The Darkness of Dreamland Page 15

  It was made of some kind of stone, a shade of pink that he had never seen in nature. It was built in layers of walls, towers, and turrets, each accented in banners and flags, and even had a drawbridge over a moat. Adrian gaped at the castle as they approached it. It looked like an attraction at an amusement park, yet even from here he could sense a sort of gravity from it, an importance that radiated and hung tangible on the air.

  Ahead, a ring of buildings had grown in the shadow of the castle, a village existing in the shallow valley. Small cottages lay on the outer rim, broken up with fields or pens of various animals; inside, arranged along the winding cobbled road, were stands and booths — merchant stalls.

  From his vantage point, Adrian could see all manner of strange people selling stranger wares. Someone had a collection of brightly colored stones laid out on a soft cloth; another, a shelf full of odd-colored liquid and a large pot over open flame that occasionally emitted sparks. Another shopkeeper busily tended to what appeared to be extremely small sheep — or, at least, cottony white animals with four legs; the rest of them was obscured by fluff. Someone else was busy nailing up a sign that said, in very untidy lettering, “Buy Rats Here!”; at his feet was an enormous burlap bag that writhed and squeaked.

  And, of course, there was dreamcraft. Adrian hadn’t had the chance to consider the full scope of dream usage in Dreamland before, but now he was beginning to see that dreams were used to make nearly everything. He saw food and drink prepared from “100% dehydrated dreamstuff” that claimed to carry all sorts of medicinal properties from treating hangovers to curing impotence. A stall sold lights of all kinds: paper lanterns, candles, small glowing orbs that bathed everything in light ten times brighter than a halogen bulb. Many people sold dream-forge weapons, proclaiming them to be effective against “Imps, Sprites, Slivers and Jeepers” while others were marked with signs saying “Caution: Prolonged Exposure May Produce Euphoria and Poor Aim.”

  One stall held a variety of birds — small, large, bright, dull, singing and squawking. The shop-owner was a short, squat person of indiscernible gender who wore multiple layers of shabby clothing, like a homeless person. Only the top of its head was visible over all the clothing, and this was topped with feathery hair that could, in fact, have belonged to an overgrown molting pigeon.

  A shopper, a tall woman with pointed ears and large yellow eyes, stood before the rows of cages, looking between them indecisively. She licked her lips and — after a moment of hesitation — approached the owner of the bird stall.

  They exchanged a few words in a language that Adrian didn’t know, one that sounded different from Sonia’s native tongue — something with a lot of rasping and clicking. Then the shopkeeper pulled down a cage of brightly-colored lovebirds and withdrew one. It handed this to the girl, who took it in both hands — her fingernails were long and sharp and curled, Adrian noticed — and inspected it thoroughly. Then she shoved the live bird into her mouth and Adrian could hear the crunch of bones and the muffled squawking. He looked away.

  “Have you ever been here before?” he asked Rosalie, who was staring out of her own window with an overwhelmed expression that rivaled his own feelings.

  She shook her head. “Never.”

  The castle, Adrian quickly discovered, was not so much a building as it was a massive gated community. It was much further away than he had expected it to be, and when they arrived the castle turned out to be substantially larger than Adrian had thought it was — large enough to fit a whole city into. They passed over a moat (Adrian spotted fat, lazy crocodiles swimming in it, cutting wide V’s with their snouts) by way of drawbridge, then through a massive trellised doorway. The outer wall was at least three feet thick and built from solid gleaming pink stone, and the defense towers on either corner were each the size of grain silos.

  Inside the walls, an eclectic hodgepodge of buildings made up the bulk of the city. They all seemed to have been built at different times, and from an unlikely variety of materials. Some looked like the houses in Crossroads: mud-and-twig, river rock, or little log cabins. Others seemed to have been woven together like baskets, or built entirely from glass. There were also wide patches of grass, and small pathways that broke away from the main cobblestone road. Small brown chickens pecked among the dirt along the roadway.

