Dream Magic

by Joshua Khan

  As the pair of them climbed out, the second figure stood up and bowed. Lily smiled. “Baron Sable. Having fun?”

  Whose dream is this? Wade’s or Sable’s?

  Here they were, father and son, enjoying a summer’s day fishing, a long way from the cares and worries of Castle Gloom.

  Sable’s rod jerked. “I’ve got something, Son! Help me!”

  This had to be Wade’s dream. All his life he must have dreamed of being called “Son.” Something the baron would not, could not, call him in the waking world.

  Lily wrung out her skirt and walked off, leaving father and son to wrestle with whatever it was in the sparkling water.

  It only took a few paces to return to the formless desert. The sand swirled all about her, and in that brewing chaos stood a figure, waiting.

  Lily’s heart quickened. Could it be…“Father?”

  The laugh was a dry rasp. “Hello, Sister.”

  It was Weaver.

  “I knew you’d come,” he said.

  “How?”

  “We Shadows are ambitious, are we not? You needed to test yourself. To see if you could do it. Well done.” He gave her a mocking bow. “You are very talented. But you’re walking in my garden now.”

  “Please, Weaver. You don’t need to do this. There’s a home for you in Castle Gloom.”

  “And all I have to do is give up my dreaming prisoners?”

  “Yes.” If there was a way to make a bargain between the two of them, then all her problems would be solved. And she would have a brother again. Why couldn’t he see this was best for both of them?

  He sneered. “And be that miserable cripple at the end of the table during the great feasts? Hear all the nobles whisper as I limp past? No. Thank you for your offer, but I’d rather destroy you and conquer Gehenna.”

  “You’d prefer to rule with fear?”

  “Better people fear me than pity me.”

  “I don’t want to fight you, Brother.”

  Weaver responded with a malicious smile. “I know. Because you will lose.”

  Lily was loath to give up. “Is there no hope, then, between us?”

  Weaver hesitated. As he looked at her, his eyes glimmered with a light. Maybe there was a chance for something good to come from all this….

  But he put that light out with a grimace. “There has been no hope since the day you Shadows burned my mother.”

  There was no getting through to him. Lily backed away.

  Walls formed around her. The sand gave way to grass. Trees rose; boughs and branches and twigs and leaves burst from their expanding trunks.

  Wake up. I need to wake up.

  The dream thief waved a crooked finger. “No. You are asleep, Sister.”

  “Wake up!” Lily yelled. She slapped herself. “Wake up!”

  Weaver took her hand. Lily couldn’t resist.

  Jewel spiders crawled along his arm. They crept out of every fold of his silken robe.

  “No….” Lily tried to pull herself free. “This is a dream. It’s only a dream….”

  The spiders hopped from his hand onto hers. Her skin crawled just as they crawled over it.

  “Wake up, Lily. Wake up.”

  How could they affect her? She was already asleep.

  A spider bit the back of her hand. Lily cried out. The fangs burned.

  The dream thief held her gently as she sank into the grass. “I do not want you to suffer, Sister. You are family, after all.” He touched her eyelids. “Close them. Close them and be happy.”

  Lily closed them.

  “Lily. Lily, darling.”

  “Ow.”

  “Wake up, Lily.”

  Lily blinked. She shifted onto her elbow as she awoke. “Ow.”

  She looked around, confused. What was she doing in the Night Garden?

  “Ow,” she repeated. She scratched the back of her hand. It itched as if she’d been…bitten?

  The sun shone through the leaves overhead. The branches of the oak tree stretched above her like roof beams. A warm breeze brushed her skin.

  Soft, firm hands scooped her from under her armpits. “Up you get. What will Mary say if she finds you asleep in the garden?”

  Lily stood up. “Mary’s a fusspot.”

  She heard laughter. Laughter that filled Lily’s heart and also brought tears to her eyes.

  “She may be, Lily, but don’t let her hear you say that. Here, let me.” Gentle fingers drew her hair from her face and tucked it neatly aside. “Much better.”

