Waking in Dreamland (19 page)

Roan realized, and appreciated, the real sacrifices the princess had made to accompany them on this perilous journey. It was courageous of her to come down off her pedestal. All her comforts had been left behind, even the last. It was hard for her to ride hours without end, into who knew what hazards, when she knew they didn’t want her with them. Yet he also understood why she felt she had to come. Her father the king had almost certainly felt the same way. He would have wanted to defend his country in person, but knowing he couldn’t abandon the rest of his responsibilities to go, King Byron delegated the task to others, leaving them to succeed—or fail—as they could. Here was Leonora, vulnerable as a newborn, without training or experience, wanting to help and knowing how much of a hindrance her presence was among them. She had never faced trouble before, let alone the possibility of a world-shattering disaster. Her powers to affect matter would be an asset to them in case of disaster, though she feared the unknown. Roan was ashamed. She was much braver than he. She deserved his wholehearted support, and he hadn’t offered it. What a dolt he was! He vowed she would never fall into danger while in his care.

He turned in his saddle and waited until he caught her eye, then offered a tender smile with his whole heart in his eyes. Tentatively, timidly, she returned it. The hedges opened out suddenly into open fields full of grapevines, which started buzzing at once with the wonder of it all. Roan was in love, and he wanted the whole world to know it. He reached out his left hand, and felt her slender fingers slip into his. The warmth in his heart spread throughout his whole body, and he sighed with joy. They rode side by side for a while in silence. Roan was happier than he could ever remember being.

Colenna caught the glance that passed between the two young people, and cleared her throat.

“This will be the first long trip for you, won’t it, my dear?” she asked Leonora. “It’s been a harrowing ride so far, hasn’t it? I do enjoy some parts of travel far more than others, let me tell you. Why, I remember my first venture on behalf of the Ministry, and a thankless lot they were, too.”

“Oh, no, they wouldn’t be,” Leonora said, politely.

“Hah! You don’t know bureaucrats!” Colenna launched into a spirited narrative about a trip to the sixth province, Oneiros, on behalf of the Ministry of History, to pick up documents discovered there that were believed to date from five thousand years before. “I was just a young thing, thinking I was going to be traveling around the Dreamland as easy as riding a flying carpet. I was full of ambition to see things no one else had ever seen, be the one whose name was on those stone tablets and in those palimpsests. But it wasn’t all as nice as the first few minutes when I first rode away from the castle, oh, no!” Cheerfully, she described herself getting into and out of various nasty situations, and rather neatly, Roan thought.

“And after that,” Colenna concluded, triumphantly, “I never go anywhere without an eggbeater and a multipurpose knife. I bring everything with me, whether I know I’ll need it or not! I like to be prepared, Your Highness. You can find anything you want in a town, but there’s a lot of empty space between population centers.”

“Sometimes,” Bergold reminded her.

“Yes, I know, you old stickler,” Colenna said, impatiently, and returned to Leonora. “Find what you can’t do without, and bring it. Never travel with more than you can carry yourself.” Then she looked a little dismayed, but Leonora didn’t notice. She was nodding.

“I would consider it to be an honor to convey Her Highness’s belongings,” Misha put in, courteously rescuing Colenna.

“And I,” Roan said, regretting he had not been the first to speak. “It’ll be good for you.”

“You are very kind,” Leonora said, glancing at all of them, but most warmly at Roan. He felt his hopes come tiptoeing timidly back. “I am very sorry for my behavior this morning.”

“Inexperience, that’s all, if you’ll forgive me, Your Highness,” Colenna said. “Why, by the time we get home to Mnemosyne, you’ll be an old pro.”

Leonora smiled, showing the dimple at the corner of her mouth, and let her face relax from the waxen medieval image into something far more human and lovely. Her lips reddened and became full, and her eyes widened so that the long lashes surrounding them were a frame instead of a cage. Roan caught Misha watching the transformation, and saw the moment in the young man’s face when he fell helplessly in love with her. Every man did, Roan thought, shaking his head. He was just the most fortunate, since she returned his affection.

“What’s the most important thing I have to do to be a good traveler?” Leonora asked, earnestly.

“Keep your eyes open,” Colenna said. “Be sensible. You’re not at home now, you know.”

“I know.”