  Small crowds milled outside of buildings, looking up curiously to watch as they passed. Most of them were tall, thin people with high cheekbones and long, pointed ears — more like elves than the pixie-like faeries Adrian had met so far. Here and there were other creatures: short, wrinkled goblins, tiny bearded leprechauns, and others that Adrian couldn’t think of names for. The elf-like faeries tended to act as though the others didn’t exist, and gave them a wide berth.

  There were others, too, weaving among the crowds with ethereal grace, and Adrian could not help but stare at them. He had not fully appreciated what Lorelai meant when she’d talked about “corporeal dreams” but now he understood. The depleted corpse in the storeroom had not given a fair image of what they looked like when alive; they were stunning. Many of them looked human. Others were animals, or creatures that defied explanation. Quite a few seemed unable to maintain a single shape, and flowed seamlessly from one to another, features melting and reforming. All of them flickered around the edges, shimmering like mirages. Whenever one passed by, Adrian felt a sudden rush of energy wash over him, an infectious cheerfulness; the effects seemed cumulative, and by the time they reached the end of the cobblestone path he was grinning broadly although he had no reason to be happy.

  “All of the dreams live here in the city,” Rosalie said, her voice hushed with awe. “We’re not allowed to buy them or take them back to Crossroads. They’re so beautiful!”

  A large building lay at the foot of the cobblestone path, a massive palace built from the same gleaming pink stone as the castle itself. It had many levels, all of them marked with large open windows, and the outer walls of it were decorated with carvings and statues and filigree.

  The carriage shuddered to a halt, and the ensuing silence seemed to swallow them completely. Dreams and faeries milled around them, ignoring the carriage entirely, but a sentinel posted at the palace door swept forward to greet them. It was a knight, dressed in full plate armor that shone as though made of moonlight.

  He stopped to exchange a word with Lorelai, before standing aside to allow her to jump down from the carriage. She swung the door open. “We’re here,” she said, simply. “Out.”

  “Huh?” Adrian tried to focus. Between the foggy, displaced happiness that had settled in his brain and the days of poor nutrition and interrupted sleep, he was feeling extremely sleepy. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he vaguely remembered that he would be sold soon. It didn’t seem particularly important.

  Rosalie started forward, but Lorelai held up a hand. “Not you,” she said. “You are staying out here until you’re called for, and not a moment sooner.”

  She flicked her wrist, and Rosalie fell back against the bench, looking deflated.

  The knight took Adrian’s bound hands, helping him down from the carriage. His touch was electrifying, and Adrian’s heart pounded in his chest as the armored fingers left his skin. A faint flicker of silver light danced around the knight, creeping through the chinks of his armor like sunlight through the cracks of a door.

  Satisfied that Adrian could stand on his own legs, the knight turned smartly and walked into the palace. Adrian followed, Lorelai keeping close at his back as though waiting for him to try and run. The clanking of armor echoed from the stone walls around them, rattling and jangling like a box of loose keys. They made their way down the corridor; it was lit by torches whose fire burned bright blue and carpeted in a gold-embroidered purple carpet, and firelight danced and flicked on the walls. Between the torches, there were paintings and tapestries. Adrian peered at them, curiously, but didn’t have a chance to linger over any as the knight walked quickly and it was all Adrian could do to limp after him a
t a steady pace. Lorelai jabbed him occasionally to remind him she was there.

  Ahead, two ornate doors stood closed at the end of the hall.

  “Look sharp,” Lorelai growled in his ear, “or I’ll have your head.” She touched the ropes at his wrists and they fell away, disintegrating entirely before hitting the ground.

  He swallowed, rubbing his fingertips over his wrists. The sleepy elation wavered, and he realized that lurking just below it was a terrible, seething horror.

  The knight pushed open one massive palace door and held it open for them to enter.