  Lily faced her mother. She gazed into the deep, dark eyes of love, then leaped forward and hugged her. She gave her a squeeze worth a hundred years of squeezes. “Mother…”

  Her mother’s laughter rocked them both. “Now, Lily, you’ll crush me!”

  Someone tugged Lily’s hair from behind.

  “Ow!”

  “Playing hooky from lessons, I see?”

  Lily’s brother, Dante, gave her hair another sharp tug.

  “Ow! Dante!” Lily slapped his hand. “That hurt!”

  Lady Salome Shadow stretched out her arms. “Ah, it’s too fine a day for lessons. I was thinking about a picnic. What do you think, Lily?”

  Lily grinned. “A picnic.”

  Dante dropped his big arm over her shoulder. “An excellent idea.”

  “Mother hadn’t invited you.” Lily scowled. Dante could be so annoying. “But you can come, I suppose.”

  Dante bowed. “Why, thank you, Lady Shadow.”

  Lily frowned. She wasn’t Lady Shadow. She didn’t like him calling her that. Still, what was better than a picnic with her mother and brother? She’d missed them but couldn’t understand why. They’d been here all along.

  She recalled some…bad dream. She shook her head. Dreams weren’t real. “Where shall we have it? By the pond?”

  The real Lady Shadow, her mother, pointed to a gathering of dark stones on the horizon. “No. We want someplace quiet, where Mary won’t find us. How about the City of Silence?”

  Thorn got Wade to help carry Lily up to her bedroom. Mary arranged the pillows and curtains as he and Wade laid her down.

  “How long has she been like this?” asked Mary.

  “Ten minutes? I tried to wake her.” Thorn looked at Lily. He saw a slight wrinkle on her brow, as if she was worried in her dreams. That did not make him feel better.

  There was a light tap at the door, and Dr. Byle came in, carrying a basket of small jars. “I’ve got these smelling salts. One of them should wake her up.” He took the cork off one.

  “Gross!” declared Wade. “Smells like zombie puke!”

  “Funny you should say that…” Dr. Byle passed the jar under Lily’s nose, to no effect. He tried four other jars, each more stomach-churningly foul than the last. Lily remained stubbornly asleep. The doctor frowned. “A jewel spider bite, you say?”

  Thorn nodded.

  Dr. Byle scratched his chin. “I could get one of those creatures, study it, and see if there’s some way of concocting an antidote. But that will take time, assuming it’s even possible.”

  “Then you’d better start right away.” Mary bustled him out the door and then closed it. “Of all the stupid things…”

  “Now what?” asked Thorn.

  “We could kiss her,” suggested Wade. “It works in the fairy tales.”

  Thorn didn’t like that idea—for Wade, at least. “What are you going on about?”

  “‘The Sleeping Princess.’ She pricks her thumb on a poisoned spindle because some evil witch—I think it was Eriynes Shadow—wasn’t invited to her birthday party or something. Then she’s asleep for a hundred years—”

  “That can’t happen. You’d be dead,” said Thorn.

  “Anyway…” continued Wade, “a prince comes along, kisses her, and she wakes up. True love and all that.”

  It sounded stupid to Thorn, but then, he didn’t know much about magic. “So?”

  “Better give it a try.”

  Thorn st
opped him. “How come it’s you?”

  Wade smiled. “Look in a mirror. Look at me. Then look in the mirror again and ask yourself honestly, who’s the most handsome, by far?”

  Thorn shook his head. “Good to see you’ve got your spirit back.” Wade had been morose ever since returning from battle. “If I know anything about…Baron Sable, I know he’ll be home again soon, tugging on that mustache of his.”

  “I just dreamed about him. We were fishing, and Lady Shadow was there, too, standing in the water. Strange, but I feel that he’s alive. He has to be.” Wade wiped his lips. “So, back to the kissing—”

  Mary cuffed him. “Neither of you are going anywhere near Lily. I’ve never heard anything so…wrong. And disgusting.”

  “But it’s written in all the fairy tales, Mary,” complained Wade.

  “Written by men, no doubt,” she scoffed. “You put those puckering lips away before I punch them.”

  Thorn laughed as Wade blushed. He shouldn’t have, because that only brought Mary’s attention back to him.

