The Familiars #4: Palace of Dreams

by Adam Jay Epstein

  The sound of a bell clanged through the halls.

  “My students will be arriving for class soon,” the teacher warned.

  “When we come through the other side, how do we locate the queen?” Skylar asked.

  “If in this world she’s at rest in the New Palace of Bronzhaven, then in that one you should find her waiting in the Palace of Dreams,” the teacher said. “But even I have never made a journey that far.”

  “Then what do you recommend we do?” Aldwyn asked.

  “Find a remwalker to guide you. You’ll recognize them by their bright red eyes, for they never sleep.”

  Suddenly the door handle began to rattle.

  “Help me!” the teacher cried. “I’ve been taken—”

  Aldwyn telekinetically lifted the cloth she’d been using to wipe down the slate and flung it across the room and into her mouth, gagging her.

  “Again, my apologies,” he said.

  Skylar was already rolling up a dreaming rug.

  “What are you doing?” Aldwyn asked.

  “We can’t travel through here,” Skylar replied. “Remember, you come out the same place you go in. No doubt they’d be waiting for us.”

  “Good point,” Aldwyn said.

  “Now come on, help me get this up on Gilbert’s back,” Skylar said.

  Aldwyn mentally lifted the rug into the air and set the bundle atop Gilbert.

  “See, I told you this dog thing would come in handy,” Aldwyn said.

  The attempts to open the door from the hall were growing more urgent and students’ voices could be heard. “Instructor Weaver, is everything okay in there?”

  The cloth in her mouth prevented her from calling out.

  Skylar turned to her companions. “Once Aldwyn opens that door, we make a run for it. Gilbert, whatever you do, don’t let that rug fall off your back.”

  Gilbert let out a bark to indicate he understood.

  “All right, here we go,” Aldwyn said.

  He used his mind to unbolt the lock, and the door swung open. Immediately students came rushing in to find their teacher bound and gagged, but Aldwyn, Skylar, and Gilbert were sprinting through their legs for the hall. Gilbert was moving so fast it was hard to keep up.

  The familiars never looked back, charging down toward the exit. A student shouted out from the dreaming rug classroom. “We’ve got intruders!”

  Aldwyn, Skylar, and Gilbert burst out the front doors of the brick building. A pack of Turnbuckle students and instructors were racing toward the growing commotion.

  “Can’t you two go any faster?” Gilbert called out.

  Aldwyn and Skylar shared a look. Gilbert’s face had shed its shaggy beard and his mouth had returned to the smooth amphibious lips of a tree frog.

  “Hey, I can talk again,” Gilbert said.

  Aldwyn glanced ahead and saw Commander Warden at the front of the group.

  “Stop those familiars,” he ordered. “They’re wanted for treason against the queen.”

  Aldwyn, Skylar, and Gilbert were running for the ring of walled-off training grounds. “Oh, boy, there goes my tail,” Gilbert said.

  Aldwyn looked over to see that the furry dog tail had shrunk back into Gilbert’s butt, and the tree frog was beginning to return to his normal size.

  The three animals stayed close as bolts of magic went whizzing by them. A young wizard made a diving leap, reaching out to grab Aldwyn. But just as his fingers took hold of the cat’s tail, he was shot back by a wand blast.

  Aldwyn turned to see Jack, with his wand outstretched. Dalton and Marianne were at his side.

  “Aldwyn, what are you doing here?” Jack asked. “Does this have something to do with Yeardley?”

  “No, the search for my sister got slightly sidetracked,” Aldwyn replied.

  “What’s Commander Warden talking about?” Jack continued. “What treason against the queen?”

  “We’ve been framed,” Aldwyn replied. “They think we tried to kill Loranella. And the only way to clear our names is by saving her.”

  “It’s best if the three of you stay out of this,” Skylar said. “There’s no point in giving them any reason to think you’re involved, too.”

  “We’re not leaving, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” Dalton replied. “You’ve never turned your backs on us when we’ve been in trouble.”

  The familiars continued their dash, with their loyals right behind them. But now it wasn’t just Warden and the Turnbuckle wizards giving chase. Two of the queens’ guardsmen, no doubt the ones assigned to keep watch over Jack, Marianne, and Dalton, were in pursuit, too.