  THE DREAM PALACE

  The corridor opened into a great hall, like a ball room. It was lit from above by chandeliers, but the ceiling was invisible, as though the candles were suspended in darkness or the ceiling were made of nighttime. At the far end of the room was a throne, upon which was seated a tall, willowy figure. She was very tall, with skin the color of caramel and large black eyes. The silver circlet she wore contrasted sharply with her raven-black hair. Flanking either side of the throne were two handmaidens who were probably twins; they were both pixie-like, with identical gold-and-black viceroy butterfly wings and hair a similar shade of red-gold. They wore shapeless white dresses which hung on them like sacks, and they ogled him curiously as he approached.

  The knight led him to the throne and knelt at its base, taking off his helmet and holding it under his arm as he dropped to one knee. “My lady,” he said. With his helmet removed, the knight looked insubstantial, as though without the armor to contain him he would simply blow away in the wind. His features were perfectly nondescript and seemed to blur together, as though his face were a vividly-imagined cloud.

  “My message arrived in ample time, I hope?” Lorelai said, offering a small curtsy to the queen.

  “Yes, yes. Ample enough, at any rate.”

  Adrian dropped to a knee alongside the dream-knight, because it seemed like the right thing to do.

  This seemed to amuse the queen, as she laughed a quiet, haughty laugh. “You are a curious creature indeed,” she said. “Stand, if you would. I’d like to get a look at you.”

  Adrian stood. He crossed his arms, feeling awkward. He uncrossed them, clasped them before himself, unclasped them, clasped them again in the small of his back. He rocked on the balls of his feet and tried not to look at the queen while she was looking at him. He could feel those cool, impassive black eyes boring into him.

  “When I heard there was a grown-up in our midst, I thought it was just a story. A mere human-tale. We haven’t seen your ilk in quite some time.”

  He smiled sheepishly, unsure of what he was supposed to say to that.

  “From the state of you, you must be exhausted.”

  “He’s in fine condition,” Lorelai interjected. “Hardly a scratch on him.”

  “I have no doubt,” the queen said, with a bemused smile. “You are always so gentle with your merchandise.” She looked to the knight, then to her handmaids. “Valor, come, I have something that needs attending to. Ladies, if you will kindly show the human to his room?” She lifted her eyes to meet Lorelai’s, and a smile tugged at the corner of her lips and flickered in her eyes. “And you, of course, may come if you wish. We shall discuss matters of payment once more pressing business has been addressed.”

  One faerie said something to the other, who giggled in the way that school girls giggle, and they came forward, each taking one of his arms and both looking as though Christmas had come a little early. He protested feebly that he could walk fine on his own, but they ignored him and chattered along happily in their own language. After making their way down a corridor and up a short flight of stairs, one released his arm to open the first door on the left. She held this open for him and gestured for him to go inside.

  “Thanks,” Adrian said, and the faerie blushed deeply and looked away, as though completely overwhelmed by his actually speaking to her. It took a moment to extract her from the door; after lots of ‘I’ll be fine from here’s and a few ‘can we shut this, please?’s, he finally managed to bid the faerie twins goodnight and closed the door behind them. He looked to see if the door had a lock on it, and realized with disappointment that the key locked it from the outside only. He tried the knob; it was already locked.

  “This has been a very, very strange day,” he said to the empty room. He made his way to the window, peering outside. It was barred, preventing his escape, but he could hardly muster the energy to consider escaping anyway. He wondered what price Lorelai was asking for. He wondered why the queen would want to buy him at all. The image of the whiskered woman in the market flooded into his thoughts, and he fought back the panic. She’s not going to swallow you whole, he thought. You’re way too big for that.

  When they were kids, Adrian’s great-aunt had given Samantha a book of fairy tales. It was a random gift; Great-Aunt Martha hadn’t been in the habit of visiting them, and didn’t really know when anyone’s birthday was, or how old they were, or what they wanted for presents. So when gifts occasionally arrived in the mail, they were opened in trepidation; sometimes they were good, but more often they were strange or boring or vaguely unnerving.

