”

“I certainly shall,” Carodil retorted, jumping to twelve feet in height.

“Enough escalation!” the king thundered. The herald shouted for quiet. “Have you any proof of this astonishing breakthrough?”

“We would be most pleased to give Your Majesty a demonstration,” Carodil said, with a slight bow. She let herself shrink back to a mere seven feet. Micah subsided to an average height, and the historians muttered among themselves.

“By all means,” the king said, clapping his hands together. “I’m as curious as anyone else. Proceed.”

“Anyone can bend reality a little,” Thomasen said to Roan and Bergold. “This had better be really spectacular.”

Carodil led the way to the front of the hall. She flicked her hand to and fro, and the crowd opened up before her. She towered above them as she passed. A portly man with heavy-lidded blue eyes and rather broad lips fell in behind her. Ten young men and women filed after him. In contrast to their superiors, who were almost aloof, they looked very excited and nervous. Roan confessed to himself that he felt a tickle of anticipation. The faces of the people around him were turned avidly toward the Science party. This was something new.

Describing another of her spare bows to the king, Carodil faced toward to the crowd. “I turn over the floor to my chief researcher, Master Brom, who has supervised this project for me.” She stepped aside and the stout man took her place. “I heard some complaining here today that the great mystical beasts have been too shy in appearing,” Brom said, haughtily peering down his beak of a nose, his half-closed eyes gleaming with amusement. He pursed his lips. His mouth seemed made for supercilious smiles. “Allow us to show you how we can fold reality to produce such a sighting.”

Brom turned to face the king, and put out his right arm straight from the shoulder. His minions clustered around him in a circle, back to front, with their right arms out and hands piled at the hub of the wheel under his.

“Behold the crucible,” Brom intoned. He closed his eyes and started to mutter. The apprentices at once closed theirs and began to chant along with their senior.

Even at a distance, Roan could feel a significance to their actions, a faint eddying in the air, or a slight pull towards the circle. The air above the knot of hands changed. A brass chandelier visible beyond them seemed to twist in on itself, then snap back only to turn into a new pretzel shape. Roan realized that the chandelier wasn’t changing, but his sight of it through the air was. The scientists were folding reality. Astonishing.

“Amazing,” Bergold whispered. “They are actually combining their strengths! Can you feel the power they’re pulling together?” Roan nodded silently, rapt. This was something new, something powerful.

Threadlike streams of matter flowed in toward the roiling air, filling in an amorphous shape. The shape writhed, bucked, turned over twice, and formed into a small green dragon. As Roan watched with his mouth open, it spread its translucent, batlike wings, darted out of the confines of the circle and flew around the room. People near the throne flattened themselves to the floor and screamed as the glowing beast dove toward them. A length of hanging tapestry fluttered as it went by, and the little beast turned in the air on its tail and burned it to ashes with a spate of flame. Roan jumped. The creature was real.

The dragon described another one of its hairpin turns and arrowed downward toward the thrones. Memory driving his legs, Roan hurtled forward, wondering if he could reach them in time. King Byron sat straight and tall on his cushions, staring fearlessly at the beast as it came. The queen, on his right, screamed and fainted into a heap of silks. Her ladies rushed to her. The guards, guessing that the king was the target of the demonstration—maybe attempted assassination—leaped to interpose themselves between their monarch and danger. At the king’s other side, Leonora too sat erect, but Roan could see she was terrified. The dragon opened its mouth and breathed out another stream of hot yellow flame. Roan was too far away. She would be burned to death before his eyes.

Just as the flames would have reached the silk banners hanging above Byron’s head, the scientists moved their hands, breaking the connection. At once, the dragon and its fire vanished. Roan skidded to a stop, staring at where it had been. The crowd broke into puzzled exclamations. The guards windmilled suspiciously, looking around for the dragon. Captain Spar, a powerfully built man in his fifties, glared daggers at the scientists, and directed a couple of his men to go and stand by them in case they tried any more shenanigans.