  “Guys, a little help here,” Gilbert croaked.

  Aldwyn and Skylar saw that their companion had returned to his former state, save for two floppy dog ears. The rug that Gilbert had been carrying so easily just moments earlier was now far too heavy for him to hold.

  “Gilbert, what happened to you?” Marianne asked.

  “Long story,” the tree frog said in a muffled voice from beneath the rug.

  Marianne lifted it off Gilbert’s back and he was free to hop once more.

  “How do we get out of here?” Aldwyn asked.

  “Your only choice is to cut through the training grounds,” Dalton replied.

  This time they wouldn’t have the luxury of picking which one. It would have to be the walled-off area with the vicious camouflage lizards, because it was closest, and Warden, the Turnbuckle wizards, and the queens’ guardsmen were closing in.

  “We’ll hold them back,” Jack said.

  “We can’t let you do that,” Skylar replied.

  “Go,” Dalton insisted.

  Skylar took one end of the rug in her talons, and Aldwyn the other in his mouth.

  Jack, Marianne, and Dalton stood side by side, raising their palms into the air and conjuring a large, ghostly hand between them and the rapidly approaching mob. The force push sent the first wave of wizards tumbling backward. It gave the familiars enough time to squeeze past the outer hedge lining the training area. Skylar and Aldwyn struggled to pull the rug as well. It got stuck in the branches, taking all of Aldwyn’s clawing and scraping to get it through.

  Skylar lifted her wing, casting an illusion. It was of a sparrow, just like the one that had attracted the camouflaged lizards before. The ferocious creatures made themselves seen, attacking the nonexistent bird. With Skylar’s distraction keeping the lizards away, the familiars resumed their escape, dreaming rug in tow. Unfortunately any hope the familiars had of making it through the other side were squashed for good when the opposite wall opened up as well to let another group of spellcasters charge toward them. There was no direction where danger wasn’t near. They were trapped.

  Instructor Snieg, the icy-gray-haired woman from Gilbert’s puddle viewing, approached.

  “Noble as you claim your intentions to be, Galatea has requested your capture and immediate return to Bronzhaven,” she said. “We’d much rather take you in alive than be forced to scrape up your remains once the razoracs are finished with you.”

  Aldwyn looked at the giant, toothy lizards crawling toward them.

  “Lay down the rug,” Aldwyn whispered to his companions.

  “Here?” Skylar asked. “What if those creatures destroy it? There will be no way to get out.”

  Aldwyn glanced through a narrow slit in the branches of the outer hedge to see that their loyals and the ethereal hand were still pushing back the relentless assault.

  “And no way for Warden or the others to come in after us,” Aldwyn replied. “Assuming Jack, Marianne, and Dalton don’t keep them at bay forever.”

  “Then we’ll be trapped in the Dreamworld,” Skylar said.

  “Not if we find another exit,” Aldwyn countered.

  “But what if there isn’t one?” Skylar asked.

  Gilbert was unrolling the rug so it was flat on the cobblestones.

  “Don’t be fools,” Snieg shouted. “Whatever fate the queendom has in store
for you surely will be better than the path you’re about to take.”

  Aldwyn, Skylar, and Gilbert were about to find out.

  “Everyone, close your eyes,” Skylar said.

  The Three lay down on the swirling pattern at the rug’s center. As his eyes shut, Aldwyn felt the ground beneath him suddenly give way, and he was falling. Even though he was tumbling through some kind of space between, he opened his eyes to see the razoracs shredding the rug to nothing but tiny bits of string.

  When Aldwyn emerged from the churning darkness, his feet were touching down on what looked like cobblestones but were actually the shells of a thousand tortoises standing side by side. Skylar and Gilbert landed next to him.

  Aldwyn did a full circle, taking in the Dreamworld for the first time. The Three had arrived just outside an alternate version of Turnbuckle Academy. Here, each of the gray buildings stood six feet above the ground, each atop the four legs of a horse. The buildings trotted about, as if grazing in a field.

  Aldwyn watched a flock of bats fly overhead. The sun, hanging low in the sky, lashed out a fiery tongue, swallowing up three of them.

