Search for the Shadow Key

by Wayne Thomas Batson

  But Rigby kept his back to her and stayed face-to-face with Archer. “So you’re a Dreamtreader,” Rigby growled. “So what? Every person should have the right to dream.”

  “Everyone?” Archer asked with a steaming laugh. “You mean everyone who can pay your price, right? Drop the act, Rigby. You’re just in this for the money. Admit it. You’re like a strip miner—just tear everything up, take your profits, and let everything burn.”

  Rigby moved so suddenly and so fast that Amy screamed. His strike, if he’d unleashed it, seemed aimed for Archer’s throat. But, like a hammer on a pistol, Rigby’s open-handed chop stayed cocked back.

  “That how you roll, Rigby?” Archer asked without so much as a flinch. “If you don’t like what you hear, you get violent?”

  Rigby’s striking hand remained in the air and trembled. “You shut your mouth, Keaton. You have no idea. Someone told you that you were special, gave you the title Dreamtreader, and you think you get to run everyone else’s lives? You think you know me well enough to know my motives?”

  “Am I wrong, then?” Archer growled.

  “Yes, you are wrong,” Rigby hissed. In his striking hand, a strange, wickedly curved blade melted into existence. He leveled the razor tip toward Archer and scowled.

  Archer’s eyes widened.

  “Rigby, don’t!” Kara yelled.

  Archer blinked. “How can you do that?”

  Rigby raised the blade menacingly. When he winked, the blade melted into thin air. “See, Dreamtreader?” he said. “Don’t know everything, do you?”

  “C’mon, Archer,” Amy urged at his elbow. “Let’s go.”

  “Run along now,” Rigby commanded. “Go fix your made-up holes and save the world . . . because Dream Inc. won’t stop. See, now, the Dream is my home too.”

  Archer shook his head slowly. “You are nothing more than a trespasser.”

  “You’re the trespasser,” Rigby said. “Now, get out of my home . . . and never come back.”

  Archer’s simmering anger had gone cold. He glanced at Amy and nodded. She followed him down the hall, down Rigby’s icy walk, and out into the street. Archer shoved his hands in his pockets and began the trudge home.

  “ ‘Your computer app reeks’?” Amy said, hurrying up the street to keep up with Archer. “That was your most diplomatic move?”

  Later that night, Rigby Thames entered the Dream alone. He journeyed to the Kurdan Marketplace and found Bezeal in his workshop. The wily merchant looked up and his star-point eyes glittered. “In all the Dream realm so vast, the Walker supreme arrives at last. I wonder if his die is cast.”

  “I want the key,” Rigby said. “And not just for an hour. I want to own it.”

  “Such a thing could be arranged,” Bezeal said. “If you’ll risk joining the deranged. But, of course, there must be a particular kind of exchange.”

  Rigby held up a hand. “No deal . . . yet. I want to know a few things first. If I have the Shadow Key, the Sages will leave me alone, right? I can come and go to the Inner Sanctum as I please?”

  “Sages know the key and know it well. Its bearer passes through the Libraries where they dwell. And to the deeps, the Sanctum, that sacred cell.”

  “What about the Scath?” Rigby asked. “If I own the Shadow Key, will the Scath obey me?”

  “Live for mischief, do the Scath, but they will follow your chosen path . . . especially if it leads to wrath.”

  “Fine by me, Bezeal,” Rigby said. “What’s your price?”

  Bezeal’s white teeth appeared. He gestured for Rigby to draw closer. The merchant whispered for several moments, a sound like rats scratching at wood.

  Rigby took a step back. “That’s a steep price.”

  “Too rich for your blood, then off you go,” Bezeal said. “I have other suitors, some you might know. The Sanctum’s mysteries to them I will show.”

  “I’ll do it,” Rigby whispered.

  “What?”

  “I’ll do it. I’ll meet your price.”

  Bezeal’s smile glistened. From the folds of his cloak, his green three-fingered hand appeared. “You must seal . . . the deal . . . with Bezeal.”

  Rigby stepped forward, clasped Bezeal’s hand in his own, and winced.

