"The city changes, same as the clouds in your world," the remwalker replied. "Drifting together and apart. You"ll see it more clearly once we reach the outskirts."
"How do you not go crazy living in a place like this?" Aldwyn asked.
"It"s the only place I"ve ever known. But I long to visit the world you come from."
"So why don"t you?" Gilbert asked.
"Some remwalkers have tried. They"ve attempted to escape through the dreaming rug portals of those they helped guide here. But something in the Dreamworld holds fast the ones born within it. Somebody would have to willingly take our place. I don"t believe any from your land have made that bargain yet."
Aldwyn could see why. It was like being stuck in a dream you couldn"t wake up from. He was already starting to question his sanity, and he hadn"t even been there long.
"Why aren"t any of you carrying the string from your rug?" the remwalker asked.
"Our rug was destroyed," Skylar replied.
"Then how will you leave us?" the remwalker asked.
"We thought we"d deal with one crisis at a time," Aldwyn said. "And right now the more urgent one is getting to the queen."
They reached the far edge of the city, where the big cloud they were on tapered off into islands of smaller ones. On each new cloud Aldwyn could see buildings floating, disconnected from the dream metropolis.
"The tracker we seek lives up there," the remwalker said, indicating a house sitting atop one of the wisps of white.
"Is there a staircase I"m not seeing?" Gilbert asked. "Another ladder in the trees?"
"No, nothing like that this time," the remwalker answered.
She approached a metal post. It had a translucent string tied to it that Aldwyn wouldn"t have noticed without the remwalker. She grabbed hold of the string and pulled it taut. With another tug, she began reeling in the island like a loose kite in the wind. Aldwyn, Skylar, and Gilbert watched as the remwalker dragged the cloud with the tracker"s house closer.
Soon, the remwalker had brought the cloud island to within a step of the familiars, and she tightened the line so it couldn"t float away. Aldwyn, Skylar, and Gilbert were easily able to cross from the gravel road they were standing on to the one paving the cloud.
They were close enough to see the tracker"s house now, which looked no bigger than a one-horse barn. The remwalker approached the front door and knocked. The door swung open to reveal an old man. His eyes were so red and so deep that Aldwyn couldn"t even see the pupils.
"h.e.l.lo, Papa," the remwalker said. "I need to borrow the Atlas."
Without blinking, he stepped aside, allowing them all to enter.
"It"s not a good time to travel," the old man said. "Night is coming."
"They don"t have the luxury of waiting," the remwalker replied.
"Very well, then," the man said.
He led them inside the room. There was no bed. Nowhere to sleep. Just maps covering the walls. And a tome at the room"s center so huge it would take all of one man"s strength to turn the pages. It was as large as an ocean raft.
The remwalker stood before the ma.s.sive book, which Aldwyn could safely a.s.sume was the Atlas. There must have been a hundred tabs, each a different color. The remwalker located the one that was maroon, then gave a heave, flipping the book open to a sprawling, three-dimensional map that seemed as alive as the world outside. The rivers flowed like real water and the ill.u.s.trated trees blew as if they were in the wind.
The remwalker stepped across the Atlas, past mountains and making sure not to get her feet wet in the lakes. She found the Palace of Dreams hovering inside a gla.s.s ball.
"It"s just like in my dream," Aldwyn said.
"Those mountains will be uncrossable for the animals," the old man told his daughter. "Even you won"t make it." Then he gestured to a large door carved into the side of the mountain range. "You"ll have to gain Elzzup"s permission to pa.s.s through his tunnels."
"There must be another way," the remwalker said. "The Dreamworld will surely shift again before we arrive."
"I"ve been watching," the old man said. "The mountains moved just a few hours ago. They"ll remain steady at least until morning. And besides, you don"t have that long anyway. You have to be out by midnight."
The remwalker nodded, then turned to the familiars.
"What does he mean?" Gilbert asked.
"After midnight, things change here," she said.
"How exactly?" Aldwyn asked.
The remwalker looked to her father.
"That"s when the Dreamworld turns into a nightmare," the old man said.
14.
