Dormia (15 page)

"Child's play," said Lars dismissively. "Any Dormian can do it. We all have enhanced agility, concentration, and strength in a sleep trance. That's one of the main reasons that we as a people have survived against such great odds over the centuries. Most Dormians, however, have little control over their
powers. They may go to sleep hoping to sharpen their sword, but they end up mending their socks instead. They simply go wherever their sleep trance takes them."

"And most people in Dormia are like that?" asked Alfonso.

"All but the Dormian knights," replied Lars. "We Dormian knights are trained to shift at will between sleep trances and our waking state. In the span of twenty-one seconds, for example, I can complete three separate naps or sleep trances. In between these sleep trances, I wake up for two seconds at a time."

"Why would you want to do that?" asked Alfonso.

"So I can control what I am doing," replied Lars. "How do you think that I remembered the fight that we just had? I woke up dozens of times during that fight and contemplated what I wanted to do next. Like most Dormians, I do my best fighting and physical work when I'm in a sleep trance, but I do my best thinking when I'm awake. Dormian knights have the best of both worlds. I am constantly jumping in and out of sleep trances—fighting, thinking, fighting, thinking, fighting, thinking."

"I wish I could do that," Alfonso said.

"But you don't have to," replied Lars. "You can do something better." Lars removed the teakettle from its hook, and poured the piping hot water into two large clay mugs. He then reached into his jacket and pulled out a small sack of crushed mint leaves, which he sprinkled into the mugs. The warm, moist scent of mint soon wafted into their nostrils. "Drink up," said Lars. "This mint comes from my own small garden here on the iceberg."

"What can I do that's better?" asked Alfonso.

Lars leaned back and took a sip of hot tea. "Well," said Lars,
"to begin with, your sleeping powers of agility, concentration, and strength are above average. That's why you performed so well in the skirmish we just had—even though you, like your uncle Hill, have no real training. However, because you are a Great Sleeper, even your basic skills are amazingly good. Those skills alone, however, aren't enough for you to succeed. Your real gift lies elsewhere. As a Great Sleeper, you can enter something called the hypnogogic state."

Lars stared at Alfonso, took another sip of tea, and continued.

"It's the state that exists between waking and sleeping," explained Lars. "Normal people and Dormians enter it for only the briefest of moments. Sometimes we enter it late at night or early in the morning. Normal people just feel groggy during these moments, but for the Great Sleeper, this is a time when incredible powers can be summoned. When you are in it, you will enjoy all the powers of sleep—and all the alertness of being awake—and all at once! There will be no need to vacillate between waking and sleeping as we knights do. You will be both asleep and awake at the same time. What's more, your eyes will remain firmly shut, and yet you will be able to see directly through your eyelids."

"Cool," said Alfonso. "How do I—"

"I'm not finished," snapped Lars. "There's more. The real magic of hypnogogia—the true value of being in that state—involves a special power of perception known as the delicate ear. Essentially, it heightens all of your senses, but especially your hearing. This power allows you to sense everything that happens in a room: the quiver of a finger on a trigger, the slightest rattle of a sword, the softest whisper, even the faintest smell
of poison. You must learn to use the delicate ear to your advantage. This is crucial."

"Well, how do I do it?" asked Alfonso excitedly. "You have to teach me."

"I am afraid I will be of no use to you," said Lars. "I've entered hypnogogia for only a second at a time and I had no stomach for it. The main problem is that you are immediately overwhelmed with feedback. When I was still living in Dormia, I heard stories about a few errant knights who attempted to stay in hypnogogia for more than a few seconds. They lost their minds."

"Why?"

"Just think about it," replied Lars. "Imagine being in a world where every detail, however small, is as clear to you as a thunderclap—the beat of a mouse's heart a mile away or even the movement of each particle of dust as it swirls around a room—all the billions of movements that occur every second are plainly obvious to someone in hypnogogia. Only the Great Sleeper can filter all of this information. Without such a filter, hypnogogia is just a recipe for quickly and painfully losing your mind."

Lars paused. "You must learn quickly," he said finally. "Danger is bearing down upon you. You realize that you are being followed?"

"Yes," said Alfonso. "There's a black ship behind us. And there's this man with white eyes who's also been following us."

Lars nodded, as if he weren't in the least bit surprised.

