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

wind, and then, with one flap of her wings, she filled the air around the village with legions of her tiny flying warrior helpers.
    Bunnymund tilted one ear appraisingly, then tapped his foot four times on the floor. Within seconds, hundreds of Warrior Eggs popped forth from fresh tunnels surrounding the outer edge of the thick forest around Big Root. They scurried toward Ombric’s home on sticklike legs. “The creatures of the air will need help from those of the earth,” the Rabbit Man explained wryly.
    Ombric took this all in approvingly. He held hisstaff aloft. “Guardians!” he boomed out. “Place your relics together, my friends. This mission will require all of our powers!” His owls began to hoot madly, as if they could sense that something unprecedented was about to occur. Bunnymund held his staff against Ombric’s, and the jeweled egg on its tip began to glow. Toothiana took out her ruby box and joined it to the staffs. The glow shifted from pale to red, growing ever brighter, glistening. Then they all looked to Nightlight and North. Nightlight motioned for North to go next.
    The valiant buccaneer kept his head down; he seemed almost . . . bashful. His voice was barely a whisper when he said, “You are indeed the truest of friends.” He paused for a moment, overcome. At last he added, “That you would help make true this dream given to me—”
    “My dear North,” Bunnymund interrupted. “It is, I believe, a dream we share.”
    The Pooka’s words were true. It was by now a dream that belonged to them all.
    North grabbed his sword and swept its crescent-moon tip up to the other relics. The light of North’s blade was almost too bright to look into. There was a moment’s hesitation.
    Ombric said what each of them had suddenly realized. “Will this work without the final relics?” There were five relics from the Golden Age that Tsar Lunar had told them were necessary to defeat Pitch, and they had only three.
    Bunnymund’s ears suddenly began twitching wildly in opposite directions. Then, just as suddenly, they stopped. “Nightlight!” he yelled. “Your staff! Its powers, combined with the power of Ombric’s staff,might be enough . . . if my calculations are correct!”
    The others agreed and urged Nightlight closer. But Nightlight resisted—he knew they were wrong. Yet they needed convincing, so he walked up to them and raised his staff up to the other relics. Its diamond tip did indeed begin to glow. The moonbeam that lived inside—his moonbeam, sent by the Man in the Moon himself—flickered and shined brighter than ever. But it was not what was needed. Nightlight could feel the worry and disappointment of his friends as their collective light failed to grow brighter, despite the addition of Nightlight’s staff.
    “It’s still not powerful enough!” Ombric said in a strained voice.
    Nightlight felt frustrated. His fellow Guardians were all so knowing, but sometimes they failed to see the most obvious things. Or forgot to look.
    Again only Nightlight’s childish mind could understand the truth, but if Sandman had been brought to them by Tsar Lunar, then surely he had brought with him something invaluable to the Guardians. If Sandman was from the Golden Age, then so was his sand. Nightlight took up a few grains of Sandman’s sand and blew it into the light of the relics.
    A flash as bright as a dozen suns filled the room instantaneously. At that moment Katherine’s dream for North began its journey from the dimension of dreams to the realm of the real.
    In the same moment, every other tree in the forest began to uproot itself. Every other creature from Santoff Claussen began to be affected by the magic that was washing through the village. They began to feel that something amazing was about to happen to them.
    Half of this wondrous place would make the journey; the other half would stay and hold.
    Friends old and new would be separated. But for the good of all.

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