“Very impressive!” the king said, applauding enthusiastically. He slapped his satin-covered knee with delight. “By heaven, that’s good!” He looked to his queen, who was reviving under the care of her attendants. She nodded faintly at him. Byron turned to Leonora, silent and trembling beside him, and put a hand on hers where it rested on the arm of her throne. “Are you all right, my dear?”

“I am now, Father,” Leonora said, and Roan was proud that her voice was strong, without a trace of a quaver. She swallowed. “As you say, it was impressive.”

“Yes, indeed,” Byron agreed, and turned back to the scientists. “But apart from party tricks, Madame Carodil, what are the practical applications?”

“Infinite!” Carodil said. Her eyes gleamed. “I think it might serve as a lifesaving measure in times of Changeover, for example.”

“Meddling with the Sleepers’ will,” growled Micah. Roan heard that sentiment echoed throughout the crowd.

“Good thing it’s not all-powerful,” Datchell muttered. “That monster could have killed His Majesty.”

“Not at all,” Roan said, with a quick glance at his old tormentor. “The king could have wiped out the monster with a wave of his hand.”

“So he could,” Bergold said, much relieved. “Just because he doesn’t often alter reality doesn’t mean he can’t. He’s worth a thousand of the rest of us. I imagine he could summon up dragons on his own, if he chose.”

“He wouldn’t interfere thusly with the Sleepers’ will,” piped up Olmus, waving his walking stick querulously. He was the oldest of the historians. He claimed to have lived so long he’d seen Changeovers in every province at least twice.

“Hmmph!” Datchell snorted, blowing out his pendulous camel’s lip. He knew the measure of royal power as well as Bergold did, but he had been caught off guard. His fellows wouldn’t forget that kind of a slip. He glared at Roan, who quickly turned his attention back towards the dais.

“Is this study much advanced?” Byron asked the scientists.

Carodil bowed slightly and raised a hand to indicate her assistant. “This has been Master Brom’s project,” she said.

“It is well advanced, Your Majesty,” the fat man said ponderously. He stepped past his senior toward the throne and bowed deeply. “We have done many studies. One person has only so much influence, but our investigations are proving that a group’s strength is greater than the sum of its individuals.”

“Excellent!” the king said. “I am very impressed by the results.” Brom’s face glowed.

“Thank you, Your Majesty. In fact, we have so much confidence in our new ability as a group to command reality, we feel we are ready to take the greatest challenge ever this year. Our next great experiment: to wake the seven Sleepers!”

“What?” the king asked, producing a tin ear trumpet from thin air and putting it to his ear. “I beg your pardon. I can’t believe I have heard you properly.”

“Neither can I,” Bergold said to Roan, under his breath. “Look at Carodil. She wasn’t expecting this.” The Minister of Science looked shocked, but was held upright by her dignity in the midst of the crowd roaring their outrage. Some of them levitated over the others to get the king’s attention, but Byron was entirely focused upon Brom.

“Perhaps you should repeat what you said.”

“I said,” the scientist shouted, enunciating the syllables one by one, “that we are going to wake the Sleepers.”

“All of them at once?” Telsander asked.

“On purpose?” Micah demanded.

“Of course!”

“Blasphemy!” Micah exploded. “How dare you suggest such a thing?”

“I serve science,” Brom said. “It is our job to question.”

“Do you have the least idea what your suggestion could mean?” asked Synton, the Minister of Continuity. “Don’t

you know the Great Theory? The Sleepers maintain the underpinnings of our entire existence! It’s bad enough when there’s one Changeover transition, when one Sleeper leaves, or dies, or whatever it is They do! Every surrounding province is flooded by terrified refugees coming over the border from the affected area! Fear! Turmoil! Destruction! How can we be expected to maintain continuity for the Sleepers if there is none for us? This could cause mass rioting!”