TO THE MOUNTAIN.
The familiars stood on a hillside just beyond the Forest of Ladders, awaiting the remwalker"s next move. In the soft glow of the moonlight, she was staring out through a spygla.s.s at the mountains in the distance.
"It looks like a straight path from here," Skylar said.
"Your eye is not trained to see what I see," the remwalker replied, lowering the spygla.s.s. "We"ll go that way," she added, pointing away from the mountain range to a tangle of jungle and forest.
"I don"t understand," Aldwyn said.
"The direct route will have us traveling in circles and never getting anywhere. I"ve been through the jungle before. I know its tricks."
The remwalker returned the spygla.s.s to her satchel and headed west. Aldwyn, Skylar, and Gilbert followed.
"Why are you helping us, anyway?" Skylar asked. "You"ve never even asked who we are."
"It"s not important to me," the remwalker replied. "What you"ve done in your past or where you"ve been. Whether you"re penniless or as rich as a king. It"s not who you are that counts. It"s what you are. And I can see that the three of you are pure of heart."
Aldwyn considered her words. It was a lovely sentiment, one that might have even been true in the Dreamworld. But in the real world, nothing was ever that simple.
"Have Appnians always lived here?" Gilbert asked.
"Not always. For thousands of years, it was inhabited only by those who dreamed. Our people came much, much later. The Appnians lived on a small peninsula across the Wildecape Sea. They were fishermen and farmers. Life for them was wonderful. They worked during the day and celebrated their bounties at night. They rested just enough to give them energy for the next day. Life was so good they didn"t want to sleep it away.
"Then everything changed. Barbaro al-Reqi, a warlord from the Colharp tribe, led an invasion. Once his army had conquered this new territory, they enslaved the Appnians, forcing the men to work tirelessly, building ships and armor.
"The one place where those who survived could escape the hardship was in their dreams. They believed their only chance at happiness was to dream permanently. A circle of elder women responsible for making the sails prayed to the moon G.o.ds for some guidance on how to do this. Their answer came in beams of silk that poured down from the sky. The next morning they began weaving them into a blanket with a swirling pattern at its center.
"Barbaro thought it was just another sail for his ships. He never knew what the elders were planning until it was too late. One night, after the blanket was complete, every man, woman, and child of Appnia gathered atop it. They closed their eyes and disappeared forever.
"When the warlord awoke to find his slaves were all gone, he was enraged. He had no idea where they had gone until that night, when he slept. For in his dreams, all the Appnians were there, more than happy to torment him.
"Believing the blanket to be the only explanation, he shred it to pieces. All the tiny threads were caught up in the wind, and when wizards discovered them, they used those very same threads to weave together the dreaming rugs you use today.
"There are many Appnians, like my father, who long to stay in the Dreamworld forever. But some of us still wish to see the outside, no matter how brutal it can be."
The group"s journey to the tangle of jungle and forest was, as Aldwyn expected, a strange one. A field of fingers rose up from the ground like blades of gra.s.s, wiggling. Aldwyn gently tiptoed across them, but the remwalker was far less delicate with her footfalls. She was cracking knuckles with each stomp of her boot.
Aldwyn had taken only a few steps inside the forest when he saw a horrifying fanged beast dart past, chasing a young girl into the dark. The sound of feet breaking branches echoed from every direction. Dreamers all around them were running for their lives.
"What is this place?" Aldwyn asked.
"This is where the things that go b.u.mp in the night reside," the remwalker said. "When you have dreams of being chased, it"s often through here."
They continued forward, deeper into the tangle of trees and darkness, where all manner of bogeymen roamed.
"There"s nothing to be afraid of," the remwalker said. "It"s fear that these creatures feed on. So long as they don"t sense any cowardice, you"ll be safe."
"Easy for you to say," Gilbert muttered.
From above, an owl as large as a dragon swooped down, pursuing a small finch. But it stopped in mid-flight and turned its attention to the familiars instead.
"Gilbert, get ahold of yourself," Aldwyn said. "We just have to make it out of the forest."
Gilbert looked confused.
