The Sandman and the War of Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page B

an expert forager. She discovered that the contents inside these ghostly vessels could supply her with all her needs. She positioned dozens ofscavenged 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 decidedone 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 ratherstay 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