"What do you know about the man with the white eyes?" asked Lars.

"Not much."

"Is he blind or can he see?"

"I assumed he was blind, but I'm not certain," replied Alfonso.

"You should find out—it is very important," said Lars. "Did he give you his name?"

"He calls himself Kiril," explained Alfonso.

"I have no idea who he is," said Lars. "But I suspect that he is in league with the Dragoonya, and that means that he is answerable to Nartam."

"Nartam?"

"Yes, he is the king of the Dragoonya," explained Lars. "Little is known of him for certain, but we know that Nartam was born a Dormian."

"A Dormian?"

"Nartam is a fallen Dormian," said Lars. "According to historians, he was a cruel child, but brilliant, and as a young man he committed the greatest crime that anyone can commit: he burned a leaf from the Founding Tree in the Dormian city of Dragoo."

Alfonso swallowed hard. He instantly thought back to the small leaf that they had burned the day before.

"Nartam didn't stop after one leaf—he eventually burned the entire tree for the ash that it creates," explained Lars. "You see, when a tree burns, it actually yields very little ash. A tree that weighs fifty tons and is as tall as this iceberg, for example, may produce only a few pounds of ash when burned. Perhaps Nartam intended to burn only part of the tree, but this didn't give him enough of what he wanted and so he burned the whole thing. Of course, without its tree, the city of Dragoo died soon thereafter. From that moment on, Nartam has continuously
menaced all Dormian cities. He
needs
the ash. Those who possess it gain several temporary but extraordinary abilities: glimpses of the future, long-range vision, overwhelming strength, and a blooming of physical health. And for Dormians who use the ash there is an added benefit powerful enough to drive men mad: immortality. In fact, if taken in sufficiently large quantities, it can turn back the clock of time, making an old man young once more. The city of Dragoo was destroyed in the Dormian year 2386. Now, according to the Dormian calendar, it is the year 4920. That means Nartam is more than two thousand years old."

Lars's face clouded over in sadness. "His is a greedy way of life. He burns the trees so that he can live forever, but to do so he destroys the lives of all the Dormians who depend on the Founding Trees for that nourishment that it provides. There were once eleven cities of Dormia. Each of them was carefully hidden deep in the Ural Mountains. Yet one by one they perished either at the hands of Nartam and his Dragoonya or because for unknown reasons the Great Sleeper failed to appear. Only the capital city—Somnos—remains."

Lars stared intently at Alfonso. "It is to Somnos that you must deliver your plant, as fast as you possibly can," he said with quiet intensity. "The hatching of a bloom is triggered by Dormian autumn—the period during which a Founding Tree dies. The fact that you grew the Dormian bloom means that the Founding Tree of Somnos is dying. As I told you before, only your successful delivery of the bloom to Somnos will save that city."

Alfonso thought back to
McBridge's Book of Mythical Plants.
The book's definition of the bloom was correct. Somewhere in the middle of the desolate Ural Mountains, the last Dormian city was dying and only Alfonso's little plant could save it.

"Here's the thing," said Alfonso. "I have some coordinates where I think Somnos might be near, but I don't know how we'll get there. Is there a road or a trail that we can take?"

Lars shook his head. "If I knew the exact route back to Somnos, I probably would have tried to return home long ago." He stared at the fire. "I still remember the day I left with the other Wanderers. It was the month before my fourteenth birthday. A door opened in the mountain and I stepped into a howling wind filled with snow. I took three steps forward into the blizzard and then glanced over my shoulder, but the door had shut and no trace of it remained on the mountain rock. Though I had departed only seconds before, it was as if I had been gone forever."

A cold blast of wind poured in through one of the windows and Alfonso took a sip of the mint tea. He glanced at Lars and noticed a familiar look on Lars's face. It was a sad, wistful look—the look of a man who longs for his old, half-forgotten home. Alfonso had seen the same look many times on his father and on Uncle Hill.

The spell of the moment was suddenly broken by the sound of the
Success Story's
foghorn.

Lars stood and looked out the window. "That's the vice admiral's final call," he said. "You and the bloom must board that ship."

Lars rushed down the stairs with Alfonso running just behind. Soon they were in front of the
Success Story.
Lars stopped, turned to Alfonso, and carefully removed the bloom from his
cloak. "There is much more to say, but I'm afraid our time is gone," Lars said. "Good luck."