  “Maybe Snieg was right,” Aldwyn said.

  “Well, it’s too late now,” Skylar replied. “We better start looking for one of those remwalkers.”

  “I feel like I’m dreaming,” Gilbert said. “Are you sure we’re awake?”

  Skylar reached out her talon and pinched Gilbert hard on the arm.

  “Owww,” the tree frog cried.

  “Yep, I’m sure,” Skylar said.

  The Three set off to the north, walking across the backs of the tortoiseshells. There was no guarantee that Queen Loranella was even still alive. But if she was holding on, their only hope now was to find her in the Palace of Dreams.

  13

  REMWALKER

  “It’s certainly not what I was expecting,” Skylar said.

  “Which part?” Gilbert asked. “The polished silver mountains or lava waterfalls?”

  “Both,” Skylar replied. “All of it. Somehow I never imagined it to be this big. I must not have traveled very far in my dreams.”

  The familiars had been walking for only a quarter of a mile, but they’d passed through a dizzying number of different locations, each one blending into the next with no warning. They had avoided danger thus far, and hadn’t seen any other people or animals.

  “When I was a tadpole, I used to have this recurring dream,” Gilbert said. “I was in the swamp, but everything around me was enormous. The reeds were as tall as trees. Lily pads looked like giant islands. Even the flies were as massive as dragons.”

  “Sounds like the canopy we visited in the Forest Under the Trees,” Aldwyn said.

  “No, it felt different,” Gilbert said. “It wasn’t so much that everything else was big. It was that I was small.”

  “You’ve come a long way since then,” Skylar said. “You’ve made your family proud.”

  Aldwyn, Skylar, and Gilbert continued to head north toward the palace, or at least what they thought was north. Everything was warped and twisted, throwing their sense of direction completely off. Even the mountains and trees seemed to have rotated.

  “How are we supposed to get to the palace if we keep going in circles?” Skylar asked.

  “We’d better find that remwalker,” Aldwyn said.

  “Where?” Gilbert asked. “We haven’t seen another soul since we got here.”

  “What about up there?” Aldwyn replied.

  He pointed to a city in the clouds, actual brick buildings standing among puffs of white suspended in the air, high above the forest in the distance. They could see a heavy rain falling.

  “It looks like as good a place to start as any,” Skylar said.

  They continued forward, only to come upon a river rushing across their path without warning. Ten feet wide, it was filled with teeth. Incisors, cuspids, and molars clattered past, making a noise that reminded Aldwyn of the sound his own teeth would make after taking shelter from a cold rain.

  “I’ve dreamed of losing teeth before,” Aldwyn said.

  “How do you suggest we get across?” Gilbert asked. “I don’t think we can walk or swim through that.”

  Just then, they saw an older woman wash by in the current. She was struggling to keep her head above the piles of teeth.

  “Help me!” she called out. “Please, somebody!”

  “What should we do?” Gilbert asked.

  “She’ll be fine,” Skylar replied. “She’s only dreaming. Nothing can happen to her.”

  Aldwyn knew Skylar was right, but he couldn’t just stand by and watch someone suffer. He eyed a nearby tree branch and telekinetically bent it to her. She reached out and grabbed it.

  As she dragged herself to shore, the old woman disappeared.

  “She must have woken up,” Skylar said.

  “Maybe if we wait here long enough, the river will clear,” Gilbert said.

  The Three sat on the bank waiting patiently, watching as other dreamers were swept along in the flow. Aldwyn saved another one or two, but seeing as how they vanished once he was finished, it didn’t seem necessary. For them, none of this was real. They’d stop dreaming, their eyes would open, and they’d be safe beneath the covers of their beds.

  The torrent of teeth didn’t seem to be letting up, and soon, the familiars spotted its biggest victim yet: a fifteen-foot-tall Fjord Guard. It hadn’t occurred to Aldwyn until then that, large or small, everyone who sleeps dreams. The giant was so large he took up nearly the entire width of the river. And that gave Aldwyn an idea.

  “Gilbert, when that Fjord Guard goes by, jump for his arm,” Aldwyn said. “Try to use him as a bridge to the other side.”