  “And you, you young idiot, why didn’t you stop her?” Mary got up and straightened Lily’s pillow. “So quick at shoveling beans down that gaping maw of yours, yet when it really matters, you dawdle like a serving girl on her wedding night.”

  Wade grinned as Thorn’s cheeks now reddened. “How was I to know that Lily would—”

  “Do something rash and reckless? You only need to meet the girl for a minute to know that! Honestly,” huffed Mary. “Why don’t you two go off and bother someone else?”

  “What shall I tell Dott?” Thorn asked. “She’ll be beside herself when she finds out about Lily. Could I send her up?”

  Mary said, “I’ll not have that…big lummox clomping around in here.”

  “She’s her friend, Mary.” Thorn turned to Wade to back him up.

  Wade responded with a shrug. “Don’t ask me.”

  Thorn didn’t like it. People were terrified of the approaching troll horde, and he didn’t want anyone to take it out on Dott. She had nothing to do with it.

  “Please, Mary.”

  Mary locked her arms across her chest. Then she nodded. “But she sits outside, understood?”

  Thorn looked down at the sleeping Lily.

  What’s going on in your dreams?

  “Now be off, the pair of you,” snapped Mary.

  Wade jerked his head to the door, and Thorn was there in a blink. They closed the door gently behind them.

  Wade made a face. “I’d rather be back fighting trolls than be stuck with Mary. Why don’t we send her out to face them? One tongue-lashing from her, and they’d probably surrender.”

  Thorn kicked the wall in frustration. Now that Lily had done something reckless, what choice did he have but to do something equally reckless? “I’ve got to go find that cloud ship.”

  “Er…why? And how?”

  “The how’s called Hades, and the why…I haven’t worked it out yet.”

  Wade slapped his forehead. “None of this fills me with confidence.”

  “I’ve got to try, Wade. Lily hopes to wake the dreamers, but even if she does, Weaver’s got other uses for his captives—” He shuddered, remembering what happened to the Pitch couple. “I need to bring the cloud ship down.”

  “But the ship and those webs are magic, serious magic. How are you intending to deal with that?”

  Thorn thought of the gift from Ying he had hidden in his room. “With something better than magic: science.”

  “Sounds idiotic.”

  “Idiotic is taking on a troll army. This is just…desperate.”

  The tube went down his sock. That was the best way to keep it secure no matter what stunts Hades performed. Then Thorn grabbed his bow and a fistful of his best arrows.

  “Only six arrows?” asked Wade.

  “I’m not planning on fighting a war.” Thorn slung the bow over his shoulder. He slid the long dagger in his sheath.

  “Just be careful, Thorn. You’ve come a long way pretty quickly.” Wade helped buckle the quiver on. “I remember the first day I saw you. Scrawny, head shaved, and stinking of horse dung. Now look at you.”

  “Jealous?”

  “There’s an old story about a boy who had wings made of wax and feathers. He flew too high, the sun melted the wax, and down he went. Just make sure that doesn’t happen to you.”

  “It won’t,” replied Thorn. “When is it ever sunny in Gehenna?”

  The brutally icy wind found every little gap in his clothing, biting viciously at his bare skin. So Thorn snuggled closer to Hades, to borrow some of the bat’s warmth.

  That’s better.

  He’d found Hades wide-awake and waiting for him in Murk Hall. The bat knew something was going on and had been impatient to get into the air.

  Cap firmly down to his eyebrows, Thorn wondered what to do next. They’d been flying for hours and well into the night, yet they’d had no luck spotting the cloud ship.

  His fingers were frozen stiff, and his knees felt like they’d locked into place.

  How do you find a single cloud when the sky is full of them?

  He was just thinking of heading back when Hades suddenly changed direction.

  “What is it?” Thorn instinctively tightened his legs under the bat’s shoulders as Hades dove sideways. “You spotted a sheep or something?”

  Hades snarled, and then…and then Thorn saw it.

  The cloud ship sparkled like frost in moonlight. It was bigger than before, towering high above all the other clouds. It glowed softly from within, the colors ever changing through the entire palette of a rainbow.