"Just one last question," blurted out Alfonso. He wondered briefly about the wisdom of what he was about to say, but he continued anyway: "The ash from the bloom. What happens if a non-Dormian uses it?"

Lars hesitated. He looked at Alfonso carefully. It was clear that Lars understood perfectly well why Alfonso was asking this question. Alfonso expected Lars to get angry, but he did not. Instead, he sighed heavily and shook his head.

"Your friend will go blind," said Lars.

"Blind?" said Alfonso incredulously. "You mean he won't be able to see anything?"

"Yes," said Lars. He leaned toward Alfonso and when he spoke, his voice was low and urgent. "When a Dormian uses the ash, his eyes go white—and his vision may be a bit blurry at times—but he can still see. When a non-Dormian uses the ash, however, his blindness is complete. That's why I asked you if Kiril was blind. I wanted to know if he was a Dormian traitor. But that's another matter altogether and we've run out of time to discuss such things. Your friend's blindness is regrettable, but the real problem is this: once his vision begins to disappear, the only way he will regain it is by burning the plant again and using more of the ash. And I assure you he will try to do just this. I don't care who this person is, he can no longer be trusted."

Alfonso felt his throat tighten. His heart began to beat rapidly.
How could he stop trusting Bilblox?
Bilblox and Hill were the only people whom he
could
trust. Besides, if Bilblox wanted
that plant, there would be no stopping him. He shivered as if suddenly he remembered he was cold.

"Do you understand?" insisted Lars.

Alfonso nodded.

"Why don't you come with us?" pleaded Alfonso.

"I can't," said Lars. "I would only draw suspicion to you and you
must
not be followed. Besides, if you can master hypnogogia, your powers will far exceed mine. Now run—and don't stop until you reach Somnos!"

Alfonso stared back into Lars's steel gray eyes, and nodded. He took the bloom from the Dormian knight's outstretched hands and ran aboard the icebreaker.

O
N THE BRIDGE
of the
Success Story,
Alfonso found Vice Admiral Purcheezie in a worried mood. "Things ain't lookin' good!" she muttered while steering the ship away from Lars's iceberg. "I saw a light on the water a couple miles away—I think it's that miserable black ship closin' in on us. I'm not sure what yer smugglin'—and I don't aim to know—but whatever it is, that ship is mighty desperate for it."

"What can I do?" Alfonso asked.

The vice admiral shook her head angrily. "We got other problems too," she said. "A bad winter storm is comin' our way, so I'm steerin' us into open water. Go tell yer friends. We've got nasty seas ahead."

By dawn, the wind was howling across the deck and rattling
the ship's old windows. Twenty-foot waves slammed against the side of the
Success Story.
Sleet began to fall from the sky and storm clouds closed in. The only good news was that they could no longer see the black ship pursuing them. To be certain of this, however, the vice admiral asked Alfonso to climb up the ship's skinny emergency mast to a small platform known as the eagle's nest. From this perch, which sat about thirty feet above the deck, it was usually possible to see quite some distance.

Alfonso climbed up the mast and into the eagle's nest. The sea looked incredibly rough. Waves rollicked in all directions and churned up eddies of foam that swirled around the ship. Below him, Alfonso could see Shamus rushing around the deck, tidying this and that and cinching down loose objects. Menacing black clouds covered the entire sky and it seemed as if the morning was turning back to night.

Suddenly, a far-away pinprick of light on the southern horizon drew Alfonso's attention. He squinted and concentrated, but saw nothing. Taking out an old monoscope from its holster on the eagle's nest, he looked again and focused on remaining still. After a minute of looking, he saw it: a dull but distinct bobbing light that revealed the unmistakable shape of the black warship.

Alfonso shouted down to Shamus and pointed at the warship with his monoscope. Shamus dropped his chores and ran to the heaving stern of the ship. The vice admiral joined him. Moments later, she bellowed for Alfonso to come down. Shamus sprinted off toward the engine room. Thick black smoke poured out of the
Success Story
's two smokestacks. The deck rattled from the increased speed. By the time Alfonso climbed down
from his perch, the
Success Story
had sped up to the point where walking or even standing on deck required firm handholds.