  Rigby held the Karakurian Chamber in his hands and stared down at the Inner Sanctum’s stone door. He turned the cube over and over until he found the sixth full sail of the ship. He placed his thumb upon the sail, sliding it back until there was slight resistance and a faint click. The tall ship lifted, appeared to sail, and then vanished. A metallic trill sounded, and the skeletons on the next side began to dance. One by one, the old boneheads leaped and fell. The Karakurian Chamber shifted and flattened, the rough edges becoming smooth. Metal unraveled like thread and wound itself up tight. Round and round it went until a rod formed, and then the rest of the Shadow Key.

  Rigby held the key aloft and shouted, daring the Sages to descend and tell him to be quiet. They did not show themselves, but something beneath the door stirred.

  “Threaten me, will you?” Rigby grumbled. He shoved the Shadow Key into its matching hole and gave a violent turn. “I’ll show you, Keaton, you and all the Dreamtreaders, I’ll show you who really owns the Dream!”

  He twisted the key once more, heard a thunderous boom from within, and felt a strange trembling wave beneath his feet.

  But Rigby did not open the door. He stood upon it, keeping it down with his weight.

  “Let us out!” came a raspy whisper.

  “We yearn!” came another.

  “Yes, yes, free us!”

  “We must play.”

  “You will serve me?” Rigby asked.

  “We are Scath. We serve no man,” came the answer. “We are wild things!”

  A chorus of laughter rasped underneath like a nest of rattlesnakes.

  “I am the owner of the Shadow Key,” Rigby declared. “You will do my bidding, or you can rot behind that door.”

  Some of the Scath cried out. “No, no!” one shouted.

  “You bluff us!” another one said. “You want the Masters’ Bindings!”

  “Yes, I want them,” Rigby admitted. “And I will have them. But you will not be free until you pledge to serve at my call.”

  “We did once, but you tricked us.”

  “Not this time!”

  “We will not. We will not!”

  “It is a hateful tease, releasing us for just one hour! Then you trap us again!”

  “Not worth it. Not worth it.”

  “Is that what you think?” Rigby asked. “You underestimate me. Pity, for I have such big plans.”

  “Tell us, tell us!”

  “He lies!”

  “He is like Bezeal.”

  “I am not like that weasel,” Rigby hissed. “Forget it, then.” He bent down and twisted the key back to the left. Thunder sounded below. Thunder and weeping.

  Rigby removed the Shadow Key and started to walk away.

  “Wait, wait!”

  “Come back, Walker!”

  “We would hear your plan!”

  Rigby hesitated until the Scath’s screeching became a wailing storm. Finally, he returned the key to its place in the Sanctum door. “Now then,” he said. He whispered into the keyhole and then gave the key a twist.

  “We like it!”

  “Yes, yes, ambitious and fun!”

  “The teacher man is already there.”

  “Locked up tight!”

  “We did as you asked. We can be trusted.”

  “I know you can,” Rigby said. “But we need to have this understanding between us. I will set you free, but you must do as I ask and come when I call, no matter what.”

  “More than an hour.”

  “A day! A full day!”

  “I will do better than that,” Rigby said. “If you pledge to serve at my call, I will free you . . . forever.”

  All the rustling beneath the door ceased. It became eerily silent.

  F
inally, a tentative Scath voice said, “You are cruel, Walker.”

  “Twist our hopes.”

  “Be gone with you!”

  Rigby rolled his eyes. “You underestimate me again. But I will prove it to you. I will set you free, and I will throw away this Shadow Key so that no one can ever lock you away again!”

  “Dare we hope?”

  “Risk it, yes, yes!”

  “But we will be slaves.”

  “Not slaves,” Rigby said. “Servants. There is a difference.”

  “We must do your bidding, come when you call?”

  “But we remain free?”

  “If you don’t need us, can we do mischief?”

  “Can we play?”

  “If you will pledge me your service,” Rigby said, “then you may do what you wish with your time until I call.”

  The shrieking rose to such a calamity that Rigby’s ears rang.

  “We will!”

  “Serve the Walker!”

  “He is Master now!”

  “Free us, free us!”

  “The Scath are yours to command!”

  Rigby gave the key another quater turn. Then he took the corner of the door and threw it open.

  A flood of shreds and shadows and peculiar shapes burst up from the gate. They streamed out and swarmed, screeching and chanting and spitting. And then, they were gone.

