The Sandman and the War of Dreams (6 page)

A Little Girl Lost and a Titan Found

A
nd so Emily Jane traveled far from her home and far from her sorrow, until she came to an unexpectedly safe place—the Constellation called Typhan. Before the War of the Dream Pirates, Typhan had been a maker of storms and was a powerful ally of the Golden Age. He could conjure up solar winds so vast and terrible, they would scatter whole fleets of Dream Pirate galleons when required.

But the wily Dream Pirates had managed to ravage him and render him harmless: They had extinguished the stars that had been his eyes. Once blinded, he could no longer see the pirates as they
attacked. And they had been merciless, killing so many of his stars that his once-vivid outline was nearly gone. He was now a forgotten ghost of his former self, and he had lost the will to make storms or to fight. He was a mournful, pitiful Titan. Only the harmless Star Fish ever swam among Typhan’s few remaining stars and moons.

Now, as the Star Fish weaved their way past Typhan’s head, Emily Jane was as blind to the damaged giant as he was to her. Her thoughts were only of her poor mother, her vanished home, and the feeling of being as lost as any child could be. “Father,” she cried at last. “Come find me! Please! Please!! I am so alone!”

Typhan heard these cries. He had only heard the taunts and laughter of the Dream Pirates since his sight was destroyed. He thought he would never again hear a voice that was not forged by cruelty.

“Child?” he whispered. “How come you here?”

Even in a whisper, his voice could fill a galaxy, but his was a strong, unthreatening voice, like a summer storm that has recently passed.

Startled, Emily Jane looked up and saw what remained of the starlight giant. Like all Golden Age children, she had been schooled in the names and shapes of the Constellations, so she immediately recognized his dimmed face.

Through tears, she told Typhan who she was and all the awfulness of her journey. This stirred Typhan, and for the first time since his blinding, he felt an echo of his former might. They had both been victims of the Dream Pirates and had been left to lonely fates. He summoned up a breeze that took Emily Jane and her Star Fish to a moon near the stars of his right ear. The travellers were exhausted, and resting was very welcome. As they
landed among the powdery craters, Typhan spoke once more.

“Child,” he said. “You are not alone.”

Those words were like a shield of comfort for Emily Jane. She felt safer, and even hopeful. And as she fell into a long, weary sleep, she thought over and over:
Somehow, my father will find me.

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The Dream Becomes a Nightmare

W
hen word reached Lord Pitch that his home and family were under attack, he knew he had been duped. There were no pirates waiting where he had been told. So he pushed his fleet to return with a speed none thought possible. The palace, and most of his moon, was now nothing but scorched ruins. The pirates were reboarding their sleek escape vessels when Lord Pitch’s warships surrounded them. They never expected him to return so swiftly.

Lord Pitch wanted these pirates alive. “My wife and child may be among them,” he told his lieutenants.

The pirates were impossibly outgunned. They knew it was hopeless to fight, and they also knew they could count on Lord Pitch’s compassion. They surrendered without the firing of a single shot.

But as they were hauled aboard Lord Pitch’s flagship, they did not face the same noble warrior they had come to begrudgingly respect. They faced a man on the brink of madness.

“My wife and daughter? Where are they?” Lord Pitch demanded.

The captain of the Dream Pirates said with a sneer, “We were denied the pleasure of draining them of their dreams.”

“Because you were caught?”

“No, my lord.”

“Have you harmed them?”

“No, my lord,” replied the captain. Its lips curled into a small, satisfied smile. “They are dead.”

Lord Pitch stood stoically. He was a gentleman of the Golden Age, a commander of its armies. Even now, he felt he must maintain his judgment and composure. But the pirate captain was too keen to bring forth his hurts.

“Your lady so feared our company that she threw herself to her doom, and the child with her,” the captain gloated.

Lord Pitch could barely speak. He looked from one pirate to another. “Is this true?”

The captain grinned. “ ’Tis true, my lord. I saw it myself. As did we all.”

Lord Pitch, bringing his face within inches of the captain’s, said with a measured calm, “Then feast your eyes on mine. They are the last things you will
ever see.” And with startling suddenness, he drew his sword and cut the captain’s head from its body.

He stepped quickly to the next pirate, and before another word could be said, he sliced again. Another head tumbled to the deck. The pirates gasped and pulled against their chains, but Lord Pitch continued on.

His own crew shuffled and murmured uneasily. Was this their general? The most gallant of the Golden Age? Lord Pitch was methodical and never paused. All the pirates, and Lord Pitch’s mercy, were dead in less time than it takes to sing a song.