“And leave things be! Don’t leave a mess. Don’t take anything more away than a memory or a photograph, and don’t leave more behind you than your footprints.”

“I’ve always preferred taking footprints and leaving photographs,” Roan said, feeling more like his old self, before the present crisis began. “I have a large collection.”

“You,” Bergold said, with the corners of his wide mouth turning up, “would.”

Thereafter, things passed far more merrily. They were able to make excellent time on the road. Misha devoted himself to Leonora, telling her jokes and making her elaborate courtly compliments that made her laugh as much as the jokes. When the party stopped for refreshments on the banks of the stream near a handsome old wooden bridge and cool berry bushes covered with knobby buds, the others told stories.

“I was only a tot at the time of the last Changeover in Rem. Lucky there was lots of notice,” Lum said, scratching his ear to jog his memory. “My dad got us into a wagon, and hustled us over the bridge. I wanted to stay out and watch, but he paid no attention. Told me I was a foolish kid. Now I’d be too scared to get near one.”

“So would I,” Misha said, waiting on Leonora. He poured fruit nectar into her goblet. The bicycle left behind by Drea still held all the princess’s luggage, including her tableware.

“Sounds like you grew some sense,” Spar said.

“Did you ever see a Changeover?” Leonora asked Colenna.

“No, I never have,” Colenna said. “I stayed well away from that sort of thing. It’s only sense. I like me as I tend to be, thank you. I understand your beau has, though.”

“You?” Felan asked.

“Yes,” Roan admitted, looking away.

“It was before your time in Mnemosyne, Felan,” Bergold said. “Two Changeovers ago, in fact. I may say that the event, and the following event, were the most amazing story I have ever heard and the most disgraceful thing I have ever witnessed.”

“We were in Somnus when I was a boy,” Roan explained, putting down the chunk of bread he was buttering. “My father let me run around on my own while he was conducting business for the Ministry. There were rumors that a Changeover was imminent, rumblings and so on, but since the disturbances were local, conventional wisdom put all the disturbances down to a Personal Crisis Dream. That Sleeper had been prone to that kind of problem, and my father was hoping to see the Crisis Point break out.”

“I remember that from continuity class at school,” Misha said, nodding. “An interesting phenomenon, although personally I’ve always wanted to see the hallucinations of a Pepperoni Nightmare instead.”

Roan grinned. “Hang about the northwestern end of Celestia for any length of time, and you’ll get your wish. There seems to be a regular eruption in that area. At any rate, Father was observing the manifestations. A few of the local continuitors and historians had taken him to meet people affected by the circumstances of Personal Crisis. Very interesting. Mistaken identities, rampant denial, and so on. Married couples were coming home after a day’s work, and being unable to recognize their partners, even though you know you can almost always tell who is who, even after an alteration. I’d read some of the historical documentation of Personal Crisis Dreams on the trip down there—not much for a boy to do on a long train ride, after all—but to me, there was something not quite right. There were other manifestations that didn’t correspond to descriptions in the old books.”

“Every Sleeper’s personality is different,” Alette pointed out.

“But the historians only record those characteristics which appear every time a circumstance occurs,” Roan said. “That’s their science, if you like. There were earthshakes and thunderstorms—you may say both of those are typical of a lot of dream events,” he said, holding up a hand when the guard started to speak. “These weren’t normal. They seemed somehow . . . fundamental to me. I tried to find my father to tell him, when the ground split in front of me.

“People started screaming and running around. A man noticed me just standing there watching, and warned me to get over the border, or I’d discontinue. He was sure, as I suddenly was, that a Changeover was on the way.” The others caught their breath, and Roan nodded. “To me, it meant the next worst thing to death, losing all my identity, so I stopped looking for my father, and ran for my life. I was sure he would have recognized the signs—at least, I hoped so—and would meet me safely on the other side, in Oneiros.

“Everyone was panicking. Some of them were disoriented; they were running away from the bridge. I turned them around. Before I knew it, I was directing a flow of refugees. The crowd got larger and larger. Everyone was shouting. The ground began to rumble under my feet, so I started running too. Then, there was a bright flash, and the sound of explosions that went on and on like an echo.”

