THE LORD OF DREAMS

Part II

In Fetlock Forest, Lily has been grabbed by a branch and pulled into the wildwood.

  "After her!" Mona cried, ploughing into the midst of the trees.

  "B-but..." stammered Charley. "The path!"

  "We have to save Princess Giant!" called back Mona. "Come on!"

Charley and Fang followed her. Through endless trees they ducked and dived, following the flitting blur that was Lily. After what seemed like an age, they emerged into a clearing. There stood a colossal hollow tree, but it was emitting an eerie screeching and had a gnarled face, all of whose orifices were glowing green. Many branches sprouted from its hollow top, all of which were winding in and out of one another. Trapped in one of these, Lily was being pulled closer to the thing's mouth.

  "A dryad!" Mona exclaimed. "Quick, zap it, Zapman!"

Charley took out his zap gun. Although a toy at home, in Knightmare it became a deadly weapon. The dryad screamed in pain as the energy rays made contact, but still it kept hold of Lily.

  "Keep zapping!" ordered Mona, and she leapt onto the branch that was holding Lily.   She held a piece in her hands and sank her fangs into it. She retched at the foul taste of the sap, but tore at the branch until it broke off, releasing Lily. The dryad tried to grab for them with its other branches, but Charley turned his gun to full power. With a bellowing scream, the tree exploded.

  "Whoa, thanks" said Lily. "What a horrible creature!"

They crowded around the steaming hole, aromas of burning leaf-litter overpowering them.

  "That dryad has drawn us into the heart of the wildwood" Mona realised. "Goodness knows how we're going to get out of here."

  "You cannot escape from the wildwood."

The voice was a whisper on the wind.

  "Who's there?" called Charley, anxiously.

A tall figure appeared in front of them. Dressed in satin robes and armed with a spear of ice, he appeared to float on a blanket of leaves.  

  "I am Sir Linden, a knight of the Elf King" he proclaimed. "You have entered the realm of the elf kin. You must die!"

  "Why?" asked Mona.

  "Why?" repeated the stranger, stumped. "Because Arawn says so!"

  "Well, Sir Linden, you can tell Arawn that it's time to change his laws" said Mona.

She bolted off in the direction from which they'd come, the others following fast behind.

  "Stop!" cried Linden as he gave chase. "Your death has been commanded! Stop, in the name of the Elf King!"

Scouring the forest ahead of her, Mona soon found what she was looking for.

  "A crossroads!" she cried. "Come on!"

They emerged onto a crossing of two forest tracks, deserted save a single thrown horseshoe. Mona planted herself in the middle of the cross.

  "Now we're safe enou..." she began, but then stopped short and fell to the ground.

  "What's going on?!" squeaked Lily.

  "It's the sign of the cross" realised Charley. "Mona must have meant it to confuse the elf, but..."

  "...she forgot that it's even more harmful to vampires" Linden finished as he appeared, grinning with evil glee. "Excellent!"

He crept over towards Mona, his spear raised.

  "In the name of Arawn, die!" he cried, but he stopped short as he felt a pain in his leg.

  "Aah!" he cried. "It burns!"

Charley and Lily looked down to see Mona pressing the horseshoe to the elf’s ankle. Rushing forward, Charley took it from her and flung it into Linden's face.

  "Curse you, mortals!" he cried, before disappearing in a flash.

Charley and Lily helped Mona to stand up.

  "Why did the horseshoe hurt him?" asked Charley.

  "Didn't you wonder why his spear was made of ice and not steel?" Mona replied. "Faerie beings cannot stand the touch of iron."

  "Well, great, but how do we get out of here?" asked Lily.

  "We'd better follow one of these paths and see where it goes" said Mona.

  "But which one?" asked Charley.

  "Justice lies on the right," said Mona. "Come on, this way!"

The track led back to the elf path, much to everyone's relief. Soon enough, they reached the edge of the forest.

  "Hooray!" cried Lily. "We made it."

She rushed to the final line of trees, beyond which Knightmare Castle was visible. A glittering golden path led towards the fortress, so the four companions followed it out of the forest and up the mountain, right to the great wooden doors of Knightmare Castle.

  "Are they open?" asked Lily.

  "One way to find out" said Charley.

He pushed one and it flew open, revealing a stone room beyond, which began to light up.

  "What's doing that?" wondered Lily.

  "Daylight!" realised Charley. "The sun's coming up already!"

  "But it was pitch black a moment ago!" exclaimed Lily.

