The Sandman and the War of Dreams (8 page)

The Dream Pirates knew how badly the loss of his family had wounded Lord Pitch. And he was
their one and only jailer. He guarded the single door into the prison that held them; it was such a grim and dark place. Made from giant plates of dark matter, it was a place where no being from outside could ever hear or feel any pirate who coiled inside. Only Lord Pitch could hear them faintly. He had volunteered to be their single guard. He felt he had nothing left since the loss of his family.

The Dream Pirates, with the help of the other dark creatures imprisoned with them, listened each night to Emily Jane’s faint dream until they knew the sound of her voice and could imitate it. Then, one awful night, they huddled next to the single door and whispered to Lord Pitch, in his daughter’s voice, the one thing they hoped would set them free. “Please, Daddy. Please, please, please open the door.”

Emily Jane?
he thought to her. He pulled the silver locket from his tunic pocket and stared at the
photograph inside. He did not stop to wonder how she could possibly be inside the prison.

“Daddy, I’m trapped in here with these shadows, and I’m scared. Please open the door. Help me, Daddy, please.”

What father could ignore such a plea? Lord Pitch opened the door, his aching heart suddenly hopeful that Emily Jane was somehow alive and near enough to be saved.

He opened the door and sealed his doom.

The Dream Pirates poured out and enveloped him. The cold, calculated betrayal was more than any being could withstand. The locket fell from Lord Pitch’s neck. With his hope shattered, his heart withered and he died inside. At first he resisted valiantly, but there was no fight left in him. Numb and utterly empty, he let the dark creatures take his soul. And they did—they possessed him completely.
He became their leader, their king, their warlord.

With Lord Pitch as their general, the Golden Age had lost its greatest strength, its greatest ally. And so began the awful second War of the Dream Pirates, and Pitch was proving unstoppable.

But now he could hear Emily Jane’s dream. He had ten times the wicked thirst and need for dreams as his pirates. And her dream haunted him and fed his new hunger.

All this had happened without our knowing. Emily Jane’s newfound hope was like a beacon, drawing evil and awfulness toward us.

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

The Most Bitter Reckoning

T
he first harpoon that hit us came as a surprise, but by the second and third, I was fully awake and Emily Jane was already charging the Dream Pirate galleon that had fired upon us. It was a massive vessel—tarnished, ragged, and beastly to behold.

Its decks were swarming with Dream Pirates, who fired harpoon after harpoon with withering swiftness. But Emily Jane displayed amazing agility at dodging their rusted dagger points and using her blazing tail to burn us free of the first harpoons that hit.

She was heading straight for the ship’s bow,
her star fires flaming with determination. I braced for our impact, but the pirate galleon swerved to port at the last instant. We shaved so close to the ship, we could see the shadowy faces of the grisly crew who leered and taunted us as we passed. At the ship’s helm stood its captain, tall, gaunt, and unmistakable. It was Lord Pitch himself. Or at least what he had become.

His skin was now a spectral white, his eyes dark and soulless; he was a creature to be feared.

For Emily Jane, this was a shock beyond all reckoning. Her father had arrived at last, but now he was a nightmare come to life.

Then Pitch shouted out to me. “Ahoy, Dream Master!”

I tried to slow Emily Jane, so I could better hear Pitch’s hail, and though she pulled against me, she yielded to my maneuver.

Pitch

“Why do you send this dream of my dead daughter to plague me?” Pitch shouted again.

Before I could send him an answer, Emily Jane implored, her voice trembling with terror, “Please, be careful what you say, Captain Sandy. He is so changed. We can’t know what to expect.”

I sent this thought, taking care with my words: The dream this vessel sends you, it is no plague! It is a dream of hope!!

“I have no hopes!” he bellowed. His voice was edged with rage. “This dream you sent is what killed my soul and made me what I now am! DEATH, I say, to who made me thus!”

Emily Jane had never backed down from a fight. But she understood the madness of rage. Her rage at this man had driven her to the brink of despair. But she had pulled back. Could he? He had not seen her since she was a little girl. If she were
free from her star, would he recognize her? Would his hate die as hers had? In an instant her instincts told her a grim truth.

“We must run, Captain Sandy,” she said. “I can feel it. If he finds me, we both shall die.”

Go then
, I agreed.
As fast as you ever have
.

Away we flew. But Pitch’s harpoon men were too skilled and quick. Before we could get out of range, a dozen of their weapons slammed into us, their chains linking us to Pitch’s galleon. Emily Jane frantically tried to burn them away, but as one disintegrated, three more ensnared us. Our speed no longer mattered, for now we pulled the galleon with us. The pirates winched the chains and inched their malevolent ship closer and closer.

I had fought the Dream Pirates time and again and had never been defeated, but never before had
they been led by Pitch. I’d never encountered such fury. But Emily Jane swerved and breached with a power that even Pitch’s galleon could not contain. With one great last buck, she snapped free of the chains and we tumbled away.

We spun and spiraled at speeds beyond
endurance. I remember seeing a small green and blue planet just ahead of us. I could barely stay conscious. I knew we would crash. I could hear the wishes of children coming from the planet, so I pulled at my controls. We must crash over water so as not to harm any child. I could no longer feel or sense Emily Jane. As we plummeted toward a vast ocean, I did hear one thing: a single wish above all the others. It was bright and clear. “I wish you well” was all it said, and as I fell unconscious, certain that my star and I were doomed, I thought of that wish and nothing else.

Fig. 1. The star falls.

We skipped across the ocean’s surface like a giant stone, then came to a spray of water, and all went black for me.

Fig. 2. The star hits the ocean.

I did not wake for many, many years. When I did, I found that my star was shattered, pulverized into a sandy island. I was awakened by that same voice that had comforted me all those years ago, the voice that had wished me well. It turned out to be your Man in the Moon.

Fig. 3. The smoke clears.

And so it is I come to you, with the Moon’s instructions. I will help
you save your friend, Katherine, and fight Pitch. But to do so, I must finally see the girl who lived in my star, Emily Jane, daughter of Lord Pitch and the one you call Mother Nature.

Fig. 4. The star is now the Island of the Sleepy Sands.

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN