The Sandman and the War of Dreams by William Joyce Read Free Book Online

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 thephotograph 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