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A Stormy Relationship

E
mily Jane’s life with Typhan suited her nature. He had been a god of storms, and now he delighted in conjuring up tempests for her to ride. At first she rode her Star Fish over the waves of solar wind that Typhan blew, but in time he taught her the trick of making storms herself. He anointed her as his daughter, and from then on, she could wield the power of the heavens. Wind, starlight, gravity were hers to command. She now was a sister of the heavens and was honor-bound to use her power only for good.

Emily Jane never tired of summoning playful
squalls; she rode them until she was exhausted. It was the only peace she knew from the heartaches that ate away at her. Where was her father? Why did he not come to find her? Typhan was kind; he even loved her. In time she regarded him with awe, but awe is not affection or love. It didn’t heal her pain. She stayed with Typhan because she hoped against hope that if she remained in one place, there was a chance her father could still find her. But while the Star Fish swam as far as they dared to try to send word of Emily Jane, they could never make it far enough. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, months into years.

Occasionally, passing wrecks of abandoned ships drifted by the Constellation. Emily Jane became an expert forager. She discovered that the contents inside these ghostly vessels could supply her with all her needs. She positioned dozens of
scavenged telescopes all over her small moon so she could be the eyes of Typhan. Food, supplies, clothes, furniture, books—everything she might need—all were found in the abandoned wrecks that strayed close enough to her moon that she or the Star Fish could retrieve them. The hull of a crashed galleon served as her home. So she lived in a sort of ramshackle magnificence. There was even treasure. Great heaping chests of it, which she stored in the moon’s small, hollow core. But the more treasure she amassed, the less the treasure came to mean to her. She even began to hate it. It reminded her of the past. Of her home. Of the Golden Age.

In those early weeks and months with Typhan, she had scanned the heavens in every direction, each hour on the hour, ever hopeful, looking for her father’s flagship. But the years bore on without a single sighting.
He has forgotten me,
she decided
one fateful day. It was the morning of her sixteenth birthday.

She had tried to forget the date. Year after year, her only wish had been a simple one: that her father would come. But ten birthdays had passed, and each one left her harder and more bitter.

On this day a ship finally appeared in the distance! Her hope came back. She could tell in an instant that it wasn’t a Dream Pirate vessel. Their ships were always twisted, spiked, and foul to look at. This was a Golden Age craft to be sure. Elegant of line and sail. It was beautiful . . . too beautiful. It was no warship. But it did not fly the flag of her father. It was a peaceful liner and nothing more.

Why has Father never come?
she wondered bitterly. And she felt an anger that clouded her good sense. She hated her father now. She hated the world that she had so ached to return to. She’d rather
stay lost. And in that dreadful moment, something changed in her. Her heart became consumed with rage.

Typhan could feel that something was terribly wrong.

“Daughter?” he whispered. “What do you see? Friend or foe?”

Her answer surprised even herself. “I see only foes!” And without warning, she raised up a murderous storm.

Typhan knew the sound of pain and rage. He feared that she had lost her reason.

“Daughter!” he cried out. “What ship approaches?”

“Not the ship I hope for!” she shouted back. Her violent winds sped toward the helpless vessel.

“Stop this tempest!” Typhan ordered her. “We never harm without cause!”

“From now on, my cause is harm!” she screamed.

Typhan knew then that she had gone mad, and gathering all his strength, he sent forth winds to counter hers.

But her rage was equal to Typhan’s goodness, and she fought him, hurling a galaxy of hate-filled torrents at the ancient colossus.

“Daughter! Stop!” he pleaded, summoning every last ounce of strength he possessed.

“You are not my father!” Emily Jane shrieked.

Meteors! Comets! Hunks of broken planets came smashing into Typhan’s stars and shattered the Golden Age galleon that neared.

The old Constellation’s heart was cleaved by her words. He was stunned and heartsick. Her deeds were a betrayal that could not be forgiven.
“From forever on, you are cursed!” he bellowed, stunned and heartsick. “You have broken your vow!”

It scorched his soul to punish her so harshly, to cast her out of his life. But an oath had been broken. So with one mighty blast of his lungs, he sent Emily Jane’s moon shooting away from him. It flew at such a speed that it began to brighten, brighten till a hot white light burned, until the moon itself became a shooting star streaking through space like a spear.

Emily Jane fled to the moon’s hollow core just as the old galleon where she had slept was burned to ash. Her telescopes disintegrated. In nanoseconds everything on her moon’s surface was gone. Because she had fled to the moon’s core, she became entombed by the melting chest of treasure for which she cared nothing. Emily Jane was indeed doomed.
She would have to live within this new star’s center and never leave it until it crashed.

If only she had known her father thought her dead.

If only she and her father had known the truth.

Two hearts that had once been united at the center of the Golden Age would not have become hardened, embittered, and so very cruel. These wounded hearts would not have brought an end to the Age of Wonders.

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