  The fairytale book wasn’t very appropriate for a 3-year-old. It told the old stories, with all the blood and sex and incest, and used words that were too big. Adrian, who was an advanced reader, liked to steal the book sometimes and read the stories, although large parts of them made very little sense to him. Samantha always stole the book back, though. She didn’t care about the stories, but she liked the pictures.

  The book had been lovingly illustrated in full-page color prints showing castles and ogres and lonely towers and sleeping princesses. Samantha liked to open the book up to a picture and lay the book out flat as she played with her toys along the page, as though the illustration were the backdrop for whatever make-pretend game she were playing. Adrian tried to play with her, but she got impatient with him quickly. He was terrible at make-believe games, and when she sat cross-legged on the floor and chatted with herself, making conversation with whatever new invisible playmate she had made that week, Adrian would just sit awkwardly and wonder why he never had any imaginary friends.

  I wonder what fairytale I’m in? Adrian wondered, as he gazed through the bars of his window. Beauty and the Beast? Or Bluebeard? He knew he should be afraid, but he was too tired for fear.

  The exhaustion overtook him and he withdrew from the window. He stumbled his way with half-lidded eyes toward his bed, climbing into it, not even bothering to pull the blankets over him. He was asleep by the time his head hit the pillow.

  * * *

  The queen ran her fingers down the knight’s breastplate, watching as his dreamlight crackled like electricity under her fingertips. She stood close to him, her head nestled in the hollow of his neck. His helmet lay on the floor, discarded, and the expression on his bland face was neutral as she ran a small, pink tongue the length of his throat.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to join?” she asked, her dark eyes darting toward Lorelai. “I have an extra knight I can spare. Honor or Glory or Duty or one of the others, if you don’t feel like sharing.”

  “Courteous as your offer is, Isolde, I think I’ll pass.” Lorelai lounged in the window seat, her slender legs extended before her, her thin wasp wings beating idly. She examined her hands. Small wrinkles had begun to form, sagging skin around the knuckles, and faint dark spots began to show through the usual milky whiteness of her skin. “Now, if you’d like to offer one of your fine knights in payment for the human, that would be a whole other barrel of fish.”

  The queen took the knight’s hands — the plated gauntlets, too, had been discarded — and laid them over her breasts through the thin fabric of her chemise Her own hand wandered down, exploring the gaps in his armor. “Knowing the sort of fate they would see in your hands?” she said, with a small laugh. “I’ve grown quite attached to them, I’m afraid.”

  “A dream from the gardens, then,” Lorelai
pressed. “That’s more than fair to you. The human is a never-ending fountain of dreamstuff.”

  “But is it of high enough quality?” The queen made a low, pleased moan in her throat, and closed her mouth around the knight’s. The light around him dimmed, slightly, the way a power surge dims a lightbulb. She pushed his face down to her throat, running her tongue over her lips. After a moment she continued as though there had been no interruption. “He’s plenty handsome, I’ll grant you, but will he provide?”

  “He dreams well,” Lorelai insisted. “He has the power to withstand the Darkness. I tell you, he’s worth a dozen dreams, and I’m only asking for one.”

  The queen moved one of the knight’s hands down below the hem of her chemise, between her bare legs. She closed her eyes and buried the fingers of one hand in his hair. Dreamlight crackled between her fingertips. It curled around her thighs. “Well enough. You may have your pick from the gardens,” she said, at length. “But take care, would you? We’re running low, of late. Thieves, you know.” A moan caught her, then, breaking off any further conversation. She tugged the knight’s head up, away from her collar bone, grinding her hips forward into his hand, and pressed her mouth against his. The light around him dimmed and flickered.

  “Thieves?” Lorelai looked up from her examination of her hands. “How are they making it past your security?”