"It"s not Gilbert who"s scared," Skylar said. "It"s me."
The giant owl was hungrily eyeing all three animals.
"Follow me," the remwalker said. "We better hurry."
She took off running. Aldwyn, Skylar, and Gilbert followed. The owl beat its wings behind them, knocking small trees over as it flew. The remwalker seemed to know her way through the dark maze, hurdling fallen logs and dodging jagged roots to reach a boulder hidden in the trees. She grabbed at a crack, and pulled a door open. The familiars hurried inside. The owl soared past.
The boulder had been hollowed out and a flame fairy danced above a small campfire to warm anyone who sought out this place for refuge.
As they caught their breath, Aldwyn asked Skylar, "Why were you so afraid back there?"
"That creature. I"ve seen it in my own dreams before. When I was barely out of the nest. At the Aviary, the older birds called it the nightflyer. They told stories about how it would catch fledglings in their sleep. Pluck their feathers one by one before swallowing them whole. Just the thought of it makes me shudder."
"Then stop thinking about it," the remwalker said. "More than anything, these monsters of the forest smell weakness."
Skylar attempted to gather herself, to regain her usual calm. But the sound of scratching and sc.r.a.ping could be heard against the outside of the boulder. It was clear she was still shaken.
"Dreams, especially the bad ones, have a way of haunting us," the remwalker said. "And because they reoccur, sometimes over and over, they can feel more real than your waking life."
The nightflyer tore the door open with its claws, splintering the boulder and exposing the four huddled inside. The remwalker reached into her satchel and pulled out a blowgun. She lifted it to her mouth, pursed her lips around one end, and fired. A capsule of powder struck the giant owl in the face, exploding into a spray of blinding sand. The beast let out a screech and retreated. But the nightflyer"s cry alerted all the other creatures of the dark that there was an enemy in their midst.
The group fled from the broken boulder, taking off at top speed. Aldwyn had never seen Skylar move quite so fast before. A gelatinous blob lunged out from a hole in the ground, attempting to swallow Gilbert, but the tree frog hopped behind a rock just in time. More monsters began charging from all around, everything from giant wolves to skeletal dragons.
"You may not like what I"m about to do," the remwalker stated. "But no harm will come of it."
She stuck out her foot and tripped a pa.s.sing dreamer, causing him to stumble and fall. The boy"s eyes went wide with terror, and all the monsters converged on him, allowing the remwalker and the familiars to run away.
Aldwyn looked back, wanting to help.
"Don"t be a fool," the remwalker said. "I already told you, those who visit the Dreamworld in their sleep can"t be harmed. You, however, can be killed."
It pained Aldwyn to hear the boy"s cries, but he knew the remwalker was right.
They arrived at the end of the jungle and exited the brush to find that they were closer to the mountains than Aldwyn thought possible, especially since they hadn"t been heading in that direction at all. From here he could see the carved door to Elzzup"s tunnel. It couldn"t have been more than a mile away. Of course, what appeared to be a mile in this world could be anything but.
"Guys, look over there!" Gilbert exclaimed.
His excitement wasn"t due to the fact that they had escaped that terrible forest. It was because of what he saw up ahead: Anura swimming in a pool of maggots.
Gilbert was hopping as fast as his legs would carry him.
"Anura!" he shouted.
The golden toad turned to him. "Gilbert, have you come to swim?"
"I"m not dreaming," Gilbert said. "I"m really here. Aldwyn and Skylar, too."
Anura looked over to see them.
"I must have dozed off while sitting at the queen"s bedside," Anura said.
"How is she?" Gilbert asked.
"Getting weaker by the hour. My good luck is failing her." As she spoke, the maggots in the pool began to drain away. "I fear that I"m waking. Is there anything I can do?"
"Just let her know that she"s going to be okay," Gilbert said. "Tell her we won"t let her down."
The last maggots disappeared from the pool, leaving an empty ditch. Anura vanished a moment later. Gilbert returned to his companions" sides.
"We won"t let her down," Gilbert repeated. "Will we?"
"We"ve always come through before," Aldwyn said.