  "The darkest hour is just before dawn" remembered Mona. "Come on, let's get inside."

Charley, Lily and Fang went in, but Mona could not.

  "Oh no!" she cried.

  "What are you doing?" asked Lily, surprised.

  "I've just remembered," said Mona, as she felt the ultraviolet rays begin to burn into her back. "I can't come in unless I'm invited."

  "Hordriss!" exclaimed Charley. "But how do we…?"

  "Call three times!" cried Mona with urgency.

  "Malefact, Malefact, Malefact!" yelled Lily with confidence.

Hordriss appeared in a blinding flash.

  "Ah, you made it" he smiled. "Capital. Goodness me, girl, what are you doing out there in the sunlight; you'll burn to death! For Heaven's sake, come in!" 

Mona slammed the door behind her as she collapsed over the threshold.

            The room was made entirely of stone. There was a large ornate fireplace to one side, beside which stood a wooden chair. In addition to the entrance door there was another dark portal on the opposite wall, and a large octagonal wooden table with three large wooden stools. Hordriss indicated that they should sit on these, which they did. He turned the larger chair to face them and sat down. Fang curled up in front of the fire.

  "Welcome" said Hordriss. "To the Great Hall of Knightmare Castle. Congratulations on getting this far."

  "What do you mean this far?" asked Lily. "You mean we have to go further?"

Hordriss nodded, and gazed into the fire.

  "Up until about six years ago, a great many knights errant came to this place to test their mettle," he said, half as if to himself. "The Lord of Dreams would receive them here, and send them on a quest through the dungeons to try and earn the silver spurs of squiredom."

  "Sounds exciting" Mona enthused.

  "Yes indeed" Hordriss agreed. "And due to the magic of the Dungeon, nothing ever stayed the same; rooms and people shifted and changed, even this very hall, and the Lord of Dreams himself."

  "What about you?" asked Mona.

  "One has been here for eleven years" Hordriss recalled. "I was quite a nasty piece of work when I arrived, mainly because I did not acknowledge the difference between good and evil."

  "But you do now?"

  "One could not help it when one met Lord Fear!" said Hordriss with feeling. "What an evil fiend he is."

  "What's all this got to do with us getting home?" asked Lily.

  "One is coming to that!" puffed up Hordriss. "Anyway, since adventurers stopped coming, the Dungeon remained pretty much unchanged. Until last January!"

  "Ah, the Millennium," smiled Mona. "Most important in supernatural circles."

  "Indeed" nodded Hordriss. "Since then the Dungeon has been going through a kind of time warp; rooms and denizens from bygone years come and go every day, and nothing is ever the same; it makes me so nostalgic."

  "I guess, then, that the Dungeon’s magic is unstable" said Mona. "And the Lord of Dreams has situated himself in its heart as a power-centre to try and keep it together."

  "Exactly!" Hordriss said. "You have cut me to the quick, Mona. Our Master Wizard, Merlin, says that the Dungeon should stop shifting in a few months, but until then the Lord of Dreams must stay in the deepest depths of his dungeons."

  "I assumed that you were the Master Wizard" Charley said casually.

  "I'm a mage," Hordriss said haughtily.

  "Wait a second," said Lily. "Does that mean we're going to have to get through the Dungeon to reach the Lord of Dreams?"

  "You're no fools" Hordriss commented. "That's right; all three levels."

  "How're we going to survive?" Lily cried.

  "The same way you did in the wildwood" said Hordriss, turning his eyes to Mona. "The same way you always do." 

  "Me?" asked Mona, taken aback. "With my supernatural knowledge?"

  "Of course!" exclaimed Charley. "You know all about this stuff."

  "Keep your wits about you and I have no doubt you'll make it" smiled Hordriss. "Your love of the macabre equips you perfectly for this; use it."

  "Okay!" agreed Mona, exhilarated. "Let's do it!"

  "You must journey through levels one, two and three" Hordriss told them. "The Lord of Dreams will be waiting for you to reach him, and he will send you home. To succeed, you may have to use magic, which you will find or be given. Remember, to invoke a spell you must call out Spellcasting, followed by the letters of the spell in the right order. If you need to cancel it, call out dispel followed by the letters of the spell in the wrong order. Press on by any means possible, and look out for faerie enemies, but also potential allies. And remember this: the only way is onward; there is no turning back. There lies your way!"

Hordriss pointed to the dark portal. Mona, Fang, Charley and Lily steeled themselves in front of it, ready for the off.