  The Inner Sanctum yawned open for Rigby. He smiled and descended the stairs.

  FOURTEEN

  THE SHADOW KEY

  “SOMETHING HAS CHANGED, ARCHER,” MASTER GABRIEL said, pacing the room.

  “I know. More breaches,” Archer replied, seated on the edge of his bed. He flopped back and sighed. “Just as you suspected, Rigby’s computer app is bogus. The breaches are all over Forms and Verse, and Bezeal’s patching paste won’t hold, not long enough—”

  “Not just the breaches,” the master Dreamtreader replied. “There’s trouble in Garnet’s Libraries, the Inner Sanctum.”

  “Not Bezeal again,” Archer said. “Is it?”

  “Most certainly Bezeal is involved. As much as it pains me to say, you are involved also, Archer.”

  “Me?” Archer plopped down on his bed. “I’ve been to Garnet, but I haven’t messed around in the Libraries. I haven’t set foot in the Inner Sanctum’s vaults.”

  “No, but the Karakurian Chamber has,” Master Gabriel replied.

  Archer remembered the intricate silver puzzle box he’d liberated from the Lurker and delivered into Bezeal’s hands. He dearly regretted making the deal with Bezeal, but now, it seemed, his error had been far worse than he’d ever imagined.

  “But,” the Master Dreamtreader went on, “I wear the weight of this mistake as much as you do. I should have seen it, should have realized.”

  “Seen what? Realized what?”

  “The Karakurian Chamber was no mere curiosity for Bezeal, and no mere toy,” he said. “It was a key.”

  “A key?” Archer squinted. “Sure didn’t look like a key. It was kind of a mechanical box . . . all skeletons and ships and weird moving parts.”

  “The concealment was very detailed,” Master Gabriel said. “I believe Bezeal designed the disguise to make certain no one would know that it was indeed a key. Understand, Archer, this wasn’t just any key. This was the Shadow Key.”

  “The Shadow Key from the Creeds?” Archer blurted out. He sat bolt upright and tried in vain to rub the chills from his upper arms. “The Shadow Key? The one that opens the vaults of the Inner Sanctum and controls the Scath?”

  “The very one,” Master Gabriel replied. He reached into the fold of his cloak and retrieved a massive ring of dark metal upon which hung several keys. “These are the Masters’ Keys, Archer. I am their caretaker now. But there was once . . . another . . . who guarded the Keys. In that charge, he failed. The Shadow Key was stolen, but for many ages, it was never used. Archer, this is a measure of time beyond your capacity to understand—so much time passed that the Masters, at my insistence, decided the Shadow Key had been lost.”

  “I read about it,” Archer said. “It was kind of a good thing that it was lost, right? No longer a temptation for Dreamtreaders?”

  “For a time, perhaps,” Master Gabriel said. “But it would have been far better if the Masters had retrieved the Shadow Key long ago.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We were wrong, Archer. The Shadow Key was never lost. It was merely hidden.”

  “Bezeal?” Archer said. “You mean Bezeal took the key and hid it?”

  “The evidence points to that conclusion. Bezeal may have had help, but he is clearly behind it all.”

  “Wait,” Archer said, sitting up straight. “But Bezeal acted like the Karakurian Chamber was something the Lurker had all along. Bezeal acted like it was something he couldn’t get for himself. He used it to make deals with Duncan and Mesmeera . . . and with me.”

  “Yes,” Master Gabriel replied, taking off his sunglasses. They vanished from his fingertips, and his eyes blazed. “Yes, Bezeal used it for that purpose . . . and he used our Dreamtreaders, including you, for his own purposes.”

  “But Bezeal’s just a chump. He’s a nuisance and a troublemaker, but he’s no mastermind.”

  “Enough,” Master Gabriel commanded. “I have warned you not to underestimate anyone, especially not Bezeal. You are right to recall that Bezeal duped all three Dreamtreaders last year. That required diabolical cunning.”

  “I won’t ever forget that,” Archer said. “But even then, Bezeal was just the Nightmare Lord’s errand boy.”

  “Was he?” Master Gabriel asked. “Are you so certain it was not the other way around?”