  Thorn wondered how many dreamers were needed to keep such a thing aloft: like slaves in the galley of a ship, chained not with iron but with spider silk. He readied his bow. “This is it, Hades.”

  Hades swooped toward it, riding the storm current.

  Countless jewel spiderwebs covered the ship, their strands trailing wildly in the high winds.

  Thorn rubbed Hades between the ears. “Good boy.”

  Hades circled above, then glided under it to search for a way in. Every entrance now seemed curtained by webs.

  But the wind was doing its work. A rip developed, revealing a long, clear wormhole that spiraled into the heart of the cloud ship.

  Hades took it.

  They flew through a tunnel that twisted and turned, expanded and contracted as though it were an artery in a living thing. Thorn brushed his fingers lightly against an arrow’s fletching. He felt nervous. The time for action, for him to kill a living man, was rapidly approaching.

  This is for Lily.

  He couldn’t fail her.

  They approached an opening. They would find a perch and wait for a sorcerer to—

  The tunnel darkened.

  Thorn spotted the jewel spiders too late.

  A net of spider silk dropped over the opening just as Hades reached it. He shrieked as Hades flew straight into it, entangling them both.

  Jewel spiders dashed across the thread.

  Thorn tried to tear the webbing, but it was too thick and sticky. Hades flapped his wings, which only served to trap him further. Now outside of the tunnel, they dropped, as Hades was unable to get enough air under his wings. He shook his head as the net stuck to his fur and ears.

  Thorn grabbed his dagger and set to sawing the biggest strand apart. If he could just get Hades’s wings free…

  They slammed into an even bigger net. They bounced against it as Hades tumbled down along its pattern, tearing it into long, ragged strips. But the webbing cinched tighter and tighter around them as they fell and eventually held them fast, two flies trapped in a mesh large enough to roof one of the halls in Castle Gloom.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid!

  He cursed himself. It was an old hunter’s ploy: cover all exit routes but one. That guaranteed the prey would pick it.

  Steel flashed before his eyes. A sword hacked at the strands holding him, and then a pair of st
rong hands ripped him, only him, out of the web. He was dumped onto the floor.

  A vicious kick knocked all the wind out of him and sent the dagger spinning out of his hand. Thorn gasped as a second kick slammed into his chest. Then he was hoisted to his feet by two blue-cloaked guards.

  Weaver shuffled toward him. Thorn glared, clenching his teeth with rage. He tried to pull free of the guards so he could attack, but they didn’t give an inch.

  Weaver raised his staff and struck Thorn across the face. Blood oozed from the gash on Thorn’s cheek.

  “How good of you to drop in,” said Weaver.

  “Bring the boy,” ordered Weaver.

  Hades was totally trapped. More jewel spiders had set to work, weaving thicker ropes around the bat until he could barely move an ear. He shrieked at the silver cords that held him better than iron chains ever had.

  Thorn took a step toward him, but the guard stopped him with a spear.

  “I’ll come back for you, Hades. You just wait.”

  Weaver smirked. Steps formed out of the cloud material as Thorn was led deeper into the heart of the ship. Walls and doors appeared and disappeared, one moment harder than rock, the next as insubstantial as fog.

  Lightning flashed across the roof, thousands of feet above them. The cloud ship rumbled, and snow swirled in open pockets. Thorn wasn’t a sorcerer, but even he could sense the power building.

  Weaver followed his gaze. “Admiring my cloud ship, eh?”

  “Tempest, right?” Thorn gazed upward. “Is that its original name or the one you gave it after you just stole it from House Typhoon?” He looked at Weaver. “House Typhoon housed you, trained you, made you the sorcerer you are. But when they needed you, you abandoned them. Am I missing anything?”

  “House Typhoon made me a servant. Me, their greatest sorcerer. They had me bowing and scraping, and all the while they never saw how much I despised them. I was happy when they were defeated, old and pathetic as they were. I swore I’d never be anyone’s servant again. Not when I could be their master. It is my birthright, my destiny, to be the ruler of men.”

  Thorn couldn’t help but bark a laugh. Lily’s puppy would make a better ruler.