Roan felt his insides twist at the memory. Years had passed since it had happened, and he still experienced it afresh every time he thought about it. “I always thought later that I was imagining it, but I knew I was feeling the pain of thousands of men, women, children, animals, plants—the land itself! And then,” Roan said, recalling it with relief, “a dreamy peace. It was almost deafeningly quiet. I was in the midst of a crowd of people on the far side of the bridge, with no idea how I had gotten there. They had been watching the Changeover from a safe distance. They said I had walked straight over the bridge in the middle of the explosions.”

“I don’t believe you,” Felan said, frowning. “You read all of this out of a book.”

Roan met his eyes. “I couldn’t concoct such a story, Felan. I . . . I remember looking at my hands. They seemed familiar, but I wasn’t sure.”

“You were in shock,” Colenna said wisely.

“In a way,” Roan said, thoughtfully, leaning against one of the bridge’s uprights and moving fully into its shadow so the sun wasn’t on the back of his head, “it was a moment of great serenity. I’ve never felt such peace. People started straggling across the bridge toward us. I didn’t recognize one of them. The Changeover had caught them. They soon went back into Somnus. They belonged there now. They had been made to fit the new Sleeper’s visions.”

“But not you,” Misha said. “Did you change at all?”

“No.” Roan sighed. “Not a bit.”

“I don’t believe you,” Felan repeated.

“Well, no one else did,” Roan said. “My father had escaped in plenty of time. When Thomasen found me again, he brought me back to the Ministry so they could question me about my experience. A number of them, like you, accused us of fraud, claiming that because I hadn’t changed I couldn’t have been in the middle of a Changeover. Never in all the records had anyone passed through what I had without becoming different in some way. A few of the chief historians, Micah included, were inclined to believe I’d only been caught in the backwash and knocked out.”

“So what did they do?” Felan asked.

Roan grimaced, and Bergold gave him a sympathetic glance. “The next time a Changeover was imminent in Rem,” the historian said, “Roan was made part of the delegation to observe it, and a few of my colleagues, who shall remain nameless, in spite of their pusillanimous cowardice, trapped him there in the midst of it all. And then, the land went crazy. This time, when he walked out of it unchanged, they had to believe him. In fact, they were dumbfounded, and ashamed of themselves for actively trying to alter the fate of a being created by the Sleepers, but they never apologized to you for it, did they?”

“It’s not important now,” Roan said, embarrassed. He ate the piece of bread and reached for another.

“That’d be the one we ran away from, sir,” Lum said, nodding.

“What was it like?” Misha asked.

“Terrifying,” Roan said, simply. “But very exciting. The world melted away—no, that’s not right. It was as if it shed a skin and put on a new one. And I was able to watch the whole thing.”

“So you’re some kind of freak, then?” Felan said, lying back on the grass and putting his hands behind his head. “Stuck in place, eh?” Roan gawked at him, unable to think of a retort.

Felan had hit him in his most sensitive spot.

“He’s not a freak,” Leonora said, jumping to her feet. She looked at Roan, her eyes shining with pride. “We are all being dreamed by different sleepers, after all. Roan’s just more . . . durable than most, that’s all.”

Felan snorted.

“
What
was that?” Leonora asked, hardening her voice. The marble pedestal appeared under her feet, and raised her three feet in the air. She looked lovely, cool, remote, and very powerful standing silhouetted against the sky. Felan sat up at once, and rose onto one knee in respect. “
What
did you say?”

“Er . . . You are right, Your Highness.” Felan’s manner had lost all trace of casual insolence, and he bowed his head. He’d forgotten with whom he was talking, and Roan almost felt sorry for him.

“I know,” Leonora said, sweetly. The pedestal shrank into the grass. The princess offered her hand to Roan to assist her down from her plinth. “Occasionally, this thing is convenient. I think we ought to go on now, don’t you?”

“Thank you,” Roan whispered to her.

Leonora glanced at Roan under her eyelashes, then away, still watching him out of the corner of her eye.

“
I’m
proud of you,” she said. “I love you just the way you are.”

The declaration should have filled him with delight, but it just reminded him that he was different. Leonora must have guessed his thoughts. She shook her head with a rueful little smile. Roan hung his head, honored beyond words. She looked so lovely that he sighed, and the bushes near him burst into bloom. Birds swooped out of the sky to circle them, twittering. She blushed, trying to keep the smile off her face, then gave up. Her cheeks turned pink, and Roan could tell she was pleased.