  If Archer’s thoughts had been a speeding train, that train would have just run straight into a wall of cement. Archer squinted and said, “Bezeal, somehow controlling the Nightmare Lord? That makes no sense.”

  “Perhaps not,” Master Gabriel said. “But we cannot afford to assume anything here, Archer. It is arrogance that prevents us from seeing through the mask of foolishness . . . to discover the devil behind.”

  Archer puzzled over that idea for several silent moments. “So, Bezeal hid the Shadow Key in the Karakurian Chamber puzzle box. And . . . he gave it to the Lurker? Do you think the Lurker knew what it was? I mean, what it really was?”

  “That is a very troubling possibility,” Master Gabriel said. “It would not mark the first time that Bezeal and the Lurker seemed to be working together.”

  “But where is it now?” Archer asked. “Who has the Shadow Key? Bezeal?”

  “The Shadow Key had been used, Archer,” Master Gabriel said. “The Sages report that Bezeal and a great warrior entered the Libraries and produced the Karakurian Chamber to gain access to the vaults of the Inner Sanctum.”

  “Great warrior?” Archer echoed. “The Lurker?”

  “It may well be,” Master Gabriel said. “Though, I would expect the Sages to know him by name. Whoever it was, he and Bezeal first used the Shadow Key to release the Scath for a short time . . . for mischief. But now, the vault doors have been thrown open and left open. The Scath roam free.”

  “Why not just shut the door?” Archer asked. “You don’t need a key to shut a door.”

  “Think of the door to the vaults as more of a binding rather than an exit. Once the key is turned, the Scath are bound to the one who turns the key, and they are free forever until the key bearer turns the key again, to lock them within.”

  “What will they do? The Scath, I mean.”

  “With endless freedom? Tragedies unnumbered.” Master Gabriel nodded his head. His trench coat, secret agent garb, vanished. His Incandescent Armor flared to life. “They have forced our hand, Archer. The breaches are perilously close to a rift, and the Scath are abroad. We can no longer wait; we must have a third Dreamtreader immediately.”

  “Who?” Archer asked. “Will I have to do the awakening again?”

  “I had hoped to wait,” he said. “Time a
nd maturity are almost certainly needed.”

  “Wait for whom?”

  “Together, the three of you will have to handle two missions. The breaches must remain first and foremost. All is lost if a rift forms. Three Dreamtreaders can handle the breaches, but you will also have to find the Shadow Key. Get it back at all costs and shut the Inner Sanctum.”

  “Okay, already,” Archer huffed. “I get it. But who will the next Dreamtreader be?”

  “And, Archer, no matter what you find investigating the Libraries, you are not to touch the Masters’ Bindings. Is that understood?”

  “Of course, of course,” Archer said. “Do you think I want to turn myself into some kind of monster?”

  “I am relieved to hear you say that,” Master Gabriel. “But making such a decision in your own room and standing in my presence is far different from what you might decide in the darkness . . . alone.”

  “You’re stalling,” Archer said. “Are you going to tell me about the third Dreamtreader or not?”

  Master Gabriel sighed. With his sword swaying at his side, he strode to Archer’s bedroom door, opened it wide, and said, “Go get your sister.”

  Northeast of Direton, just beyond sight of Shadowkeep, in the province of Warhaven, lay the ancient ruins known as Xander’s Fortune. It was there, at the base of that dark mountain, in days long past, that a Dreamtreader began his infamous mining operation.

  Rigby stood there now, looking over the fallen towers, shattered keeps, and scattered stone. Due to the battering of Intrusion waves over the ages, very little hint of structure remained. The stonework left was all but engulfed by soil, weeds, and tall grass. Anyone who wandered onto the site would be hard-pressed to imagine the gigantic masonry fortress that once stood there. But Rigby knew. He knew about it from the stories his Uncle Scoville told him as a little boy.

  It all began when the dutiful Dreamtreader Xander Volkov found a white stone. He was on patrol in Warhaven when a glistening shape caught his eye. He’d thought at first that it was a new breach opening. But instead, it was a sparkling, pristine white hunk of stone. It was, Xander thought, unlike any stone of the Waking World. It was both hard and soft, heavy and light, rare and plentiful.