  "The best of luck to you" said Hordriss. "Now, face the Dungeon door, and step boldly forward."

As the four stepped forward, the blackness swallowed them up and bore them towards their first challenge.

            They found themselves walking along a low tunnel of stone.

  "Hmm, very interesting," said Mona as she looked around. "A dwarf tunnel."

  "What's that?" asked Lily.

  "Oh, just something that dwarfs build as part of their mine workings" answered Mona casually.

Their first Dungeon chamber contained a pit in the middle and four doors at the far end. Suspended above the pit was an iron grating, and on the floor in front of them was a luminous outline of a simple arched bridge shape.

  "This must be one of the chambers Hordriss mentioned," said Charley. "It looks like some kind of... challenge."

  "Yes" agreed Mona. "And not a very difficult one, by the looks of it. Doubtless the Dungeon is full of tasks like this for its challengers to complete. By treading on this luminous outline, we should be able to bridge the pit."

  "Why is it so uncomplicated?" wondered Lily.

  "This is level one," said Charley. "The first level of testing. I guess things are easier here than things in level two, that's all."

  "Right" said Mona. "So let's do it."

As she walked across the symbol, the iron grating heaved itself down to form a bridge. Mona carried Fang across, due to the holes in the grate, and the others followed behind.

  "Which way now?" wondered Lily.

  "Far right" said Mona. "That should always be our strategy unless there's another clue."

They were again swallowed up by the blackness and it sucked them into another room.

The next chamber seemed to be a cave that contained the entrance to a mine, with a minecart set on the rails just outside. There was no other obvious exit.

  "This must be where that dwarf tunnel originated," said Mona.

  "I guess," said Lily. "But how do we get out? I don't much fancy the look of that mineshaft!"

Before Mona could answer, a shout caught their attention.

  "Oi! You three! Stop right there."

It was spoken in a rough northern accent by a dwarf who had come out from behind the minecart.

  "Rule violation" stated the little man. "Category A stroke B! Name yourselves!"

  "Mona the Vampire, Fang, Zapman and Princess Giant" said Mona curtly. "Who are you?"

  "My name's Bumptious, for all that it's your business" said the dwarf gruffly. "And I must tell you that we can't have vampires, princesses and, erm… whatever the heck you're supposed to be, Sonny, just wandering onto an official mining site of HoGG. I suppose you're here to challenge the Dungeon?"

  "That's right!" piped up Lily.

  "Well you'll have to stand trial if you want to get out of here" Bumptious told them.

  "What sort of trial?" demanded Mona.

  "Under Category A stroke two paragraph B, I hereby declare this tribunal open!" stated Bumptious importantly. "Right, first question. We all know that dwarfs are great miners. Of course, Walt Disney had them searching for diamonds, but what do dwarves really like best?"

  "That's easy," said Lily. "Gold!"

  "Truth accepted," said Bumptious. "As in HoGG; the Honorary Guild of Gold-miners. Okay, second question. I like being a dwarf down a mine. I'd like being a human down a mine. I'd even like being an elf down a mine. But why don't I want to be a bird down a mine?"

  "Oh, I know!" exclaimed Lily again. "The only birds that go down mines are canaries, and you wouldn't like to be one because they were sent down in a cage on a rope to check that the air was breathable, and they died if it wasn’t!"

  "Truth accepted" smiled Bumptious, visibly pleased. "I never thought you'd get that one! Okay, last question. You can challenge a dwarf. You can hurt a dwarf. You can even kill a dwarf. But what must you never do to a dwarf?"

Lily opened her mouth for a second, but let it shut. She turned to Mona.

  "Finished your little spree, have you? Right" Mona said, turning to Bumptious. "You absolutely hate being robbed".

  "Truth accepted," he said. "Well done. Three is score, so let’s see if we can’t do something about getting you out of here."

Bumptious went behind the cart again, and emerged with a stick of dynamite. He placed it against one of the cave walls and lit it.

  "Cover your ears!" he warned them, and a colossal bang blasted an exit in the rock. They walked towards it.

  "Thanks" Lily called back to Bumptious.

  "No problem" he replied. "Oh, before you go, there's something else. I assume you'll be needing to get into level two?"

  "That's right" said Mona.

  "Then you'll need a small spell" Bumptious went on. "It's called SHIMMER. Now, on your way."

Whistling, he went back to his work, and the adventurers left the chamber.

Will Mona and friends make it to the end of level one? Find out in the third chapter of The Lord of Dreams next issue.