  There wasn’t a whole lot of time to discuss it. As soon as the giant was within reach, Aldwyn and Gilbert took a running jump and landed on his shoulder. Skylar, as usual, had the advantage of flying above.

  “This isn’t a part of the dream I’ve ever had before,” the Fjord Guard shouted as the cat and tree frog bounded across his beard.

  The giant was beginning to sink deeper into the teeth, making Aldwyn and Gilbert’s race to shore even more urgent. They made a final sprint down the Fjord Guard’s other arm and leaped for the far bank. Skylar was there waiting for them. The river of teeth continued to rattle and flow, but the path ahead was clear.

  As they got closer to the forest, Aldwyn could see that what he’d first thought to be heavy rain was really people and animals falling from the sky.

  A man dressed in the ragged pants and tunic of a farmhand tumbled through the air, letting out a frightened scream. He hurtled toward the ground, but before he made contact he disappeared.

  Dozens of others were experiencing the same thing. Falling horses whinnying in terror. Children covering their eyes in fear. Yet none of them hit the earth. They all vanished just in time.

  “Another common dream,” Aldwyn said. “Falling.”

  “I’ve had my share of those,” Gilbert added.

  “Not me,” Skylar said. “Must not be a bird thing.”

  Aldwyn turned his attention away from the plummeting dreamers to the forest itself. To his surprise—although nothing in this world really should have come as a surprise anymore—the tree trunks were leafy ladders that stretched to the clouds.

  “If we’re going to find what’s up there, I suppose we should start climbing,” Aldwyn said, stopping before one of the ladders.

  “And if it breaks and we fall?” Gilbert asked. “We don’t get to disappear before meeting our deaths.”

  Aldwyn put his paws on the ladder and began to ascend it rung by rung. It wobbled and swayed, but Gilbert followed, and Skylar flew at their sides. The Three continued higher and higher.

  When Aldwyn reached the lowest layer of the clouds, it felt like he was entering a thick fog. He wasn’t able to see much past the tips of his own whiskers. Soon a commotion could be heard above, the sound of footsteps accompanied by the din of a crowd
chattering.

  After another twenty rungs, Aldwyn emerged into a courtyard glowing in the evening sunset. Gilbert and Skylar came up behind him and they found themselves among a rush of humans, animals, and creatures. Some walked around confused by the disorienting surroundings. Others went about their business as if they lived there. Aldwyn was paying particularly close attention to the eyes of the passersby, looking for the red tint that the Turnbuckle instructor said would expose a remwalker. No one matched the description yet.

  “Apparently these remwalkers don’t want to be found,” Aldwyn said, frustrated.

  “This way,” Skylar said.

  She flew from the courtyard toward a main road lined with vendors selling trinkets and inventions advanced beyond anything Aldwyn had ever seen conjured by Vastian wizards or black marketeers. Great spellcasters often said that moments of profound insight about conjuring new magic struck them in their sleep. Perhaps, Aldwyn thought, Kalstaff or the original members of the First Phylum had walked down this same street and been inspired.

  Skylar was already examining the fantastical creations cluttering a nearby table. One caught Aldwyn’s eye as well. It was a small chest with eight magical wands affixed to it like legs.

  “Curious, are you?” the vendor asked Aldwyn. He looked like a cave troll, with ears the size of a small elephant’s. “I call it a wandling.”

  The vendor laid a coin down on the table. The chest sprang to life, scurrying like a spider over to the piece of silver. Once it arrived, the wandling opened its lid and swallowed the coin whole.

  “It’s an automaton,” the vendor continued. “Neither alive nor inanimate. You never have to feed it and it’s always at your service. Both protecting small treasures and collecting new ones.”

  The vendor shuffled over to a hooded customer browsing on the other side of the booth. Aldwyn walked up to Gilbert, who also had taken an interest in a contraption: a mechanical box that spat out decorated confections when a lever was pulled. Gilbert took a peek inside to see how it worked, but as his face got closer, a square of chocolate mousse shot out of the machine and splattered across his forehead.

  Aldwyn allowed himself just another moment to observe a bubbling cauldron. Inside, a spoon was stirring the stew of ingredients without the need of any hand to grip its handle.